Cone spells and casting from above for it to instead cover a circle on grounded enemi

[Shuruke]

So I had a fun thought of a character flying / jumping arc and then throwing down burning hands from above.

However in what way would u measure this.

Phb as it say that the width at any given point is only as wide as the length at that point

So 15 foot cone would be a 15 foot cylinder/ 15 foot square when casted from above


Would allowing this cause any unforseen issues?
X. XXX
XX. XXX
XXX. XXX


Would it be something you'd allow if a player wanted to do a build around having high strength and something like the jump spell in order to jump high above enemies and have a larger aoe then casted from the ground?
Or flying and throwing fire or another cone spell like cone of cold down.


When doing the math
15 foot cone. Will have a 15 foot diameter circle

The circle since when its half way through a square it goes rest of way through would become a 3x3 square for 9 max enemies

Cone with 3 rows will only have 6 squares.

Cone of Cold 60 foot
12x12 square 144 squares
Or 12 row cone 78 squares

In the second instance you'd either need to have fly or be able to get 60 feet in air another way.


What do you guys think?

If it helps I mainly stumbled upon this idea because in FF14 the monk has an ability where u jump up in air and fire a aoe attack down. So thought since monk in 5e as bonus action can double jump distance as a strength monk with 18 str u could jump high enough to do the fun little AOE theateic drop

[strangebloke]

It ends up and circle aoe with radius equal to length. So a 15' cone becomes a 15' radius sphere. Yes this is a significant increase in the size of the aoe. Kudos to you for being a little creative and having a good position.

Its not broken, but requires some kind of flight or at least a superb jumping ability.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, the full range of options is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conic_section , if you really want to be fancy.

Nothing broken about it and we use these shapes at our table, but we require pre-made templates for speed as otherwise it can slow the game.

[Shuruke]

It ends up and circle aoe with radius equal to length. So a 15' cone becomes a 15' radius sphere. Yes this is a significant increase in the size of the aoe. Kudos to you for being a little creative and having a good position.

Its not broken, but requires some kind of flight or at least a superb jumping ability.

Undont think itd be radius because the way the phb says to measure cones

When its 5 feet long its 5 feet wide
Same with 10 and 15
So 15 foot cone at the very end would be from one side of circle to the other a 15 foot diameter

Which is still an increase in area cuz casting cone from on ground your losing part of it against ground (cant open up as much)

Was real fun idea currently doing drawing of it

[Unoriginal]

It's been known you can do that, yes.

Beware a dragon's cone (also a dragon scone).

[Chronos]

Sure, you can do this. There's usually limited usefulness in increasing an area of effect, though, because it makes it easier to catch allies in the area, too.

[Shuruke]

Sure, you can do this. There's usually limited usefulness in increasing an area of effect, though, because it makes it easier to catch allies in the area, too.

That is true but this would still be smaller then fireball and you could do separate angles and etc

The cone of cold would be much bigger but even then youd be flying for that or up on high ground so ideally theirs teamwork going on

^.^