D&D 5E Can a Fireball melt ice FOR REALZ?

[happyhermit]

What flame would you compare it to though? It's a 20' radius volume of fire that is intense enough to instantly kill a elk not bring it to 0 but - its own HP. It kills a guard and vs s commoner it kills them multiple times over. It's intense enough to shatter a inch of stone in a wall of stone spell. There obviously is a level and volume of heat that would melt that ice cube and much larger chunks of ice instantly. How long would a glacier last if thrown into the sun? Is a fireball as hot as the sun? I doubt it, but it's also probably many many orders of magnitude hotter than a campfire or torch or whatever real world example used so far.

HP being an abstract concept these game facts of what it kills and destroys can help shape an opinion. But any answer works. In your world when it ignites flammable objects is it a slow smolder a spark and small flame do the burst into a roaring fire. Again any answer works as HP are abstract.

auto corrupt

I made my post before reading the other thread where pretty much everything I said was said in more depth already. Suffice it to say, melting ice is not easy compared to lighting flammable objects on fire or damaging a creature, and so we can't say that a fireball that would do one thing would necessarily melt any ice (what temperature is the ice, absolute zero? Is there an absolute zero in that world, or is "cold" actually as real as "heat") but we can assume that if it does melt it would not melt very much.

That's if it was actual flame though, not magic flames that don't burn clothes or held items (as per the rules).

The reality is, whether or not it melts ice in any particular game is up to the GM of that game. If it "makes sense" or is cool, then go for it, otherwise magical fire doesn't affect ice.

 

[Ahglock]

I don't think we can even assume it wouldn't melt much if it weren't magic. As I said we have no frame of reference for how hot that fairly large volume of fire is. There are heat levels that will instantly melt or shatter and vaporize ice. About all we can say is it does 28ish points of fire damage to the ice. Does that break the damage threshold of ice or the volume of ice you are targeting? Don't know there are no rules on it. We know ice has a AC of 13. Large resilient objects have 27hp. Really big objects can have a damage threshold where they take no damage unless one blow exceeds that amount. And a GM can rule a damage type might be ineffective. Does it get resistance? That's a GM call. Does a sheet of ice have one hp pool and it's all destroyed or not destroyed at all? Does partial damage reflect in a reflective % melting. Does a large sheet of ice effectively get hit dozens of times for 28 points of damage like each 5' square is a seperate hp pool?

Given the rules I'd say it has HP like everything else. It would take full damage as its about as effective as an axe or pick given its volume and heat levels. The HP would vary based on its thickness. It would pick up a hp threshold after 3" that hp threshold would progressively get bigger the thicker the ice. Id try to remember what ruling I made last time to be consistent. I may give it resistance if the conditions are such that the ice would be much colder than normal.

 

[5Shilling]

Both this and the torches thread are informed by p185 of the PHB, "interacting with objects". That's all you need.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Both this and the torches thread are informed by p185 of the PHB, "interacting with objects". That's all you need.

If a player wanted to melt ice with fireball in 5e, this + object HP in the DMG is probably what I'd use.

FWIW, a "large, resilient" object (Which I think fairly describes a 10 ft. by 10 ft. block of ice) has about 27 hp. If I didn't rule that it had any special vulnerability to fire, a normal fireball will probably melt it. Makes certain sense - it melts people, after all.

This is the "say yes" philosophy at work. I'm not too worried about it being OP - I'm one who likes encouraging creative strategies and using a fireball to destroy the environment rather than your enemies is a pretty creative, lateral strategy. If that - for instance - creates a massive pit below the enemy in the flying ice castle...cool!

 

[Ahglock]

The large object example was a wagon. I Think I could wreck a wagon quicker than a 10' block of ice. Also a rowboat has 50 hp. Though I kind of assume it's a fairly big rowboat since it has 1 crew and 3 passengers.

 

[GX.Sigma]

None of the poll options make sense to me.

Off the top of my head, I'd say a fireball can melt, on average, about an inch of ice. e.g., your 10'x10' block of ice would become a 9'10" x 9'10" block of ice, assuming it was fully within the burst.

This is based on my understanding of how ice responds to heat, not anything to do with "precedence" or "complication" or "game experience."

FWIW, a "large, resilient" object (Which I think fairly describes a 10 ft. by 10 ft. block of ice) has about 27 hp. If I didn't rule that it had any special vulnerability to fire, a normal fireball will probably melt it. Makes certain sense - it melts people, after all.

Interesting interpretation of hit points. What if a Fighter used a scimitar to deal 27 damage to that block of ice? Would it completely disintegrate?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's a curious thing from Jeremy Crawford on twitter:

@Soul_Smoker can cloud of daggers affect objects
@JeremyECrawford Cloud of daggers affects creatures, not objects. If a spell can target objects, its description says so.

...so while a fireball may melt ice, cloud of daggers can't cut ropes without a house rule, I guess.

Interesting interpretation of hit points. What if a Fighter used a scimitar to deal 27 damage to that block of ice? Would it completely disintegrate?

It'd "be destroyed." Much like how a creature killed with fireball leaves a smoldering corpse, and an ice block destroyed with fireball probably leaves a puddle, a creature killed with a scimitar leaves a corpse and an ice block destroyed with a scimitar probably leaves smaller chunks of ice.

 

[pemerton]

Both this and the torches thread are informed by p185 of the PHB, "interacting with objects". That's all you need.

I agree. But not everyone else does - hence the threads.

 

[delericho]

When I saw "Swan Lake on Ice", they set fire to the ice before the interval, then proceeded to skate on it during the second half. Given that the ice in question wasn't particularly thick, and given that the fire lasted considerably longer than a fireball, I'm going to say that no, a fireball doesn't melt any significant amount of ice.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think the more important question is "Can jet fuel melt steel beams?"

Please take your tasteless questions elsewhere.

Thank you.