Control Temperature error?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all. Currently creating some unique weapons for my Fey Lords that have some spell casting abilities (the lords all get some Fey styled SLA, likely with a lot of overlap between the 3 of them. One causes fear, one charms, one maddens, with a few more things like tree stride and plane shift, while their weapons are more themed to each one).

My current one is a cold themed greatsword and one of its spells is Control Temperature (at will). Control Temp has a short range, 20' per level.

But its also a 20 cubic foot/level emanation centered on yourself. Whats that all about?

Is it a ranged spell, or is it centered on the caster?

[Zaq]

WotC often forgot this (there are plenty of examples in the Dysfunctional Rules threads), but regardless of what a spell's area can cover, the spell can only affect squares/targets that are within its range. Any portion of a spell's area that is outside the spell's range basically just fizzles. (PHB pg. 174-175.) So, for example, if you center a Fireball at the very end of its range, you'll end up with half a Fireball—the part of the area that's inside the range happens normally, and the part of the area that's outside of the range just doesn't happen.

WotC wasn't consistent about remembering this, so there are plenty of spells with areas that far outstrip their ranges (making those spells not do what WotC thinks they do), but it sounds like Control Temperature might actually be following the rules.

[Segev]

This error gets especially funny with spells that have a range of "self" and are emanations. The clear intent is that the emanation area is centered on the caster. The effect when you consider that rule taken literally is that they extend no further than the outer layer of skin of the caster.

[ExLibrisMortis]

This error gets especially funny with spells that have a range of "self" and are emanations. The clear intent is that the emanation area is centered on the caster. The effect when you consider that rule taken literally is that they extend no further than the outer layer of skin of the caster.
But a creature with Regeneration could flay itself and wrap enemies in the spell effect! That's a totally legitimate party trick!

[Albions_Angel]

Ah! Ok, so its probably an error. I never noticed the PHB range fizzle thing before. Seems kinda weird to me. Like the fire ball. I would assume it actually starts at you and you basically launch the ball over a range. It then explodes. Might house rule it out, as we have never played with that rule anyway.

Interesting to note, if you look at things like blizzard, they start off with their range larger than their area, but if you go to epic levels, their area of effect becomes larger than their range. So my 50HD fey lord can cast a 5000 foot radius blizzard, but can only get the center a max of 2400 feet away.

[Segev]

Most people do house rule it out, as the intuitive reading (if you didn't know that rule) would be that range is to the "starting point" while area is "from starting point." (With a few exceptions, like lightning bolt, which have spell descriptions that make it pretty clear what's going on.)

It certainly doesn't hurt anything to house rule it that way.

[erok0809]

It's also almost certainly an error that they said 20 cubic feet/lvl centered on yourself for the area. A 20 cubic foot sphere has a radius of something along the lines of 1.7 feet, meaning the sphere barely emanates past you at all. I'm sure they meant 20' per level like they put in the range, but that's not what they actually wrote. Even a 5 foot radius sphere has a volume of about 523 cubic feet, which would require you to be level 26 with the way it's actually written.

[Albions_Angel]

Thats what I would have thought. My 50HD epic level fey lords can cast 1000 cubic feet of control temp. Or a 10x10x10 box... Thats enough for one large creature.

[Troacctid]

An emanation's area defines the distance it extends from the point of origin. So it extends out to a distance of 20 cubic feet per level. Of course, cubic feet are a unit of volume, not distance, so this is indeed a dysfunction. I believe it's actually meant to say feet.

[Albions_Angel]

Cool, I will homerule that at once.