Powergaming: Understanding Area of Effect in D&D4E

Area of Effect powers, or AoE, are pretty common in 4^th Edition D&D. No longer are they limited to Wizards, but can be found in the arsenal of many non-spellcasters, such as Fighters, as well as being used by many monsters. It’s thus pretty important to a understand them… and once you have that, how to use Area of Effect powers in the most optimal way possible.

Unlike previous editions, some effort has been made to make them a bit easier to quantise on a square grid, with the amusing side-effect of square explosions. In addition, all area powers are given a certain classification, which drastically changes how they are used. However, the PHB is really terrible at explaining all of these. If you want to read it, the PHB section starts on page 271, in the Combat chapter. However, I’ll try to explain things in a bit of an easier way.

For all powers where you attack multiple creature, you roll individual attack rolls for each target, but damage just once and apply it to all targets which you hit.

Lets start with the different types of attack:

A Close Burst attack emanates from you, hitting everything within a certain number of squares of you. When a Fighter attacks all adjacent foes, that’s a Close Burst 1. When a Wizard fries everything within 3 squares of him in all directions, that’s a Close Burst 3. A Close Burst attack generally doesn’t hurt the character making the attack, nor does it provoke an Opportunity Attack. This category also, for some reason, includes many powers that affect allies, such as the Cleric’s Healing Word, and other Leaders’ basic healing powers.

An interesting suggestion from the Comments is nickname these “Nova” effects. This conveys the meaning pretty well, without creating so much confusion by the similarity to other names.

A Close Blast attack creates a square effect with sides of the given size. For example, a Close Blast 3 creates a 3×3 square. This square touch your square in some way: this can be corner to corner. A Close Blast does not provoke an Opportunity Attack, nor does it hurt you. A typical blast is something like the Wizard’s Burning Hands spell. Most spells that were Cones in previous editions are now Close Blasts.

The Area Burst is the standard ranged AoE spell. Fireball is an Area Burst. An Area Burst specifies to values: the size, and the range. The size is the radius of the effect, not the side length: this is an important difference from Close Blast effects. The range is how far away you can place the centre square (“origin square”) of the effect. For example, a Fireball is Area Burst 3 within 20, so you choose a square within 20 squares, and then the Fireball extends 3 squares in every direction, creating a 7×7 square, like so:

Because of how this works, an Area Burst and Close Blast of the same actual size have different  numerical sizes, as is shown in the example below.

An Area Burst can hurt you, so be careful. Note that Cover for an Area Burst applies for when the Cover is between the origin square and the target, not between you and the target. Using an Area Burst power does provoke an Opportunity Attack.

A Wall is obviously a special case. You place each square of the wall as you like, as long as each touches another square along an edge, and all squares are within the range. Remember that the wall doesn’t have to be straight! If your wall is long enough, you can completely surround a foe; this is even easier if they’re next to a regular wall, or, even better, in a corner. Using a Wall power does provoke an Opportunity Attack.

This shows some valid positions for various Area of Effect powers:

I made the dungeon tiles by following our own Dice of Doom Dungeon Tile Tutorial.

Now… for some strategy.

If a foe is hit by any part of the Area of Effect, then that’s enough. You do not need to centre an attack on a foe when glancing them will do. This can stop you hitting your friends.

For example, say you’re fighting an Ogre, and you’re trying to hit it with a Close Blast 3 power. You don’t want to get too close, but there’s a stupid Fighter between you and it. Remember, Close Blast must be adjacent to you, so you can’t fling the effect into the distance. You could:

More about that later… keep reading.

If there’s only a single friend, you can do this:

4E has us thinking in grids so much, we forget we can do this. The Areas created by Bursts and Blasts are actually cubes, so it’s possible to do this:

There has been a bit of discussion about this in the Comments section, and the rules in the PHB and DMG are a bit fuzzy on whether Blasts and Bursts are actually cubes. However, in addition to just making sense, I found the a reference to this in the WotC D&D forum Q&A. It says:

“How do area effects function in a 3-D environment?
Since vertical distances are measured the same as horizontal distances, they take on a cube shape.”

This is consistant with what few rules there are in the books, and makes sense.

If we assume that you want to avoid hitting yourself and friends too much, there are plenty of ways to avoid it. One important one is using the terrain to block the effect. Firstly, you can throw an Area Burst power into a corner or near a wall, which makes it basically take up less space. Secondly, you can use a power in a way that there is cover between either you and your friend (for Close Blast powers), or between the origin square and your friend (for Area Burst powers). Like so:

In the PHB, Line of Sight is on page 273, Cover is from page 280.

