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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7145352" data-attributes="member: 6669384">My response was to the suggestion that somehow, because Firebolt didn't explicitly mention doors, it couldn't burn them.  So, following the same logic, since it talked about damage but didn't explicitly mention death...  So you have to look at the rules to determine that damage can cause death, and that doors, being objects made of a flammable material, will be ignited by the spell.  You have to apply common sense instead of treating a statement as if it existed in a vacuum.  Bottom line, the rules don't say that there's a "chance" of flammable objects catching fire.  It says they catch fire, period.  There isn't a Save, a resistance check, a test to see if the spell did a minimum amount of damage or met some other special threshold standard.  The spell does what the rules say it does.Don't like it?  Change the rules.  Until that comes to pass though, play bey them.This is the difference between real life and game mechanics I mentioned.  IRL it would be hard to make that door catch fire without hitting it with some kind of accellerant (i.e. adding alcohol or gasoline to soak the surface).  In a real life discussion it would make sense to question whether an instantaneous flash of flame could light a heavy timber.  You'd need something to help it catch, help it spread.In a game mechanics discussion there is no doubt, no room for error.  The spell says it lights the thing, so it lights the thing.The only alternative would be to rule that the wooden door is somehow not a "flammable" material, which would raise an even bigger question and a lot more argument on this board.  Like, how does the party start camp fires if wood isn't flammable?  See?  An even bigger schism between games and real world.All that's left is to determine how much damage being on fire does, and how many hit/break/structure/whatever points a heavy wooden door has.What can and should be done is to determine if there is any other negative effect from this scorched-underearth policy.Things I'd consider:  Does the smell of smoke alert anything/everything to the party's presence?Does the smoke cloud obscure vision or cause breathing difficulties?Is there any toxic effect from a lot of smoke in a confined tunnel or room?The only thing that isn't in question, from a strict mechanics point of view, is whether the trick can burn down a door.  The answer is an absolute yes.<Tangent>  When my group played 4th Ed. we observed that the "Burning" condition did damage only on the target's action.  This explained why you could enter an ancient temple, deserted for centuries, and all the oil burning braziers and torches were still lit:  Unattended objects don't get actions, so they never take any damage, and never get consumed by the flames.  One of our favorite jokes.  Want to keep the house from burning down?  Get out and leave it alone.  So long as the fire and/or object is unattended, the fire does no damage. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> </Tangent></blockquote>

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