Cone breath weapons - conflicting information

[Maxymiuk]

Ok, so in the Monster Manual you can read that if a dragon has a cone breath weapon, it is as wide and as tall as it is long. So a 60ft cone of fire is 60ft wide, right?

Wrong.

Because when you look at the area effect templates provided in the DMG, you can clearly see that a 60ft cone is actually 80ft wide at its widest point and, better yet, that happens at the 40ft mark - this is true for both the diagonal and the horizontal template.

Therefore, can anyone think of a solution to reconciling these two conflicting messages?

[MrNexx]

Text trumps picture. Picture is wrong.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Uh, are you sure you have a 3.5 Monster Manual? I'm having trouble finding where it specifies a dragon's cone is "is as wide and as tall as it is long." However, that is how cones worked in 3.0. However, in the 3.5 revision, cones were changed from having a triangular shape to having the quarter-circle that the templates in the DMG depict. If it says anything about cones having equal length and width in the 3.5 MM, then it likely an editing error left over from the revision.

While Mr. Nexx's guideline is correct in most cases, in this case, the picture should trump the text.

[hr](Edit: Okay, yeah, I found the reference. It's in the footnote of the table... Definitely an editing error.)

[Maxymiuk]

Yes, I have a 3.5 edition of MM. It's on page 69 in the footnote under the Dragon Breath Weapons table.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

(See edit in post above. :smallbiggrin:)