Splitting damage of area effect spells?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

After all these years of gaming and discussing the game online, it's rare when something comes up that I've never witnessed, heard of, or thought of before. This is one of those times. I was discussing the game with an old friend who was weaned on 1E AD&D, and how we played. He mentioned something that I've literally never even heard of being done before. I've also never seen it discussed online, that I can remember.

The topic was area effect spells (such as fireball). I just the other day found out that how his DM handled damage was that the total damage of an area effect was split up amongst all those within the area of effect. For example, if a fireball did 30 pts. of damage, and there were 6 people in the area of effect, each took 5 pts of damage (30/6=5). And then there was the saving throw. Until we discussed this a few days ago, I've literally never seen it done that way. I never used that method. It was always EVERYONE in the area of effect suffered the same damage, so in the example above, all 6 PCs would suffer 30 pts of damage, with a saving throw for half.

To me, it seems like splitting up the damage weakens spellcasters significantly. After all, say there are 15 NPCs in the area of effect of the fireball that does 30 pts damage - that would mean each victim suffers just 2 pts of damage, or 1 pt with a saving throw. Sort of makes the spell useless as a mass enemy clearer.

Has anyone else ever played that way, or ever heard this discussed anywhere?

[McDeath]

First I've heard of it in A/D&D. I want to say it sounds familiar in a different RPG or CRPG but I don't recall.

[garhkal]

After all these years of gaming and discussing the game online, it's rare when something comes up that I've never witnessed, heard of, or thought of before. This is one of those times. I was discussing the game with an old friend who was weaned on 1E AD&D, and how we played. He mentioned something that I've literally never even heard of being done before. I've also never seen it discussed online, that I can remember.

The topic was area effect spells (such as fireball). I just the other day found out that how his DM handled damage was that the total damage of an area effect was split up amongst all those within the area of effect. For example, if a fireball did 30 pts. of damage, and there were 6 people in the area of effect, each took 5 pts of damage (30/6=5). And then there was the saving throw. Until we discussed this a few days ago, I've literally never seen it done that way. I never used that method. It was always EVERYONE in the area of effect suffered the same damage, so in the example above, all 6 PCs would suffer 30 pts of damage, with a saving throw for half.

To me, it seems like splitting up the damage weakens spellcasters significantly. After all, say there are 15 NPCs in the area of effect of the fireball that does 30 pts damage - that would mean each victim suffers just 2 pts of damage, or 1 pt with a saving throw. Sort of makes the spell useless as a mass enemy clearer.

Has anyone else ever played that way, or ever heard this discussed anywhere?

I've heard of it done before, By rank newbies, TIL they eventually realize they were doing wrong, and correct it..

However, i have had one DM who (qurikly) did it where you ROLL the damage INDIVIDUALLY, for each person in the AOE.. So if you had say 6 targets in the AOE of your fireball, that was 6d (cause you were sixth level), you'd roll EACH PERSON's damage individually.. THEN they half it if they made their save.
So target one could say take 21 damage/11 if he made the save, target 2 could take 18/9, target three could take 13/7, target four could take 20/10, target five could take 24/12, and target six could take 16/8...

[Tawnos76]

After all these years of gaming and discussing the game online, it's rare when something comes up that I've never witnessed, heard of, or thought of before. This is one of those times. I was discussing the game with an old friend who was weaned on 1E AD&D, and how we played. He mentioned something that I've literally never even heard of being done before. I've also never seen it discussed online, that I can remember.

The topic was area effect spells (such as fireball). I just the other day found out that how his DM handled damage was that the total damage of an area effect was split up amongst all those within the area of effect. For example, if a fireball did 30 pts. of damage, and there were 6 people in the area of effect, each took 5 pts of damage (30/6=5). And then there was the saving throw. Until we discussed this a few days ago, I've literally never seen it done that way. I never used that method. It was always EVERYONE in the area of effect suffered the same damage, so in the example above, all 6 PCs would suffer 30 pts of damage, with a saving throw for half.

To me, it seems like splitting up the damage weakens spellcasters significantly. After all, say there are 15 NPCs in the area of effect of the fireball that does 30 pts damage - that would mean each victim suffers just 2 pts of damage, or 1 pt with a saving throw. Sort of makes the spell useless as a mass enemy clearer.

Has anyone else ever played that way, or ever heard this discussed anywhere?

I've heard of it done before, By rank newbies, TIL they eventually realize they were doing wrong, and correct it..

However, i have had one DM who (qurikly) did it where you ROLL the damage INDIVIDUALLY, for each person in the AOE.. So if you had say 6 targets in the AOE of your fireball, that was 6d (cause you were sixth level), you'd roll EACH PERSON's damage individually.. THEN they half it if they made their save.
So target one could say take 21 damage/11 if he made the save, target 2 could take 18/9, target three could take 13/7, target four could take 20/10, target five could take 24/12, and target six could take 16/8...

I have seen it done that way before as well. While it might make more sense from a standpoint of where they were actually standing in the circle of the explosion it just adds more time to the game needlessly. Unless the players really like doing it that way I have always sen it done as a single roll and that was the damage all took unless saved.

Never seen it the way that the other DM is explained to have made it one roll and divvied up the damage between all in the radius. That just seems wrong altogether and does significantly weaken the role of a caster in the game.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Garhkal wrote:

However, i have had one DM who (qurikly) did it where you ROLL the damage INDIVIDUALLY, for each person in the AOE.. So if you had say 6 targets in the AOE of your fireball, that was 6d (cause you were sixth level), you'd roll EACH PERSON's damage individually.. THEN they half it if they made their save.
So target one could say take 21 damage/11 if he made the save, target 2 could take 18/9, target three could take 13/7, target four could take 20/10, target five could take 24/12, and target six could take 16/8...

Now THAT is kind of a cool way of doing it that I've also never seen done. And it makes sense. Those in the front ranks would likely take more damage than those in the rear, or perhaps some PCs attained better cover than others. Lots of variables that would cause this method to make sense.

The only drawback to it, as far as I can see, is the amount of dice rolling. With a party of 8 PCs getting hit with a 10 dice fireball, that's 80 rolls of a d6 for the DM to do. Time consuming!

I gotta ask my friend (the one who split the total damage) if they ever got to the point where they realized the wizard was doing minimal damage and changed that method.

[garhkal]

IN the games where the DM Did that, he had his two sons help rolling.. HE also had them roll to hits and damages for monsters, when the party had a large battle... So it didn't really add that much extra time.