D&D 5E Oil+Alchemist's Fire

[jaelis]

I think the 1d4 impact is debatable... Acid says "Make a ranged attack against a creature or object, treating the the acid as an improvised weapon. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 acid damage." That really sounds to me like the acid damage is used in place of the normal 1d4 bludgeoning damage, though I agree it can be read both ways. Holy water uses the exact same language.

Oil and alchemist's fire are almost the same except the fire has "On a hit, the target takes 1d4 damage at the start of each of its turns," and oil says "On a hit the target is covered in oil." If you read the acid and holy water effects as replacing the normal 1d4 damage, I guess you would do the same for the oil and alchemist's fire.

I guess it is pretty significant, since 1d4+dex is comparable to or more than the other damage dealt. I could see people playing it either way.

 

[jaelis]

Goodness, I looked it up on twitter. Crawford seems to say that alchemists fire doesn't deal any damage at the time it hits, but you do add your dex to the fire damage every round. I see the logic but I wouldn't have thought of that.

Does Alchemist's Fire on hit adds DEX modifier to damage?

D&D Sage Advice ·

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I think that means acid would do 2d6+dex acid damage, holy water 2d6+dex radiant damage, but oil would still only cover you in oil, with no direct damage.

 

[Fenris-77]

Goodness, I looked it up on twitter. Crawford seems to say that alchemists fire doesn't deal any damage at the time it hits, but you do add your dex to the fire damage every round. I see the logic but I wouldn't have thought of that.

Does Alchemist's Fire on hit adds DEX modifier to damage?

D&D Sage Advice ·

www.sageadvice.eu

I think that means acid would do 2d6+dex acid damage, holy water 2d6+dex radiant damage, but oil would still only cover you in oil, with no direct damage.

That seems ... odd. I can see the train of logic, but yeah, not what I would have assumed. Interesting.

 

[Iry]

Alot of players complain about the abundance and lack of use for gold. I guess having a few spare alchemist's fire to burn could be useful.

For the price of alchemist fire you can hire a trained soldier with a crossbow to follow you around for a month. Sure he might die pretty fast, but you're probably going to get way more damage for your money.

But oil is super cheap and worth carrying around in large quantities if you have somewhere safe to store it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The only thing I see as question is the wording of the oil:

"If the target takes any fire damage before the oil dries (after 1 minute), the target takes an additional 5 fire damage from the burning oil. "

It doesn't say "each time". It says "if". It would thus be valid to read it as a one-time thing.

In fact, it kind of makes more sense that way, because as it stands, if you shot an oiled target with a Firebolt, you'd do +5 damage (okay, sounds good), but then say the next two rounds you're doing something else, the target takes 0 damage from fire those two rounds (because that's the RAW for oil), then say you Firebolt them again, then they take another +5 damage, which feels, uh, weird. Really weird. Artificial and computer-game-y. I mean, actually even most games don't do it that way.

Whereas if you treat it as a one-time thing, not only is the damage of the oil more commensurate with the cost of the oil (as compared to Greek Fire), but it makes more sense - the Firebolt in this case causes all the oil to burn up, causing you 5 fire damage. Then you'd need to throw more oil to try the trick again.

Am I missing something? "If" does seem very distinct from "each time" to me.

 

[jaelis]

I definitely read it as a one-time thing.

 

[SkidAce]

Am I missing something? "If" does seem very distinct from "each time" to me.

Maybe the oil is gone, but now you are on fire? Highly unlikely, people aren't made of wood, but might be the thought?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe the oil is gone, but now you are on fire? Highly unlikely, people aren't made of wood, but might be the thought?

Sure but there's no rule for "being on fire" in 5E (that I'm aware of). All "on fire" situations have specific rules causes (monsters, spells, equipment, etc.) or are down to DM adjudication of specific circumstances. And I suspect if the intention was that you are "on fire" they'd have said so. Further, given even Greek Fire only does 1d4/round and can be extinguished with a single action, it's hard to see where "normal" fire could come in below that (which it should do, given Greek Fire is likely burning hotter and is far harder to extinguish).

I think this is more down to 5E making Greek Fire super-rubbish than anything else though. Really it should cost less, do more damage, or be a lot harder to put out.

 

[jaelis]

Sure but there's no rule for "being on fire" in 5E (that I'm aware of). All "on fire" situations have specific rules causes (monsters, spells, equipment, etc.) or are down to DM adjudication of specific circumstances. And I suspect if the intention was that you are "on fire" they'd have said so. Further, given even Greek Fire only does 1d4/round and can be extinguished with a single action, it's hard to see where "normal" fire could come in below that (which it should do, given Greek Fire is likely burning hotter and is far harder to extinguish).

I think this is more down to 5E making Greek Fire super-rubbish than anything else though. Really it should cost less, do more damage, or be a lot harder to put out.

Well if you add dex to damage every round, that helps quite a bit.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well if you add dex to damage every round, that helps quite a bit.

Definitely I just am a little unsure about JC's take there. It makes a certain kind of rules-sense, but it also seems like its questionable, especially as to RAI, because I guarantee you very few DMs (seemingly including JC, from his slightly strange way of answering the question) have actually run it as 1d4+DEX/round before, and given that effectively doubles or triples the DPR of Alchemist's Fire, that seems like a significant oversight.