Rebounding Lightning Bolts and Double Damage?

[Deleted]

The following scenario unfolded in an OD&D game I was playing today:

In a panic (or perhaps recognizing that the end was nigh and deciding to take everyone with him), an evil magic-user unleashed a lightning bolt in close quarters. Some party members were adjacent to the wizard. There following diagram gives the basic set up:

Wall<-----10 feet----->Evil Wizard & Party Members<----------20 feet---------->Wall

The DM ruled that the lightning bolt hit the party members standing in front of him, struck the stone wall 20 feet to their rear, rebounded and struck the party members a second time, struck the wizard and hit the wall 10 feet to his rear, and then rebounded and hit the wizard a second time. Because the lightning bolt hit everyone twice, they took twice the rolled damage of the lighting bolt (or one half that amount for those who made their saving throw—which is still full damage of an ordinary lightning bolt).

I’ve never seen lightning bolts handled this way. Here is Underworld & Wilderness Adventures says on this topic (page 9):

"While some referees allow Fire Balls and Lightning Bolts to be hurled in confined spaces, blasting sections of the stone equal to the remainder of their normal shape, it is suggested that the confined space cause these missiles to rebound toward the sender, i.e., a Lightning bolt thrown down a corridor 40 feet long will rebound so as to reach its stated length of 6” (60 feet underground), and this will mean the sender is struck by his own missile. It may be compromised, allowing say two feet of stone wall to be destroyed (allowing one foot of stone destroyed for every ten feet the space is short the full distance) and rebounding the missile one-half the distance short."

Men & Magic’s description of the lightning bolt spell says much the same thing with respect to rebounding (page 25): "If the space is not long enough to allow its full extension, the missile will double back to attain 6”, possibly striking its creator."

So the rebound ruling seems sensible enough, but the doubling of damage less so. I’ve always seen lightning bolt (like fire ball) treated as an area of effect spell—the damage rolled represents the damage taken by anyone within the area of effect—i.e., the damage cannot be doubled by multiple strikes as a result of rebounding. Admittedly, the rule is a bit open-ended, but it only refers to the caster possibly being hit by rebounds. It seems like second strikes with double damage would have been mentioned if intended.

Have you seen lightning bolt handled this way before?

[coffee]

Very interesting post.

I have always seen the lightning bolt played that way, but I've always seen that in AD&D. I don't recall many lightning bolts in OD&D; my experience of actually playing is dwarfed by AD&D.

So I checked AD&D, and neither the Player's Handbook nor the Dungeon Master's Guide explicitly state that the damage is doubled.

So I don't have an official by-the-book ruling to give you. But conventionally, in my experience, that's the way it has been done.

[makofan]

I play it that the lightning bolt travels full distance, so it is possible to be struck twice

[tetramorph]

Dude, please just tell me that Ruprecht the wizard survived for my next session!

[talysman]

I never thought of it before, but after you described it, it seems obvious that a rebounding lightning bolt *should* do double damage. Well, sort of... you'd save for half damage both times, so you could wind up with full damage, 1.5 x damage, or double damage, depending on your save results.

[Deleted]

Looks correct to me.

[dizzysaxophone]

That's how I've always read it as well, however, I would do as @taylsman said and roll a save for both hits (and probably roll damage for both?). If there were quite a lot of people hit by the same lightning bolt though, I'd just take the 1 roll for half/full, and the one damage roll twice for simplicity.

[Deleted]

Thanks much for the responses. I appreciate the feedback.

It's interesting to me that the doubling of damage appears to be commonplace / the general consensus.

Coffee: I think the AD&D rules actually cut the other way. Though the term "area of effect" is absent from the OD&D rules regarding lightning bolts, the AD&D description expressly incorporates the notion in lieu of an understanding that a lightning bolt is a traveling missile that may strike opponents multiple times. The AD&D spell description states (page 74 of the PHB): "Upon casting this spell, the magic user releases a powerful stroke of electrical energy which causes damage equal to 1 six-sided die (d6) for each level of experience of the spell caster to creatures within its area of effect, or 50% of such damage to such creatures which successfully save versus the attack form." For what it is worth, Second Edition actually made this explicit, albeit with a twist (page 194 of the PHB): "The DM might allow reflecting bolts. When this type of lightning bolt strikes a solid surface, the bolt reflects from the surface at an angle equal to the angle of incidence (like light off a mirror). A creature crossed more than once by the bolt must roll a saving throw for every time it is crossed, but it still suffers either full damage (if one saving throw is missed) or half damage (if all saving throws are made)." Not that I'm suggesting that the OD&D rules should be interpreted in light of later rules sets. But I think AD&D does view lightning bolts more as an area-of-effect spell.

[coffee]

Yeah, that's the thing. I've seen it played as potential double damage for so long, it never occurred to me to actually read the text and see what it said.

Old lessons die hard.

I'm glad they clarified it in 2e.


As a side note, this was such an ingrained interpretation one friend of mine set up a trap with a chest in a 10 x 10 room: Open it and a lightning bolt goes off, criss-crossing over you 8 times. (That right there should have showed us how broken the interpretation was.)

Again, good discussion! Thanks for the thread.

[Deleted]

I prefer the OD&D interpretation; a lighting bolt is a thing, not just an area effect. And I LOVE the idea of the chest in a 10x10 room. But shouldn't it have hit six times, not eight?

Also note anything in the chest would have to make six saving throws, or possibly five.

[scottenkainen]

I used the "double damage rule" until I saw a deity's avatar taken down by a well-placed lightning bolt spell and thought, "Well, that was broken..."

