Questions about the Create Wall of Flame Sorcery spell

[Brootse]

What's the minimum depth of the wall made by Create Wall of Flame Sorcery spell? Can you make say 10cm thick wall, or does the wall have to be at least 1m thick?

Does it have to be one straight wall, or can you make eg. a circle out of it?

When you increase the strength of the spell, does the damage inflicted *and* the size increase at the same time? Or do you have to increase them separately?

[PhilHibbs]

32 minutes ago, Brootse said:

What's the minimum depth of the wall made by Create Wall of Flame Sorcery spell? Can you make say 10cm thick wall, or does the wall have to be at least 1m thick?

Does it have to be one straight wall, or can you make eg. a circle out of it?

The wall is "three meters square", so I guess it's a square, not a curve. I might allow a roll to bend it, maybe another roll on the spell skill while concentrating on it. As to the thickness, it doesn't say so I guess the thickness is fixed at... whatever the GM reckons is reasonable. Maybe it gets thicker as the Strength scales up, so you take more damage because it takes longer to get through it rather than it getting hotter.

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When you increase the strength of the spell, does the damage inflicted *and* the size increase at the same time? Or do you have to increase them separately?

By default the former - I think if the Strength had to be explicitly divided between size and damage, then it would say so.

Edited May 9, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Brootse]

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The wall is "three meters square", so I guess it's a square, not a curve. As to the thickness, it doesn't say so I guess the thickness is fixed at... whatever the GM reckons is reasonable. Maybe it gets thicker as the Strength scales up, so you take more damage because it takes longer to get through it rather than it getting hotter.

I think if the Strength had to be explicitly divided between size and damage, then it would say so.

So would it be a square with a 3m side, or 3 squares with one meter sides? And how tall would you reckon it to be?

[David Scott]

4 minutes ago, Brootse said:

What's the minimum depth of the wall made by Create Wall of Flame Sorcery spell? Can you make say 10cm thick wall, or does the wall have to be at least 1m thick?

In my mind this is covered by the "Active" nature of the spell. It says up to 3m square. so up to means it can be less so a base maximum 0.1 x 30m (= 3m square) seems reasonable, but you have to add more range to achieve this, as the starting range is only 10m. Personally I'd say 10 cm is the minimum effective thickness to cause damage.

4 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Does it have to be one straight wall, or can you make eg. a circle out of it?

Another approach, depending on the school would be add some limits to the spell. On a special you can create basic shapes, on a critical you have full "shape control".

A circle of 3m square gives a diameter of about 2m (https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/circle.php)

All sorcerers use this website 🙂 https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/geometricshapes.php

If you want to stand in a circle of fire with you in the middle and the wall 2m away from you, it's 23 cm thick:

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/annulus.php

4 minutes ago, Brootse said:

When you increase the strength of the spell, does the damage inflicted *and* the size increase at the same time? Or do you have to increase them separately?

yes as it's based on the strength

  

[David Scott]

6 minutes ago, Brootse said:

And how tall would you reckon it to be?

At least 2m for effect, beyond that I'd like likely say the spell has a volume of 6 cubic metres and each level of strength adds 2 cubic metres. This actually makes more sense overall.

[PhilHibbs]

29 minutes ago, Brootse said:

So would it be a square with a 3m side, or 3 squares with one meter sides? And how tall would you reckon it to be?

"Three meters square" is indeed ambiguous. I think the later statement "the area affected increases by 1 square meter" to me implies that it is 3x1 rather than 3x3. If it were the other way around, it would take a lot of Strength to merely double the size of the wall, and 3x3 is a LOT of wall of fire for a 1 point spell. That would mean that it starts out 3mx1m or 1mx3m or 1.732mx1.732m or some other dimension that adds up to three quare meters. For 1 extra Strength, it's 4 square meters, so 2mx2m, 1mx4m, 1.5mx3.2m, etc. I wouldn't impose a minimum width, if you are blocking a really narrow gap then you can make it just that wide and stretch all the way up.

When you initially asked about thickness, did you mean width? I assumed you meant the other dimension, the depth, how much you had to press through to get from one side of the wall to the other.

If it were less than 1m tall, it would be fairly easy to jump over. 1.5m should do for most opponents, I don't think Gloranthans have developed the Fosbury Flop, but eventually you will meet someone who can heroically leap over whatever you put in their way.

Edited May 9, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Brootse]

Thanks for the great answers!

Now, speaking of shapes, wouldn't a circle with the caster in the middle be the "natural" shape for the Wall of Flames, because then it would resemble the Fire rune?

 

[Brootse]

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

"Three meters square" is indeed ambiguous. I think the later statement "the area affected increases by 1 square meter" to me implies that it is 3x1 rather than 3x3. If it were the other way around, it would take a lot of Strength to merely double the size of the wall, and 3x3 is a LOT of wall of fire for a 1 point spell. It starts out 3mx1m or 1mx3m or 1.732mx1.732m or some other dimension that adds up to three quare meters. For 1 extra Strength, it's 4 square meters, so 2mx2m, 1mx4m, 1.5mx3.2m, etc.

When you initially asked about thickness, did you mean width? I assumed you meant the other dimension, the depth, how much you had to press through to get from one side of the wall to the other.

If it were less than 1m tall, it would be fairly easy to jump over. 1.5m should do for most opponents, I don't think Gloranthans have developed the Fosbury Flop, but eventually you will meet someone who can heroically leap over whatever you put in their way.

What I meant is that could the wall be eg. 0.1m*30m? Or even 0.01m*300m? Or is the minimum thickness or depth at least 1m? And yeah, since it's a 2 point spell, and gets one more sqm per point, it makes more sense if it creates a 3sqm wall instead of 9sqm wall.

And as for leaping over it, Orlanth the Adventurous has the Leap spell, and Jump is one of the possible skills you need to be a Wind Lord.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Brootse

[Shiningbrow]

Q: is there an awesome reason why "Mundane armour does not protect against this damage, although magical armour does"?

RE: the dimensions - yeah, for some reason it's expressed as a 2D object, not a 3D... Maybe it's a wall that's infinitely thin 😛

[gochie]

It really should be in cubic meters - like elementals - unless the thickness  is meant to always stay the same (1cm? 10cm?). 

[Kloster]

I consider it to be 10cm thick, like darkwall and lightwall. I think it has been forgotten in the spell description.