Prismatic Sphere and Prismatic Wall

[Paul Migaj]

I was asked for a ruling on the Prismatic Sphere and Prismatic Wall spells from one of my players, and I need some advice.

The question is whether all (ranged, magic, melee) attacks targeting the wizard suffer the effects of the seven colors, or just melee attacks passing through the sphere or wall. The spell text from Prismatic Sphere states that "Other creatures that attempt to attack you or pass through suffer the effects of each color, one at a time."

My natural inclination is to assume this means or was intended to mean melee attacks, even ones from large creatures with a lot of reach. However, my player believes this means the prismatic sphere should also affect an archer attempting to shoot his wizard, or someone trying to cast a targeted spell at his wizard. I wanted to get a second, third and fourth opinion from fellow GMs and players. Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

[voideternal]

I believe Prismatic Wall/Sphere will affect ranged and magic attacks as per the Red / Orange / Indigo / Violet effects. That is to say, I think ranged / spell attacks against the caster will fail because of these layers.

I do not believe that an enemy archer will be forced 7 saves for each color, being burned, melted, electrocuted, ..., plane-shifted to another plane for shooting an arrow at the wall. I believe those effects befall the arrow and not the archer.

Unfortunately, I cannot defend the statement above other than citing common sense.

[Claxon]

Can you rephrase your question a bit? Because it's unclear what you're confused about.

Yes, prismatic wall/sphere affects all type of attacks. That it rather obvious if you look at the layers and see things like ranged non-magical weapon attacks are blocked by the red layer. The orange blocks magical ranged weapon attacks. So forth and so on, until there is basically nothing that can penetrate the prismatic effect.

As for the other effects of the wall such as the energy damage, poison, flesh to stone, insanity, and plane shift effects it seems rather obvious that only things passing through the prismatic wall or sphere are affected.

So, if your question is would ranged attackers be harmed because they make an attack across the prismatic spehre/wall my answer is no. Because common sense.

[Paul Migaj]

Thank you Claxon and voideternal.

Rephrasing: My player believes that a ranged attacker or a spellcaster would be harmed by the prismatic sphere if they attack the wizard within it (using spells or ranged attacks). The player's argument in favor of this is the quote in the prismatic sphere spell description that states "Other creatures that attempt to attack you... suffer the effects of each color".

For what it's worth, I also do not believe that the player is correct, but wanted to do my due diligence here on the boards.

[Gilarius]

If you are wanting a 3rd opinion, you can have mine too: your player is wrong and everyone else is correct. :)

[JohnHawkins]

Prismatic sphere/wall only damage those who come into physical contact with them. So shooting an arrow of spell through one while pointless is harmless

[Diego Rossi]

To give some rule citation in support to Claxon and co.:

Prismatic Wall wrote:

Effect wall 4 ft./level wide, 2 ft./level high

The spell define a effect that cover a specific area. Items or creature that don't touch it aren't affected by it, as with all other spells with a defined area of effect.