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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6935185" data-attributes="member: 6669384">The fact that you're seeking damage numbers at all says that you're trying to create a fireball-like damage AOE effect, without magic.  Larger, smaller, more damage or less, these are just the details.  You're trying to create fire effects similar to Fireball without the use of magic.  Yet you appear to be attempting to do exactly that.Because skill checks are how  things like this are handled in the game.  The child who would grow up  to become your PC would have a maximum of 4 skill ranks in any skill   (Level plus three), and a maximum of 5 Ability ability points (presuming  a natural 18 plus a racial mod), so +9 total.  As I said, target number  should be in the mid 40s, so not possible.Now, why Alchemy?   Because that's the skill that deals with chemical reactions and  incendiaries.  Your DM may, of course, ask for some different skill to  be used, but some kind of skill check is called for.  It's D&D after  all.I could point out that this presumes that dust explosions are in the game world.  As in, you're telling the DM, not asking the DM.  I could also point out that such a thing could (and probably would) be attributed to a mischiveous spirit or an abuse of magic.  I could ask what skill checks your character made.  I could point out that the grain silos you're thinking of only occur in a modern farm, where they have tractors and threshing machines and modern high-yield grain varieties, that grain at the time was transported and stored in sacks or barrels, not loose for easy loading and unloading by screw-hoists into delivery trucks.  In other words, no clouds of grain dust or flour.I could point out a few dozen more flaws, and bury you in facts about barley yield in un-irrigated fields, average size of the medieval family farm, and so forth.I won't.  You'd just rationalize a way around them.  You want this, you want to substitute "a little ingenuity" for the rules, you've convinced yourself that you deserve to have a game advantage that the rules don't allow for and that nobody else has, and I'd be frankly shocked if any level of fact could change your mind.Sorry if that came out harsh, but I've had this conversation with dozens of munchkins over the years and I've yet to see one dissuaded.Just for fun though, maybe reality can do what reason and fact can't:  Grab a couple of bags of flour or corn starch (pastry flour is the finest) and go find a nice large parking lot where you can experiment without lighting anything on fire.Now, try different methods of throwing flour into the air and lighting it.  No electric fans or blowers, it has to be some way available to the medieval tech level, and man-portable.Do that and then count how many attempts you make, how much flour you waste before you get a flare effect of any kind.  You don't need to tell me or anyone on the board, but once you get a successful technique (presuming that you actually do) try to repeat it, and note the failure rate.  Note how high you had to throw to get the air mixture right, so you know how high a ceiling has to be for it to be used.Then, when arguing for the effect, tell the DM about your experiments, learning curve and failure rates.I'd bet money that your experimental data will shoot you down in flames.<TANGENT> Once upon a time there was a sizable reward offered for anyone who could come up with an acceptable substitute for Ivory, for Billiard balls.  Many people tried to develop one.  One small team ended up dissolving cellulose (paper) to a mush with Nitric acid, them compressing it into a ball and letting it dry.  (They had to rinse it a bit.)  It worked.  It had the right hardness, the right bounce, the right color, the right everything.  They were celebrating by bouncing their first ball around the room.  At some point they hit it just right (or just wrong) and the compresses ball of nitro-cellulose (also known as flash paper or gun cotton) exploded, killing everyone in the room.  The tale was reconstructed from their notes later on.</TANGENT>A "little ingenuity", without actually knowing what you're doing can go a long way.  Not always in the right direction, of course.  <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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