AOE for Spirit Guardians cast by huge creature & clear path to target

[da newt]

In a recent game we had a situation where the badguy was huge and cast SG.

Does the AOE change when the caster is bigger? No, right? It's still a 15' radius from the origin point (center of the caster), right?




Does SG's AOE ignore walls and full cover? The spell's description does not include fireball's special 'goes around' clause, but the spirits do flit about ... The clear path rules cover targeting (attacks) and origin point (AOE), but don't specifically call out persistent AOE affects. What is RAW?

[Aimeryan]

In a recent game we had a situation where the badguy was huge and cast SG.

Does the AOE change when the caster is bigger? No, right? It's still a 15' radius from the origin point (center of the caster), right?




Does SG's AOE ignore walls and full cover? The spell's description does not include fireball's special 'goes around' clause, but the spirits do flit about ... The clear path rules cover targeting (attacks) and origin point (AOE), but don't specifically call out persistent AOE affects. What is RAW?

Spirit Guardians does not come from the center of the caster, instead 'They flit around you to a distance of 15 feet'. If you flit around a building the size of the Taj Mahal to a distance of 15 feet, you are not inside the building - you are outside, 15 feet away at any point.

Something I feel is even more likely to cause you consternation, that area is a square if using the grid. This is because 15 feet diagonally is three squares away diagonally on the grid, since 5e uses non-euclidean geometry.

[diplomancer]

In a recent game we had a situation where the badguy was huge and cast SG.

Does the AOE change when the caster is bigger? No, right? It's still a 15' radius from the origin point (center of the caster), right?

No. The spirits flit around the caster to a distance of 15 feet. Therefore, anything that is up to 15' from the caster is affected by it. Yes, this means the spell is more powerful than if cast by a Medium creature. Nowhere does it say that a point of origin has to be a 5' square, and, in fact, this paragraph says just the opposite:


Typically, a point of origin is a point in space, but some spells have an area whose origin is a creature or an object.







Does SG's AOE ignore walls and full cover? The spell's description does not include fireball's special 'goes around' clause, but the spirits do flit about ... The clear path rules cover targeting (attacks) and origin point (AOE), but don't specifically call out persistent AOE affects. What is RAW?

Here, I'm not so sure, but I'd say full cover protects it.


A spell’s effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn’t included in the spell’s area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover, as explained in chapter 9.

To overrule this rule, a spell needs to have a clause like that of Fireball, of spreading around corners.

[solidork]

We always measured the radius from the edge of the caster's square. Otherwise some spells just straight up don't work if you're large size.