Official Ruling on Stinking Cloud?

[Eldorian]

In my game last night we destroyed an encounter with a horde of goblinoids with stinking cloud. We ruled that only voluntary movement makes you take damage. It still inflicted about 6 minion deaths and a total of about 60 damage in the course of the battle. Our wizard took the lead in damage dealt and killing blows hehe. Not that we keep track =P Silly goblins and their 5 square wide tunnel.

 

[Harr]

From the Concealment rules box in page 281 of the PHB, creatures need to be non-adjacent to each other to qualify to have total concealment from one another:

Concealment: The target is in a lightly obscured square or in a heavily obscured square but adjacent to you.

Total Concealment: You can’t see the target. The target is invisible, in a totally obscured square, or in a heavily obscured square and not adjacent to you.

This is consistent with the "trace lines from one corner of the attacke's square to all corners of the target's square" method, interpreting that adjacent corners aren't blocked since there's no space between them... So even if they're in the cloud, if they are adjacent they are only concealed from one another, not totally concealed.

(Edit -> Well, I guess it would depend on whether you interpret the cloud as being "totally" obscured instead of "heavily" obscured, but I wouldn't, it's described as steam-like, I don't think steam TOTALLY obscures vision like pitch darkness would... more like a heavy smoky obscurement.)

(Later Edit -> After reading all those rules together with the DMG errata for that section... this is just another gaffe from WotC with rules clarity and execution. What those powers like Stinking Cloud and Wall of Fog SHOULD be telling you is simply whether the zone they create is Lightly, Heavily or Totally Obscured, NOT whether they "block line of sight" or "grant concealment" or whatever. It looks like one camp of rules writers interpreted the issue one way, and at least one other camp interpreted it another way, and they both got their own interpretation into the books in a different place or within different powers, and the discrepancies were not culled in editing. Until that gets fixed or if it ever does get fixed, you just have to decide for yourself what "type" of obscurement it is and use the rule on page 281 to apply it. I would say Stinking Cloud = either heavy or light, but definitely not total.)

You're probably right about the forcing movement not triggering the damage, though I can't find any rule about that specifically. But if you look at page 285, Forced movement 1) does not trigger opportunity attacks, 2) is not hindered or affected by difficult terrain, and 3) does not count as a move against the target's speed... from these three I think it's pretty sfae to conclude that forced movement is NOT meant to trigger stuff like Stinking Cloud's damage, or any zone-entering harmful effects in general.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess one very simple way of looking at is this. If you sit in the cloud of poisonous vapors, breathing them for the full six seconds between your turns, you take damage once, at the begining of your turn. Why should you take more damage for being in it less time, if you move out, and get pushed back in?

Nothing to do with the letter of the rules, just a sanity check.

 

[Dwarmaj]

The problem with only calculating damage on the start of a turn or voluntary entry is that a wizard could thunderwave his party through a monsters Blade Barrier and no BB damage would be taken.

 

[DracoSuave]

Blocking line-of-sight hurts melee attacks as much as ranged.

'But, Draco, what do people fighting in the cloud do then?'

They get out of the cloud. That's the point.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think Tony is right about most of the rules, but I think it's pretty clear cut that entering the cloud causes damage whether or not the movement is voluntary.

There is no general rule about forced movement into damaging terrain not causing damage. In fact, the general rule that creatures about to be forced into damaging terrain get a saving throw to fall prone and avoid going into the damaging terrain implies very strongly that the general rule is that creatures can take damage from being forced into hazards or zones.

There is no need to keep track of whether or not a monster already took damage. If the creature was pushed into the cloud, it takes damage from entering the cloud (one of the explicit conditions under which the spell deals damage). If that creature then begins its turn in the cloud, it takes damage again since it meets the condition for taking damage--begins its turn inside the cloud.

If you are concerned about manuevers that push a foe into, out of and back into the cloud doing damage more than once per push, it would seem perfectly reasonable to rule that a creature only enters the cloud once per movement--so if you push him in and out and in and out, he still only takes damage once, but if you push him through the cloud (in and out once) and the fighter then pushes the monster back into the cloud, it takes damage twice. Is there potential to exploit this tactic? There is certainly some potential to do so. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. Combinations of powers from the same and different characters is what makes 4th edition interesting. Otherwise it would simply be using the same powers in the same order every encounter.

