Alchemical Fireballs?

Ok Psifon (or anyone else)

I have a question for you.

If you were to shrink an item like a campfire (is that a valid item?) or perhaps a pile of logs (again, I ask is that a valid item?), or a sword. You take the option to shrink the item as a clothlike substance.

Now you take a pair of scissors and cut the clothlike object in half, and drop the halves on the solid ground. What happens?


g!
 
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kreynolds--

While I don't agree with the needlessly confrontational tone this discussion has taken (not particularly your fualt or psifon's, just a rather gradual progression), I don't recall a rule anywhere stating that the impact can't BOTH trigger the spell and still cause the natural physical breakage of the item. If I am wrong about this, point the rule out to me and I will happily concede it. Otherwise, I would have to rule in my game (not a house rule, but an interpretation of what is already there) that the impact would cause both the spell to trigger and the breakage of the glass container that was specifically made for this purpose.

Now, if there is still a problem with this, and you don't buy that the container would break because of the spell, then would there be a problem with shrinking just the liquid alchemists fire, putting it into a small glass container created to break using the rules for grenades, and then using that? The container would break, the liquid would hit a solid surface, it would expand, and cause damage. In fact, if it didn't expand instantly but expanded slowly, wouldn't it cause more damage as it slowly came into contact with more of the victim?

Additionally, if the above doesn't work (for some reason) then why ciouldn't you just do what was mentioned before, and turn the liquid into the clothlike substance, then attach the cloth to the tip of the bolt?

There seems to be a lot of ways to skin this particular cat, and many of them seem to have very few, if any, problems under the core rules without resorting to house rules. So what's the problem here regarding the delivery of the alchemists fire using a shrink item spell and a crossbow? It seems to be proven that there are ways to make it work, even if psifon's original plan is rejected.

As to your point about the amount of damage being a house rule, I might to agree with you there. However, the question is, under the current rules, without using house rules, what DOES happen when someone gets doused with 2 gallons of alchemist's fire? It has to be different than getting doused with 1 pint of the stuff. Does it cause the same amount of damage, but have a larger splash area? Or does it indeed count as a eapon of larger size, and as such follow the exact progression psifon listed, making it not a house rule after all, but the exact interpretation required? I'm not trying to imply anything here, just asking what your ruling would be, by the core rules, leaving the discussion of the shrink item spell aside, of someone getting hit with 2 gallons of alchemists fire. There HAS to be a way to interpret this, since it is a very real possibility. I have a friend who has his keep trapped with this stuff--projectors that spit a large amount of alchemists fire out onto potential wall scalers, and a vat of the stuff ready to drop on unwelcome visitors coming through the barbican. What are the rules for this kind of exposure? If there are none, then I would have to say that coming up with a system for this kind of thing, using the core rules closest in spirit to the rules you are trying to interpret, does not the creation of house rules, but the interpretation of rules that are already there.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, particularly not you, kreynolds, because you have been making some very good points, but I'm also hearing a lot of you saying a lot of "that's a house rule" when it seems more like someone trying to interpret the existing rules, and a few instances of "that's what the rules say" when I'm not aware of any rules that say that. It doesn't mean those rules aren't there, and if they are, please point them out to me and I'll concede those points to you. But if there are no rules saying, for instance, that when an action triggers a magical property it cancells out all other physical damage or other physical effects that would normally happen as a result of that action, then some of the points you have made above would seem to be invalidated.
 
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apsuman:

Well, again there is no rule covering this.

If I were DM'ing I would rule that once it was cut (even a little bit), the spell ends, and the item returns to normal size. I have nothing to back up this opinion, so ask your DM how he would do it.

As far as "is a campfire a single item?" I would say no. A burning stick is an item in the campfire. The way to build a single item that is a bonfire is to BUILD a bonfire. Nail the timber together, so that it is one cohesive whole. Then light it, get it burning pretty good, and then turn the whole thing into a "plush" campfire beanie babby (or a flat piece of cloth depending on your interpretation of the spell).

The Stronhold Builder's Guidebook states that you can turn a pool of water into a cloak. The notion that you could cast this spell on liquids never occured to me until I read that. I always assumed you needed a solid. In any case, the Guidebook is wrong on one account: In order to make a pool into an item big enough to be worn as a cloak you would need to be like 380th level (they forgot to take into account that it shrinks the water as well as turning it into cloth).
 
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I am not to big on following the rules to the letter, I tend to arbitrate questions like this with what feels right to me, that will change very much from person to person. With that being said this is how I would run it.

When the shrunk item hits a solid object the spell is broken, but the kinetic energy that carried that item to the object is not increased with the size of the item.

To apply it to the main question, once the flask hits a solid object it would only have the force of a few ounces (from the original object) and the force carried from the bow. Depending on the new size of the object, the may not be enough energy to keep it in motion. After that I would check its hardness and hit points against falling damage if it re-sized in a place it would fall.
 

Anthron said:
I am not to big on following the rules to the letter, I tend to arbitrate questions like this with what feels right to me, that will change very much from person to person. With that being said this is how I would run it.

When the shrunk item hits a solid object the spell is broken, but the kinetic energy that carried that item to the object is not increased with the size of the item.

To apply it to the main question, once the flask hits a solid object it would only have the force of a few ounces (from the original object) and the force carried from the bow. Depending on the new size of the object, the may not be enough energy to keep it in motion. After that I would check its hardness and hit points against falling damage if it re-sized in a place it would fall.

