the hero wants to use blast in the area shown one space below the block. but since enemy figures block line of sight, is it possible to use it there, even if the four block monster is one spider?
blast and line of sight
Nope, the hero doesn´t have LOS to the target square.
I´m not certain whether he could attack the block square (=rubble?) and would hit both critters with a Blast 1.
Parathion said:
Nope, the hero doesn´t have LOS to the target square.
I´m not certain whether he could attack the block square (=rubble?) and would hit both critters with a Blast 1.
Don't think he can because a rubble token means the square isn't considered empty.
Big Remy said:
Don't think he can because a rubble token means the square isn't considered empty.
The monster figure also means the square isn't empty, but heroes can definitely target spaces with monsters in them. I don't think the rules have a straight answer for targetting a rubble space, but personally I wouldn't allow it. It just opens too many doors for ridiculous situations, not to mention making almost every rubble space on in the official dungeons useless for taking cover (there are relatively few places where rubble is more than one space deep and still provides effective cover.)
I WOULD, however, allow the hero to target the bottom right space of the "spider" and still hit the small monster with a Blast 2 attack. I wouldn't claim the other half of the "spider" blocks the explosion.
I'm gonna go ahead and totally disagree here. Rubble blocks line of sight because you can see the rubble but not what's behind it. Unless you have blast or breath, there is normally no reason to target a rubble space, but if you do, I can see no reason that you could not. In the breath example, it shows flames billowing over the rubble. I would totally allow both a rubble to be targeted as well as someone to "breathe" onto and over a rubble space. There's nothing that indicates to me that you couldn't throw a grenade at a boulder and have it explode there, damaging anyone within the grenades blast radius. This is just a "magical grenade."
Steve-O said:
Big Remy said:
Don't think he can because a rubble token means the square isn't considered empty.
The monster figure also means the square isn't empty, but heroes can definitely target spaces with monsters in them. I don't think the rules have a straight answer for targetting a rubble space, but personally I wouldn't allow it. It just opens too many doors for ridiculous situations, not to mention making almost every rubble space on in the official dungeons useless for taking cover (there are relatively few places where rubble is more than one space deep and still provides effective cover.)
I WOULD, however, allow the hero to target the bottom right space of the "spider" and still hit the small monster with a Blast 2 attack. I wouldn't claim the other half of the "spider" blocks the explosion.
Rubble has specifically been said to make a space "non-empty" which is why I said what I did.
Feanor said:
I'm gonna go ahead and totally disagree here. Rubble blocks line of sight because you can see the rubble but not what's behind it. Unless you have blast or breath, there is normally no reason to target a rubble space, but if you do, I can see no reason that you could not. In the breath example, it shows flames billowing over the rubble. I would totally allow both a rubble to be targeted as well as someone to "breathe" onto and over a rubble space. There's nothing that indicates to me that you couldn't throw a grenade at a boulder and have it explode there, damaging anyone within the grenades blast radius. This is just a "magical grenade."
After looking at the rules under blast, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with myself. Blast, unlike breath, is blocked by obstacles. While I still might contend you can target a rubble space, I would say that it couldn't extend out from the rubble space...at least I don't think so. It's really quite confusing.
Line of Sight example on page 10 specifically says that you can't target the rear squares of a large monster with a Blast attack when the front squares block LoS.
Steve-O said:
I WOULD, however, allow the hero to target the bottom right space of the "spider" and still hit the small monster with a Blast 2 attack. I wouldn't claim the other half of the "spider" blocks the explosion.
I assume you mean that you would allow this IF the hero moved so that he had LoS to the bottom right space of the spider?
There are lots of things in Descent that block LoS for some purposes but not for others. They don't do a good job of describing or categorizing stuff in the rulebook, but here's my system:
"Block" LoS: This is used for normal attacks. It's blocked by figures, rubble, fog*, walls, closed doors, rolling boulders, and crushing walls.
"Burst" LoS: This is used for determining legal spawn positions, and for tracing LoS from the center of a Blast** attack to see which figures are affected. It is NOT blocked by figures, but it's still blocked by rubble, fog*, walls, closed doors, rolling boulders, and crushing walls.
"Billow" LoS: Breath and Bolt attacks are said to "billow" around obstacles, and in addition to turning corners (within their templates), they can also ignore any obstruction that could be crossed by a figure with Fly. "Billow" LoS ignores figures, rubble, and fog, but is still blocked by walls, closed doors, rolling boulders, and crushing walls.
*Fog blocks LoS both in and out of any square, except from adjacent squares. I'm also not completely certain that it blocks Blast attacks, though since it blocks LoS I believe it does unless there's a rule that says otherwise--and, due to its peculiar properties, it only matters if you've got at least 2 ranks of Blast.
**I'm certain that I read somewhere that figures don't block LoS for purposes of Blast, but I can't actually find the reference now. Help would be appreciated.
I have no strong position about targeting a rubble space; there is clearly some exception for stuff in the origin and target spaces, since otherwise you couldn't make normal attacks at all, but they never say exactly what this exception does and does not cover, and rubble spaces are not shaded as being within LoS either in the LoS example on page 10 or the Blast example on page 22. Feanor's comments about how he would allow Breath attacks onto and through rubble are kind of a given, though, since the FAQ explicitly allows that.