Locate city bomb: does it really work?

[Melnir]

I'm having an argument with some random guy on an italian board about locate city.
He says that since locate city doesn't deal damage by itself it can't deal 2 extra damages and even if we assume it can deal those 2 damages, they would be dealt to the city it locates (since that's the "target" of the spell) and not to creatures in the area of the spell.
I think he is wrong at all, but I'd like to hear some more opinions, since the "target" thing might be a valid point (even though if it's correct, it would work only on spells with a target).

Thanks for your answers :)

[sideswipe]

this thread will eventually have 75% of people saying and quoting rules that it works, all valid.

the rest (including me) will disagree that. and i have seen pretty good rules quoted arguments against it, all valid.

i suggest you treat it like it works... if everyone you are currently playing with agrees it works. leave it entirely up to your opinion. else it gets messy.

[Crake]

Honestly, it's irrelevant if it's RAW or not, unless you're playing some stupidly high op, RAW shennanigans game, it should never actually come up at a table.

[Necroticplague]

I'm not sure whether the actual 'bomb' version (snowcasting a Flash Frost Energy Admixture (Electricity) Born of Three Thunder Explosive Locate City) works as so often advertised, due to the unusual area of Locate City. It might, but it might not, depending on how you interpret its area. However, I fully think that the 'dirty' version (snowcasting a flash frost fell draining locate city) works.

The argument of the other person, as you put it forth, is wrong. It doesn't deal any damage, but that doesn't stop it from having extra damage added to it. 0+2=2. Meanwhile, flash frost specifies

A flash frost spell deals an extra 2 points of cold damage per level of the spell to all targets in the area. Thus, it effects everything within the area. If it only applied to specific targets, it would be unusable, because having an area means that it isn't a targeted spell, and thus has no targets.Thus, in consistent interpretation that means the feat actually does something, does indicate it works.

[Melnir]

I agree it works, I just wanted to be sure what's the RAW here.

@Crake: actually it's relevant, since we're talking about that. No one at my table would use it (it doesn't mean that I think it's an aberration, I really like dirty shenanigans), but it doesn't mean I'm not interested whether it's RAW or not.

[torrasque666]

The argument of the other person, as you put it forth, is wrong. It doesn't deal any damage, but that doesn't stop it from having extra damage added to it. 0+2=2. Meanwhile, flash frost specifies
Thus, it effects everything within the area. If it only applied to specific targets, it would be unusable, because having an area means that it isn't a targeted spell, and thus has no targets.Thus, in consistent interpretation that means the feat actually does something, does indicate it works.
However though, it can also be interpreted that it would deal that damage to any valid target of the spell. Locate City's target is, well, a city. Which is really only a designation provided by intelligent beings, a metaphysical concept if you will. There's nothing to be damaged. Otherwise with the flash frost feat you are damaging trees, grass, ground, rocks, buildings, air itself... get my point? And no DM really wants to track that kind of damage. You have to first define what is a target of the spell before you can damage them.

[StoneCipher]

And no DM really wants to track that kind of damage.

For purposes of this argument it doesn't matter what the DM thinks. The DM would likely just fiat the character dead if someone REALLY tried to use it.

[Kraken]

Locate city is not a valid target for flash frost. A valid target for flash frost explicitly must "affect an area." Locate city does not affect anything other than the caster. There are plenty of other places to poke holes in LCB, but this is what I've always found most damning, as it can only be refuted by tortuous philosophical discussions about the meaning of "affect." While such discussions might be relevant in a metaphysics or epistemology classroom, they're unlikely to be taken seriously anywhere else.

Edit: though on a more amusing note, just to add something that isn't a raincloud, my favorite hypothetical use of flash frost isn't with locate city, it's with detect magic. It turns you into Cyclops, sort of. :smallbiggrin: Just concentrate as a standard action and you explode a 60' cone in front of you.

[Necroticplague]

However though, it can also be interpreted that it would deal that damage to any valid target of the spell. Locate City's target is, well, a city. Which is really only a designation provided by intelligent beings, a metaphysical concept if you will. There's nothing to be damaged. Otherwise with the flash frost feat you are damaging trees, grass, ground, rocks, buildings, air itself... get my point? And no DM really wants to track that kind of damage. You have to first define what is a target of the spell before you can damage them.
Except there is no such thing as a 'valid target' for an area spell. It doesn't target anything in specific.It target all things within its area. That's the only way to read Flash Frost that allows it to still do anything.

Yes, you're right about Flash Frost damaging everything; any area spell that does damage has that problem. Most the time, it gets glossed over because nobody wants to deal with it, but technically, a fireball does dent the ground and walls around the creature you hit. However, due to damaging object rules, the two points of cold damage would be divided by four, then rounded down to 0 for the Flash Frost.

