Pantagruel666's Profile

For creatures, I assume that the space it emanates from is the same as the space it is attackable from. Whether plasmoid tentacles can be attacked, and whether doing so damages the main body, is not specified, which usually means no, as creatures that have extensions that can be attacked (such as an elder oblex) say so.

Quote from kenclary >>

Thus, for the purposes of emanations, limiting objects to the creature space rules is a fine ruling that would actually solve this internet argument.

It's a problem for objects, because a lot of objects do not occupy a space. It's definitely the intended behavior for creatures.

Tell the players what you want and see if they'll agree to it.

Quote from Athanar90 >>

But the rules for an Emanation don't say the Emanation must extend from every part of the creature or object. The Tube of Darkness thing is just as insane of a reading as saying the aura would stretch when an affected Plasmoid reaches out 10 ft. with Shape Self.

The rules do in fact say that the emanation must extend from every part of the creature or object. There is a plausible argument that the intent is that it extends from a creature's space, because having the aura change shape when you extend your arms is annoying, but as written and as used, it extends from all parts equally.

Quote from Athanar90 >>

 Clearly you both misunderstand. The point would be a point ON the creature or object, that would be defined as the actual center of the spell. Whatever point that is wouldn't change for the duration of the spell. 

No, I don't misunderstand, I just disagree. The text says that an emanation extends from the creature or monster, not from a point on the creature or monster, and claiming it comes from a single point changes the meaning of the text substantially. Given that the actual examples we have are all consistent with the natural reading of the text and inconsistent with your preferred interpretation, the obvious solution is that your interpretation is wrong.

Quote from Athanar90 >>

Due to this combination of text, the Tunnel of Darkness trick goes against RAW. It isn't the entire object that's emitting darkness, it's a point on the object. 

If that was the case, the rules text for emanation would say so. It does not, and the existing text is incompatible with it extending from a point.

Quote from AntonSirius >>

And now we're right back around to the top of the argument, because that simply is not Rules As Written. You have to infer the existence of the exception to the AoE point of origin rules from things like monster statblocks, which is RAI, not RAW

 No you don't. You don't have to infer the exception from anything, because the exception is stated overtly. The rules for an emanation say how it works (it extends from an object to a defined distance), and that overrides the general rules for AoEs.

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

It's gonna be a 4-5 hours one-shot. I think allowing a long rest would make the dungeon too easy...

Only if a lot of encounters are being skipped. Most of those fights are 'tough but winnable' for first level PCs; they almost certainly will take damage and expend resources, and first level characters just don't have a lot of resources to expend, I would expect them to be pretty well tapped out after three encounters.

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

 Well, the book doesn't say for how many players it is balanced. 🥺

The default is generally 4. Looking at those encounters:

4 person budget is 200 (low), 300 (medium), 400 (high)

• 3 worgs is 300 xp
• 2 animated armors is 400 xp
• 6 giant wolf spiders and 4 spiders is 340 xp
• 2 ghouls is 400 xp
• 2 giant spiders is 400 xp
• 3 shadows is 300 xp

That looks like it's designed for 4 PCs. I would consider them individually winnable battles, though I would hope there's at least one long rest and a couple short rests assumed (also, when are the PCs expected to hit level 2? There's 2140 xp there). However, it's potentially pretty rough, so I would keep track of how parties do and adjust.

Since all of those are multi-enemy encounters, it's pretty easy: just increase number of enemies by 50% (assuming it was balanced for 4. If it was balanced for 5, it's only +20%, which is harder to do).

Quote from AntonSirius >>

That "so what?" is how you end up with an 80-foot darkness tunnel when you cast it on a rope

Honestly, that is kind of a 'so what', that's more in the range of 'stupid PC tricks' than anything actually useful. The point was that, in cases where rules are legitimately unclear, it's useful to look at intent to decide how to resolve the lack of clarity.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

I’m not tracking your math on the health to DPR relationship. All other things being equal, double the health doesn’t alter their round by round damage output, so while they’d do about twice as much damage overall if a fight goes twice as long, I don’t see how it compounds into four times as much.

If you just use published monsters, the way you get a monster with more health is... find a higher CR monster. A higher CR monster also does more damage (generally both health and damage output roughly scale with (CR+1)).

If you just give a monster more health, sure, that doesn't increase its damage.

Sounds like the World of Warcraft book will have extensive use of mythic bosses. Which makes sense given the source material.

Solo boss fights in 5.5e suffer from two major problems:

1. The encounter building rules do not properly account for the power of numbers (5.0 had rules that were extremely annoying to use, 5.5e just discarded them without replacement). A single CR 10 (5,900 xp) is a much easier fight than 5x CR 4 (5,500 xp).
2. Non-legendary monsters aren't built to be good boss fights (even legendary monsters are only mediocre)

In general, your choices for solution are

1. Don't use solo bosses. In your example, a party of 4 level 8 PCs has a High difficulty of 8,400 xp, so you can just pad your encounter with 3xwarrior veteran (total 8,000 xp) and up to 16xwarrior infantry. This greatly reduces the importance of a single failed save.
2. Build custom monsters for bosses.

Quote from DrakojaPax >>

Sure if one got pushed, the normal push rules would apply. I'm thinking here more generally of losing balance from getting hit. I suppose on a regular tile you wouldn't collapse from a hit, but the carpet is flying and you have limited space to maintain balance. Maybe nothing is needed, dunno.

For an attack that knocks a rider prone, you can use the same rules as you would for riding a horse.