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

[Ruin Explorer]

It's more that, if you can kite an enemy without ranged attacks, you're better off doing so instead of approaching them and losing hp or other resources, even if you'd do more damage that way. Depends a lot on terrain, but against a lot of monster without ranged attacks it's pretty good. Slower, but safer, like the cook and run, especially if you'd lose normally like most enemies are expected to.

This is pretty fantastical/silly stuff imho, because it relies on being entirely solo in a game designed entirely parties of adventurers facing enemies who are usually not alone. The inverse of the "you only need to run faster than the slowest guy" applies. Also, you can't kite very well, can you?

You can move what, 40' per round? Most enemies 30'. But to fire your bow is an action. So if you stop to fire, they can Dash to catch you, then you have to take an AoO to move away, or Disengage, which means you can't fire and can only move 40'. Eventually, over dozens and dozens of rounds you might kill them solo, if they truly have no ranged attacks, and no ability to escape or slow you down, but this is pretty wild.

Plus if there's any other PC, who only has a move of 30' or less, they'll just catch them and fight them, so it'll be them being beaten up instead of the high HP, physical resist Barbarian lol.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So your solution to taking damage and disadvantage is to ... skip your turn and still be penalized? In many cases the disadvantage is worse than the damage.

Is the spell supposed to hurt people in metal armor badly, or is it supposed to be a slap on the wrist?

My suggestions are clearly a reduction in power for the spell. Make a save and you exchange "do nothing this turn" instead of damage. That makes this spell analogous to a more-powerful sleep against a narrow subset of targets.

Are you legitimately suggesting that the spell should be something someone encased in metal armor can just shrug off no problem?

Further, I find it a little hard to buy that 20d8 damage (90 on average) is something most armored opponents can just shrug off like nothing. Doubly so when heat metal can only target one object. (Upcasting raises the damage, not the number of affected objects.) Spending a spell and concentration to lock down a single target with Disadvantage seems hardly like a horrible affront (admittedly, it does affect attack rolls, but not saving throws.) Hold person is the same spell level, upcasting it makes it affect more targets, and its effects are much nastier, Paralyzed as opposed to merely Incapacitated. A Paralyzed target cannot move at all, automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saves, and grants advantage on all attack rolls against it. Hold person offers a save each round, but it's still way worse than heat metal, even against metal-armor-wearing targets. And against the huge swathe of targets that aren't wearing metal armor? Hold person remains exactly as useful as it always was, unless the target just isn't a humanoid, while heat metal becomes near-useless.

Narrow-application spell with moderately powerful effects and less ability to resist for the few targets it applies to as opposed to a generically useful and (much) more powerful spell that allows repeated save attempts? That sounds fairly balanced to me--at least within the barn door of "balance" 5e ascribes to.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

This is pretty fantastical/silly stuff imho, because it relies on being entirely solo in a game designed entirely parties of adventurers facing enemies who are usually not alone. The inverse of the "you only need to run faster than the slowest guy" applies. Also, you can't kite very well, can you?

You can move what, 40' per round? Most enemies 30'. But to fire your bow is an action. So if you stop to fire, they can Dash to catch you, then you have to take an AoO to move away, or Disengage, which means you can't fire and can only move 40'. Eventually, over dozens and dozens of rounds you might kill them solo, if they truly have no ranged attacks, and no ability to escape or slow you down, but this is pretty wild.

Plus if there's any other PC, who only has a move of 30' or less, they'll just catch them and fight them, so it'll be them being beaten up instead of the high HP, physical resist Barbarian lol.

Naturally, you can just engage in melee if they catch you, it'll still have value of the few turns of free shots. The point is that it can be better to adjust your strategy even if it means you won't end it as quickly as possible, a Barb might want to run in, but it might be better to just bait them to you and keep shooting them/letting them burn to death.

 

[Voadam]

A normal tactic for an enemy druid would seem to be to cast a concentration spell, then wild shape to get more hp to last longer in the fight.

