Barrel of Alchemist's Fire

[Out Cold]

Triple Post ! Arghl !

 

[erian_7]

First up - that thing is dangerous to carry around - 1 flaming adamantine arrow could really ruin the carriers day!

That's actually one of the plot options. If the PCs figure this out, the barrel goes from being a nuisance/danger/obstacle to being a potential "trap the bad guys" option.

 

[erian_7]

Also, keep in mind this is a plot device, not an item readily available to PCs (or most NPCs, for that matter). It was commisioned by a ruler with a lot of free gold and ready access to material components looking for a new seige weapon. I think a DM making something like this common enough to fall into PC hands (which it would if commonly used by NPCs) would be making a serious mistake. I plan on tightly controlling its presence IMC.

Feels a little weird replying to my reply...

I did actually think of one situation where this or similar items might be introduced as viable play options--a low magic world where the use of such things would be a necessary element to fill the void left by blastercasters (druids, sorcerers, and evokers mainly). In this situation, a whole line of alchemical options could be developed for both player and NPC use. This would need to be balanced, of course, with the options available to all players and NPCs.

 

[Pravus]

I had this thought, it won't really explode though depending on how it is deployed could alter how much it splashes. But that aside so what you get is a very slick rush of goo coming from the broken barrel. So chances are most people in the splash radius now are standing in a massive pool of fire (doing 1d6 points of damage). Ones natural instincts is to get yourself out of that pool of fire, but the stuff is slick so a REF save to move out of the pool failing means you fall causing 3d6 points of additional damage and next round you need to make another save (and so on). A save means you move out of the pool but still suffer 1d6 additional points of damage and like the normal alchemist fire suffer another 1d6 points of damage once you remove yourself from the pool.

How long does the pool last? Well I am not too sure, but for the game I would rule 6 rounds.

Total area affected is 60 ft. radius, each round that radius shrinks by 10ft. (evapouration) and after the 6th round it is gone.

 

[Vrecknidj]

From the PHB: "Alchemist's fire is a sticky, adhesive substance that ignites when exposed to air."

Question #1: If alchemist's fire burns upon contact with air, how does an alchemist get it into the flask?

Question #2: Given a typical barrel, how is anyone going to fill it with alchemist's fire in the first place.

Ignoring question #1 for now, I have a solution to the problem posed by question #2. Instead of filling a barrel with alchemist's fire, fill it with flasks of alchemist's fire.

Oh, and although the "launch this into the castle" idea is plenty of fun, here's another one. In a dungeon with lots of curvy, hilly paths, put one of these on the top of a hill where a band of adventurers might be coming up sometime soon. Either have a trap set to loose the barrel, or have a guard sitting there waiting to move the chock out of the way.

As the barrel rolls down hill, the bottles inside are clanging around. Sooner or later some of them break, catching the barrel on fire. As more break, a nice layer of burning, sticky liquid coats the hill. Thanks to gravity, the spilling liquid ought to cover a nice, big parabolic area on the hill (go with a cone shape to fit the rules), and, with any luck, the party will be half-way up the hill by the time all the real damage is done.

Now they have to go either the rest of the way up, or back down, but no matter what, the floor is burning with a sticky, gooey mess. Maybe 2d6 fire damage every round, if they move at half speed, 4d6 if they move at full speed? Either way, they can't put it out until they get out of the fiery pool at their feet.

Oh, and if someone is hit directly by the barrel (treat this part as a trap rolling to hit?), then that person takes maybe 1d6 from the barrel and an additional 5d6 fire (and, of course, this should be a x3 weapon on a critical).



Dave

 

[Quasqueton]

Using the core rules for increasing weapon size:

[someone double check me after 4d6, as I'm working off memory]

1 flask of AF = 1d6 damage -- 20gp, 1 lb.
2 flasks (doubled size) = 1d8 damage -- 40gp, 2 lb.
4 flasks (doubling again) = 2d6 -- 80gp, 4 lb.
8 flasks = 3d6 -- 160gp, 8 lb.
16 flasks = 4d6 -- 320gp, 16 lb.
32 flasks = 6d6 -- 640gp, 32 lb.
64 flasks = 8d6 -- 1,240gp, 64 lb.
128 flasks = 10d6 -- 2,560gp, 128 lb.
-- Stop here? --
256 flasks = 12d6 -- 5,120gp, 256 lb.
512 flaks = 14d6 -- 10,240gp, 512 lb.
. . .
4,096 flasks = 20d6 -- 81,920gp, 4,096 lb.

