Spell with saving throw without details

[Kaiwen]

There's a spell on page 88 of Frostburn called Arctic Haze. It 's a damaging fog-type spell with "Saving throw: Fortitude half" that deals 2 cold and 2 untyped damage/round. It doesn't mention a saving throw in the description. Can you assume that every round, creatures in the area make a fort save to take 1 cold and 1 piercing?

There's 2 damaging fogs with saves that I know of that I can compare this to, being Haboob (Sandstorm) and Cloudkill (PHB). Haboob offers a save only when the spell is cast where a creature is, and Cloudkill offers a save for half damage every round. Both of these have "see text" and describe clearly the conditions where a save is offered.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That's hardly the only spell that suffers from poor editing in frostburn. Surely you've heard of the infamous shivering touch? Actually take a close look at that spell entry.

I'd probably rule it to function like haboob. Make the save up front for half on that round but if you stay in the fog you take full damage for any subsequent rounds.

[Asmotherion]

if something is not specified in the spell description general spellcasting rules apply. Thus you're right about 1 cold 1 untyped damage.

[rrwoods]

Ice slick is another tricky one; it calls for a balance check but doesn’t specify the DC. Absent some rules about how you balance on ice on flat ground (... Frostburn would be a good place for those!) it’s pretty difficult to determine what the DC should be. SRD specifies +5 as a modifier for “severely slippery” but doesn’t give a base for flat ground.

My group houserules it to be the spell’s save DC.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Ice slick is another tricky one; it calls for a balance check but doesn’t specify the DC. Absent some rules about how you balance on ice on flat ground (... Frostburn would be a good place for those!) it’s pretty difficult to determine what the DC should be. SRD specifies +5 as a modifier for “severely slippery” but doesn’t give a base for flat ground.

My group houserules it to be the spell’s save DC.

The base DCs are listed under the balance skill. Even ground would be DC 10 to start and then modifies to 15 because of the ice. Because of the spell description, the targets have to make that check every round whereas with natural ice they'd only need to make it to run or charge accross the ice.

[rrwoods]

The base DCs are listed under the balance skill. Even ground would be DC 10 to start and then modifies to 15 because of the ice. Because of the spell description, the targets have to make that check every round whereas with natural ice they'd only need to make it to run or charge accross the ice.

That’s certainly an interpretation of the table I’m looking at, but every description that has DC 10 next to it talks about why a surface is already inherently difficult to stand on AND comes with the footnote that it only applies when charging. I think it’s prinably fine, and roughly comes out the same anyway since usually the save DC will be 10 + 4 (ability) + 1 (spell level). Using the save DC lets you boost it in various ways, other than that it’s the same.