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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6934228" data-attributes="member: 6669384">What do I think you're doing?I think you are the player I warned you about in my initial post:&nbsp; The enterprising player attempting to create Fireball effects via mundane means (i.e. without expending spells).&nbsp; Magic is a sharply limited resource in D&amp;D, of any edition, as it is in Pathfinder and just about any other system.&nbsp; There's a reason for that.Unlimited access to magic or spell-like effects, particularly combat-effective spell effects, unbalances the game.One big objection I've had to gunpowder researchers, which players love to ignore, is that their character doesn't start off knowing that there's a thing called &quot;gunpowder&quot; to research.&nbsp; Similarly, why would your character, or any PC for that matter, start to think that a bag of flour could explode?Modern flour is much more finely ground than medieval flour.&nbsp; Corn starch flatly didn't exist.&nbsp; (Corn wasn't known in Europe before Colombus, since it came from the &quot;New World&quot;.)&nbsp; The coarser flour of the time (read as &quot;in a medieval technology&quot;) would be much harder to use to fuel a dust explosion, since it was closer to sand than dust.&nbsp; It was also unbleached, and would be considered &quot;whole wheat' (or just as likely &quot;whole barley&quot; or &quot;whole rye&quot;) so it had bran mixed in.&nbsp; (Bran is the husk of the grain).&nbsp; Again, not a fine, carb-rich &quot;dust&quot;.So the only way your character could know there was anything to try and recreate would be if the DM already had such things in his game (hence the &quot;re&quot; part of &quot;recreate&quot;.)&nbsp; So rather than trying to break the game by arguing for &quot;magic&quot; effects achieved without magic, play the game as it stands.Either that or make an Alchemy roll, with a target number somewhere in the 40s.&nbsp; (As in, by the time you could make it, you won't care about a 5D4 flash-bang that fails more often than it succeeds.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 6934228, member: 6669384"] What do I think you're doing? I think you are the player I warned you about in my initial post: The enterprising player attempting to create [I]Fireball[/I] effects via mundane means (i.e. without expending spells). Magic is a sharply limited resource in D&D, of any edition, as it is in Pathfinder and just about any other system. There's a reason for that. Unlimited access to magic or spell-like effects, particularly combat-effective spell effects, unbalances the game. One big objection I've had to gunpowder researchers, which players love to ignore, is that their character doesn't start off knowing that there's a thing called "gunpowder" to research. Similarly, why would your character, or any PC for that matter, start to think that a bag of flour could explode? Modern flour is much more finely ground than medieval flour. Corn starch flatly didn't exist. (Corn wasn't known in Europe before Colombus, since it came from the "New World".) The coarser flour of the time (read as "in a medieval technology") would be much harder to use to fuel a dust explosion, since it was closer to sand than dust. It was also unbleached, and would be considered "whole wheat' (or just as likely "whole barley" or "whole rye") so it had bran mixed in. (Bran is the husk of the grain). Again, not a fine, carb-rich "dust". So the only way your character could know there was anything to try and recreate would be if the DM already had such things in his game (hence the "re" part of "recreate".) So rather than trying to break the game by arguing for "magic" effects achieved without magic, play the game as it stands. Either that or make an Alchemy roll, with a target number somewhere in the 40s. (As in, by the time you could make it, you won't care about a 5D4 flash-bang that fails more often than it succeeds.) [/QUOTE]

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