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The Ring of Shooting Stars has the Shooting Star effect as described below:

Shooting Stars. You can expend 1 to 3 charges as an action. For every charge you expend, you launch a glowing mote of light from the ring at a point you can see within 60 feet of you. Each creature within a 15-foot cube originating from that point is showered in sparks and must make a DC15 Dexterity saving throw taking 5d4 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

My question is can the motes be layered on top of each other to form a cube, wherein each creature must make 3 x DC15 Dexterity saving throws and be subject to 15d4 (modified by the saving throws) damage?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Hi ewoksquirrel, welcome to RPG.SE! Thanks for taking the tour already! By "layering", do you mean "stacking" (I just wanted to make sure the [stacking] tag I just added was appropriate)? Also, just so that you're aware, Shooting Stars isn't a spell, it's just something that one magic item can do, so I cleared that up for you. \$\endgroup\$
    – NathanS
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 12:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NathanS Hi, thank you for updates. I tried to be as accurate and succinct as possible, but first time and all that...! If stacking is the term that should be applied then yes that is what I am referring to. Thank you again. \$\endgroup\$
    – ewoksquirrel
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 12:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ No, you did a great job. I upvoted your question; I was mainly just checking that my edit didn't deviate from your intentions. Glad to see you're happy with it though! \$\endgroup\$
    – NathanS
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 12:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think this is related: 'When a creature is hit with more than one fireball simultaneously, do they take damage from all of them?" \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 17:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Are you simply asking whether you can make three separate cubes that effect the same area? \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 19:51

1 Answer 1

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The end goal works, yes, but there is no time when the motes are overlapping

You can't make a cube because you usually shoot the motes in sequence; you fire one mote, roll damage, and then fire the next mote. This is the same sort of language as Scorching Ray et. al. and, to prevent spells with this language from benefiting more than usual from damage-increasing effects, this iterative execution is generally required by GMs, and often pretended to be the RAW. That is, for example, the position of Mr. Crawford.

A consequence of such an interpretation of the rules is that the ring, too, must fire in sequence. That means you can't make a cube of overlapping motes (to do that the motes would have to go off all at once) but you certainly can deal the damage thrice to the same group of enemies with one action.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm confused, you can't stack them but you can? How is making 3 cubes different from making 1 cube? Or rather, what are you saying "no" to? It seems like you're saying that you can cause them to make three saving throws and effectively take triple the damage, so then what is "no"? \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 19:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2 3 AoE you can arrange however you want, 1 AoE alone doesn't have that option. The answer is just specifying that 3AoEs don't become 1 just because they are aimed at the same place. It's a valid distinction to make, though the answer's headline could be more direct and clear. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ruse
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 20:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Ruse It just seems weird because the question asks whether you can layer/stack the effects and this answer starts with "no" and yet states that they do stack \$\endgroup\$
    – Exempt-Medic
    Commented Dec 16, 2019 at 21:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2 I misunderstood 'on top of' in the question as physically above rather than superimposed with. Edited. \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Commented Dec 17, 2019 at 7:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't think the Scorching Ray example is a true reflection as that is a spell requiring separate attack rolls for each ray. The Fireball example referenced in the comments of the OP and the Magic Missile reference from JC are probably closer. However, I think that the overall interpretation is probably correct. \$\endgroup\$
    – ewoksquirrel
    Commented Dec 17, 2019 at 10:00

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