question on aoe spells in confined areas

[PeeWee]

Do spells like cloudkill in enclosed areas have overlapping effects?

Cloudkill: aoe- 20 foot radius; range- ten yards.

Say I'm walking down this hallway and up ahead I see a few potentially or known hostile npc's and I decide to use cloudkill.
I cast it in this small walkway which seems to be 3 feet wide and runs down some 15-20 feet or so up ahead. So, it chokes up the hall way and any open areas within that 20 foot radius. Since the cloud can not freely move out to cover a full 20 foot radius, do some of the vapors overlap?

I'm assuming not, but just want to check. I'm going on the idea that anything poisonous that is already killing you can't doubly damage you more or faster just because more might be in the area.

However, if there is actually a semblance between each patch of cloud and logistical data, and if you really saw overlapping cloud patterns in the enclosed areas, you would have to make a savings throw against each cloud patch. This is what confuses me.

It's almost like saying an npc walks into a booby trap spell from two of your casters. Both same spells overlap the area and each inflict dmg where the npc has to make seperate saving throws.

I would have not posted this if I didn't see the cloudkill spell dissipate in a random manner. By this I mean that some areas remain affected longer than others. In a wide open area, I can cast it, move away and then watch where it dissipates to move closer to the spell and when I touch the cloud, I can still take dmg. This lets me know that it isn't a "whole" spell that goes away entirely at the same time. AND from this alone, I'm basing my observation that each patch of cloud has it's own dmg. And I just didn't have enough time to experiment.

I also used entangle and I've seen where it can sporadically entangle my group quickly in some areas compared to using it in other areas.

Thanks for reading.

[andrewas]

OK. I think somewhat differently:

Each spell is a single entity with one damage constant. The random dissipation is merely graphical, the spell effects end simultaniously across the entire area. Not that it would have much effect anyway because the damage is applied per round and the differences are not greater than 1/10 a round in any case.

Seperate spells overlapping _do_ deal more damage. this is especialy evident with the high-level ones like Death Fog, but if you pay attention to the battle-text youll see it even with cloud-kill. the damages will appear more often than once per round if multiple spells are causing it. (This is easier to see when picking on a single enemy)

There is no effect upon casting the spell in an enclosed space. The area effect is a circle xx foot across, and the computer implements that. If you had a wall thin enough, it would be interesting to check whether cloudkill would take effect through it or not. but I cant, since im soloing at the moment.

Entangle is a bit different - you get a chance to save each round to see whether your held or free. This means that sometimes you will have dire rolls and get trapped the entire battle, and sometimes you will breeze through. Leveling up improves your saving throws, so in the latter parts of the game you will pretty much ignore this spell. Id guess the times you were caught quickly were down to poor luck. The spell works the same each time.

[Azred]

Don't make it all so difficult for yourself. Anyone entering the area of a Cloudkill spell suffers damage from the cloud, but they will not suffer extra damage if the area is smaller than the full area of the spell. One spell, one damage effect. If I cast 2 Cloudkills in the same area, then 2 damage effects happen. The computer cannot be as complex as real life would be (if there were spells in real life, that is). Did you ever wonder how high the effects of Cloudkill go? A 20-ft radius is 197.4 square feet if you think only 2-dimensionally but 33509 cubic feet if you consider all 3 dimensions; in a PnP game my mage would cast fly on himself and exit the area (even I wouldn't calculate the volumes of the rooms in the immediate area to see how much is filled up). If you see where the Cloudkill visual effects are appearing then don't go there.

Don't overthink the game or you might spoil the fun.