Obviously, you don’t want to give your targets cover, so knowing exactly how the rules work is handy. Of particular importance is how you can basically peek around corners: in the Close Blast example above, none of the affected squares get cover from the crate, because you can draw a line from the corner of the caster’s square to any point in the target square without passing through the obstacle. Going along the edge doesn’t grant cover, although it does block Line of Sight, which is why the Fighter isn’t hit. The caster doesn’t quite have cover against any of the squares either, but he would have cover (and not grant cover) to a square one left of the leftmost square in the middle row of the Close Blast.

Here’s an example of exactly how cover interacts with an Area power: this is an Area Burst 3, like Fireball.

(This picture is the second version, the first was… a little inaccurate, since I forgot to account for Line-of-Effect properly)

As you can see, this is pretty much as you’d expect. There are a few interesting cases: being behind cover in the same row as the origin, like the bottom middle square, is safe, but if the cover is not in line with the origin square, like behind the wall at the top, then it’s far more dangerous. Depending on exactly how you treat those small walls make change a few square to Superior Cover: for example, if you rule that you cannot trace a line to the bottom-right square of that top-wall square, then it’s Superior Cover.

If you have the book Martial Power, and you have a Warlord buddy, there is a neat Level 6 Utility called Forward Observer which allows the Warlord to ‘spot’ targets for other members of the party, allowing them to ignore Cover or Concealment. Plus, the Warlord gets to pretend he’s a scout in BF1942 spotting for artillery.

My first 4E character was a Wizard, and I wanted to cast Sleep. Another party member, a Warlock, was in the Area. I thought, “No worries, Warlocks are casters, they have good Will defences, right?” Wrong. Infernal Warlocks have lousy Will defences, as was soon demonstrated by him falling asleep.

Knowing what your fellow party members can and cannot resist is quite important. Some examples of this include:

• Plenty of Hitpoints: A Fighter can shrug off a few minor attacks, and it may be worth it to hit them.
• Resistances: A Tiefling, for example, has Fire Resistance, so hitting them with a Fire power is probably not going to hurt them much.
• Other Abilities: A Warden (PHBII) can shrug off Save-Ends effects (and they also have lots of HP ), so hitting them with such a power is reasonably acceptable.

Dice of Doom does not accept responsibility for any friendly-fire incidents.

There are plenty of ways to Push, Pull, and Slide enemies, so you can gather foes into a nice pattern before hitting them with an Area of Effect power. This can be done by:

• Using a power one turn then the next
• Using an Action Point to use two powers
• Using teamwork

Powers that Push/Pull/Slide multiple foes are obviously better. For example, Thunderwave, a Wizard At-Will which pushes, can do something like this, obviously grouping the foes nicely for a follow-up attack:

Depending on what powers you have at your disposal, you can pull off all sorts of neat combos. For example, the Fighter power Come and Get It draws foes adjacent to you: you can then follow up with a Close Burst. Look at how your powers interact with others, and the powers of other members of the party, and you’ll find all sorts of good tactics.

Obviously, target priority is a more general issue than just for Area of Effect powers, but it’s still important. It’s tempting to go throwing AoE powers at Minions as soon as the combat starts, but unless the power is an At-Will, you’re wasting it. Let the Fighter Cleave into the Minions, or let the Wizard Scorching Burst them. Whilst Area of Effect powers may do less damage than single-target powers, they are still effective against dangerous targets, and some of the better ones carry nice Conditions, such as Daze. An excellent choice for AoE powers is groups of Artillery or Controller monsters, which are generally weak defensively but dangerous. For example, a group of goblin archers hiding behind the melee ones are a perfect choice.

In addition, you should make sure of your target before you open fire. It’s pretty depressing letting loose a Daily Area power on a group of monsters, only to find they are Minions (again, I learned this the hard way). Of course, this may depend on the DM: some DMs let the players know when certain monsters are Minions.

Sometimes you need to realise that just because a power is Area or Close doesn’t mean you need to use it like that. Say there is a group of orcs in melee with your Fighter, and a single spellcaster in the back. If the spellcaster is particularly powerful, then you may want to use an AoE power on it, even if it means hitting just one target, if the power inflicts good damage or a good Condition, like Stun or Daze. Don’t immediately use an Area power on the largest group of monsters just to hit more targets.

This applies not just to using powers, but choosing them as well. Having an arsenal entirely consisting of Area powers makes you as versatile as a burnt waffle. If you have the option of AoE At-Will powers (like Wizards), make sure you have at least 1 single-target power, or expect to have to carry a crossbow. Throwing around Scorching Bursts in a tiny room and hurting half the party in the process is rarely excused by, “I didn’t take Magic Missile”.

So, I hope this has been handy in helping you get the most out of your Area of Effect powers. Hang around for more Powergaming articles for both 3.5 and 4E D&D. Happy gaming!

Moral for the day: “People who live in wooden houses shouldn’t throw fireballs.”

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