D&D 5E Heat Metal Spell. Unfair to Heavy Armor Wearers?

[Voadam]

No reason for the snark. You know it's easier to run away if you're starting from 60 feet away with a spell that will likely kill the fighter type with one casting. It's a spell built for ambush. You can hit someone from a rooftop, move away from sight, and probably just killed the fighter.

Knightkiller, the assassin bard. I can see it.

 

[Oofta]

If I designed a BBEG that can get nerfed by one casting of heat metal, that's on me.

So you never have a BBEG warrior oe clerc type? Disadvantage on every attack for the combat is huge.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

At least, the 5 minutes to remove armor is for properly doing it, so if it came to that I'd let the player just rip the thing off forcefully. It'd need repair, but they aren't cooked alive.

 

[Voadam]

That’s the game now. You need neither to reach 20th. Only showing up regularly, and sometimes not even that.

Gygax was complaining about this in the 70s. That's why he came up with the original Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Reynard]

No reason for the snark. You know it's easier to run away if you're starting from 60 feet away with a spell that will likely kill the fighter type with one casting. It's a spell built for ambush. You can hit someone from a rooftop, move away from sight, and probably just killed the fighter.

Yes, it is an unfair spell if you construct a completely unfair scenario for its use and remove all agency from the players.

 

[overgeeked]

Anecdotal but every PC cleric I have seen in 5e games I have played in or run who took the domains that allow heavy armor had sufficient strength to wear heavy armor without the extra penalty and have worn heavy armor.

My dwarven life cleric dump statted dex and used heavy armor. It seemed an obvious archetypal mechanical build for a cleric that works even better in 5e than in prior editions.

Exactly.

 

[Voadam]

With 60 feet range, melee is unlikely and ranged attacks have the issue that full cover negates them pretty much. Just a tree or wall in the middle and he's in for a hard time, and druids are the class that can turn into creatures that can burrow underground or have normal movement faster than the Fighter dashing.

There's obviously situations where he can handle it, but, say, a Moon Druid casting it from 60 feet away, then turning into a Giant Badger and burrowing 10 feet underground immediately, there's pretty much nothing the Fighter can do, unless he has the right magic items.

Yeah, and running around a dungeon or building with turns and doorways getting a straight shot with ranged weapons can be a pain.

 

[Mistwell]

Yes, it is an unfair spell if you construct a completely unfair scenario for its use and remove all agency from the players.

How is it a completely unfair scenario given the parameters of the spell? It's a spell built for that kind of thing. My issue is with the lack of the normal text ending the effect if you go out of range or out of line of sight. I am not removing agency from anyone - it would be really rare for me to use the spell as a DM and for the reasons I am mentioning here.

The house rule of "requiring line of sight" to continue to use the bonus action makes sense to me. That's a way to modify the spell to prevent that obvious use.

But weird, you started with snark in a thread that didn't call for it, and then went to claiming I removed agency from players for describing an obvious use of the spell which I said is a problem. Do you think my issue with the spell is about me and not the spell?

 

[Reynard]

How is it a completely unfair scenario given the parameters of the spell? It's a spell built for that kind of thing. My issue is with the lack of the normal text ending the effect if you go out of range or out of line of sight. I am not removing agency from anyone - it would be really rare for me to use the spell as a DM and for the reasons I am mentioning here.

The house rule of "requiring line of sight" to continue to use the bonus action makes sense to me. That's a way to modify the spell to prevent that obvious use.

But weird, you started with snark in a thread that didn't call for it, and then went to claiming I removed agency from players for describing an obvious use of the spell which I said is a problem. Do you think my issue with the spell is about me and not the spell?

You created a scenario in which it was cast from ambush and the caster gets away immediately. that is what i meant by an unfair scenario and lack of agency. In my experience, context liek that only happens when GMs decide they are out to get a PC and so it wouldn't matter if it was heat metal, a poison arrow or dominate: it isn't the attack that is unfair, it is the setup.

What heat metal does with its particulars is force PCs to change tactics immediately. That is an unqualified good thing in a game in which combats way too often became rote and inevitable after a couple of rounds.

 

[el-remmen]

In a world where no one bothers to run away because "it is so hard and you get cut down anyway," apparently the secret to getting away easily is casting heat metal.