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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6935528" data-attributes="member: 6669384">So we're agreed that you want an AOE fire damage effect similar to a Fireball. And we've previously agreed that allowing PCs to access spell-like effects without the use of magic (as a usage limitation) is game breaking.  Now you're asking why it can't/shouldn't be like Fireball.As noted, we've already addressed and answered that question, and you agreed that it had game-breaking potential.Okay, now we've agreed that skill checks are proper.Looking at game balance, how game breaking is Tanglefoot Bag, which has a material cost that's not insignificant to a low level PC.  The DC I quoted wasn't to replicate an existing effect, whose formula/recipe is already known, it was to research/invent an entirely new effect from a single example that may or may not have been observed (at a distance) by a child.Let's compare it to using Spell craft to identify a spell you see cast.  Normally it's 10 plus the spell level.  Let's call your dust-bomb the equivalent of a Level 2 spell.  (Less than a Fireball, but in the same class).  That makes it a 12.  But with Spellcraft, you suffer a -5 penalty for each component you're not able to observe. Since the child wasn't able to observe the inside of that maybe-real silo, that's a -5 for not knowing materials.  There's another -5 for not knowing the ignition source, if any.  Add another -5 for not being able to rule out magic, or the presence of some supernatural creature playing a joke. In short, the penalty for not being able to see or hear the "casting" at all is pretty high.And Spellcraft for a spell is, again, identifying the exact spell from a known and finite list of known spell effects.  Again, you're trying to identify the fine operational detail of an unknown effect, while standing outside the building and at a safe distance.  Suddenly mid-40s doesn't sound all that insane, does it?And if you did that while informing him of where you plan to go with it, so it's not a DM ambush, I'd have no objections.We'd be here all day.  I'll add a few to the bottom.As I said, I didn't expect to dissuade you.I can see how that would be annoying, and I'm not actually trying to pick on you.However, you seem to be supporting or agreeing with most if not all of those assessments I've made.Sorry for the antagonistic tone.  As I mentioned, I've had discussions like this many times over the years.So let me cut to the chase:  The objection isn't to "realism" (though it's of questionable value in a magical/fantasy game.) The objection isn't to the "physics" or even to your farm boy without a formal education knowing about them.The objection isn't to the scale of the effect, be it in area or damage.The objection isn't to the attempt to introduce a "modern" weapon idea to a medieval tech (consider that the Oklahoma city bombing was powered by oil and fertilizer, and did far more damage than any Fireball ever cast in a game.)The objection is to a player in a game trying to rationalize a mechanical advantage for themselves and themselves alone, that has the potential to break the game balance.Let's see...  There are no rules for researching such things, anywhere.  There are no rules for researching/inventing new Alchemical effects, which you've more or less agreed this is.I can't point to the lack of rules, just as I can't point to the rule against using Polymorph Any Object to turn water into nitroglycerine, or a horseshoe into a planet-busting volume of fissionable, weapons-grade Plutoniom.  (minimum caster level produces up to 1,500 cubic feet, when less than a quarter of a cubic foot destroyed Nagasaki.)  And to be fair, I never said there was a specific rule against this, just that there were no rules supporting the possibility.Same question right back at your character.  Why research something like tht unless he somehow knew in advance what he was trying to build?  Answer:  No valid in-game reason.And recall that, in game terms, 1st level commoners have very few hit points.  So that "burned" may well be "burned to death".Grainaries were what made cities possible.  But grainaries of the size needed to get more than a flash of dust are another matter.So let's being with facts and objections:1) Using modern farming techniques and strains of barley, an unirrigated acre will produce 44.2 bushels of grain.  (A bushed is 4 pecks, or about 60 pounds by weight)2) The average medieval farm was sized based on what one man could work, without a tractor, disk-plow, fertilizer, harvester, thresher or bailing machine.  So consider 30 acres, of which 10 are under active cultivation at any one time.  (10 acres for winter crops, 10 for summer, and 10 fallow.)  3) Taking points 1 and 2 together, we see an annual yield of 442 bushels of barley (presuming modern grains and methods.  Probably 60% of that or less at the time.)  400 +/- 6o pound bags of grain a year, raw, wouldn't cover the floor of a modern grain silo more than knee deep, much less produce enough dust to cause an explosion.4) The miller didn't store large stockpiles of grain either.  He milled each farmer's harvest separately, keeping a share for himself as payment.  Another share (often more than half) would go to the local nobility, as rent and/or taxes.5) Grain was neither transported nor stored loose, where grain dust could fill the air.  It was in sacks or barrels, of a size a man could move.6) A farmer would hold back a portion of his harvest from the miller.  Some would go to brewing beer (every farmhouse brewed their own), some for direct use (barley soup is good), but the largest part as seed for next year.  Again, stored in sacks, not loose.7) Seeing a grainary blow up would represent the destruction of a season's food supply.  Not something anyone could afford to experiment with, nor want to recreate.  It was an immediate threat of starvation.8) Remember that your PC doesn't have a high-school education, nor any exposure to even the idea of explosives.  No training in the scientific method of experimentation or the concept of reproducibility.  What learning he or she does have is represented by the Skill ranks whose use you questioned.9) If we set the research target number at, say, 25, and your non-spellcaster PC somehow managed to study Alchemy (which you have to be a spell caster to use), and you somehow rationalized the repeated attempts involved in a "Take 20" on the skill check, long odds you'd kill yourself.  Dust clouds, by their nature, billow all around, rather than staying neatly in a confined space.  Lighting such a cloud would mean you'd need to be inside, where the dust-air density was just right.  Think of setting off a Fireball at range zero.  Not conducive to a long and storied career.10) Every attempt, failed or otherwise, is destroying several meals worth of food, in a world far different from our own.  Food is neither plentiful nor cheap.  The "It's only flour" world is very modern and very western.  And, as noted, all of this ignores the idea that such a disaster would be blamed on some enemy intent of destroying the local food supply, or the always convenient "evil spirits", which aren't mere superstition in a game world like yours.It also presumes that such an explosion occurred in the first place, a detail which is far from settled.So, whether you view this as adversarial or not, I'll say that a "magical trap" that isn't subject to Detect Magic and which can be created at a fraction of the cost of traps listed in the books is unbalancing and to be discouraged.  Allowing a similar effect without expending limited resources like spell slots is also a bad idea, for the same reasons.Having said that, I'm pretty sure you'll press for it anyway.  You've already said as much.</blockquote>

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