D&D 5E Can a fireball melt ice?

[Sacrosanct]

Do you own a freezer? Does it contain meat? Does that meat bend much, or at all? Have you ever tried to flex a joint on a frozen chicken leg? That's what happens when a critter that isn't warm blooded spends significant time in conditions below freezing. It is an ugly bag of mostly water, and will freeze hard as a rock.
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Looked at this thread mostly to figure out why it was still going for what seemed like a simple question in the title

And then I read this part and the nit picky part of me had to reply. Actually, there are fish that live in water that is below freezing, and you'd think that they'd freeze too. But creatures that live in super cold areas actually produce a natural anti-freeze in their bodies.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.)

In 5e? Sure, if the DM's down and it's a relevant question. DM's free to rule otherwise, but I'd go with yes in most cases personally, I think. The relevant part is that it creates an explosion of flame - what that explosion of flame will invite you to portray in the fiction will vary with the particular situation.

Use common sense when determining a character's success at damaging an object.

Right there in the RAW.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Relevant:

@Soul_Smoker can cloud of daggers affect objects
@JeremyECrawford Cloud of daggers affects creatures, not objects. If a spell can target objects, its description says so.

So while fireball can maybe melt ice, cloud of daggers cutting a rope is a house rule.

 

[Jabborwacky]

What this needs is a ruling, not a rule. The ruling should be what is most fun for the PC's in question. Is their brand of fun building or shaping things? Then sure, let them use fireball that way. The players are trying to tell a story as much as the DM, and the DM should be helping them fulfill that story. Both the DM and players' stories can coexist with a bit of creativity.

Relevant:




So while fireball can maybe melt ice, cloud of daggers cutting a rope is a house rule.

When people start arguing whether a cloud of magically conjured flying daggers can actually cut a hanging rope, or whether a player should be able to acrobatically slide across a grease spell for fun, roleplaying has taken a back seat to board game logic. In these situations, the rules are worthless.

The PC's are trying to have fun? How dare they! Kill it with the core rule book!

 

[Maxperson]

Relevant:


So while fireball can maybe melt ice, cloud of daggers cutting a rope is a house rule.

Seeing as fireball targets everything it damages, the fact that it only specifies that it damages unattended objects means that it can only melt unworn ice. At least without a house rule overriding the spell targeting rules.

 

[pemerton]

Relevant:


So while fireball can maybe melt ice, cloud of daggers cutting a rope is a house rule.

Isn't the Tweet just a report of the designer's house rule?

EDIT: This suggested ruling also makes p 87 of the SRD irrelevant. If every spell description fully specifies its interaction with objects, what is the point of a general rule that spells can be used to damage objects?

 

[Maxperson]

Isn't the Tweet just a report of the designer's house rule?

No. It's what the specific spell targeting rules on page 204 say.

 

[pemerton]

They are *ALSO* canonically and explicitly described as not burning things that you are wearing, which is quite unlike fire.

This is not correct. There is no explicit statement that fireball does not burn things that are not worn. There is an explicit statement that it ignites flammable things that are neither worn nor carried.

What further implications are generated by that explicit statement, and how it interacts with the general principles stated on SRD p 87, is something on which opinions differ.

you don't actually have to narrate *everything*. Narrate what must be narrated, because the players need the information in order to make choices, but beyond that, be choosy. Anything you narrate may be used as a basis for action by the player, so if they aren't *intended* to use it, you may not want to do so.

For example - let us say the pendant survives. If you narrate it so that it is completely coincidental, an accident of luck, the players may choose to try another fireball, because luck is not reliable. But, the pendant's survival against fireball *is* reliable. You've just misled the players.

<snip>

The relationship between the mechanics and fiction is arbitrary, unless you are intending to reflect (even if only through a fun house mirror) the *intent* of the rules in the fiction.

I'm not really sure what you are intending with all this.

I've GMed a lot of fireballs (and similar spells), in AD&D, Rolemaster, 4e and Burning Wheel. I haven't experienced too much difficulty in deciding the effect on objects, or coming up with some sort of spread of reasonable results that can then be rolled for.

If the players try another fireball after the pendant (and wearer) luckily survive, what's the problem? If they reduce the enemy to 0 hp then his/her luck has run out, and the pendant is forced to rely on its own icy capabilities (in AD&D this would be an item saving throw; in the other games I've mentioned it's more a matter of GM's free narration, within the constraints of whatever the details are of the players' action declarations).

As far as avoiding arbitrariness, I think the relationship between fiction and action declaration, plus the general sense of mechanical balance and consequence established by the rules, is a better guide than designer's intent. Is Thunderwave really a "wave of thunderous force" that blasts enemies across the room but leaves the house of cards on the table undisturbed? Does Ice Storm really cause a "hail of rock-hard ice [to] pound to the ground" that leaves the picnic food and glassware untouched?

I don't see what is arbitrary about taking these descriptions - which establish the content of the shared fiction - seriously. Taking them seriously doesn't resolve the issue of exactly what happens - in 5e, that is left largely as a matter of GM discretion- but to me it makes it clear that something might happen.

 

[pemerton]

Seeing as fireball targets everything it damages, the fact that it only specifies that it damages unattended objects means that it can only melt unworn ice.

You have mis-stated the rules text. The fireball spell says only that it ignites flammable objects that are neither worn nor carried. Ice is not flammable, and so on your favoured interpretation of the spell is presumably not affected by the fireball.

 

[pemerton]

No. It's what the specific spell targeting rules on page 204 say.

From page 102 of the SRD:

A spell’s description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area of effect​

And here is Scorching Ray, from p 174 of the SRD:

You create three rays of fire and hurl them at targets within range. You can hurl them at one target or several.​

So first, the statement on p 102 is literally false. Not all spell descriptions tell us whether they target creatures or objects.

Second, the Tweet is not just a restatement of this rule, because this rule does not establish any default in favour of targeting creatures or objects, whereas the Tweet does: it establishes a presumption against targeting objects.

Third, can a character use Scorching Ray to set fire to a scroll rack? Or does s/he have to light a torch to do that?

Or suppose the PCs are cold at night and have no tinderbox - can they use Scorching Ray to light a campfire? Or are the rays of fire rays of pseudo-fire that is not capable of igniting flammable material?

If you take Jeremy Crawford's Tweet at face value, then Scorching Ray cannot set fire to a scroll rack, or a torch, or a campfire, because "If a spell can target objects, its description says so", and the spell description doesn't say so.