Black Tentacles

[thompur]

Can Evard's Black Tentacles be cast on a vertical surface, such as a wall? The description says 'under foot' IIRC, and there are a number of beasties that can walk on walls. Is this stretching RAW and/or RAI?

[Terumitsu]

I personally wouldn't see any harm in allowing one to place Evard's Black Tentacles on any surface large enough for the spell to leagally fit. The reason I say thus is because there are many places in the DnD base planescape that do not have a 'Down' per say and having an objective directional plane would be a very silly reason as to why the spell wouldn't work.

[Killer Angel]

...as long as you are effectively walking on the wall, while you're casting the spell... :smallwink:

[Talya]

I prefer using Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion. (Thanks, Rich!)

[herrhauptmann]

For squicksensitive parties, I prefer the one that deals a negative level each round you're grappled. Lord of Darkness perhaps, shining south? One of the Faerun books anyway.

[Hawk7915]

I posted this question in the RAW thread a few months ago, and got a solid no from the rules experts. Digging for the post...found it!





A slimy slew of questions about Black Tentacles from my last gaming session...

Q 35:
Do Black Tentacles have reach? Are they a 20' spread with an additional 10' of "grabbing distance", as each tentacle is 10' long?

Q 36:
Can a wizard make Black Tentacles appear on a wall, or ceiling? The text says "underfoot", but then says "even water", leaving it ambiguous...

Q 37:
Assuming the answer to 36 is "yes", do the tentacles conform to terrain? As an example (from the session), if the Tentacles were fired into the corner of the room, would they "sprout" diagonally along both walls, or would that radius be lost to the terrain?

A 36 No.

The surface (including water) must be underfoot. So if liquid water can remain fixed on a surface, Evard's Black Tentacles can appear there. To place them on a ceiling you could first employ the Reverse Gravity spell.

A 37

Irrelevant, because of the previous answer.

Incidentally, the answer to 35 is also "no". My DM was even more annoyed at the next session (he hates players using crowd control anyways, but he doubly hated us having the tentacles appear on the wall to strangle his two enemy wizards who were flying out of reach of our party).

[Endarire]

Why is 35 no? The tentacles sprout in a 20' radius spread. Each tentacle has 10' reach. Each tentacle can grab things that fail a grapple check.

[grimbold]

personally if i was DMing i would be cool if it were on any vertical surface i would let you have it due to creativity points :)

[DonEsteban]

Why is 35 no? The tentacles sprout in a 20' radius spread. Each tentacle has 10' reach. Each tentacle can grab things that fail a grapple check.

You could argue that they have reach ("Treat the tentacles attacking a particular target as a Large creature"). So I would rule that they could attack creatures hovering at 5' (but not at 10') height. But the spell description explicitly states that they attack only creatures within the spells area. (Why? I don't know, perhaps they are too dumb.)


personally if i was DMing i would be cool if it were on any vertical surface i would let you have it due to creativity points :)

So would I although strictly speaking the spell description doesn't support it!