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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6882130" data-attributes="member: 42582">You raise a good point about whether or not frost giants are warm-blooded. I don't have strong intuitions on that.If you frame the question this way - which is a fine way to frame it - then I think the issue becomes less about whether or not fireball can affect objects and more about the in-fiction meaning of saving throws and hit point loss.For instance, on a Gygaxian treatment of hp and saves (AD&D DMG pp 61, 80-82) if a character is still alive then the hp loss was exertion and perhaps nicks and scratches - through skill and/or luck the character was able to avoid the bulk of the threatened harm. This also implies that the character's gear will be at worst slightly singed, but not burned to a crisp.On p 61 Gygax also notes that for many non-character creatures/monsters, hp are predominantly physical. This is especially plausible for creatures like dinosaurs, giant slugs, purple worms etc. In the case of a PC or NPC who fails his/her save and nevertheless survives a 30 or 40 hp fireball, it is plausible to envisage him/her falling flat and avoiding the bulk of the damage, or taking last-moment shelter behind some protection (per Gygax's DMG pp 80-81, "Imagine that the figure, at the last moment, of course, manages to drop beneath the licking flames, or finds a crevice in which to shield his or her body"). But in the case of a giant slug or triceratops, that is harder to imagine.So if the hobgoblins are riding a triceratops in a timber-and-wicker howdah, and the whole thing is caught in a powerful fireball, then I think there is some plausibility to the suggestion that the howdah catches alight, even though it is worn/carried by the triceratops. The likelihood could be increased, presumably, by throwing oil or a similar flammable substance onto the howdah first. (Whereas for those hobgoblins who survive (if any), we can infer that they were able to take some sort of shelter or evasive action which also protected their gear from serious damage or ignition.)I tend to think that this sort of interface between mechanics and fiction is one of the main things that distinguishes RPG resolution from boardgame resolution.</blockquote>

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