As far as 2nd level or lower concentration druid spells it seems you will probably get more damage out of heat metal than concentration flameblade which you have to use your full action to melee attack with, you have to hit, but it does do 3d8 fire damage.

 

[Reynard]

It feels like a lot of tables would forget the bonus action requirement. Do druids have other abilities or spells that reliably eat bonus actions?

 

[Oofta]

I very much doubt you've successfully murdered many PCs this way, @Oofta. You're presenting a made-up worst-case scenario which just plays into my accusations of "corner case". Realistically the PCs will catch and kill the person, or they'll just kill everyone else. Or they'll nerf the spell in some other way (standing in water, Fire resistance, etc.).

I have no doubt that if I wanted to kill a low-to medium level PC with heat metal I easily could. Walk away, lock door. Misty step away. Cast the spell from a rooftop. Be riding a horse or flying mount and ride fly away.

But it would suck. Not just the damage but the disadvantage. It would not be fun for the target so I don't. I try not to be a dick as a DM.

 

[FireLance]

the Monster Manual even says you can change the spells without affecting the CR of an NPC (which is a blatant lie, but it's what they're saying to all DMs out there).

I think WotC has realized this, which is why WotC's latest monster creation guidelines (in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight Designer's Pack on DMsGuild) states that, "The Spellcasting action must have no relevance to a creature’s CR. Whether or not the DM uses Spellcasting, the monster’s CR must be stable using the other options in the stat block. Spellcasting should present a collection of interesting and flavor-appropriate options, not something that is mathematically necessary for the monster’s CR." In line with this, Monsters of the Multiverse has mostly replaced damage-dealing spells with separate (non-spell) actions.

Somewhat more on-topic, I may add an additional tweak to the spell. Something along the lines of: "The spell is less effective when it targets a metal object larger than a weapon or a shield, such as armor. A creature wearing or in physical contact with such an object takes half damage and does not have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks if it succeeds on its Constitution saving throw."

 

[Reynard]

I have no doubt that if I wanted to kill a low-to medium level PC with heat metal I easily could. Walk away, lock door. Misty step away. Cast the spell from a rooftop. Be riding a horse or flying mount and ride fly away.

But it would suck. Not just the damage but the disadvantage. It would not be fun for the target so I don't. I try not to be a dick as a DM.

My attitude is this: if the bad guys want a PC dead, then they make choices appropriate to that motivation. There is no "fair" in that space, and "fun" emerges from playing as honestly (in regards to the world and its inhabitants) as possible. Unless there is a compelling reason for the villain to act otherwise, they want the PC dead.

 

[Oofta]

My attitude is this: if the bad guys want a PC dead, then they make choices appropriate to that motivation. There is no "fair" in that space, and "fun" emerges from playing as honestly (in regards to the world and its inhabitants) as possible. Unless there is a compelling reason for the villain to act otherwise, they want the PC dead.

I have infinite dragons. I can always kill off PCs. I could write up a goblin bard, have their buddy druid cast pass without trace and set up a fight in the woods. Stack the odds enough in my favor and I get a dead PC.

But is that fun? For the DM to lord their infinite power over the PCs while chuckling how the fighter can't hit anything and keeps getting knocked prone by the druid's wolf buddy while the hidden bard taunts them from the underbrush?

 

[Reynard]

I have infinite dragons. I can always kill off PCs. I could write up a goblin bard, have their buddy druid cast pass without trace and set up a fight in the woods. Stack the odds enough in my favor and I get a dead PC.

But is that fun? For the DM to lord their infinite power over the PCs while chuckling how the fighter can't hit anything and keeps getting knocked prone by the druid's wolf buddy while the hidden bard taunts them from the underbrush?

It's related to why you play and what you feel your role is as GM.

Generally speaking, I "play to find out" and my role is to do my best to provide a dynamic, interesting, and internally consistent world for the players to interact with. Barring con games (they are a special case) I am NOT there to entertain the players. Nor am I there to tell a story. As far as fun goes, we are all there to support everyone's fun. In my games, and explicitly articulated to the players, part of that fun is the dice fall where they may (ie no fudging) and villains play for keeps.