D&D 5E Can a fireball melt ice?

[Ahglock]

I'd say yes. It's causing X fire damage. If someone went after a ice door with a axe how much damage would it take before the door broke? I'd say fire damage would have the same effect.

I don't really buy the real world examples as this is a volume of fire that is intense enough to instantly ignite objects and thoroughly kill pretty sturdy creatures. As HP of damage is fairly abstract we really have no idea if 28ish hps of damage is in real world temperatures. While ice can absorb a lot of heat before it melts depending on a few factors like mass there are temperatures that would melt or vaporize it instantly. Is 28 hps enough for that? There is no real answer for that. When the commoner is killed by your fireball was it more from shock or was he cooked through, was he cooked medium rare, well done? Does the wooden house burst into flames when it ignites or is it a small ember?

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I'd say a fireball can melt ice, but being a very brief yet intense heat source, the quantity of ice that could melt would have to be small/thin.

To me it seems that if you want to melt a big quantity of ice a good way might be to make sure there is some burnable material around the ice you want to melt then fireball it.
instantly igniting the material and exposing the ice to flames that ast longer then the flash flame of the fireball.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

But it won't take 6 seconds for some of the ice to melt.

Can fireball melt ice at all? Or does it lack the ability to affect non-flammable objects.

As a DM, I'd say yes; I wouldn't say the text about flammable objects means it's completely unable to affect other objects. It's a simplification: most simple/low-tech non-flammable objects like stone/metal ones aren't going to be affected much by a momentary exposure to fire.

However, yes, as others have said, the amount of ice melted would be quite small. A solid ice object of significant size would just end up with a small amount of melting (or flash-boiling*) on the surface without affecting the bulk of it very much.

*I see a fireball as not lasting the entire 6-second round, but being a very high temperature applied for a very short time. The short time being the (in-world) reason why a relatively low-level character can survive the damage from a failed save.

The idea that it ALWAYS melts ice is broken, because then you open the door for Fireball to "sculpt" the environment in other, possibly unintended, ways: "if it can melt ice it must be able to burn away wood; we should easily be able to burn ourselves through that wooden castle gate"

Your general point is 100% correct, but I think fireball should light a wooden gate on fire - it's a flammable object (unless it's wet).

However, that wouldn't necessarily destroy it - it would probably be thick and so the fire would work slowly enough that the defenders would have a chance to put it out.


EDIT: In the more general case, I'd say that even magic acts 'realistically' if it creates real-world things, like fire. In anything not mechanically critical or explicitly stated in the spell description, a fireball acts like a momentary burst of intensely hot flame would in the real world, a lightning bolt would work like real lightning, etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Back in the day, a Wall of Ice could be melted (sublimated, actually, I guess) by a fireball, leaving a cloud of steam.

I'd be comfortable ruling that way, today.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Like the thread topic says.

Here is the text of the fireball spell that seems relevant (SRD, pp 142-43):

A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature . . . takes . . . fire damage . . . The fire . . . ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

If the text describing the ignition of flammable objects that are neither worn nor carried is exhaustive of the effect of the spell upon things other than creatures, that would seem to imply that the spell can't melt ice. (Which is very obviously not a flammable material.)

Yes, it does. That is exactly why it is so frustrating every time JeremyCrawford turns rules lawyer and says something like, "No, Devil's Sight doesn't work in dim light, only darkness." The 5E rulebooks can't seem to make it clear when they're game jargon vs. natural language, and sometimes they are apparently both at the same time.

RAW, Fireballs can't melt ice or knock down houses, and Eldritch Blast can't blast down a farmhouse. But I'm going to ignore the RAW here and make a ruling that is actually sane.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'd say yes. It's causing X fire damage. If someone went after a ice door with a axe how much damage would it take before the door broke? I'd say fire damage would have the same effect.

I don't really buy the real world examples as this is a volume of fire that is intense enough to instantly ignite objects and thoroughly kill pretty sturdy creatures. As HP of damage is fairly abstract we really have no idea if 28ish hps of damage is in real world temperatures. While ice can absorb a lot of heat before it melts depending on a few factors like mass there are temperatures that would melt or vaporize it instantly. Is 28 hps enough for that? There is no real answer for that. When the commoner is killed by your fireball was it more from shock or was he cooked through, was he cooked medium rare, well done? Does the wooden house burst into flames when it ignites or is it a small ember?

30 HP of damage, according to Wall of Stone, will destroy one inch thickness of the created stone wall.

Yes, that means that 28 HP of damage is a lot of force/heat/trauma/whatever. 5E PCs are absurdly good at destroying things.

 

[Satyrn]

30 HP of damage, according to Wall of Stone, will destroy one inch thickness of the created stone wall.

Yes, that means that 28 HP of damage is a lot of force/heat/trauma/whatever. 5E PCs are absurdly good at destroying things.

And 30 HP will destroy a 10 foot section of wall of ice. (which is vulnerable to fire damage).

So yeah, fireball can melt, or otherwise destroy, ice. Lots of it.

 

[Yardiff]

Can a fireball melt the dagger of ice I'm wielding.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Can a fireball melt the dagger of ice I'm wielding.

Not in my campaign. Objects being worn or wielded are shielded by the wearer's life force. Just as they cannot legally be teleported by RAW, I would likewise rule that they cannot be melted.

I like item saving throws and/or item damage, but currently I apply it only after the wielder is dead or after the wielder is Disarmed of the item.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Can a fireball melt the dagger of ice I'm wielding.

Yes, most likely. The one your character is wielding, however, would depend on the success of your saving throw in some games I run. In other games, your character's ice dagger would be safe.