[_zaphod77_]

Locate City Bomb doesn't actually work for at least two reasons.

1) is the locate city's "area". it is not physical area, it's MAP area. The spell directs you to the city with the shortest travel distance within the X mile compass circle on the world map. This is the only way for it's "Area:" descriptor to mechanically function at all. To use explosive spell, you must misinterpret the Area descriptor to refer to a 3 dimensional cylinder in real space. It's area of effect only exists on the map. You can still make a case that it has to work like a cylinder to work, and that's a somewhat persuasive argument, and may fly with your GM, but argument number 2 below clinches it.
2) flash frost. AS a feat, it's description is actual rules text. Therefore, we must read it's text strictly. "This metamagic feat can be applied only spells with the cold descriptor and that *affect an area*." Snowcasting gives the spell the cold descriptor. The spell technically does have an area of effect. But the only thing that is actually affected within the area is you. It reads data from every other living thing within the area to determine what is and is not a city, but it doesn't affect them. It doesn't even take information from their minds, which could be rules as an effect. Trying to flash frost a divination simply doesn't work under RAW, even if you somehow can give it the cold descriptor, because divinations of this type don't affect things other than the caster within their area like a fireball can. that's why you CAN flash frost a snowcast fireball, and add 6 cold damage to it's 5d6 fire damage. But you cannot flash frost a divination because said divination doesn't apply an effect to everything within it's area of effect.

And with that, all other chains fall apart. You can't actually apply the damage, because even with the cold descriptor you can't apply flash frost to it.

If you can sneak point 2 past the GM, allowing you to create the ice layer and doing 2 points of damage to all living that touch it, then the fell drain version works fine. If you can also get the GM to agree that the area is an infinitely high and low cylinder, then the explosive spell works, killing people who fail a couple of saves.

Regardless, the greater consumptive field/fell drain stunts still DO work, and can be used to create the wightpocalypse

don't expect illusions to work either, as most do not have an area of effect. Hallucinatory terrain and the like do have one listed, though.

[Blue Jay]

Except there is no such thing as a 'valid target' for an area spell. It doesn't target anything in specific.It target all things within its area. That's the only way to read Flash Frost that allows it to still do anything.

I feel like this is a rather problematic reading of the rules. If an area spell doesn't target anything specifically, then I think it doesn't target anything at all. As evidence for this, the SRD text for spell areas (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#area) defines a specific type of area entry for spells that treat creatures or objects in the area as targets: those are the spells that have Area entries like "creatures/objects in a __-ft radius burst" or something similar to that. The existence of this specific kind of area implies that other spells with other area entries do not treat creatures or objects as targets: otherwise, there would be no point in having this specific kind of area entry.

Some examples of spells with this kind of Area entry are arc of lightning, bane, energy vortex, faerie fire, glitterdust, holy word and transmute metal to wood). I couldn't find any Divination spells that have this kind of area entry, even using dndtools; so I would argue that there aren't any area-effect Divination spells that treat creatures/objects in their area like targets.

On the other hand, it's also possible that "targets" can just be taken to mean "things affected" by the spell; and I think that's also a valid interpretation. For example, fireball says it deals damage to all creatures and objects in its area. If you were to argue that fireball treats creatures and objects in its area as targets because of this wording, I think you would be very justified.

But, if you then tried to argue that detect magic or detect undead treats ordinary rocks as targets, then I would be strongly disinclined to accept that, because those spells don't interact with ordinary rocks in any meaningful way. An equivalent claim would be that the area-attack version of shatter (which damages objects) treats creatures in the area as targets, or that sleep (which affects creatures) treats objects in its area as targets.

I just don't see a very good argument for the idea that everything in the area of an area-effect spell counts as a target for that spell.

[Kaleph]

Are you aware that you are answering a question which is 5 years old?

It's also surprising that in 5 years no consolidated answer has been found yet :-)

[Blue Jay]

Are you aware that you are answering a question which is 5 years old?

I... was not. (they need to get the forehead-slappy smiley on this forum).

I just saw a post from yesterday, and a bunch of names I recognized, and figured it was current. :smallsigh: Doofus!

[MisterKaws]

Don't know if it works, but a Spellwarp Sniper/Eldritch Theurge can Spellweave a Brimstone Blast with a Spellwarped Locate City to snipe people from miles away just fine.

[zergling.exe]

Don't know if it works, but a Spellwarp Sniper/Eldritch Theurge can Spellweave a Brimstone Blast with a Spellwarped Locate City to snipe people from miles away just fine.

It's already been pointed out this thread is 5 years old once, just let it die.

[Roland St. Jude]

It's already been pointed out this thread is 5 years old once, just let it die.

Sheriff: Indeed.