Post/Author/DateTime	Post
pres_man 01-26-06, 05:18 PM	During the last session of my game a druid cast calm animals, and I realized I was unsure how the range of a spell and the radius or distance the effected creatures were apart. So the spell says it has a range of close (25 + 5/2 levels) and no two creatures can be more than 30 feet apart. I believe other spells have a similiar situation (e.g. haste, etc.). So here is where the confusion occured, two creatures where tried to be calmed. One creature was within the range of the spell listed, the other was outside the range listed for the spell, but both creatures were within 30' of each other. So is the range of the spell the maximum for the center of the effect of the spell or is it the maximum for the effect of the spell. Compare this to say a fireball. Let's say a creature is just outside of the range of the spell, could the fireball be denoted at the edge of the range and thus still hit the creature, or is the range the maximum the explosion could reach away?
Bloodtide_the_Red 01-26-06, 05:38 PM	Naturaly, you must in range of a spell to be effected by it. If your spell has a range of 30 feet, then it will not(directly) effect someone 32 feet away. So it's the maximum range of the spell effect, from the caster. Bt
pres_man 01-26-06, 06:14 PM	So your understanding would be that a 5th level wizard casting a fireball (range: long = 600 ft), could center the fireball a maximum of 580 feet away (since the range of the effect would be 600 ft and the fireball has a radius of 20'). Is this an appropriate understand of what you are saying?
Esponer 01-26-06, 06:17 PM	This doesn't sound right to me... I'd say your maximum range for a fireball is 600ft, and then the splash effect is centred 600ft away, damaging people further away, potentially. It seems to sound perfectly logical for fireball, and a bit less logical for calm animals, but I can't see how to say it doesn't work that way for calm animals without being logically inconsistent. [Edit: Actually, I think I can. The targets for calm animals must be within 30ft of each other, but that which is shown in the "Target" entry must obey the range entry. This implies that all targets must be within the range of calm animals, and within a 30ft distance from each other. Fireball is a splash effect, so its "target" is not everyone affected. Its target is a point in space.]
Bloodtide_the_Red 01-26-06, 06:20 PM	No. The maximum range for your fire ball is 600 feet. At that point, it will explode and make the 20 foot burst. An exploding fireball always will fill a 20 foot area(if possible, of course). You can't stand 601 feet away and not get touched by the fireball blast. Note that physical attack spells, like fireball and the more 'unseen' magic spells...like Slow, Haste and the charm-type spells are treated a bit diffrently. You can get just out of range of one of thoes spells quite easly(though it's possible to also get out of the range of the fireball too). Bt
Nom 01-26-06, 08:47 PM	That's incorrect. Check the PH rules (chapter 10) for range. "If any portion of the spell’s area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted".