I have a druid in my game who has a minor rod of extend spell. If he uses the rod to extend his heat metal spell (or frankly any spell that does a different amount of damage per round for a certain number of rounds), how does the damage work. Does the damage still ramp up evenly, i.e. first round no damage, second round d4, third round d4, fourth round d6, fifth round d6, sixth round d4, etc. (I might have the damage from the spell miscalculated, but hopefully you all understand what I'm getting at), or does the spell work as normally and then starts again, i.e. first round no damage, second round d4, third round d6, fifth round d4, sixth round no damage, seventh round d4, etc. Hope my question is clear. Thanks in advance for any help.
extend spell and heat/chill metal
- Thread starter direcow
- Start date
Lord Pendragon
First Post
I'm not sure there's a rules cite to definitively answer your question, but as a DM I would still ramp up the damage evenly over the new, extended duration.
Edit to add: Looking at Mike's chart, I'd probably cut off the extra 0 at the front and back and replace it with a 1d4, but that'd be a generous ruling.
Edit to add: Looking at Mike's chart, I'd probably cut off the extra 0 at the front and back and replace it with a 1d4, but that'd be a generous ruling.
Last edited:
Rhun
First Post
Lord Pendragon said:
I would cut off the extra 0s as well...otherwise, extending the spell actually makes it weaker in some ways, as it doesn't go into effect as fast, and gives the enemy more time to remove their gear. As a matter of fact, I think I would rule that the spell causes the higher damage for longer, but still heats up and cools just as fast as normal. So I would use a chart like this:
1 0
2 1d4
3 2d4
4 2d4
5 2d4
6 2d4
7 2d4
8 2d4
9 2d4
10 2d4
11 2d4
12 2d4
13 1d4
14 0
This may be a generous ruling, but otherwise, extending the spell has drawbacks in addition to the advantages of doing it.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
This is a very valid point. In the game in which I'm a player, our party fighter was hit with Heat Metal and would have cooked if another enemy spellcaster hadn't cast an Ice Storm in the same area. Getting armor off takes quite some time.mikebr99 said:
However, the extra round of 0 damage strikes me as simply too great a disadvantage for combats that usually last 5 rounds or less to begin with, so I'm inclined to be generous in that regard, even if I wouldn't set all the extended rounds at max damage.
Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to follow mikebr99's chart with the extra 0 damage cut off. I see the logic in keeping it in, but I'm usually a fairly generous dm. However, that druid has been causing me headaches for awhile. He's a great player, but the fact that he has improved summoning and can now animal growth his summoned beasties is horrific. It's a sad day for evil when your main baddie gets wasted by a charging enlarged rhino.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
I decided recently that the way I'd rule this if it ever comes up is to keep the ramp-up time constant, but triple the ramp-down time. So the number of rounds at each 'state' are doubled, but the spell comes into full effect as quickly as normal.
So:
0122210
becomes:
01222222111000
-Hyp.
So:
0122210
becomes:
01222222111000
-Hyp.
Jack Simth
First Post
... Which takes him ONE ROUND, if he can Quicken one of the two spells used. Two, otherwise.direcow said:
If he's known to do this, you simply need to start setting up situations in which that wouldn't work - flying baddies, baddies in trees, baddies on a raised dias only accessable by stairs, baddies on a roofs easily accessable by ladder, baddies with Antilife Shell or Antimagic Field (the rhino was summoned, remember....), or the like. Or even just baddies with pikes. Or baddies that get AoO's against the charging rhino.
