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View Full Version : Oh lightning bolt, wherefore art thou?



Corolinth
2007-05-02, 02:01 PM
I want my 10' wide forked bolt back. I want my lightning bolt to ricochet off of walls like back in the old days. I want these 15 year-old kiddies picking up a Player's Handbook to play D&D after school to have to buy a protractor and learn some geometry.

puppyavenger
2007-05-02, 02:04 PM
I think the closest you are gonna get is chain lighting, which just jumps from guy to guy. Try cone of cold for cones:smallsmile:

Meat Shield
2007-05-02, 02:43 PM
House rules, baby, house rules.


<- old school lightning bolt tosser

Fourth Tempter
2007-05-02, 02:43 PM
A point of interest: the meaning of "wherefore" actually "why", not "where".

Indon
2007-05-02, 02:55 PM
Aren't there rules for inventing new spells (in-character, that is)? Make a variation of the spell and you could keep the new lightning bolt and bring in a blast from the past.

Hazkali
2007-05-02, 02:55 PM
It's ye olde English, I believe.

"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?"

Fax Celestis
2007-05-02, 03:01 PM
...don't make me break out Romeorc and Julielf.

JadedDM
2007-05-02, 03:07 PM
That's what Fourth Tempter means. Juliet is not asking, "Where are you, Romeo?" She's asking, "Why are you Romeo?" Because that is the whole dilemma, that Romeo, the man she loves, just happens to be part of the family that hates/rivals her own family.

Wolf_Shade
2007-05-02, 03:11 PM
A point of interest: the meaning of "wherefore" actually "why", not "where".

Oddly enough, if there is still a spell called lightning bolt that does not work the same as the old one, it's still a valid question.

"Lightning bolt why are you the way you are? I wish you were as you were."

YPU
2007-05-02, 03:16 PM
I suppose this would also get the somewhat negated lightning bolt back on track, the fact is there is a much bigger chance enemy’s are in a formation better to be hit by a explosion rather than a line, now if you could bounce that line around corners…

DaMullet
2007-05-02, 03:44 PM
I've never picked up a 3.0 PHB (I got into the hobby a bit late), and I don't know precisely how lightening bolt used to work. Anyone care to elaborate?

Black Hand
2007-05-02, 03:46 PM
The 3.0 LB didn't ricochet either I believe. That was the good old second edition...I still Housrule it's effect in. That reminds me I should remind my wizard group about that. :P

Meat Shield
2007-05-02, 03:52 PM
Second edition lightning bolts could ricochet off stone walls, as well as start from points not adjacent to the casters square. You could have the bolt start fifty feet in front of you, and direct it to go at a non-radial angle relative to your position.

OK, if the last part didn't make sense, think of it as an instantaneous Wall of Lightning spell sixty feet long and five feet wide and deep, with a medium range. The wall had to be straight, unless it impacted a solid barrier along its length.

the_tick_rules
2007-05-02, 03:55 PM
i dm i once had used spells like that against us, they totally sucked.

The Glyphstone
2007-05-02, 03:57 PM
You know what's really hilarious?


Lightning Bolt with the Sculpt Spell feat. Lightning Cylinder/Lightning Cubes/LightningBall/Lightning...uh...Bolt...

Or heck,any spell with the Sculpt Spell feat. :smile:

RandomNPC
2007-05-02, 04:37 PM
You know what's really hilarious?


Lightning Bolt with the Sculpt Spell feat. Lightning Cylinder/Lightning Cubes/LightningBall/Lightning...uh...Bolt...

Or heck,any spell with the Sculpt Spell feat. :smile:


ok, is there a sudden sculpt feat? im kinda away from that paticluar set of books right now...

Corolinth
2007-05-02, 04:47 PM
Second edition lightning bolts could ricochet off stone walls, as well as start from points not adjacent to the casters square. You could have the bolt start fifty feet in front of you, and direct it to go at a non-radial angle relative to your position.

OK, if the last part didn't make sense, think of it as an instantaneous Wall of Lightning spell sixty feet long and five feet wide and deep, with a medium range. The wall had to be straight, unless it impacted a solid barrier along its length.Actually, it did have to be a radial angle, that was specified in spell description. The bolt followed a straight line made by the caster and the point of origin. It reflected off of more than just stone, too. Anything that was too thick for the bolt to bust through (like two feet of wood) could also reflect the bolt. Come to think of it, chain lightning was cooler in 2nd edition, too. It's like WoTC decided they hated lightning spells when they bought the license.