Then I adopted 2nd ed. AD&D's "double saving throw rule" and have never gone back.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[archersix]

Oct 13, 2014 6:21:04 GMT -6 coffee said:

As a side note, this was such an ingrained interpretation one friend of mine set up a trap with a chest in a 10 x 10 room: Open it and a lightning bolt goes off, criss-crossing over you 8 times.

I think a lot of people came up with that idea. one of my characters got zapped by just such a trap back in the 80's!

[coffee]

Oct 13, 2014 12:01:24 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I prefer the OD&D interpretation; a lighting bolt is a thing, not just an area effect. And I LOVE the idea of the chest in a 10x10 room. But shouldn't it have hit six times, not eight?

It was 8 times because in AD&D the Lightning Bolt is 8" long. (Not sure why it changed while Fireball stayed the same.)

[scottyg]

Double damage is s common interpretation, but the intended message may have been simply that magic-users can zap themselves with this spell if they're not careful. Looking at it now and I'm leaning towards the latter. Any other references? Does it say anything under javelin of lightning, or the additional info in the DMG spell descriptions can be considered as a reference.

[coffee]

I checked the DMG, and it didn't say anything about double damage.

I'm quite convinced we've been getting screwed all this time.

[archersix]

How is it getting screwed? I don't get why you wouldn't get damaged every time you get hit by the bolt?

[talysman]

I don't get it, either... although I suppose you could argue that the damage for 3rd level ranged spells is supposed to be MU-level x 1d6, and doubling/tripling/etc. the damage is going against the spirit of the spell level system.

An option might be to restrict it to one saving throw and LVL x 1d6 damage, but minimum damage is equal to the number of times struck. So, if you are struck six times by a lightning bolt in a 10'x10' room, you take a flat 6 x LVL damage, or half that on a save.

[Deleted]

A lightning bolt is a "thing," so if it hits you, bounces off the wall, and hits you again, you're hit twice, just like if a bullet went through you, hit the wall, ricocheted, and hit you again.

Besides, it's funnier.

[Deleted]

It's the referee's world. If he or she says it works that way in the world, it works that way. It may be different on other worlds.

[scottenkainen]

Oct 15, 2014 3:39:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

A lightning bolt is a "thing," so if it hits you, bounces off the wall, and hits you again, you're hit twice, just like if a bullet went through you, hit the wall, ricocheted, and hit you again.

A sword is also a "thing", so if it hits you, and the wielder can hit you again in the same minute, then all swordsmen should get two attacks per round.

[Deleted]

Oct 15, 2014 7:34:36 GMT -6 scottenkainen said:

Oct 15, 2014 3:39:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

A lightning bolt is a "thing," so if it hits you, bounces off the wall, and hits you again, you're hit twice, just like if a bullet went through you, hit the wall, ricocheted, and hit you again.

A sword is also a "thing", so if it hits you, and the wielder can hit you again in the same minute, then all swordsmen should get two attacks per round.

: rolleyes :

The rules specifically say a lightning bolt rebounds.
The rules specifically say you get one attack per round.

Do try to keep up.

[waysoftheearth]

Oct 15, 2014 13:30:42 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Oct 15, 2014 7:34:36 GMT -6 scottenkainen said:

A sword is also a "thing", so if it hits you, and the wielder can hit you again in the same minute, then all swordsmen should get two attacks per round.

: rolleyes :

The rules specifically say a lightning bolt rebounds.
The rules specifically say you get one attack per round.

Do try to keep up.

To be fair scottenkainen says "hit you again in the same minute"; not necessarily in the same "round".

There can be many rounds of melee in a one minute combat-turn, so even a figure with only one attack each round could be engaged for multiple rounds, and would therefore have multiple melee attacks per minute (i.e., per turn of combat).

The man-to-man rules allow for multiple blows per round when equipped with light weapons. Swordsmen, for example, get two blows per round vs spear, pole-arm, halberd, and two-handed swords, and three blows per round vs pikes (if they can survive long enough to attack).

Holmes simplified all that fiddly "blows per round" stuff down to: heavy weapons (two-handed sword, battle axe, halberd, flail, morning star, and pole-arm) attack once per round; all other weapons (including swords) attack twice per round. TSR (EGG?) then edited Holmes' manuscript to convey instead that only "Light weapons such as the dagger allow two blows per round".

And also, a "Swordsman" is a 3rd level fighter, is he not?
My understanding is a 3rd level fighter should instead get three blows per round versus normal-types because he has 3 HD.

[Deleted]

We always had it rebound once, but not rebound additional times because it did not occur to us. However, I will adopt the rebound as many times as it takes and additional damage each time in future. I like it.

[Stormcrow]

It always seemed odd to me that a lightning bolt could rebound off its target even while doing full damage to that target. But in that case, if a lightning bolt doesn't miss, when WOULD it rebound?

The rules always say that the lightning bolt rebounds toward the caster. Do you guys do this, or do you assume something more like natural physics, where the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection?

[Hawklord]

I stumbled upon this exact question in Polyhedron magazine's "Dispel Confusion" column from issue # 13 from 1983. This was under the Dungeons & Dragons heading (as opposed to the AD&D heading).

Q: If a magic-user casts a Lightning Bolt that rebounds and hits a creature twice, what happens?

A: The creature must make one saving throw each time it is hit. If either saving throw is missed, the creature takes full damage. A Lightning Bolt will not do more than its rolled damage to a creature.

I like this. The target gets two chances to fail its save. The caster still has an advantage for bouncing a Lightning Bolt without introducing a skeezy way to get double damage from the spell.

The D&D "Dispel Confusion" queries were normally handled by Frank Mentzer, but he was likely busy working on the BECMI version of the Basic D&D set at that time. This issue's D&D answers were probably written by Jon Pickens, though Penny Petticord and Dave Cook are possibilities.

Tony