D&D 5E Burning doors with firebolt

[FormerlyHemlock]

The hinges are likely made of metal (even more resilient than the wood of the door).

More resilient than an Iron Golem?

 

[Greenfield]

There are no hard rules for firebolts burning down doors in 5e so I don't know where you get this from.

By the same token there are no hard rules explicitly saying that Firebolt can kill monsters. You have to sort to apply the rest of the rules on damage to come to that otherwise unsupported conclusion.

What the rules do say is:

Fire Bolt
Evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You hurl a mote of fire at a creature or object within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 fire damage. A flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it isn't being worn or carried.
This spell's damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

Since wooden doors are <gasp> made of wood, and wood is a flammable material, it is ignited. No Save, no Hardness, it just burns.

So, unless you're prepared to argue that lighting things on fire doesn't do any damage to them, then yeah, the rules as written do say that the trick works.

What needs to be determined (and I haven't seen it in this discussion) is how much damage the door takes, per round, while it's on fire. With that, and knowing the hit points of the door, you can determine how long it will take for the trick to work.

 

[S'mon]

Monsters have stat blocks, dmg says gm needs to rule re objects.

Thick wood is only semi flammable as lots of people have pointed out. GM needs to decide how much fire is needed. Should not let player overbear reasoned judgement.

 

[MechaPilot]

Would you rather have someone throw a lit zippo at you or shoot you with a blackpower pistol?

Is the stock engraved with art of panthers?

 

[Harzel]

By the same token there are no hard rules explicitly saying that Firebolt can kill monsters. You have to sort to apply the rest of the rules on damage to come to that otherwise unsupported conclusion.

What? The description you quoted makes it abundantly clear that Firebolt can kill a monster. The general rules for damaging and killing creatures are very clear. In contrast, the DMG section on damaging objects is explicitly a bunch of suggestions, except for these two directives:

...the only hard and fast rule is this: given enough time and the right tools, characters can destroy any destructible object. Use common sense when determining a character's success at damaging an object."

Unfortunately, of course, my 'common sense' and your 'common sense' won't necessarily match.

Since wooden doors are <gasp> made of wood, and wood is a flammable material, it is ignited. No Save, no Hardness, it just burns.

You are overgeneralizing. Any particular piece of wood may or may not be flammable. Furthermore, the fact that something ignites is absolutely no guarantee that it will continue to burn.

So, unless you're prepared to argue that lighting things on fire doesn't do any damage to them, then yeah, the rules as written do say that the trick works.

Congratulations on knocking down that strawman. I don't think anyone in the thread has suggested that the average wooden door would be impervious to Firebolt. The discussion has been around the magnitude of the effect and what other consequences there might be.

What needs to be determined (and I haven't seen it in this discussion) is how much damage the door takes, per round, while it's on fire. With that, and knowing the hit points of the door, you can determine how long it will take for the trick to work.

Ok, the DMG suggests 18(4d8) hp for a medium resilient object (e.g. a barrel) and 27(5d10) for a large resilient object (e.g. a cart). I would peg an average wooden door as being in between those, so let's say 22(4d10). If I were to rule that the door continued to burn, I'd probably make the damage 4(1d6) per round. So between the damage from Firebolt itself (assuming repeated casting) and burning, the door would last maybe 3 rounds. That would be consistent with RAW and with the DMG suggestions.

But that is by no means the only ruling that would be consistent with RAW, since the only element of RAW here that is definite is the damage done by Firebolt; everything else is suggestions. For my part, I think 22(4d10) vastly undershoots the HP of a average dungeon door, which I would expect to be very thick hardwood with metal reinforcements. If I think about attacking such a thing with a battleaxe being wielded by someone of average strength, I think a dozen blows would be minimum for destroying it sufficiently to be passable. So that is more like 54(12d8).

As for the use of Firebolt, yes the wood ignites, but the flames go out after a couple seconds, leaving smoldering embers which might consume the door eventually, but it would take days. Furthermore, Firebolt's standard damage is a reflection of what it does to a creature; relative to that, the door will have resistance to that damage. So you can certainly get through the door by casting Firebolt repeatedly, but it will take you several minutes (~20 rounds) to do so. However, I probably would not rule that this would create a lot of smoke - you are incinerating portions of the wood fairly cleanly (in contrast to say dousing the door in oil and trying to burn it down with regular fire).

 

[cbwjm]

Honestly, people just need to go with whatever is fun for the group. If that means the wizard can burn down a wooden door with fire bolt then let it happen.

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[Fanaelialae]

More resilient than an Iron Golem?

When you defeat someone/something with Eldritch Blast, IMO, it isn't as though you turned the gore setting up to ultra-violent. You haven't completely destroyed the physical form of the golem (the body is likely to be largely intact) but rather damaged its connection to its animating force to a degree that it can no longer function. Eldritch blast is a beam of force, not a rocket launcher.

If you use a cantrip/spell that can utterly destroy the body (ie, disintegrate) then, yes, it would be able to one-shot a hinge (assuming it can target objects). IMO, eldritch blast is not such a spell, and therefore it would likely require numerous castings to render the hinge incapable of supporting the door.

As a side note, there's also another issue with destroying the hinges, that being that it would be quite difficult to do if you're not on the same side of the door as the hinges.

 

[Soul Stigma]

Honestly, people just need to go with whatever is fun for the group. If that means the wizard can burn down a wooden door with fire bolt then let it happen.

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Just stop it with the fun. Rules, man, rules!


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[FormerlyHemlock]

When you defeat someone/something with Eldritch Blast, IMO, it isn't as though you turned the gore setting up to ultra-violent. You haven't completely destroyed the physical form of the golem (the body is likely to be largely intact) but rather damaged its connection to its animating force to a degree that it can no longer function. Eldritch blast is a beam of force, not a rocket launcher.

If you use a cantrip/spell that can utterly destroy the body (ie, disintegrate) then, yes, it would be able to one-shot a hinge (assuming it can target objects). IMO, eldritch blast is not such a spell, and therefore it would likely require numerous castings to render the hinge incapable of supporting the door.

I agree with your first paragraph, and that makes it really hard to understand the relationship to your second paragraph. You seem to be equating breaking a hinge to disintegrating a 200 lb. man: only spells which are capable of doing the latter would you permit to do the former. I don't follow that logic at all.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree with your first paragraph, and that makes it really hard to understand the relationship to your second paragraph. You seem to be equating breaking a hinge to disintegrating a 200 lb. man: only spells which are capable of doing the latter would you permit to do the former. I don't follow that logic at all.

It doesn't have to be able to disintegrate a 200 lb man, but it does need to be able to completely destroy the hinge rather than just poking a small hole in it (and I'm not convinced that 1d10 damage could poke a hole in a metal plate, so you're probably going to need to blast the exact same spot multiple times just to do that much).

Think of it like trying to destroy a hinge with a steel jacketed round (lead is out, because it would be weird for EB to deform on impact). Assuming there isn't a casting flaw that would cause the hinge to shatter (because we could also assume a flaw in the wood that would do the same to the door), a bullet would either deflect and just dent the hinge, or punch a hole. The hinge is likely to still be functional. You'd need a mess of shots in all likelihood, and my guess is that the frame the hinge is attached to would fail before the hinge itself does.