Barbed metal arrows

I have a Str Based Dragonborn Valor Bard, I just went Sorcerer first then Valor Bard rest of way. The damage output isn’t a problem.

Put me in the "If you want more damage, pick a different spell" group. D&D combat is fairly abstract, and I've heard a lot of "player creativity" over the years that was just gaming the system. I remember the arguments in the AD&D days: "Of course a wall of force is and invisible, infinitely sharp edge when approached from the side"; or "yes, I cast create water in his lungs, what's the problem." There's player creativity and then there's just arguing fantasy physics and process sim. It can be a fine line.

Aren't arrowheads already metal?

Gadget said:

Put me in the "If you want more damage, pick a different spell" group. D&D combat is fairly abstract, and I've heard a lot of "player creativity" over the years that was just gaming the system. I remember the arguments in the AD&D days: "Of course a wall of force is and invisible, infinitely sharp edge when approached from the side"; or "yes, I cast create water in his lungs, what's the problem." There's player creativity and then there's just arguing fantasy physics and process sim. It can be a fine line.

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Targeting lungs with Create or Destroy Water is explicitly disallowed. The spell requires an open container (per the spell) and line of sight (general spells).

Player creativity is like casting Create or Destroy Water in and open barrel partially full of wine to water it down so they can alter convince others at the ball that the host is not a good one.

DM should always prevent absurdities like an "infinitely sharp edge on a wall of force".

Sounds like your table hews very strictly to the rules because, as you state, you have players at it who are trying to abuse the system. Understandable.

Blue said:

Targeting lungs with Create or Destroy Water is explicitly disallowed. The spell requires an open container (per the spell) and line of sight (general spells).

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IIRC, that specific restriction was not there in AD&D. And those were just a couple of examples that come to mind as being brought up back in the day. 5e has gone more towards the AD&D spectrum of DM rulings over rules, and while this is not necessarily a good or bad thing, it just comes with its own set of issues.

The point being that, back in the day, there was a lot of arguing about fantasy physics & process sim to get more out of a rule or spell than was perhaps warranted. Some of this was encouraged by the rules themselves, but many instances turned into a game of seeing what the local barracks room lawyer could brow beat out his DM with psudo-physics, simulationism, and whatever he saw on McGyver last night.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of such game play, and I try to follow the "bag of rats" ruling that became a popular in 4e: that the DM should not allow extreme corner cases of rules loopholes and logic parsing to get more out of the rules. And that the rules should not have to deal with all these extreme (and sometimes silly) corner cases. Now I'm not accusing this as being a 'bag of rats' scenario, and you have rightfully called out my examples as silly. But I do see it as a step in that direction.

I find it helpful determine what the player is trying to accomplish with the spell: does the effect make sense, is it easy to adjudicate, etc, and is the effect overriding or assuming the powers of another similar spell or ability? If it is unique to just the unusual situation the PC's are in, then I am much more likely to go along with it. If it is just a continuing source of more damage, then that is a concern, as this seems to be be doing much the same thing that Flame Arrows is doing at a level higher.

SkidAce said:

Aren't arrowheads already metal?

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I was gonna say! I was also gonna say that arrows already stick in their target, too. Just ask Boromir!

If I was the DM here, I'd be saying I don't want to introduce any special rules that suggest that normal arrows don't stick in their target, but being completely open to [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] achieving his goal, I'd point him to a most excellent idea posted earlier in the thread: The steel-braided lasso.

Or net.

Mort said:

Seems fair.

I'd certainly allow it at my table - teamwork is always encouraged.

As for concerns that this makes heat metal too powerful - It requires a costly component (essentially what the arrow is), 2 people working in tandem, and imposes a to-hit roll where one didn't exist before - I think that's a steep enough cost!

I think the 10X cost for each arrow may be a bit too much:
-The chance of the combo working isn't THAT high
-and if the combo does work the DM is very likely to rule the arrow has no chance of recovery (it's a pile of molten slag by the end of the spell).

I'd go with 3-5 times the cost.

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It's creative, imagine the fear and loss of morale it would cause, in enemies, alone.

What you really need is a gnomish inventor who can make mechanical spiders/face-huggers. Sure it would probably take an action to activate the spider and have it crawl up the leg of your target before casting your spell, but it would be awesome.

Picture this leaping at your face glowing red with heat ...

I might allow it, but would probably require that the spell be cast on the arrowhead before it is loosed: if its embedded in the target then the caster won't have LOS to it.
That still allows the cool factor and teamwork (since the bard will probably also be giving inspiration for the shot), but applies a risk too: There is a chance that the arrow will miss and so waste the spell.

(Yes, technically heating an arrowhead to shoot is counterproductive: internal organs aren't particularly sensitive to pain, and it would tend to cauterise the wound rather than it bleeding out. If the players start to try to use this every single fight, rather than just making it a cool stunt, that could be something to bear in mind.)

However I'd probably start by allowing the bard to swap the spell out first: its specifically of use against powerful creatures using metal arms and armour. Its power (high consistent damage and disadvantage on all attacks, generally with no save) is balanced by its specificity. If the player wasn't aware that they would be mostly fighting non-tool-using creatures when they picked the spell, I'd give an option to swap it out. Its no worse than someone picking a poison spell before the DM signalled that they would mostly be fighting Undead for example.

Or maybe suggest the player look into other, existing equipment such as bear traps, manacles, etc.

Cap'n Kobold said:

I might allow it, but would probably require that the spell be cast on the arrowhead before it is loosed: if its embedded in the target then the caster won't have LOS to it.

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Lucky that was why the whole arrow was special made and metal.

Cap'n Kobold said:

Or maybe suggest the player look into other, existing equipment such as bear traps, manacles, etc.

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Bear traps, along with the metal nets and lassos others suggested, are great ideas. I think he already has manacles. Hmm, maybe that['s a combo if he can convince a teammate to grapple.