Post/Author/DateTime	Post
syrinth 11-08-06, 01:22 AM	Hello everyone, I was recently reading a thread that made mention of lightning bolt's old bouncing ability and I was wondering what the thought would be on giving lightning bolt it's old reflective qualities back. Do you guys think that that would be too powerful? Thanks a lot :D
Chimera245 11-08-06, 03:19 AM	I think the main reason they took it away is more because it got annoying than anything. Depending on where you, your allies, your enemies, and the walls were, it could take you forever to figure out the exact angle to cast it at so that when it bounces off walls and such it doesn't hit you or your allies.
Warlord_Draco 11-08-06, 03:32 AM	also its a stupid idea that didnt really make sense, I'm guessing gary cygax just thought the trash compactor scene in the original star wars was kool...
Pandaemoni 11-08-06, 04:51 AM	I don't think it hurts anything to add it back. I suspect it was taken away simply because electricity doesn't "bounce" in the way the spell used to suggest. Personally, I never found it annoying or overly time consuming. Especially with a battlegrid, is it really hard to count out 12 inches and eyeball an angle of deflection or two? (It's not like you even have to be "accurate" on the angles...nothing says that magical lightning even has to follow an "angle of incidence = angle of reflection" rule. The lightning could come in at a 45° angle of incidence, and leave at a 90° angle, if the DM and player agree on that.) Even if you assume an "angle of incidence = angle of reflection" rule applies, it's like playing pool and lining up the angles for a bank or kick shot. No one ever complains banks slow up the game. If anything, most people complain that Lightning Bolt is Fireball's less-useful cousin anyway. Even with this ability, I suspect fireball will reign supreme, so I do not think it's overpowered. The only question, then, is whether it's fun for your game. If it is, then go for it. How about this for a rule? A lightning bolt can "bank" once off a surface at the player's option. The angle the bolt leaves that surface is determined by the player, but the total distance traveled still cannot exceed 120 feet. If the lightning bolt hits a second solid surface, it is absorbed (doing normal damage to that surface). That allows the player to bank his lightning bolt around party members in certain circumstances without having an unobstructed line of sight to his target.
Sildatorak 11-08-06, 09:42 AM	I think the bouncing LB is more dangerous than the normal one to the wizard's party. If you shoot it straight down the hall, it is probably going to bounce back, especially with the much longer range of the 3e LB compared to the 2e. If you're going to bring back a part of the old bolt, I'd bring back the part where it doesn't have to start right at the caster. Just pick a point allong its line of effect, and the bolt starts from there. To keep it reasonably balanced, though, I'd still keep the spell's range 120 feet so you aren't picking up additional range with it, just bypassing your allies. As a note of clarification on the 2e LB, the official stance on it (from the High Level Campaign book), was that if a creature was caught by multiple bounces it still only took damage once, but the result of its saving throw was based on its worst save.
syrinth 11-08-06, 10:15 AM	Ah, hmmm... So many things to consider...
tarkin 11-08-06, 11:08 AM	A "bouncing" spell causes huge problems. The idea is that you are in the area of effect twice, so you should take damage twice. But, what about large creatures in a fireball? They are in the area of effect FOUR times, so shouldn't they take damage 4 times? The existing rules work well. Only spells that particularly state that being in an area of effect twice does damage multiple times, such as Meteor Swarm. Note how Meteor Swarm is a ninth level spell?
RecycledDM 11-08-06, 01:06 PM	The old "bouncing" lightning bolt was mainly a DM "gotcha." As in, "Oh, you cast lightning bolt at the door, eh...well it bounces back and hits YOU...GOTCHA!" Sounds to me like you'd like to be able to "shape" your lightning bolt... How about this houserule for lightning bolt...it goes in up to a 120-foot line, but the caster can put up to "x" 45-degree bends in that line. The line cannot cross itself. "x" could be 3, or 1 per 3 caster levels, etc. With this houserule, you can arc a lightning bolt around allies. You can cast lightning bolt around a corner. Such a rule might promote lightning bolt from fireball's "ugly little sister" to a very useful spell under the right circumstances.
Pandaemoni 11-08-06, 01:17 PM	I think we could all agree on a flat "no creature takes damage more than once from the same Lightning Bolt" rule.
yonman 11-08-06, 01:42 PM	In the "old" lightning bolt bouncing days, I would put Electricity protection on myself and then cast lightning bolt perpendicular to a wall in front and behind me with a monster inbetween, the lightning bolt would bounce from wall to wall back and forth. Because it was a perpendicular firing arc, the lightning bolt would continue until all 120' of it's length was extinguished. Therefore 10' space between 2 walls = 12 bounces of damage to the monster and with protection from electricity wizard took 0 to little damage. Ya it's kinda ridiculously overpowered.