Is This Ability Properly Phrased?

[Fax Celestis]

Okay, rules lawyers, help me make sure this is phrased properly.


A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d4 points of cold damage. You may maintain your concentration on this spell as a swift action: each round you do so, you may maintain the ray on your chosen target, up to a maximum number of rounds equal to your level, inflicting damage at the end of your turn each round. If you do not have line of effect to your target at any point, you must make a new attack roll once you regain line of effect to continue dealing damage with this spell to your target. As long as you have not lost line of effect to your target (even temporarily, such as your target moving around a tree), you do not need to make a new attack roll. If you do not have line of effect to your target at the end of your turn, the spell ends.

Intention: as long as you can see a dude and he doesn't duck behind something for cover, you can hit him with a continuous laser beam of coldness.

[TuggyNE]

I assume this is Totally-Not-Niac's Off-Brand Cold Ray?

It looks pretty good for the most part, although it seems like if you lose line of sight you should need to make a new attack roll as well (although it shouldn't end if you still can't see them).

[Fax Celestis]

It's my ray of frost rewrite, actually.

Also, I could probably change the reacquire target text to line of sight instead of line of effect.

[Seffbasilisk]

Depends, it says you 'May' use a swift action to concentrate on it, does this mean if you twin it, you can use a swift to concentrate on one, and a standard to concentrate on the other?

Does it intended to break the second LOS dissolves, or if a situation where there's something akin to a paper-wall would its breaking through [like a lightning bolt] maintain the connection?

I like the concept.

[nedz]

inflicting damage at the end of your turn each round.


If you do not have line of effect to your target at the end of your turn, the spell ends.

A bit of a race condition here: Which comes first, the damage roll or the end of the spell ?

[Psyren]

It's my ray of frost rewrite, actually.

Also, I could probably change the reacquire target text to line of sight instead of line of effect.

It should be either/or. If they walk behind a window or wall of force, you lose line of effect (therefore the ray isn't hitting them) but not line of sight.

[Red Fel]

Well, as a rules lawyer, I would break it down clause by clause to see whether there were any vague or bendable terms. So let's go.

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger.
Obiter dictum.

You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target.
What kind of target? Any target? An object? A creature? Could I use this on an enemy's sword, for example, or on a wall?

The ray deals 1d4 points of cold damage.
No issues here.

You may maintain your concentration on this spell as a swift action:
Echoing Seff's concerns here - could you use a longer action, and use your swift action for something else?

each round you do so, you may maintain the ray on your chosen target,
What if you maintain your concentration, but don't want to maintain your ray on the chosen target?

up to a maximum number of rounds equal to your level,
Total level? Class level? Caster level?

inflicting damage at the end of your turn each round.
Agreeing with Nedz here. If an enemy manages to break line in the middle of your turn, after you have dedicated your action to concentrating but before your turn ends, is the damage taken?

Another note - is the damage taken the exact same damage as the original roll, or is it re-rolled each round?

If you do not have line of effect to your target at any point, you must make a new attack roll once you regain line of effect to continue dealing damage with this spell to your target.
By implication, then, the spell does not end when the target breaks line of effect. What happens to the ray in the interim? Does it shut off? Does it deal its damage to the blocking target? Can you redirect it, or must it remain focused on the initial target?

What happens if you regain line of effect after the concentration duration ends? By RAW, you may maintain concentration up to your level in rounds, but you must make a new attack roll once you regain line of effect. Could you potentially use this to reboot the spell once it should have expired?

As long as you have not lost line of effect to your target (even temporarily, such as your target moving around a tree), you do not need to make a new attack roll. If you do not have line of effect to your target at the end of your turn, the spell ends.
The phrasing here is confusing. When your target moves around a tree, you have lost line of effect. So apparently trees don't count?

[Fax Celestis]

What kind of target? Any target? An object? A creature? Could I use this on an enemy's sword, for example, or on a wall? The spell lists "Target: one creature" in its target line.


Echoing Seff's concerns here - could you use a longer action, and use your swift action for something else? Technically, no. Swift actions can't trade down into standards.


What if you maintain your concentration, but don't want to maintain your ray on the chosen target? Too bad.


Total level? Class level? Caster level?caster level. I should clarify.


Agreeing with Nedz here. If an enemy manages to break line in the middle of your turn, after you have dedicated your action to concentrating but before your turn ends, is the damage taken?

Another note - is the damage taken the exact same damage as the original roll, or is it re-rolled each round? Damage should be rerolled, and I should just change that to be "when you concentrate as a swift action..."


By implication, then, the spell does not end when the target breaks line of effect. What happens to the ray in the interim? Does it shut off? Does it deal its damage to the blocking target? Can you redirect it, or must it remain focused on the initial target? I honestly don't know, and I don't know how to make it functional without being four paragraphs of complicated mess for a cantrip.


What happens if you regain line of effect after the concentration duration ends? By RAW, you may maintain concentration up to your level in rounds, but you must make a new attack roll once you regain line of effect. Could you potentially use this to reboot the spell once it should have expired? Spell's ended by that point, so the "must" clause would not apply.


The phrasing here is confusing. When your target moves around a tree, you have lost line of effect. So apparently trees don't count?

I think you missed a word.


As long as you have not lost line of effect to your target (even temporarily, such as your target moving around a tree), you do not need to make a new attack roll. If you do not have line of effect to your target at the end of your turn, the spell ends.
Means: as long as you have not lost line of effect--temporarily or otherwise--you do not need to make a new attack roll. So if you temporarily lose line of effect, you need a new roll.

{table]A |_| |_|_
| | O | |
| | B | |[/table]
Example time. A is walking eastwards. B is a spellcaster zapping him with a ray of frost. O is a tree.

{table]→|→|→|→|A
| | O | |
| | B | |[/table]
On his turn, A moves in this fashion. For a short period, B loses line of effect on A, but still has it once movement has ended. B needs to make a new attack roll because he temporarily lost line of effect.

Note that this would still hold true if A were the one casting at B.

I'm thinking about making this into its own subset of spell rules instead of specific to this particular spell, which would allow me to go a little bit more in-depth.

[Red Fel]

Another thought occurs to me. Let's say you are Caster, firing this ray at Target, with Mook standing nearby. The spell does not, by its writing, let you designate another target. But let's say both Target and Mook are standing still while you ping Target with the ray.

What happens if you move such that Mook is now between you and Target? Obviously, this breaks the connection with regard to Target. But does Mook now take damage from the ray before it terminates?

I realize I'm now bringing logic into this discussion of RAW, but it would seem that any object or creature that breaks the connection should take damage before the ray snaps. Unless it's like some sort of IR beam that only works when it hits its target, and magically snaps off an instant before it actually breaks in order to avoid hitting anything but its intended target... Which is a little odd.

On the other hand, this alternative interpretation could create a persisting Cold Damage Limbo Pole, which is also weird. But funny.

[Talderas]

Okay, rules lawyers, help me make sure this is phrased properly.



Intention: as long as you can see a dude and he doesn't duck behind something for cover, you can hit him with a continuous laser beam of coldness.

The spell doesn't match your intent.

You want to have to be able to see the target to maintain the spell but since you only require line of effect you don't need to see the target to maintain it.

Maintaining line of effect means that if you cast this spell and I cast solid fog inbetween us the spell will continue to hit me even though you cannot see me through the fog. If you go with line of sight, then if I cast a wall of force between us or stand behind a glass wall, the ray still hits me despite a solid object in the way.

You need to require both line of sight and line of effect for the spell to act as you intend.

[Psyren]

I'm thinking about making this into its own subset of spell rules instead of specific to this particular spell, which would allow me to go a little bit more in-depth.

I think this is the way to go - make a keyword like "[sustained]" or "[sustained ray]" and then incorporate them into this spell by reference. Then you can have higher-level versions that do things like drain hp, levels or spell slots every round.

[Blarmb]

I'd go with a wording like this (assuming we can't push anything like duration off to the top of the spell entry block):

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger.

When you cast this spell and at the start of each of your turns you may make a ranged touch attack against [VALID_TARGET_LIST], if this attack hits the target is affected by [SPELL_NAME]. If a target is already affected by [SPELL_NAME] at the start of your turn, you may keep affecting that target by spending a swift action.

Whenever you make an attack with this spell, any target already affected by it immediately ceases to be affected by it. Whenever line of sight or line of effect to the affected target is broken, that [VALID_TARGET_LIST] immediately ceases to be affected by it.

At the end of each of your turns, the [VALID_TARGET_LIST] affected by this spell suffers 1d4 frost damage.

This spell lasts for a number rounds equal to your level. When this spell ends the [VALID_TARGET_LIST] affected by [SPELL_NAME] ceases to be affected by it. Ranged touch attacks made with this spell count as rays.

[Rijan_Sai]

People up above seemed confused by the "number of rounds equal to your level" line. A simple "Duration: 1 round/level (see text)" in the small description would alleviate that.

[Legendxp]

Shouldn't this be posted in the homebrew forum?

[Fax Celestis]

Since it seems to be exacerbating the problem, here is the complete text of the spell, as-is and without any modifications from this thread yet.


Ray of Frost [Cold, Eternal]
Level: Jotunnskyn 1
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25' + 5'/2 levels)
Target: One creature
Effect: Ray
Duration: Up to one round/level; see text
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d4 points of cold damage. You may maintain your concentration on this spell as a swift action: each round you do so, you may maintain the ray on your chosen target, up to a maximum number of rounds equal to your level, inflicting damage at the end of your turn each round. If you do not have line of effect to your target at any point, you must make a new attack roll once you regain line of effect to continue dealing damage with this spell to your target. As long as you have not lost line of effect to your target (even temporarily, such as your target moving around a tree), you do not need to make a new attack roll. If you do not have line of effect to your target at the end of your turn, the spell ends.

Eternal: As above, except the duration is "instantaneous" and only inflicts damage once.

[Chambers]

It's a level 1 spell. My suggestion is that if Line of Effect is broken at any point the spell ends.


A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d4 points of cold damage. Concentrating on the spell is a swift action. You may use a move action to change the target to another creature within range.

If you do not have line of effect to your target at any point the spell ends.

Edit: If the ray changes target there should be a new attack roll. If the attack roll misses then the spell ends.