Why does Burning Arc deal damage to friendly units nearby?

[❤]

"This spell causes an arc of flame to leap from your fingers, burning one enemy nearby plus one additional enemy per 3 caster levels, each of which must be within 15 feet of the primary target."

Nothing in it says anything about damaging friendly units so why do I keep damaging my own characters when I use this spell?

[Gracey Face]

It doesn't, at least for me.

[Cutlass Jack]

Are you using Bolster metamagic?

[TripSin]

Two possibilities that I know of:

1) The target indicator provided to us by Owlcat is trash. It'll often hit targets it indicates won't be hit and will even sometimes not hit targets who it says will be hit

2) The bolster metamagic is bugged/incorrectly worded. It says it's only supposed to hit enemies within 5 meters of the target, but it also hits allies.

3) Some other Owlcat bug. I've had the fire snake spell do friendly damage before even though it's supposed to specifically ignore allies.

Welcome to another bug-ridden Owlcat game.

Oh, you said burning arc, not burning hands; so 1 is not applicable.

[ryjz]

Probably bolster, but when you say "friendly" do you mean a party member, a summon, or other friendlies present?

[❤]

Oh I didn't know about this bug with bolster metamagic. I have been using it so that's probably it. Now that I think about it, I've seen magic missiles deal AoE damage to allies too, probably when bolstered. And by friendly units I meant party members. Anyway good to know, thanks all!

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by Nixie Prankster 💗:

Oh I didn't know about this bug with bolster metamagic. I have been using it so that's probably it. Now that I think about it, I've seen magic missiles deal AoE damage to allies too, probably when bolstered. And by friendly units I meant party members. Anyway good to know, thanks all!

If you are referring to the rod, it's not a bug. I think it says it deals additional aoe damage in its description.

[❤]

Originally posted by Hybernian:

Originally posted by Nixie Prankster 💗:

Oh I didn't know about this bug with bolster metamagic. I have been using it so that's probably it. Now that I think about it, I've seen magic missiles deal AoE damage to allies too, probably when bolstered. And by friendly units I meant party members. Anyway good to know, thanks all!

If you are referring to the rod, it's not a bug. I think it says it deals additional aoe damage in its description.

It does mention AoE damage, but it's only supposed to be applied to enemies. Here is the full description of the rod (relevant section at the bottom):

"This rod grants its wielder the ability to make up to three spills they cast per day bolstered, as though using Bolster Spell feat.

Lesser rods can be used with spells of 3rd level or lower.

Bolster Spell: Spell now deals 2 more damage per die rolled to all its targets. Additionally, all enemies in 5 feet of the spell's targets are dealt 2 damage per die rolled of the original spell. The spell no longer applies precision damage."

So apparently it is doing that AoE damage to all units rather than just enemies atm.