Doubling up spells

[Veknironth]

Well, this is based on a discussion Mark and Kiralon were having in another thread, but I thought it warranted its own post. What happens when two or more area of effect spells are cast in the same area?

The first situation would be with clouds. If you have two or more clouds of slumber, does a person have to save more than once? Like each cloud has its own sleep number? Could the concentration of the clouds make for a denser cloud and thus require a higher number to save? The same goes for spells that have other mind altering effects. What if they were staggered? I think it's pretty clear that if two clouds abut, and you move from one to the next you have to save twice. But if you are in one, and move 10 feet and now you're in the first and the second one, do you need to roll a save for the second?

For clouds that do damage, like Cloud of Steam, would the damage be doubled, not affected, or somewhat higher? Again, is it just being in the area of effect, or would there be more steamy particles to burn/blind the person? I assume the temperature would be the same, there might be more particles that would conduct the heat to people in the cloud to increase damage.

What about two seperate spells that have similar effects? For example, you're in a cloud of ash AND a cloud of steam. Is that double damage? Do you have to save twice? What about Circle of Cold and Snow Storm? Do you just take the most deleterious effect, or combine the two since they are creating two separate things? What if you have two opposing damages like Cloud of Steam and Snow Storm? Do they cancel each other out, do they both do damage, or do you just take the difference (i.e. 10 pts of heat and 20 pts of cold = 10 pts damage)? If you hit someone in a Circle of Cold with a Fireball, how does that damage work out? What about something like Miasma and Stench of Hades?

Finally, does it matter if the spells are from different schools? Would it matter if one spell was a wizard spell and the other a warlock spell? The same question goes for wards vs spells, or psionics vs spells, or psionics vs wards.

-Vek
"And all of the other combinations I have missed."

[kiralon]

i would also add if a lower level one was active, would there just be damage from the first cast or both or none for the second. spells can also be cancelled at anytime so you can get the spell to damage twice in a round by casting, cancelling and casting again.

I'm going with the damage or save is done whenever spell is cast, but whichever one is the most powerful is the save each round or damage each round.
Stop you from casting a 1d6 damage per round spell to stop the one coming from the archmage that does 15d6 damage per round.

My thoughts behind this are the casters can stop their spells at any time, so they can stop the spell and recast it, so having a blue flame on you (for example) for the full 15 seconds does x damage, if the caster stops the spell and casts it again, so the spell isn't on you for the full 15 seconds, you take x+x damage, even though the magic is of the same intensity on you, it stopping and not burning you for a few seconds in the round and then starting again does more damage than the spell consistently burning you for the full 15 seconds. So if you have 15 lvl 5 warlocks in a round cast blue flame on you and then immediately cease the spell, you take 15x5d6 damage, even though the damage is 5d6 per round.

[Franko Tyrador]

I think there should be a save for each. Spells are pulled from 'the ether' and have their own individual fingerprint. If one were to walk into 6 clouds of slumber stacked on each other, then I think 6 saves are warranted. That being said, a caveat would be if opposing magic was cast, and then it GM number crunch, ie fire on ice or water on fire spells.

[The Dark Elf]

Save per each cloud.

Save clouds dont have cumulative damage but if you dont save again on the last cloud then the duration may now be longer.

Different clouds DO stack.

All IMHO.

[drewkitty ~..~]

No.
Save for each spell.
Get Damage or effects from those not saved from.

As for whether or not two CoS effects run concurrently or add up to a cumulative sum....depends on how evil/mean your GM is.