The AF should not do 1d6 per flask when used as one weapon. It should increase just as other weapons do. A greatsword has twice as much steel as a longsword (8 lb. vs. 4 lb.), but doesn't do 2d8 damage.

Quasqueton

 

[Lamoni]

From the PHB: "Alchemist's fire is a sticky, adhesive substance that ignites when exposed to air."

Question #1: If alchemist's fire burns upon contact with air, how does an alchemist get it into the flask?

Question #2: Given a typical barrel, how is anyone going to fill it with alchemist's fire in the first place.

Well, any alchemmist would know the solution to this problem. Alchemist fire could be produced under a less dense non-reactive oil. To fill any flask, you just have to dip the flask under the oil, fill it with alchemist's fire, top and seal the flask then remove. You could just as easily do the same thing with a barrel... although you would probably have to use extra engineering to lift the barrel out once full, and it would require a larger vat of alchemist's fire.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Since it takes epic grade Alchemy skill and an Epic Feat to make Alch Fire that does 2d6 per pint I get the feeling that the developers thought that giving Fireball grade damage through non-magical means was probably a bad idea.

It ignores SR and is usuable by any character so I'd probably use Quesqueton's rule (which matches the Sage's suggestion) but then cap it under the Max for Burning Hands or minimum for Fireball (5d6) -- or 4d6. At 8 pints to the gallon it would cap at 2 gallons per square. Beyond that it just increases the area covered with each ring losing 4 damage sizes.

For splash the difference between the hit and splash effect is 4 size levels (1d6 >>>> 1d1 iirc). So it might be fair to say center at 4d6, 5' splash at 1d6, and 10' radius at 1.

Total damage potential on average 3.5*[2(1 * 3d6), 2(8 * 1d6)], +(16 x 1)=93, Burning Hands at 5th = 7 squares at 5d6 = 122 average.

 

[erian_7]

Using the core rules for increasing weapon size:

[someone double check me after 4d6, as I'm working off memory]

1 flask of AF = 1d6 damage -- 20gp, 1 lb.
2 flasks (doubled size) = 1d8 damage -- 40gp, 2 lb.
4 flasks (doubling again) = 2d6 -- 80gp, 4 lb.
8 flasks = 3d6 -- 160gp, 8 lb.
16 flasks = 4d6 -- 320gp, 16 lb.
32 flasks = 6d6 -- 640gp, 32 lb.
64 flasks = 8d6 -- 1,240gp, 64 lb.
128 flasks = 10d6 -- 2,560gp, 128 lb.
-- Stop here? --
256 flasks = 12d6 -- 5,120gp, 256 lb.
512 flaks = 14d6 -- 10,240gp, 512 lb.
. . .
4,096 flasks = 20d6 -- 81,920gp, 4,096 lb.

The AF should not do 1d6 per flask when used as one weapon. It should increase just as other weapons do. A greatsword has twice as much steel as a longsword (8 lb. vs. 4 lb.), but doesn't do 2d8 damage.

Quasqueton

Is this for the bludgeoning damage, or the fire damgage? If the former, I think the improvised weapon rules in Complete Warrior might be more appropriate.

 

[Conaill]

Two good rules of thumb to keep in mind:

1) A massive splash weapon should not do more damage than individual doses used optimally. So if you have a bunch of enemies bunch together, one per 5' square, individual doses of AF on each opponent would do 1d6+8 (8 splashes from surrounding squares), let's call it 3d6. If you total all the damage from your scaled-up version, you shouldn't do more damage than that.

2) Races of Renown: Plot and Poison has a really good mechanism to calculate market price of alchemical items which have effects similar to a known spell. For higher-level spells, this is equivalent to spell lvl x caster lvl x 210 gp (that's the price of a one-shot item useable by anyone, times 2.1). So if you want something equivalent to a Meteor Swarm, it should cost you around 36,000 gp.