Jasdoif
2007-05-02, 05:00 PM
It's like WoTC decided they hated lightning spells when they bought the license.Or maybe it was trigonometry they hated.

Indon
2007-05-02, 05:07 PM
Or maybe it was trigonometry they hated.

Trigonometry builds character!

JohnnyPsycho
2007-05-02, 05:12 PM
I'm glad Hackmaster kept the old rules for Lightning Bolt... It made our magic-user incredibly deadly, because she was good at making that thing bounce off of walls and hit more people. It's also usefull to bounce back and hit enemies twice, because of that annoying 20-HP kicker nearly everything starts off with...

DaMullet
2007-05-02, 05:13 PM
Trigonometry builds character!
"Sorcerers! Go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!"

Innis Cabal
2007-05-02, 05:16 PM
it would be nice if all spells work like they used to...physics are very nice. A 20 foot burst in a 10 foot room with a 30 foot ceiling......

Fax Celestis
2007-05-02, 05:19 PM
"Sorcerers! Go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!"

Thanks, Calvin.

DaMullet
2007-05-02, 05:19 PM
Bill Watterson: Comic genius.

Jasdoif
2007-05-02, 05:20 PM
Trigonometry builds character!I don't buy it. What's your angle?

:smalltongue:

Saph
2007-05-02, 05:45 PM
Just curious - if you were using old-style rules for Lightning Bolt, and your enemy was in a 5-foot wide corridor in front of you . . .

. . . could you fire the lightning bolt at an angle of, say, 5 degrees off horizontal, causing it to zig-zag back and forth off the walls, going through the same square a dozen times and hitting the same target twelve times over?

- Saph

Cade Shadow
2007-05-02, 05:46 PM
It's ye olde English, I believe.

"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?"

Ye olde middle English

Innis Cabal
2007-05-02, 05:47 PM
yes Saph, and thats why it was changed

martyboy74
2007-05-02, 05:53 PM
Quick question. Wouldn't using Sculpt Spell actually being better than Ye Olde LB (excluding the Spell Level increase and wasted feat).

Jasdoif
2007-05-02, 06:03 PM
Quick question. Wouldn't using Sculpt Spell actually being better than Ye Olde LB (excluding the Spell Level increase and wasted feat).From the sounds of the posts, "Ye Olde LB" was capable of dealing its damage to a target multiple times, if the bolt crossed their space multiple times. Sculpt Spell won't duplicate that part of it.

Innis Cabal
2007-05-02, 06:05 PM
it did, thats why it was changed....it was a powerful spell though it could harm allies

SpiderBrigade
2007-05-02, 06:31 PM
Ye olde middle English
>>Buzz<< No, still not right.

Shakespeare wrote in early modern english. Middle English is, for instance, Chaucer. Shakespeare's works can be easily read by modern speakers, whereas Chaucer looks looks like this:
3187: Whilom ther was dwellynge at oxenford
3188: A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord,
3189: And of his craft he was a carpenter.
3190: With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler,
3191: Hadde lerned art, but al his fantasye
3192: Was turned for to lerne astrologye,
3193: And koude a certeyn of conclusiouns,
3194: To demen by interrogaciouns,
3195: If that men asked hym in certein houres
3196: Whan that men sholde have droghte or elles shoures,
3197: Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle
3198: Of every thyng; I may nat rekene hem alle.Most people want to read it in translation.

Corolinth
2007-05-02, 07:04 PM
Actually, reflecting lightning bolts is what balanced the spell as compared to fireball. In a D&D combat setting, a lightning bolt will only rarely hit more than two creatures. There were two ways to run lightning bolt ricochet presented in the 2nd edition PH. The first was for the bolt to reflect back towards the caster (regardless of the angle of incident), and the second was to follow real-world physics for reflection.

