Sword of Spirit
Legend
My first experience with fireball is something I still consider one of my formative D&D experiences.
I was playing Pool of Radiance on a Commodore 64, and ha just made 5th level and memorized this promising sounding fireball spell. I find myself in that kobold cave up north of Phlan.
I cast fireball...and it is glorious.
For those who do not know, in those old Gold Box AD&D 1e based games, combat took place on a tactical grid. As I recall, it is a 7x7 grid. That fireball (at least when cast indoors) covers all but the 3 squares in each corner.
That cave is jam packed with a screen full of kobolds. Now there were probably a few empty spaces so I didn't hit the full 37 possible kobolds in a single spell, but it sure felt like it! Watching those notifications as monster after monster just kept dying was awesome. To me, that is what fireball is in D&D. And battles with hordes of mooks are an essential part of D&D.
Whenever I play and people are casting AoE spells like fireball at one or two targets it feels like such a waste. It feels even worse when there aren't regularly large groups of opponents to fireball.
Those of you who are used to just fighting one or a small few monsters all the time are really missing out IMO.
Now, fireball isn't as relatively strong in 5e (especially 5.5, but I play 5.0). However, when you actually have proper opportunities for it to shine (and it doesn't have to be 30 kobolds, 10 orcs or bandits is fine), it's still very good when you first get it. It isn't going to remain as good at high levels, but that's kind of normal and expected.
My favorite 5e character's first fireball experience was in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. One of our characters is part of an order of "assassins for the greater good", and to give them a good personal interest in the goings on, they were told by their HQ that a Scarlet Brotherhood enclave existed in Saltmarsh and tasked with finding and eliminating it.
After doing their part in the assault on the sahuagin, the party finally managed to get as much as info as we likely were going to be able to. And that culminated in knowing when and where a group of SB members would be clandestinely meeting (at night in one of those abandoned buildings on the north coast part of town).
I believe we managed to surprise them, and attacked. I don't remember the total number of opponents, but the number 14 feels about right. These aren't all just guard statblocks. There was an assassin and some others in between in CR. It came out as a Deadly x2 or such in the math (which yeah, isn't necessarily always that scary, bur this was a solid challenge where we felt threatened).
The way it worked out, my character and our blade pact warlock were both in the thick of things. I think the rest of the party was still on the perimeter. But the opportunity was too good. My character turned to his nearby warlock companion, who had taken a good wound or too, sort of looked at him sheepishly as he said "sorry"...and then I dropped the fireball right on top of the both of us (which allowed it to hit most, and maybe all, of the opponents).
Fireball sauce. It's that important.
Neither of us died (and we do have D&D resurrection magic in our game, or I would not have risked my friend's character), but lots of enemy hit points went up in flames. I think they were a strong enough group that only 2-4 or so outright died (this was near the beginning of the fight), but it certainly softened their group up enough that it was worth hitting 2 of our party of 5 (well, 6 or 7 if you count NPCs) along with them.
And that, my friends, is D&D to me.
(Fireballs not optional.)
I was playing Pool of Radiance on a Commodore 64, and ha just made 5th level and memorized this promising sounding fireball spell. I find myself in that kobold cave up north of Phlan.
I cast fireball...and it is glorious.
For those who do not know, in those old Gold Box AD&D 1e based games, combat took place on a tactical grid. As I recall, it is a 7x7 grid. That fireball (at least when cast indoors) covers all but the 3 squares in each corner.
That cave is jam packed with a screen full of kobolds. Now there were probably a few empty spaces so I didn't hit the full 37 possible kobolds in a single spell, but it sure felt like it! Watching those notifications as monster after monster just kept dying was awesome. To me, that is what fireball is in D&D. And battles with hordes of mooks are an essential part of D&D.
Whenever I play and people are casting AoE spells like fireball at one or two targets it feels like such a waste. It feels even worse when there aren't regularly large groups of opponents to fireball.
Those of you who are used to just fighting one or a small few monsters all the time are really missing out IMO.
Now, fireball isn't as relatively strong in 5e (especially 5.5, but I play 5.0). However, when you actually have proper opportunities for it to shine (and it doesn't have to be 30 kobolds, 10 orcs or bandits is fine), it's still very good when you first get it. It isn't going to remain as good at high levels, but that's kind of normal and expected.
My favorite 5e character's first fireball experience was in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. One of our characters is part of an order of "assassins for the greater good", and to give them a good personal interest in the goings on, they were told by their HQ that a Scarlet Brotherhood enclave existed in Saltmarsh and tasked with finding and eliminating it.
After doing their part in the assault on the sahuagin, the party finally managed to get as much as info as we likely were going to be able to. And that culminated in knowing when and where a group of SB members would be clandestinely meeting (at night in one of those abandoned buildings on the north coast part of town).
I believe we managed to surprise them, and attacked. I don't remember the total number of opponents, but the number 14 feels about right. These aren't all just guard statblocks. There was an assassin and some others in between in CR. It came out as a Deadly x2 or such in the math (which yeah, isn't necessarily always that scary, bur this was a solid challenge where we felt threatened).
The way it worked out, my character and our blade pact warlock were both in the thick of things. I think the rest of the party was still on the perimeter. But the opportunity was too good. My character turned to his nearby warlock companion, who had taken a good wound or too, sort of looked at him sheepishly as he said "sorry"...and then I dropped the fireball right on top of the both of us (which allowed it to hit most, and maybe all, of the opponents).
Fireball sauce. It's that important.
Neither of us died (and we do have D&D resurrection magic in our game, or I would not have risked my friend's character), but lots of enemy hit points went up in flames. I think they were a strong enough group that only 2-4 or so outright died (this was near the beginning of the fight), but it certainly softened their group up enough that it was worth hitting 2 of our party of 5 (well, 6 or 7 if you count NPCs) along with them.
And that, my friends, is D&D to me.
(Fireballs not optional.)
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however, I think mostly about how Fireball melts gold, not as much about other items. Cone of Cold was to prevent all the coins from melting into huge lumps.
