Auras and Pulses, Are they Spheres, Cylinders, Hemispheres or something else?

[Flib Jib]

So in the Small Rule Book Pg. 58-60 it reads:

Quote

An aura is centered on a model and radiates out in all directions from the edge
of the model’s base and moves with that model as it moves.

Quote

A pulse is an instant effect that is centered on a model and radiates out in all
directions from the edge of the model’s base.

The Rules also say that the Aura has the same Ht as the model, I assume this is in regards to LoS and blocking terrain restrictions but otherwise "radiates out in all
directions"

Quote

An aura has the same Ht as the model it comes from, unless specified otherwise.

So unlike Range and LoS, Auras and Pulses are measured in the 3rd dimension much like Vantage Points are, am I correct? 

 

 

A tricky side-note, if a piece of terrain like a bridge or balcony wasn't specified as having the 'Blocking' trait it wouldn't block LoS beneath the model and the Aura or Pulse would radiate through the floor the model was standing on and bellow correct?

[solkan]

If auras and pulses were measured in the 3rd dimension, you'd be able to quote a rule telling you to do so instead of following the instructions in measuring:

Quote

In Malifaux, all measurements are done from a top- down perspective. Elevation is not factored into the measurement, although model and object height are used in other ways.

 

Auras and pulses are "something else".

1.  They aren't sphere's (or deformed spheroids) because you don't measure the distance diagonally through space.

2.  They're not capped cylinders because you don't measure vertical distance without being told to do so explicitly.

10 minutes ago, Thimblesage said:

A tricky side-note, if a piece of terrain like a bridge or balcony wasn't specified as having the 'Blocking' trait it wouldn't block LoS beneath the model and the Aura or Pulse would radiate through the floor the model was standing on and bellow correct?

This sounds like a sportsmanship question.  Because this appears to be the start of an argument based on "We didn't adequately discuss how we both expected this terrain piece to work, so since we now have a Neon Purple Dragon in Play,..." 

 

[Kadeton]

7 hours ago, Thimblesage said:

A tricky side-note, if a piece of terrain like a bridge or balcony wasn't specified as having the 'Blocking' trait it wouldn't block LoS beneath the model and the Aura or Pulse would radiate through the floor the model was standing on and bellow correct?

7 hours ago, solkan said:

This sounds like a sportsmanship question.  Because this appears to be the start of an argument based on "We didn't adequately discuss how we both expected this terrain piece to work, so since we now have a Neon Purple Dragon in Play,..." 

7 hours ago, Thimblesage said:

Also, to clarify my intent in every question I ask is to learn, not to exploit. This is sportsmanship in its core. wanting to learn and abide by the rules to prevent cheating or misconduct is greatly important to me in order to prevent upset interactions and cultivate happy gaming in general. Clarifying rules should never be taken as unsportsmanlike conduct and I hope any question would be read with the bias of education not exploitation. 

I think most people would not expect to be able to draw LoS through the floor of any solid structure unless it was explicitly defined as not blocking LoS. In general, if the way you want to play the terrain goes against a "normal assumption", you should discuss it with your opponent before you attempt to take advantage of it. 

Saying "This ricketty bridge has lots of holes and missing planks, want to treat the floor as non-Blocking?" at the start of the game is totally fine, and could create really interesting tactical situations. Saying "We didn't say that the floor of this bridge was Blocking at the start of the game, so it doesn't block LoS and my aura works through it" at a critical point in the game would definitely not be cool.

The question of sportsmanship is in not attempting to take advantage of your opponent's (reasonable) assumptions about the nature of the game's consensus reality. Asking the question is totally fine, and I don't think that Solkan was having a go at you for that - I read their response as stating it would be poor form to spring the fact that terrain wasn't fully defined on an opponent during a game.

[Flib Jib]

17 minutes ago, solkan said:

so since we now have a Neon Purple Dragon in Play,..." 

Don't know what this reference is, could you clarify?

Also, to clarify my intent in every question I ask is to learn, not to exploit. This is sportsmanship in its core. wanting to learn and abide by the rules to prevent cheating or misconduct is greatly important to me in order to prevent upset interactions and cultivate happy gaming in general. Clarifying rules should never be taken as unsportsmanlike conduct and I hope any question would be read with the bias of education not exploitation. 

[Flib Jib]

25 minutes ago, solkan said:

If auras and pulses were measured in the 3rd dimension, you'd be able to quote a rule telling you to do so instead of following the instructions in measuring:

Auras and pulses are "something else".