And no, casting a lightning bolt to strike the wall at an 85 degree angle inside of a five-foot wide corridor would not be unbalancing. Think about what's going to happen. The bolt has to be fired at a radial angle from the caster. The spell still targets a line starting from you, the difference is that the lightning bolt effect can be started fifty or a hundred feet away on that line. In other words, in order to hit the wall at an 85 degree angle to where it would repeatedly reflect back and forth through a square, you'd be striking the wall right beside you. It could bounce back and forth several times through the same square. Guess who's square that is? Nevermind how often have you ever been in a five foot wide corridor during a game.

Hitting a target twice is easily managed (which is what made it viable when compared to the 20' radius fireball), but striking a target more than twice is statistically improbable (unless you're bouncing it through your own square). It is theoretically possible, but the chance of that actually occurring during gameplay is a lot like winning the lottery. It's probably also going to require hitting your companions several times in the process.

Demented
2007-05-02, 07:06 PM
Heh. "And of his craft he was a carpenter." seemed rather.. out of place. Sure that's not "aynd of hes crafft was heye a carepentier"?
(That's mostly random. Don't take it too seriously.)

Indon
2007-05-02, 07:13 PM
I don't buy it. What's your angle?

:smalltongue:

The right one, of course!

Roderick_BR
2007-05-02, 08:35 PM
I want my 10' wide forked bolt back. I want my lightning bolt to ricochet off of walls like back in the old days. I want these 15 year-old kiddies picking up a Player's Handbook to play D&D after school to have to buy a protractor and learn some geometry.
Tell the truth. You want to see the newbies trying to knock down doors with lightnings, don't you? :smallamused:

henebry
2007-05-02, 09:14 PM
In the current rules, the LB has certain advantages over the fireball. Yes, it generally strikes fewer characters, but it also is easier to keep it from striking allies. And since it can be fired from a grid intersection and affects all squares that its 5' wide path touches, it can be used to affect a 10' wide path of enemies.

I have a wizard in my current campaign who (after a bad mistake with a fireball that fried an ally) relies almost exclusively on the LB.

AtomicKitKat
2007-05-02, 11:24 PM
I like old school LB. It's what I grew up (ab)using in the old computer D&D games. They used the "funky angles" rule, which sometimes let you fry an enemy twice, but more often caused it to fly off along the wall without hitting anything. I think their system counted the bounce as one of the 8 squares in the limit, so it never really managed to hit an enemy more than twice(partly also because you couldn't target the walls themselves in the computer game, and even with resistance/immunity to electricity, passing through your own square never let it hit more than twice either).

Daneel the Sane
2007-05-03, 01:19 AM
The right one, of course!

That was acute response, but I think you are being obtuse.

tsuyoshikentsu
2007-05-03, 02:14 AM
That was acute response, but I think you are being obtuse.

Hey, man, don't be such a square.


>>Buzz<< No, still not right.

Shakespeare wrote in early modern english.

Isn't Elizabethan English as (basically) totally invented by the Bard and Johnson its own language?

(I'd also like to point out that the First Folio really isn't much better than Middle English. Although that may be because I'm used to Middle English.)

Skjaldbakka
2007-05-03, 03:31 AM
IIRC, 2nd ed. lightning bolt didn't deal damage multiple times from multiple hits, it re-rolled damage each time it intersected a target's space. You used the highest damage and the worst save to determine the effects. At least, that's how I remember it.

Turcano
2007-05-03, 03:33 AM
>>Buzz<< No, still not right.

Shakespeare wrote in early modern english. Middle English is, for instance, Chaucer. Shakespeare's works can be easily read by modern speakers, whereas Chaucer looks looks like this:
3187: Whilom ther was dwellynge at oxenford
3188: A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord,
3189: And of his craft he was a carpenter.
3190: With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler,
3191: Hadde lerned art, but al his fantasye
3192: Was turned for to lerne astrologye,
3193: And koude a certeyn of conclusiouns,
3194: To demen by interrogaciouns,
3195: If that men asked hym in certein houres
3196: Whan that men sholde have droghte or elles shoures,
3197: Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle
3198: Of every thyng; I may nat rekene hem alle.Most people want to read it in translation.

You think that's bad? Try real Old English (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Beowulf).

nagora
2007-05-03, 05:19 AM
The trick with Chaucer is to read him aloud, preferably in the bath. There are some words which have fallen out of the language completely but mostly the words are modern with wild phonetic spellings. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is great fun to read in the original because of the beautiful rhythm and, as I said, it's actually quite easy to follow for long passages.

