Burning hands help please!

[Klorox]

Can anybody illustrate for me what exactly a 15' cone is (the range of a burning hands spell).

I'm not sure I get it, but I'm playing a fire dragon bloodline sorcerer and I think I want this spell at level 2.


Thank you!

[Foxhound438]

if you're on a grid and shooting straight from yourself:

X X X
O X X
O X O
O Y O

where you are "Y" and spaces hit are "X", and O's are missed spots. It's lopsided to one side or another because the width of the cone at a given distance is equal to that distance. It's not 100% geometrically sensible, but it's a close approximation for a simple simulation.

If you shoot it diagonally it would look something like:

O X X X
O X X O
O X O O
Y O O O

or:

O X O O
O X X O
O X X X
Y O O O

depending on how you want to aim it exactly. All of these hit 6 spaces so you don't get an unfair advantage from "metagaming the hitbox" to get more spaces in any case. Note however that this is just how my group handles cones, your DM may already have a way they like to do it, and you would have to ask them to make sure.

[KnotaGuru]

PHB p204 describes areas of effect. Since you'll be dealing in 2 dimensions most of the time, a 15' cone is essentially an equilateral triangle with all sides being 15' in length. You are the point of origin so you'll be at one of the points of the triangle and projecting the triangle away from you. PathfinderSRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat/space-reach-threatened-area-templates/) has some nice templates if you're using a grid. Try not to roast your friends :)

[coredump]

Pretty much none of this is accurate.
The triangle is isosceles, not equilateral. The cone extends out at just over 53 degrees.
There is nothing in the rules that says the shape of the cone changes when playing on a grid, and nothing says it changes depending on what direction you use when on a grid.

The trick is that it is as wide as it is long.

[Solunaris]

Imagine if you would a grid, like say:

XHHHX
XHHHX
XXHXX
XXPXX

or

XHXXX
XHHXX
XHHHX
PXXXX

The 'H's represent squares you will hit with the cone, the 'P' represents the player character and the 'X's are, of course, misses. The way to measure out any sort of cone is simple; make a line going X feet away from you. At the end of the line put another X feet line perpendicular to it with an even amount on each side; like a T (with X being the size of the cone e.g. 15 ft). Then connect the two top points of the T to the bottom of the T to form a triangle. Any squares that the triangle overlaps are hits. Remember, you are always at the bottom of the T triangle.

Another way to say this is that a cone extends out X feet from the point of origin eventually reaching X feet in width.

Edit: Because of the way the grid system works and how the spell will hit any square it overlaps, template spells tend to do better on grids than in the theater of the mind. For instance, in the straight cone you notice that it actually hits across 15 ft of squares on the second row when it should really only hit two but because of the position of the cone it overlaps half way with two squares on either side of the center square. As for the diagonal cone it hits across 20 ft and 15 ft on the third and second rows respectively for the same reason.

[HidesHisEyes]

Imagine if you would a grid, like say:

XHHHX
XHHHX
XXHXX
XXPXX

or

XHXXX
XHHXX
XHHHX
PXXXX
The 'H's represent squares you will hit with the cone, the 'P' represents the player character and the 'X's are, of course, misses. The way to measure out any sort of cone is simple; make a line going X feet away from you. At the end of the line put another X feet line perpendicular to it with an even amount on each side; like a T (with X being the size of the cone e.g. 15 ft). Then connect the two top points of the T to the bottom of the T to form a triangle. Any squares that the triangle overlaps are hits. Remember, you are always at the bottom of the T triangle.

Another way to say this is that a cone extends out X feet from the point of origin eventually reaching X feet in width.

Solved! Thanks a lot. I was always a bit unsure about this too.

[Tanarii]

Can anybody illustrate for me what exactly a 15' cone is (the range of a burning hands spell).

I'm not sure I get it, but I'm playing a fire dragon bloodline sorcerer and I think I want this spell at level 2.


Thank you!
Do you play on a grid, or not?

Off grid:
a cone is defined by PHB p204: A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin. A cone’s width at a given point along its length is equal to that point’s distance from the point of origin. A cone’s area of effect specifies its maximum length.
A cone’s point of origin is not included in the cone’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Note that per PHB 220, Burning Hands is a Self(15-ft cone), so the point of origin is you.

Per DMG p249, the amount of creatures typically caught in a cone is Size/10 rounded up, or two.

On grid:
DMG p251 says: Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal. If an area of effect is circular and covers at least half a square, it affects that square.
It does not say how to handle a cone at all, although it'd certainly be reasonable to extrapolate the rule from circular so that if it covers half a square it affects that square. It not implied at all that you have to line up the effect with the grid (ie at a 45 or 90 degree angle only). Looks to me like you can just print out a template of a cone that is 3 squares wide at the base, 3 squares tall, and overlay that any way you like as long as you follow the Point of Origin rule, and use the half-square rule to decide what squares are effected.

Edit: It's worth noting that using the 'half square' rule, a cone from the center of a square will affect two squares directly in from of you, and 3 squares in the third rank. Diagrams that show hitting 3 squares in the second 'rank' would not be correct.

[bid]

On grid:
DMG p251 says: Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal. If an area of effect is circular and covers at least half a square, it affects that square.
This results in a 1-1-3 or a 1-3-1 cone if used orthogonally.

Where
.XX.
.XX.
is a square of the 5x5 drawing:
XX.XX.XX.XX.XX
XX.YO.OO.OY.XX
XX.XY.OO.YX.XX
XX.XX.YY.XX.XX
XX.XX.PP.XX.XX
Every Y covers exactly half their 5x2.5 rectangle, making it a 1-1-3 shape.

To make the diagonal squares at 50% coverage, you need to move the shape down 2.5'. This makes the corner squares... 7.5/16 ~ 47% covered. This makes a 1-3-1 shape.

If you skew to one side while keeping the opposite corner at 50%, using 2.5x2.5 units: the diagonal goes 3 units to the side while going 5 units deep, the diagonal square is between 2/5 and 4/5 deep which is 6/5 and 12/5 sideways. Removing the center square, that's 1/5 to 7/5*... You'd need to enter at 1/5 and exit at 9/5 to be 50%... still 1-1-3
* You enter the 5x5 square at .5' and exit at 3.5'...

entering the 5x5 diagonal square at .5' and exiting it at 3.5' for a coverage below 50%... still 1-1-3

If you skew and move down, you can get 1-2-2 shape for sure.


IOW, to get a 1-2-3 shape:
X.A.O.O.B.X
X.X.O.O.X
X.X.O.X
Adding B is possible by skewing, but adding A is hard to prove.


tl;dr
A 15' cone is 1-1-3 or 1-2-2 on the grid when you aim at a side and not at a corner.