D&D 1E Fireball throughout the ages

[R_J_K75]

Anyways, it's always better to argue with a cold brew and bowl of Pretzels...

Or with a fireball!!

 

[Helldritch]

Or with a fireball!!

I wake up from a long night at work and I see the above. You Sir made me laugh. What a nice way to start my day. Thank you!

 

[R_J_K75]

I wake up from a long night at work and I see the above. You Sir made me laugh. What a nice way to start my day. Thank you!

Glad to be of service, always happy to help!! Lifes too short to take so serious.

 

[jasper]

Or with a fireball!!

Drink with fireball in the morning cereal. HMMM Are a friend of Jim?

 

[Lanefan]

Or with a fireball!!

Reminds me of one of my mantras regarding D&D:

"There is no problem in D&D that cannot be solved by repeated application of fireball."

Of course, this is in 1e where fireball actually did something...

 

[Greenfield]

Lightning bolts used to bounce also. Lightning Bolt really needs to be widened to a 10' wide strip, or have bouncing added back.

One common misread of the infamous "Pinball Wizard" spell was that it didn't bounce around the room. It bounced back at the caster. You couldn't actually play pimball with it, but you could fry yourself and your party if you weren't careful.

 

[R_J_K75]

Reminds me of one of my mantras regarding D&D:

"There is no problem in D&D that cannot be solved by repeated application of fireball."

Of course, this is in 1e where fireball actually did something...

My friend almost burned down his house lining up shots of Flaming Dr Peppers if that counts.

 

[Greenfield]

Does anyone remember a dragon magazine article, I believe it was in a Sage Advice column with Skip Williams, where he said that instantaneous magical fire effects would incinerate whatever it came in contact with but didn't set anything on fire as the fire is gone as soon as it appears...in an instant?

That term, "Instantaneous", caused more arguments and confusions than any other in spell descriptors.

It didn't actually refer to how long the fire/lightning/acid/bunny-rabbit lasted. It refered to the fact that the spell's effect couldn't be dispelled after the fact. "Permanent" meant the effect lasted forever, unless dispelled.

As for Skip Williams' Sage Advice: I'd suggest that the Sage read the spell. It says it ignites things, therefore it ignites things.

As for the volume in earlier editions: I once wrote a module for a game tournament. The group was seeking to recover the Book of Lies, an Artifact level item that had been stolen. It was hidden in a library, and the clue they had said, "... and the book is known only by what it is not."

As I recall, Artifacts don't shoe up in a number of Detect spells, aren't subject to most damage effects, etc.

One of the options available was, of course, to just fireball the library and pick out the book that survived. Not the best solution, but a solution. The layout of the hall didn't give the players a place where they could safely cast the Fireball spell and be out of the flashback. I specifically pointed this out to the DMs running the module. (We'd do eight tables, three runs a day, of the same module and score for the best performance, so notes like that were needed.)

Many of the DMS either didn't read the notes or ignored them, which made scoring hard, but we drew quite a few shocked responses from players when their characters got toasted by their own spells.

Still, lots of fun to be had.

 

[R_J_K75]

As for Skip Williams' Sage Advice: I'd suggest that the Sage read the spell. It says it ignites things, therefore it ignites things.

That comment always struck me as odd as well and contradictory, even when I read it. Wish I could find where I read it.

 

[Helldritch]

I'd like to point out (1st and 2ed) that even though the fireball does not create pressure, it will fill its area of effect. Very often, a good way to not get caught in a fireball was to have the mage cast it and have a second character closing the door (when there was one) as the fireball was passing. A lot of DM allowed this as it was a nice way to remove the action of one of the character. (and not all DM liked to have their players toasted by their own fireball, especially if they had been clever.)