Fear Spell

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Veknironth
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Fear Spell

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, this goes with a lot of area effect spells, and we've addressed it with clouds. But the spell says it affects an area up to 20 feet in diameter. So is that like a sphere or dome? Is it affected by gravity? Can you cast it so that it hovers above ground? This would be a great spell for shorter people, if that's the case. Of course that's assuming a dome and not a sphere. If it's a sphere (or cube?) then the spell is rather useless as it would affect even your allies.

-Vek
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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by Soldier of Od »

You are right, this goes with a lot of area effect spells. Without any clarification from Palladium, I think our best bet is to consider the effect to work up to 20ft away from all body parts of the spellcaster, in all directions. So it would be a weird shape, not a uniform sphere or dome.

But in practice, we usually play these kind of spells more simply as a kind of upright cylinder, with the caster at the centre, even though that is not strictly the case. The vast majority of people around them are likely to be on the same or similar level, and it is sufficient for most situations. Palladium always talks about "radius" and "area" as if it is two-dimensional for some reason, so a cylinder kind of works. I don't worry too much about exact distances, like "is the person affected if only their little toe is within 20ft?" - Palladium doesn't have a system for gridding out battlefields and such, so an interaction like "How far away are they?", "About 15ft", "Okay, I cast fear" is good enough for our needs! I don't think a caster can judge a distance of 20ft, 1 inch by sight. Though that might be a very useful magic/psychic power or class ability!

And yes it affects your allies, too. That is the risk/downside of almost every area effect spell there is. It helps to balance out area effect spells a bit, and should make combatants consider where they should be positioning themselves during a conflict.
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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by Soldier of Od »

Sorry, I just realised fear is one of those spells that can be cast elsewhere, not just centred on the caster, so most of the above is irrelevant! But I left my previous post as is rather than edit it, because it might answer some questions you were going to ask in future anyway! ;)

So, Fear - a 20ft diameter sphere that can be cast up to 100ft away in any direction and will stay where it is, unaffected by gravity or any other outside influences. "Fear" isn't a physical object.

To pre-empt your next question :D - if it can be cast a maximum of 100ft away and has a 20ft diameter, I would say that the centre of the sphere can be 100ft away, so the area affected would be 80-120ft away. Maybe.
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Veknironth
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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, that wasn't my next question at all! My next question is how would it affect animals?

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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Veknironth wrote:Well, this goes with a lot of area effect spells, and we've addressed it with clouds. But the spell says it affects an area up to 20 feet in diameter. So is that like a sphere or dome? Is it affected by gravity? Can you cast it so that it hovers above ground? This would be a great spell for shorter people, if that's the case. Of course that's assuming a dome and not a sphere. If it's a sphere (or cube?) then the spell is rather useless as it would affect even your allies.

-Vek
"And the description directs you to the HF in the psionics section?"

I agree with Solider of Od, area effect spells/psionics/power for simplicity should be treated as a cylinder (height equal to the diameter), though if using a battlegrid I would say its the shape of individual grid zones (square, hex, etc). A Dome/Sphere runs into issues of needing precision in terms of position as it would be possible to be within the surface 2-D area but at the same time outside it in terms of 3-D space. Now if the spell/psionic/power specifically indicates a bubble (TK Force Field or Energy Shield IIRC) then it would be a dome (I suppose it could actually be a sphere, just with part of it being non-visible, though that would raise the question if it would form on the ceiling in the case of forming one on a floor with space below it).

Can you cast it in the air? Nothing about the Fear Spell (pg191 PF2E) prevents the focal point being airborne.

There are other spells that are double-edged that make no distinction between friend and foe. Though the text suggests in 2E (don't know about 1E) that you can minimize the area (20ft diameter is the maximum size per text, which IMHO means you can shrink it if you want to).

Veknironth wrote:Well, that wasn't my next question at all! My next question is how would it affect animals?

Why wouldn't it influence animals?
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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by Library Ogre »

Look, thinking about the battlefield can be hard.

Realistically, it's going to be a sphere. I imagine it was pictured as a dome. But using it as cylinder is the easiest.
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Re: Fear Spell

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

Veknironth wrote:Well, this goes with a lot of area effect spells, and we've addressed it with clouds. But the spell says it affects an area up to 20 feet in diameter. So is that like a sphere or dome? ...snip

-Vek
"And the description directs you to the HF in the psionics section?"

The cross-section of the spell is a circle on the ground, the spell goes up from the footprint of the circle. That is unless the Player describes that they intend the effects to reach down instead of up.

No, the text does not say how far up the spell goes. So does the giant that is much taller than a human or gnome, because their 'head' is no where near the base cross-section of the spell?...you keep asking questions that were left to a game's GM to fill out.
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