Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Heahengel 05-05-05, 07:39 AM	1. Can you use widen spell on effect: spread spells, like Acid Fog, or Cloudkill? If not, would it be overpowered to allow this? 2. Can you use sculpt spell on such a spell? 3. What exactly does 'four ten foot cubes' mean from the sculpt spell description - is it a 20'x20'x10' area, or four ten foot cubes arranged as you wish (do they even need to be connected at all?)?
Father Dale 05-05-05, 10:27 AM	Going strictly by the RAW (rules as written), here would be my responses: 1. Yes. Since widen spell can be used to "alter a burst, emanation, line, or spread shaped spell," it can be used on the cloud type spells that have an "effect: ... spreads." Widen spell just says spread SHAPED spell, not spells with an area of a burst, emantion, line, or spread. Even if someone were to disagree with this interpretation, I don't think it overpowered to allow Widen spell to affect such spells; as Widen Spell uses up a slot 3 levels higher, it is pretty costly. 2. No. As it is written in Complete Arcane (boy that sounds religious), Sculpt Spell lets you "modify an area spell." This would mean that it can only modify spells that have an entry of "Area: XXX," which the fog type spells do not have; they have an entry of "Effect: XXX." However, it could be a reasonable interpretation to let it include spells that have an effect that applies to an area, even if the heading entries don't have an entry of "Area: XXX." The spread spells do affect an "area" so you could classify them as "area spells" for purposes of the sculpt spell feat. Off hand, I don't think this would be overpowered, but there might be some spell out there that I could see it as being too powerful to apply. In particular, some spell that affects say a 10ft area getting sculpted into something much bigger for a 1 level increase. 3. You would be talking about a spell that has 4 ten foot cubes that can be arranged however the caster wants, as long as the cubes are connected. I think this would work like the Firestorm spell, just that the area is a fixed volume rather than based on caster level. On a side note, Sculpt Spell doesn't say whether the range of a spell would be effected. So take for instance Waves of Fatigue, which has an "Area: Cone Shaped Burst" and a range fo 30'ft. If you Sculpt it into a 20ft radius spread ball, would it have to fall within the 30ft range of the spell? Technically, yes, since the sculpt spell doesn't mention any adjustments to range.