Flaming whip

[Brother Shatterstone]

Why should the flames of the whip hurt someone if the whip never actually gets to them?

Cause metal transfers heat rather well.

Edit: added a cause it was meant to be funny.

 

[RangerWickett]

A person in full plate is very hard to hit. Maybe even +8 to hit. To injure him with a dagger, you've gotta get your weapon to go through a vulnerable spot, and there aren't many.

A whip, by normal logic, can't get through that armor. I mean, sure, it can -- it could snap inside the visor, or lash spot where there's only chainmail and no plate -- but really, the chances of that happening are slim. I'd probably say the person gets a +8 bonus to AC to avoid being hurt by that whip. Whoo boy, is it hard to hurt someone in full plate or what?

Unless of course they run through a fire. Then they take fire damage, even though the full plate covers their whole body.

Oh, and flaming gauntlets can hurt people in full plate. Flaming gauntlets worn by pixies can hurt people in full plate. But whips can't hurt them at all. A little illogical.

 

[Shadeus]

An interesting thread. Would using a whip against someone in full-plate be different than using it against someone with damage reduction? If you hit someone with DR 20/- with a flaming whip with no armor on (assuming you do less than 20 pts of damage), do you do the extra +1d6? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. I guess I don't see how that instance of "no damage" is different than using a flaming whip against a guy in full plate.

 

[Selenim]

I inclined to say this is very much like DR and so the flame damage applies.

Of course, a hyper-strict look at the rules could be read to say it does no damage, but that seesm decidely lacking on common sense - which may have no place in D&D, pehaps. .

I agree, fire will burn you even if it's a flaming towel. The armor bonus limits for a whip are also pretty stupid since armor is not supposed to duplicate dr. The other light weapons are not similarily penalized so maybe it's some balance tweak for the extra reach.

Common sense is always a good bet when the rules of the game fail.

 

[Storyteller01]

Hmm.



A whip can't. It's incapable of breaching that protection to reach the person.

Why should the flames of the whip hurt someone if the whip never actually gets to them?

-Hyp.

For the same reason that the burst properties will effect those immune to critical hits.

By definition, those wearing armor are 'immune' to whip damage. Just as the burst properties carry though to a critter that deosn't normally take critical damage, energy properties will carry though even though the whip does no damage.


Besides, as mentioned earlier, metals have a nasty habit of transmitting fire/eelectricity/cold rather well.

 

[Caliban]

Hmm.

A dagger can damage someone in plate armour. It can find a way to get past the protection to reach the person underneath.

A whip can't. It's incapable of breaching that protection to reach the person.

Why should the flames of the whip hurt someone if the whip never actually gets to them?

-Hyp.

Because it's the flame that's doing the damage, not the whip. The weapon just has to make a successful strike to bring the magical flames close enough to do damage, it doesn't matter whether the weapon itself does damage.

I simply don't buy the arguement that the magical flames are suddenly incapable of doing damage because of the mundane weapon they are emanating from.

The "whip" part of the "flaming whip" weapon does not negate the "flaming" part of the "flaming whip" weapon. The "flaming" part does not require that the "whip" part do damage before it will function. The whip part may not do damage, but the flame part will, because they are seperate sources of damage. That's why the flaming part is not multiplied on a crit, and why it's a different damage type than the weapon.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Because it's the flame that's doing the damage, not the whip.

That's not what the ability states. It says the flaming weapon deals the damage, and the flaming weapon is a whip.

If the flaming weapon is anything but a whip, I have no issue with the fire damage being dealt to an armoured opponent.

But it isn't. It's a whip.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

By definition, those wearing armor are 'immune' to whip damage.

No, they're 'immune' to damage dealt by a whip.

Which in this case includes the fire damage, since it is damage dealt by a whip.

-Hyp.

 

[Storyteller01]

No, they're 'immune' to damage dealt by a whip.

Same thing with different wording...

Which in this case includes the fire damage, since it is damage dealt by a whip.

-Hyp.

Which is not neccesarily the case. The ability give +1d6 fire damage, not +1d6 to weapon damage. If it were the other way around, others on the board might be willing to see things the other way...


Isn't it stated in the description of DR that even a flaming (normal flame as opposed to magical) torch can ignore DR, even though a club could not? Wouldn't this fall under the same catagory, where the original implement wouldn't normally damage a target, but the fire can on a successful strike?


EDIT: Per the SRD;
Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains.

Empahsis mine

Since armor is acting as afor of damage reduction in this case, the same rules would apply. Notice that it states attack as opposed to damage.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Interestingly, if we're rules-lawyering here, the rules for whips only prohibit them from hurting creatures with armor or natural armor. So if you have a steel door, a high strength, and are power attacking with a whip, you can cut through that door. You can also sunder shields made from iron or dragonscales, and you can sunder weapons made of adamantine, but that whip just can't manage to hurt a dude wearing full plate armor.

By the way, do you realize you can use a whip two-handed? A 20th level barbarian with Weapon Focus, a +5 whip, and a 36 Strength while raging could power attack for full, have a +19 attack bonus, and deal 1d3+64 points of nonlethal damage with a whip. He could take a -4 penalty to his attack to make that lethal damage. As a full-round action that's 4 attacks, enough to cut through 7 inches of steel.

But he just can't hurt a halfling in padded armor.

So the moral of the story is, if you're going to be a whip-wielder, focus on sundering. That makes sense.

This is by far the best thing to come from this thread.