D&D 5E Can a fireball melt ice?

[Mercule]

Depends on how much ice. Aimed at a glacial shelf? Probably not -- unless you've annoyed me (a lot) this session and happen to be standing right in front of it. That glass of lemonade sitting on the stone table in the middle of the effect isn't going to be "cool and refreshing" though.

As others have pointed out, heat takes time to transfer. High heat can do wonders, though. At some point in 1E (so, take with an appropriate grain of salt in 5E), the temperature of a fireball was declared to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 F, IIRC. That qualifies as pretty extreme and could result in some fun side-effects.

If pressed, I'd probably apply damage against the ice structure using the guidelines on pp. 246-247 of the DMG. Ice would be fragile against fire, IMO, unless it was exceptionally thick. So, the aforementioned ice cubes in the lemonade would be have 2 hp (or less) while a table made of ice would have 27ish hp. Apply rules for huge/gargantuan objects and damage thresholds, as appropriate. My preference, though, would be to use common sense and cinematic results.

 

[jeckyllgeek]

It should melt as much ice as spending a third level spell slot to melt ice, given there is not a given melt ice spell in most wizard's spell books. If the spell is trying to melt a frost giants special stuff, especially while he is wearing it, no dice. If you attack four orcs standing on ice with the spell there should be a little melting. If you use the spell simply to say "take that ice wall" there should be significant melting.