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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7144698" data-attributes="member: 6857506">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:Unfortunately, of course, my 'common sense' and your 'common sense' won't necessarily match.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.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.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).</blockquote>

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