 

[DracoSuave]

Stinking Cloud doesn't create obscured terrain. It flat out blocks all lines of sight.

Let's say you're in the cloud on the corner.

Corner A is completely inside the cloud. Any line from it is blocked completely.
Corner B and C are touching the edge of the cloud. According to 273, touching such an effect is enough to negate them as candidates for line of sight.
Corner D, the corner of the cloud, is also negated for the same reason. Line of sight doesn't have to -cross- such an effect, it merely has to -touch- it.

To determine whether you can see a target, pick a corner of your square and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of that target's space. You can see the target if any if at least one line doesn't pass through or touch an object or an effect-such as a wall, a thick curtain, or cloud of fog-that blocks your vision.

By definition, every part of every square in a zone of Stinking Cloud is touching an effect that blocks your vision.

So: If A and B are beside each other in the cloud, they cannot see each other. If A is outside and B is inside, they cannot see each other.

If A and B are outside against the cloud's boundry, they can see each other just fine. Concealment only cares if the obstruction -blocks- the sight line, but not if it touches it.

 

[Harr]

Nothing to do with the letter of the rules, just a sanity check.

But why shouldn't it have anything to do with the letter of the rules? If the rules seemed to support taking the damage on forced movement, I would make it take the damage of forced movement.

Anyway I think the point is that the rules are ambiguous enough that any DM can make whatever ruling they want on it for now, which is what we should do.

 

[Harr]

In fact, the general rule that creatures about to be forced into damaging terrain get a saving throw to fall prone and avoid going into the damaging terrain implies very strongly that the general rule is that creatures can take damage from being forced into hazards or zones.

Hm, that rules as I understand it is for when a creature is about to be pushed off a cliff with forced movement; the creature can make a saving throw that represents the creature grabbing hold of the ledge at the last minute. Shouldn't apply to Stinking Cloud.

Besides, the rule is not about "damaging" terrain which is a generic term without any meaning in the rules, it's about "hindering" terrain which is a very specific type of terrain, one which Stinking Cloud is not. So extrapolating something from hindering terrain rules is neither less nor more valid than extrapolating it from difficult terrain rules... except the extrapolation from the difficult terrain rule is backed up by the Opportunity Attack rule. So I'm going with that one.

There is no need to keep track of whether or not a monster already took damage. If the creature was pushed into the cloud, it takes damage from entering the cloud (one of the explicit conditions under which the spell deals damage). If that creature then begins its turn in the cloud, it takes damage again since it meets the condition for taking damage--begins its turn inside the cloud.

Hm, I guess I could be persuaded by this, except for the fact that it creates an automatic double-hit. Even if the in-out-in-out thing isn't abused, the creature still 1) takes damage when being forced into the cloud and 2) unavoidably takes damage again upon starting his turn. I don't really like the sound of that.

That said, if official word from WotC comes down about this, I'd be happy to make the change.

Edit -> I guess what gets me about this is that if the Obscured Terrain rules aren't for things like clouds and fog and smoke... then what the heck are they FOR?? I mean that's what you've got: partial darkness... stuff like branches and leaves... and stuff like clouds, smoke, mist and fog. That's it. Those are the obscuring terrains. *There's nothing else* to use those rules on.

Then I've got page 62 of the DMG giving me fog and mist and pretty much the only example of what obscuring terrain can be, but then we have the power itself not mentioning that at all and making reference to line of sight, where the PHB page 273 cheerfully tells me that yeah clouds are also one of the things that block line of sight.

It's easy to make one interpretation and feel that it's clear-cut and obvious if you look at only one part of the rules, but look at the whole thing and it's pretty apparent that something isn't right.

 

[DracoSuave]

Because spell effects aren't terrain unless said spell effect says so. The power and the PHB entry on line of sight gives you everything you need to resolve it.

Secondly, there's three different kinds of obscured terrain, each behaves differently. You can't really classify the spell as 'obscured terrain' because the spell has an explicit effect that doesn't match the description of obscured terrain.

Also, the weapon rules have nothing to do with this effect either, just because it does damage.

To reiterate: If you're in the cloud, every part of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so you cannot be seen by anyone. And every corner of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so no one can be see by you. Touching is all that's required to disqualify a candidate-line from being disqualified. And if all candidate-lines are disqualified? Can't be seen.