Faerie Fire too powerful

[werecorpse]

Towards heat metal, my group is fairly certain it is an effective death sentence against any target wearing heavy metal armor.

It takes so long to remove that the targets only choice is to break the concentration, which makes it a race. A race I've never seen an NPC with platemail win. It's just too much fire damage to take consistently every round.

absolutely - never go up against lizard men wearing metal armour. Their Druids just cast heat metal on your fighters then swim away, hide and boil them. Does anyone have a good fix for this spell? My idea is to give a save every time you take damage succes being half damage and no disadvantage (still a ton of damage but because it happens over time it can be ameliorated).

btw I don't think the fact it is useless except in certain circumstances (though IMO metal is frequent enough to be as good as a hold person) is a good argument for it being balanced when it's awesome in others. It just makes it a swingy choice. Better to be never op.

 

[Eubani]

All this talk about Heat Metal got me thinking.....Heat metal on metal arrow heads?? If you use the damage in the spell it could significantly boost an archers dpr.

 

[Blue]

At the different tables I've been at, if used Faerie Fire has been effective but not overly so compared to other concentration debuff spells. That includes Out of the Abyss where we had three drow in the party so it was coming out a lot. And two were non-casters so it was even better by avoiding the opportunity cost of concentration for another spell.

This is just anecdotal, but at my FLGS characters and tactics tend towards crowd-sourced and optimized as people ask for advice and bounce ideas off each other.

 

[kalil]

As a 7th level moon druid in my curreny campaign I dont think FF is even worth preparing. The concentration slot is always occupied by something more important.

 

[ad_hoc]

As a 7th level moon druid in my curreny campaign I dont think FF is even worth preparing. The concentration slot is always occupied by something more important.

Compared to other 1st level spells? Or do you always have high level spells available? If so, then maybe you aren't being challenged enough.

 

[Philth]

All this talk about Heat Metal got me thinking.....Heat metal on metal arrow heads?? If you use the damage in the spell it could significantly boost an archers dpr.

It would probably just set the arrow on fire if the shaft was wood and fall apart. It's meant as a debilitating spell. Otherwise it would have text for adding it to your own weapons.

 

[kalil]

Compared to other 1st level spells? Or do you always have high level spells available? If so, then maybe you aren't being challenged enough.

With conjure animals and polymorph both lasting an hour there is precious little reason to waste my concentration slot on something like FF.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

All this talk about Heat Metal got me thinking.....Heat metal on metal arrow heads?? If you use the damage in the spell it could significantly boost an archers dpr.

It would probably just set the arrow on fire if the shaft was wood and fall apart. It's meant as a debilitating spell. Otherwise it would have text for adding it to your own weapons.

Either that, or the PHB writers just didn't think of it. Most metal armor has leather straps holding the metal plates together, but the Heat Metal spell doesn't say a single word about damaging those. Using it on an arrow seems like an interesting idea.

I'd rule that pulling the arrow out requires an action and a STR check, and this counts as "dropping the item." If the archer gets a critical hit, increase the DC to remove the arrow. This way it's not OMG stupid amounts of free damage! and more of a delaying tactic with the potential for extra damage if the arrow stays stuck for an extra round or two.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Either that, or the PHB writers just didn't think of it. Most metal armor has leather straps holding the metal plates together, but the Heat Metal spell doesn't say a single word about damaging those. Using it on an arrow seems like an interesting idea.

I'd rule that pulling the arrow out requires an action and a STR check, and this counts as "dropping the item." If the archer gets a critical hit, increase the DC to remove the arrow. This way it's not OMG stupid amounts of free damage! and more of a delaying tactic with the potential for extra damage if the arrow stays stuck for an extra round or two.

What if the arrow only grazes the target? What if it fully pierces the target (the head of the arrow passes through and ends up outside the target)? Why isn't the target disabled/penalized from having an arrow sticking out of him irrespective of the spell? Shouldn't the target take extra damage for pulling the arrow out? Especially if the arrow heads are barbed? Oh, but I think I read somewhere that barbed arrowheads have poor armor penetration, so shouldn't we factor that in too? IMO, this way lies madness.

Having it cost an action to pull out the arrow makes it too potent. Forget stupid amounts of free damage, having an enemy do nothing for a round is arguably better (unless that damage would bring the target to 0 hp). Heat metal is already a good (albeit situational) spell. There's no reason to expand its use to non-metal-using creatures.

If I were to allow the arrow to stay in then I'd let the creature pull it out using the free action item interaction every character gets once per round. However, in actuality I'd probably only let it deal damage once (when the target is hit). After that, I'd presume the arrow didn't stay in. Not exactly an ideal use of heat metal, but IMO that's not what it's intended for. There's already a 3rd level spell called Flame Arrows in EEPG, so a spell already exists for creating burning arrows.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well that new definition certainly makes sense for darkness (everyone can see the person in light, no one can see the person in darkness so the person in darkness gets the benefit of obscurement and the person in the light doesn't) but IMO the way you appear to be reading it doesn't make sense for fog cloud. I would rule that if you are standing in the fog enough to be gain the benefit of being obscured from people then those who you are obscured from are obscured from you (there is fog between you and them). Ie by standing in the edge of the fog cloud enough to get obscurement and looking out the things out of the cloud are obscured by it so the last 14 words of the rule would apply.

I would run it similarly (my ruling is that more than 5' of fog blocks line of sight) but I'm conscious of the fact that my own ruling, not something implied by the PHB's heavy obscurement rules.