Plus, it's full of smutty jokes.

Lapak
2007-05-03, 08:40 AM
The trick with Chaucer is to read him aloud, preferably in the bath. There are some words which have fallen out of the language completely but mostly the words are modern with wild phonetic spellings. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is great fun to read in the original because of the beautiful rhythm and, as I said, it's actually quite easy to follow for long passages.

Plus, it's full of smutty jokes.I agree with you that it's truly worth reading on a pure enjoyment level. On that same note, I feel like you might appreciate that Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog. (http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/)

Tor the Fallen
2007-05-03, 11:17 AM
Just curious - if you were using old-style rules for Lightning Bolt, and your enemy was in a 5-foot wide corridor in front of you . . .

. . . could you fire the lightning bolt at an angle of, say, 5 degrees off horizontal, causing it to zig-zag back and forth off the walls, going through the same square a dozen times and hitting the same target twelve times over?

- Saph

Oh gods, that's brutal.

Ethdred
2007-05-03, 07:01 PM
Actually, reflecting lightning bolts is what balanced the spell as compared to fireball. In a D&D combat setting, a lightning bolt will only rarely hit more than two creatures.


Mate, you were obviously using it wrong! I played a 2nd edition mage with LB as a signature spell (ie he got it free once per day) and I got VERY good at spotting enemies in a straight line. As for bouncing it off a wall and getting double bubble - well that just made my day!

Ethdred
2007-05-03, 07:02 PM
Isn't Elizabethan English as (basically) totally invented by the Bard and Johnson its own language?


Erm... no.

Irenaeus
2007-05-04, 02:12 AM
I agree with you that it's truly worth reading on a pure enjoyment level. On that same note, I feel like you might appreciate that Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog. (http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/)

Thank you. I felt that it was about time that somebody mentioned that blog.

Matthew
2007-05-04, 08:16 PM
Oh man, impersonating the long dead father of Modern English? Some people have way too much time on their hands...

bosssmiley
2007-05-04, 11:06 PM
I want my 10' wide forked bolt back. I want my lightning bolt to ricochet off of walls like back in the old days. I want these 15 year-old kiddies picking up a Player's Handbook to play D&D after school to have to buy a protractor and learn some geometry.

Lightning does not work that way! </Morbo> :smallfurious:

Dervag
2007-05-04, 11:31 PM
Just curious - if you were using old-style rules for Lightning Bolt, and your enemy was in a 5-foot wide corridor in front of you . . .

. . . could you fire the lightning bolt at an angle of, say, 5 degrees off horizontal, causing it to zig-zag back and forth off the walls, going through the same square a dozen times and hitting the same target twelve times over?

- SaphThe geometry wouldn't work; your bolt was a maximum of 80 feet long. Unless the corridor was very short, the bolt would only bounce off the wall once or twice, and each bounce would carry it further away from you. Unless, of course, the passage is a short dead-end... in which case the bolt comes back and hits you in the face.


yes Saph, and thats why it was changedThat doesn't make any sense; it can't work that way by geometry. Corolinth explains why.


Actually, reflecting lightning bolts is what balanced the spell as compared to fireball. In a D&D combat setting, a lightning bolt will only rarely hit more than two creatures. There were two ways to run lightning bolt ricochet presented in the 2nd edition PH. The first was for the bolt to reflect back towards the caster (regardless of the angle of incident), and the second was to follow real-world physics for reflection.The second way is the way we always did it, and I never imagined any other way, because the DM that my first (only, and very long-running) 2e campaign was played under was a physicist who also couldn't imagine any other way.


Hitting a target twice is easily managed (which is what made it viable when compared to the 20' radius fireball), but striking a target more than twice is statistically improbable (unless you're bouncing it through your own square). It is theoretically possible, but the chance of that actually occurring during gameplay is a lot like winning the lottery. It's probably also going to require hitting your companions several times in the process.Right. In short, the advantage of lightning was that it was more targetable and slightly longer ranged. If you were fighting in dungeon corridors, you had a good chance of nailing several opponents with the same bolt, especially since the forked bolt (which was 40' by 10' instead of 80' by 5') could clear a 10' corridor as well as the straight bolt could clear the less common 5' corridor. In a room, you had a good chance of reflecting the bolt, in situations where a fireball would be idiotic. In the open, it at least had a longer range than fireballs, though not by much (only 30').

