D&D 5E Lava and magic items

[Cruentus]

Characters fall 100ft into lava, take minimal damage, nothing lost. Typical 5e gameplay cycle. I wonder why that trap or option is actually in the adventure? Fun for a laugh maybe?

If the players are okay going back and potentially losing some items, then it’s all good. It is your table. If they’re not okay with it, then I think just let it be.

I’m all for old schooling the game, but IME it doesn’t really work with 5e, no matter how hard you try to do it. The rules actively fight you. I gave up and moved to actual older school rules that our table agreed they wanted to play in.

 

[pukunui]

I had not envisioned the lava as having a crust. For one, it is described as providing illumination in the otherwise unlit dungeon. It also has lava children playing and swimming in it. Granted, these are elemental creatures that can move through metal, but still …

Today I learned that lava is more viscous than water and people don’t sink into it. I expect you’d sink in a little if you fell from a height of 30 feet, but even so … I am more willing to allow the magic items to escape destruction in this case. All mundane gear, plus potions and scrolls will be gone, though.

(And yes, I did apply 30 feet of falling damage.)

Also, fair enough to all who said I made the ruling and should move on.

EDIT: As for that banana, I’d like to see what happens if it gets tossed into the lava pool in the volcano’s crater rather than onto a crusty bit of hardening lava flow at the edges. (The trap drops PCs into the middle of a lake of lava, not onto a crusty lava flow.)

What Happens To Your Body When You Fall Into a Volcano?

While that shows that you don’t sink, it also backs up the idea that all the things you are wearing and carrying would burst into flames and be incinerated within seconds.

I won’t retcon my ruling, but I still don’t get why everyone is so precious about magic items, especially when the 5e rules state that they’re not indestructible. If anyone’s changing the rules, it’s you guys who make them automatically indestructible just because they’re being worn or carried by a PC.

 

[J.Quondam]

I still don’t get why everyone is so precious about magic items, especially when the 5e rules state that they’re not indestructible. If anyone’s changing the rules, it’s you guys who make them automatically indestructible just because they’re being worn or carried by a PC.

I think much of the concern is more of a social one rather than a game one. It just comes down to table preference.
Some players really hate losing their stuff, especially when it's lost to accidents, or when it's integral to their character concept. But if your group is fine with losing magic items or other treasure, then burn it up.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't miss the item saving throw tables from 1E or 2E, nor the item destruction rules from 3E.

Overall, if you don't envision the surviving characters exiting the lava nude because all their clothes burned away, I wouldn't dwell on the destruction of magic items.

Considering the jump in HP for 5E, I'm surprised they lowered the amount of damage lava does from the old 20d6 (20-120, ave 70) to 10d10 (10-100, ave 55).

 

[pukunui]

Overall, if you don't envision the surviving characters exiting the lava nude because all their clothes burned away, I wouldn't dwell on the destruction of magic items.

I do. In a previous campaign, one of the PCs got engulfed by a fire elemental, which involves catching on fire. I ruled that the PC ended up looking like Anakin on Mustafar, with all their hair and clothes burned away. I don't remember what I ruled about any magic items at the time.

Honestly, I'm surprised that the rules for lava in 5e don't explicitly mention catching on fire.

Considering the jump in HP for 5E, I'm surprised they lowered the amount of damage lava does from the old 20d6 (20-120, ave 70) to 10d10 (10-100, ave 55).

Because 5e is on easy mode by default.

I think much of the concern is more of a social one rather than a game one. It just comes down to table preference.
Some players really hate losing their stuff, especially when it's lost to accidents, or when it's integral to their character concept. But if your group is fine with losing magic items or other treasure, then burn it up.

Yeah, they're fine with it. For those other players, there's always the artificer.

 

[Inukai]

I won’t retcon my ruling, but I still don’t get why everyone is so precious about magic items, especially when the 5e rules state that they’re not indestructible. If anyone’s changing the rules, it’s you guys who make them automatically indestructible just because they’re being worn or carried by a PC.

My table, my rules.
If I come to a time where it's warranted, I have zero compunction about nuking a magic item. Losing a magic item to what amounts to an accident is not cool to me.

 

[pukunui]

My table, my rules.

Yeah. That works both ways. Yet here I am being piled on for doing it wrong.

If I come to a time where it's warranted, I have zero compunction about nuking a magic item. Losing a magic item to what amounts to an accident is not cool to me.

This is a dungeon run by a crazy old wizard. It's not meant to be fair -- and there's a lot in it that's designed to make the players hate Halaster. The players have already experienced 14 dungeon floors of this sort of stuff. We've had one TPK so far. And of all the 5e campaigns I've run for this group so far, I think this is the one they are enjoying the most. (Which seems to fly in the face of the general consensus around here that Dungeon of the Mad Mage sucks!)

 

[Tonguez]

Magic items are Resistant to damage (take half damage per round) but are eventually destroyed by lava just like anything else. I’d say though if the PC gets out of the lava in one turn then they get to save their magic items too…

 

[Inukai]

Yeah. That works both ways. Yet here I am being piled on for doing it wrong.


This is a dungeon run by a crazy old wizard. It's not meant to be fair -- and there's a lot in it that's designed to make the players hate Halaster. The players have already experienced 14 dungeon floors of this sort of stuff. We've had one TPK so far. And of all the 5e campaigns I've run for this group so far, I think this is the one they are enjoying the most. (Which seems to fly in the face of the general consensus around here that Dungeon of the Mad Mage sucks!)

I don't necessarily see you getting dog-piled on it so much as people offering their views, which right now differ from yours.
As far as it being enjoyable by your players, I have long been under the belief that all gamers are masochists.....

 

[Vaalingrade]

Generally if you fall 100ft into lava, you would initially sink and be covered with lava before being pushed to the top where your cool body (compared to the lava) would allow the lava to harden onto you and form a layer of stone.

Transforming you into a sweet magma warrior with burning eyes and impenetrable skin.