Well, now you are getting into the physics of the problem, and as Kreynold's pointed out this is dicy ground. As far as the bolt is concerned, since the jar is designed to break, it would have a hardness of 0 and 1 hp. So it would always break. If it were a "tossed" grenade, you might have a problem here.

This assumes you want to apply physics. If you just apply the rules, the PHB states that all grenade-like weapons break when thrown. This was done to simplify combat, and I am shamelessly capitalizing on this to munchkin out my character ;)
 
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Psifon said:


Well, now you are getting into the physics of the problem, and as Kreynold's pointed out this is dicy ground. As far as the bolt is concerned, since the jar is designed to break, it would have a hardness of 0 and 1 hp. So it would always break. If it were a "tossed" grenade, you might have a problem here.

This assumes you want to apply physics. If you just apply the rules, the PHB states that all grenade-like weapons break when thrown. This was done to simplify combat, and I am shamelessly capitalizing on this to munchkin out my character ;)


Very true, the game was not meant to hold to the laws of physics as we know them. That is why I had that little "what feels right" disclaimer at the start of the message. I was only stating how I would run it if I were DM and why, it is they way I would handle this as a possible game breaking idea.

Since the involvement of the spell changes the function of the flask from thrown object to magically altered makeshift arrowhead, the basic rules behind that object changes.

There is now way I as DM would let some one take rules out of context like that. Taking a rule grenade like objects work smoothly and applying it to arrowheads? But I guess that is a staple of munchkinism. :D

{edit: altered for readability.}
 
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Anthron said:

...it is they way I would handle this as a possible game breaking idea.

Actually, I have used this item in play, and it really wasn't that "game breaking" What I found was that I only resorted to using this ammo when I was all out of spells. I generally didn't distribute them through the party because the limited duration of the spell made that problematical, and by the time I could afford these arrowheads, all the other PCs had better tricks to use anyway.

I have used them it two adventures so far. The first one was at 6th level-the bolts were only 1 gallon, which did 2d8 damage. I used one, to see it used in combat, and then put it away in favor of my spell arsinal.

The second time I used it I was 9th level. we were fighting a swarm of spiders, ranging in size from small to colossal. They came in waves, and the last spider was the colossal one. By that time, I had used all my area of effect spells, and all my magic missiles. Our barbarian was down 6 points of STR, and our monk was down to 6 HP. I shot three bolts (still the 1 gallon version), and gave one to the monk so that he could get a shot off as well. We downed the spider, and the bolts actually did make a big difference in that combat. On the other hand, I ended up losing money on the attack, because my bolts cost more than the scant treasure my DM gave out (dessicated merchant carcasses actually).

I don't exactly use these things with impunity. They are more my weapon of last resort. I expect that when I reach 13th level, they will become completely obsolete, since I will have more spells to last me through an adventure, and attack modes that are SO much better and cheeper that I don't need to use the bolts much.

On the other hand, if a party member had the leadership feat and a bunch of money, I could make several for a small army. The problem here is that for me to do this would dedicate ALL my spells of 3rd level+ so it would only be good for once in a while and even then, only when we knew combat was comming.


But I guess that is a staple of munchkinism. :D

Darn toot'n! ;)
 

You have to realize that this is magic... it is shrinking something down to 1/20th of it's original size.

You could use logic and say that the magic is using enormous pressure to get it down to that size. In which case the item would be incredibly dense and wont break, no matter how much force is applied

You could also say that the spell shrinks everything... and the glass jar now has a wall thickness of 1/20th its original... and no amount of care will allow you to tie a string around it without breaking the incredibly thin walled jar.

OR

You could go with the fact that this is magic... the spell replaces the item with something that looks exactly like the previous item... but at 1/20th the original size. And to get the original item back, you either say the command word or impact it against something. But until the trigger happens... it is just this really small thing that looks like the other thing.
 


I don't have much time right now (I'm at work and have a dead machine on my hands) but I'll address a couple of things while I have a minute.

toberane said:
I don't recall a rule anywhere stating that the impact can't BOTH trigger the spell and still cause the natural physical breakage of the item.

There isn't a direct rule, and I never said there was. The spell itself has a pretty obvious intent. Any DM can alter that intent however they please, but creating incendiary grenades was not the intention of the spell.

toberane said:
Now, if there is still a problem with this, and you don't buy that the container would break because of the spell, then would there be a problem with shrinking just the liquid alchemists fire, putting it into a small glass container created to break using the rules for grenades, and then using that?

Yes, there would be a big ol' problem. Alchemist's fire ignites when it contacts air, not when it hits something. How are you going to shrink it and keep it out of contact with air? No doubt, someone here thinks they can shrink a gallon of the stuff in a barrell, and then pour out the alchemist's fire into a smaller container, but that won't work. Because the alchemist's fire has left the shrunken container, the liquid itself is going to immediately expand, and if it hits the air, boom.

toberane said:
In fact, if it didn't expand instantly but expanded slowly, wouldn't it cause more damage as it slowly came into contact with more of the victim?

Alchemist's fire, when it contacts air, flashes briefly and burns for 1 round (technically 2 rounds with a direct hit) before it burns itself out, all of it's fuel spent. If it expands slowly from it's shrunken size, it won't cause any more damage than it normally would.
 

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