Ice Knife and large creatures...

[Kyoami]

Maybe I'm missing something or just being dumb here but how does the secondary AE damage affect the creatures around a large target?

"You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."

Would the AE damage hit anything adjacent to the large creature and if not how would you calculate which square the ice knife exploded in?

[The_Jette]

Maybe I'm missing something or just being dumb here but how does the secondary AE damage affect the creatures around a large target?

"You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."

Would the AE damage hit anything adjacent to the large creature and if not how would you calculate which square the ice knife exploded in?

Either the player or the DM (DM's choice) picks a square to be the origin of the burst, and that's the square that you work with. Is it a way to keep PC's from getting hit while hitting enemies (assuming enemies and PC's are close enough)? Yes. But, it's quick and easy this way.

[GooeyChewie]

The AoE range is based on the point where the Ice Knife hits the target, not based on the size of the target. I figure that point would be the point on the target which is closest to the caster. Depending on the angle, there’s a good chance half of the AoE will occur within the target’s spaces.

[Bubbs]

So here's something interesting about ice knife I hadn't noticed before. The EE Player's Companion and Xanathar's Guide to Everything printings have materially different wordings, which yield different RAW answers to this question!


You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage

You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.

In the EE printing it's specifically referring to the point where the knife impacts, so the size of the target doesn't affect the total area covered. In the Xanathar's printing 'it' clearly refers to the target creature, so now your ice knife has a bigger explosion if you throw it at a bigger monster.

I suspect the intent of the change was to simplify the little bit of weirdness in the EE version where you would need to suss out where the point that the knife hit which wasn't technically the spells target. I wish they'd just had you pick a point in the space the target occupies to be the center of the explosion instead though. (Which is how I would have ruled the EE version of the spell working.)

[RickAllison]

You will target the Large creature, but you select where you try to hit them. At the simplest, you can imagine hitting at each corner and at the midpoint of every square edge. For a Large creature, you could hit the corners and cover the four squares around that point (so the original target and up to three Medium creatures). If you hit the midpoint of the Large square, you can hit the target and any creatures on that edge. If you hit the midpoint of any 5 ft edge, you will hit the target and whatever creature shares that edge. This diagram illustrates the possible targeting, where the o's note the Large creature's square and the x's note where you could hit with the blast.




x
x


o
o
x


o
o








o
o
x


o
o
x







o
o
x


o
o




Edit: Note that this is for the EE version. The Xanathar's version would be an erratum, so ignore my diagrams if your DM wants that version. Also note that if the EE version is in play, trying to target points that would maximize the hit enemies might result in greater cover penalties.

[Kyoami]

Thanks for the replies. I've have xanathar's but I just found the quoted text online as I am at work and away from the book. The xanathars version it mechanically much simpler but I guess could be a bit silly when you get to huge + creatures!