Blizzard - Wow, it's powerful

[Nich_Critic]

Blizzard. 5th level druid spell from frostburn. One round casting time.

100 ft/level radius
rounds per level duration
Drops 5 feet of snow per round.

Have I gone crazy? That is a lot of snow! At the first level you can cast it, 9th, you can create a 900 foot radius area of snow that's 45 feet deep. That is a *lot* of snow. According to the internet, a cubic foot of snow weighs about 5 pounds, so each 5 foot cube would weigh 125 pounds (if my math isn't brutal). in 9 rounds each square is covered in 1125 pounds of snow. I know dnd doesn't model physics very well, but would that not cause some serious damage to whatever it falls on? I'm pretty sure most houses can't take an extra load of 1000 pounds/5 square feet. I live in Canada, and roofs cave in over much, much less then 45 feet of snow. That's 4.5 stories of a standard building. And the damned spell can be widened and extended for more insanity.

The spell is odd, since the dmg blizzards only drop 1d3 feet of snow (over their whole duration).

Is there a more sane interpretation of this spell? Or is it really intended to be that powerful?

[Eldariel]

Druid 5 spell "Control Winds" from Core can create Tornadoes, which destroy all non-fortified structures among others. Druids are just kinda like that. Though the weight of a snow blanket tends to spread pretty evenly so it's not very convenient for crushing targets with small surface area like humanoids (though of course, drowning them in snow works just as well).

Btw, Blizzard only drops 1 feet of snow per turn, so the spell is less powerful than you probably thought. :smallwink:

[Coidzor]

Blizzard. 5th level druid spell from frostburn. One round casting time.

100 ft/level radius
rounds per level duration
Drops 5 feet of snow per round.

Have I gone crazy? That is a lot of snow! At the first level you can cast it, 9th, you can create a 900 foot radius area of snow that's 45 feet deep. That is a *lot* of snow. According to the internet, a cubic foot of snow weighs about 5 pounds, so each 5 foot cube would weigh 125 pounds

5'*5'*5' = 125 cubic feet 5 pounds per cubic foot. 625 pounds of snow.

edit: a 20x20 floorplan building with a flat roof would accumulate about 20'*20'*9 = 3600 cu. feet of snow weighing around 18000 pounds or about 9 short tons.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Call Avalanche, same book.

[Big Fau]

It isn't like they need it either.

[tyckspoon]

It's also one of the spells that shows you the line developers aren't always aware of the game rules- a spell's area of effect cannot exceed its Range. For most spells, not a problem, because the Range is so much greater than the Area, or it was written with a non-standard Range to fit the desired area (see: Control Weather.) For Blizzard? The Area entry is basically pointless, because the Range is much smaller than the possible Area- you pretty much have to Enlarge it to get anywhere near the full Area.

[Coidzor]

So a fireball at the edge of one's range won't extend outward past it? :smallconfused:

[Warlawk]

Try it with Extend and Invisible spell metamagics for extra silliness :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, whoever wrote that spell obviously lived somewhere that never got any noticeable amount of snow.

[Yuki Akuma]

So a fireball at the edge of one's range won't extend outward past it? :smallconfused:

Nope. Shoot the bead out to is maximum range and you get half a sphere of fire.

[Coidzor]

Nope. Shoot the bead out to is maximum range and you get half a sphere of fire.

I wonder why they did that.

Where is this in the rules, anyway?

[Veyr]

I believe the intent is that the bead's range is actually that intersection such that the fireball reaches the furthest extent of the range. I.e. you cannot "center" it at the edge of the range and get half a fireball, you must fit the entire thing within the range.

Which... would really screw Blizzard over, huh?

However, while I think that was likely what they were going for, IIRC RAW doesn't actually read that way and you can have your half-fireball.

[Gurgeh]

From the d20 SRD - emphasis mine:

A spell’s range indicates how far from you it can reach, as defined in the Range entry of the spell description. A spell’s range is the maximum distance from you that the spell’s effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell’s point of origin. If any portion of the spell’s area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted.

Of course, for a tiny area like Fireball's 10' radius, that's not much of a problem; all you need to do to avoid an awkward hemisphere of fire is to shoot it 10' short of max range (which is already 800' at CL 10).

[Big Fau]

From the d20 SRD - emphasis mine:


Of course, for a tiny area like Fireball's 10' radius, that's not much of a problem; all you need to do to avoid an awkward hemisphere of fire is to shoot it 10' short of max range (which is already 800' at CL 10).

Fireball has a 20ft radius.

[Gurgeh]

Whoops.

tyckspoon's point remains, however: the spell's range limits its area in ways that make it seem like the designers weren't familiar with the rules of the game.

[Big Fau]

Whoops.

tyckspoon's point remains, however: the spell's range limits its area in ways that make it seem like the designers weren't familiar with the rules of the game.

Seem like? Their Sample NPCs prove that they were playing something else entirely! Not even counting the number of NPC errors in each book, there are so many things that they just completely weren't even looking at when they wrote the books that it'd be a life's effort to find them all.


Seriously, spell level inconsistencies, magic item prices, the entire challenge rating system, feat power levels, the whole damn system is made of errors and incomprehensible decisions.

[Grendus]

And yet, we love it.

[NineThePuma]

*scribbles that down as a spell to get*