1.  They aren't sphere's (or deformed spheroids) because you don't measure the distance diagonally through space.

2.  They're not capped cylinders because you don't measure vertical distance without being told to do so explicitly.

I thought that they were measured from the top down until I read the;

Quote

An aura has the same Ht as the model it comes from, unless specified otherwise.

Which means that the "radiates out in all directions" which could be interpreted to mean either 2D or 3D measurements might lean toward measuring in the 3rd dimension.

 

But by your opinion if a model is standing on a Ht:2 box and has a 3" Aura, a Ht:1 model standing next to the box would not gain the benefits of the aura correct?

[santaclaws01]

5 hours ago, Thimblesage said:

I thought that they were measured from the top down until I read the;

Which means that the "radiates out in all directions" which could be interpreted to mean either 2D or 3D measurements might lean toward measuring in the 3rd dimension.

 

But by your opinion if a model is standing on a Ht:2 box and has a 3" Aura, a Ht:1 model standing next to the box would not gain the benefits of the aura correct?

The rule book also has a line of fluff saying totems are extensions of a master's power, but Henchmen can use totems. The point here is, unless something is actually a rule and not just a fluff description of the effect, it has no weight.

As for the meat of the question. Ht is stated to only be used for the purposes of LoS(page 21 big rule book). The only two instances where Ht isn't used for LoS are explicitly stated to and mentions how it is used. Auras and pulses have no such mention of using Ht differently.

[Artiee]

Auras are the same ht as the model. So it makes them  cylinders.  

[solkan]

45 minutes ago, Artiee said:

Auras are the same ht as the model. So it makes them  cylinders.  

No, the Ht of auras and pulses doesn't make them cylinders.  It means that there's a Ht value assigned to the aura or pulse for the purposes of line of sight (so that the aura/pulse/blast can interact with the blocking rule).

 

The previous times that this type of thread has come up:

 

And, on a related note, the reason why blasts have a limited vertical extent is the text in the blasts rules:

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All models whose bases are touched or overlapped by one or more Blast Markers are affected, unless the model is more than 3" above or below the blast's target.

 

[Flib Jib]

On 6/16/2016 at 7:34 PM, solkan said:

No, the Ht of auras and pulses doesn't make them cylinders.  It means that there's a Ht value assigned to the aura or pulse for the purposes of line of sight (so that the aura/pulse/blast can interact with the blocking rule).

 

The previous times that this type of thread has come up:

 

And, on a related note, the reason why blasts have a limited vertical extent is the text in the blasts rules:

 

So how does the 'On Dreaming Wings' upgrade work? the 6" aura only lets models within gain flight, as soon as they would make use of that flight ability to ignore terrain they would loose either LoS with the Aura or be on a different elevation and if the aura was a 'Disk' then the upgrade would be completely useless 

[lusciousmccabe]

2 hours ago, Thimblesage said:

So how does the 'On Dreaming Wings' upgrade work? the 6" aura only lets models within gain flight, as soon as they would make use of that flight ability to ignore terrain they would loose either LoS with the Aura or be on a different elevation and if the aura was a 'Disk' then the upgrade would be completely useless 

The short answer to that is don't take On Dreaming Wings IMO.

Aura height seems a bit like a stub of a rule that didn't make it into the final draft. The way auras and pulses work you need to be within range on the flat and have Line of Sight to the source. So for example The Dreamer with that upgrades stands behind a Ht 2 wall, Teddy is on the other side 4" away. Teddy is Ht 3, so can see The Dreamer and is in range of the aura so gains Flight. The fact that the aura emanates from The Dreamer and is therefore a Ht 1 Aura is irrelevant and it's really helpfuil to think of it as a a Ht 1 disk. 

Where the Ht value of auras can come into play is when they generate terrain effects which could be potentially ignored by using vantage points. This makes some sense intuitively but tends to not come up much thanks to those auras commonly being very high and vantage points not being that common. The application of Ht value to these kinds of auras is also a bit patchy from what I recall, some auras with Ht don't have terrain traits and some with terrain traits just come out at model Ht. 

Another interpretation of why an aura might have a Ht value is to let them go overtop of models higher than the source. So for example Ht 3 models block line of sight for auras around Howard Langston, so generate a kind of shadow in his steam cloud where there's no cover. The Ht value is sometimes interpreted as allowing the aura to overlap the Ht 3 model and come down the far side, but I don't think the rules say anything about it one way or the other.