Now, as far as I can tell, the spell has no real use other than doing damage to single opponents in the open who happen to be invulnerable to fire damage, or to clearing corridors when you have no friends in the line of effect.

To make matters worse, the fireball now deals damage only within 20 ft. of its point of origin. In 2e and earlier, the volume of a fireball was fixed, which meant that casting it in a narrow corridor was suicide. This further enhances the effectiveness of the fireball, which, combined with the nerfing of lightning bolt, makes it hard to understand why any sane caster would use lightning bolts when fireballs are available, except in unusual conditions.


In the current rules, the LB has certain advantages over the fireball. Yes, it generally strikes fewer characters, but it also is easier to keep it from striking allies. And since it can be fired from a grid intersection and affects all squares that its 5' wide path touches, it can be used to affect a 10' wide path of enemies.

I have a wizard in my current campaign who (after a bad mistake with a fireball that fried an ally) relies almost exclusively on the LB.The old lightning bolt had both those features, too. The only improvement is that the bolt is now longer, which isn't very useful because the extra length doesn't make up for the loss of range you get from having to start the bolt at your own location.

Moreover, if you fire the bolt from the rear of a combat you cannot avoid hitting your own friend in the back. With the 2e lightning bolt you could, by beginning the bolt in front of your allies and having it stretch straight out in front of them.


IIRC, 2nd ed. lightning bolt didn't deal damage multiple times from multiple hits, it re-rolled damage each time it intersected a target's space. You used the highest damage and the worst save to determine the effects. At least, that's how I remember it.I do not remember this from the 2e Players' Handbook or the 1e Players' Handbook; this could be a gap in my memory but I doubt it.


Lightning does not work that way! </Morbo> :smallfurious:Actually, I distinctly remember it working that way in second edition, which was the entire point of the original post.

AtomicKitKat
2007-05-05, 12:17 AM
Now I remember what I wanted to say. The new Lightning Bolt appears to be based on the Lightning from Diablo 2's Sorceress. :(

Jack Mann
2007-05-05, 12:32 AM
I don't think you're picturing Saph's scenario quite right, Derv. I don't think she means five degrees off from directly at the target, but rather firing at the wall, but about five degrees forward towards the target.

That way, (assuming you're not having it always blast back at the caster, no matter the angle), it will bounce off of the wall quite a few times. Of course, this means that it won't go very far forward, but if your enemy is close to you, this could be a valid tactic, assuming that your lightning bolt works that way.

Stephen_E
2007-05-05, 03:34 AM
The most fun I can remember having with the 2E Lightning bolt was when traveling through some ice caverns. Herd a cry and turned to find the rearguard behind me had been attacked by a Giant, with 4 more behind him. I Fired the lighting bolt at the ceiling above the rearguard and hit the 1st Giant as it went down, and tehn again on the way up. IIRC the last giant only got hit once.

The GM got his revenge when I fireballed into a 20x20x10h room. Misjudged slightly and the fireball swept up the corridoor and engulfed the front of the party (the GM could use a calculator but Wizards had to do it in their heads). That was fine because the 2nd rank person had a minor globe of invunerability on him, but remember I said Ice Caverns. We were now left changing into combat through a dense fog, over a very slippery floor. Chaos!

Stephen

Stephen_E
2007-05-05, 03:35 AM
The most fun I can remember having with the 2E Lightning bolt was when traveling through some ice caverns. Herd a cry and turned to find the rearguard behind me had been attacked by a Giant, with 4 more behind him. I Fired the lighting bolt at the ceiling above the rearguard and hit the 1st Giant as it went down, and tehn again on the way up. IIRC the last giant only got hit once.

The GM got his revenge when I fireballed into a 20x20x10h room. Misjudged slightly and the fireball swept up the corridoor and engulfed the front of the party (the GM could use a calculator but Wizards had to do it in their heads). That was fine because the 2nd rank person had a minor globe of invunerability on him, but remember I said Ice Caverns. We were now left changing into combat through a dense fog, over a very slippery floor. Chaos!

Stephen