D&D 5E Oil+Alchemist's Fire

[Ruin Explorer]

If a DM say that they can't wipe it off or something because the description doesn't mention anything about that, then that is a problem with the DM's lack of improvisation.

I disagree strongly.

You seem to think the target is always going to be wearing a nice raincoat or a suit of full plate or something, where "wiping off" oil is practical. Except nine times out of ten, they won't be. They'll either be wearing porous armour (like most armour - chain, scale, leather, etc) or clothes and getting soaked, or they'll be a monster of some kind, most of which either are too dumb to think of removing the oil, or have no physical ability to do so. A Beholder, for example, can do nothing about this, unless you somehow allow the oil to be targeted by one of the eye stalks. Nor could a dire wolf or other big furry thing.

If the DM was willing to say such creatures could roll around in soft dirt (if there was any), or jump in water to clear it (again, many wouldn't be smart enough), sure, but now it's a potentially powerful CC ability, because you're forcing the creature to move, and likely Prone itself to get the oil off. For like what, 1 action and a tiny amount of money?

+5 damage to every instance of Fire damage for 10 rounds is just bananas. If ending it requires a least an Action, and may well require removing clothes or armour, or throwing yourself in water, or rolling around in dirt, then at least there's a cure, but that's still pretty amazing because the PC used one action to potentially make you lose your action (which might be a multi-attack or the like, normally) just to avoid getting cooked. It's broken, and it makes no sense logically, so...

 

[Asisreo]

I disagree strongly.

You seem to think the target is always going to be wearing a nice raincoat or a suit of full plate or something, where "wiping off" oil is practical. Except nine times out of ten, they won't be. They'll either be wearing porous armour (like most armour - chain, scale, leather, etc) or clothes and getting soaked, or they'll be a monster of some kind, most of which either are too dumb to think of removing the oil, or have no physical ability to do so. A Beholder, for example, can do nothing about this, unless you somehow allow the oil to be targeted by one of the eye stalks. Nor could a dire wolf or other big furry thing.

If the DM was willing to say such creatures could roll around in soft dirt (if there was any), or jump in water to clear it (again, many wouldn't be smart enough), sure, but now it's a potentially powerful CC ability, because you're forcing the creature to move, and likely Prone itself to get the oil off. For like what, 1 action and a tiny amount of money?

+5 damage to every instance of Fire damage for 10 rounds is just bananas. If ending it requires a least an Action, and may well require removing clothes or armour, or throwing yourself in water, or rolling around in dirt, then at least there's a cure, but that's still pretty amazing because the PC used one action to potentially make you lose your action (which might be a multi-attack or the like, normally) just to avoid getting cooked. It's broken, and it makes no sense logically, so...

Eh, I don't see much problem with it. Martial characters rarely have access to fire damage, and even if they do, it's not like a continually on flame-strike.

It would really work on the brute frontliners like the orog for my games, though, since I don't run solo monsters and there's usually a backliner that does anything not to get close to the party's frontliners. Brutes are usually boring meatbags so the faster their health is chewed away, the better for me. If the backliner gets within 20ft of a frontliner throwing oil, they already lost imo so the faster they knock him down, the better too.

But trust me, I know the ruling can get quite ridiculous. Scorching ray would be really good and a elemonk's fire snakes would become super strong. I think a good default for players when they see something hostile attacking them would be to burn it, though.

Also, I'd appreciate the fact that the players were actually synchronizing their attacks and forming team-based strategy rather than the wizard continuing to use cantrips on the stunned enemy than using a leveled spell because they were too busy not listening to realize the monk stunned the brute and you he will auto-fail the majority of your big spells.

But yeah, it'd have to be the fighter/barbarian/rogue that uses the oil and at earlier levels, only cantrips or resources can capitalize. Boosted cantrip damage is really good but if there's only 1 or 2 members with fire cantrips, it's roughly 10 extra damage each turn. That doesn't bother me too much.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Fighter or Barbarian throwing it would probably be a bad idea, because they likely have mediocre DEX and yet do strong damage, so them wasting their action is a bigger deal.

The Rogue throwing it is fine - it's a ranged weapon, so he gets Sneak Attack on the damage (and the Advantage will help hit), and a Ranger or the like wouldn't be losing too much (going from say 1d8+DEX damage to 1d4+DEX is not a huge loss, even losing Proficiency to hit, which might well be off-set at low levels by the Ranged fighting style's +2). A cantrip user throwing it is also good, because they likely have a decent DEX, and cantrips do lower damage so it's less of a loss.

I do think it's cute as training wheels for cooperation though! I mean, I suspect it would be one of those things that later in the campaign or whatever you'd have to say "Ooookay that's the end of that, now it only does the +5 once!", because I think that it will start off cool and not problematic, but it's such a large and easy-to-get bonus that it is quickly going to become a focus once players realize what is going on. Yeah at +5 or +10 total per round that's really good for one action earlier in the fight but "overpowered". Trouble is with stuff like um... big rolly ball of fire.. (what the hell is that called) plus cantrips + stuff like quickened or twinned spells we could quickly be looking at +20 or +25 damage in a round. +25 damage, even to a single target, amaaaaaaaazing at lower levels.

I do agree in your specific game, as you rarely use big solos (or presumably big-centrepiece) monsters and tend instead to use larger numbers of weaker monsters, it is unlikely to get crazy. But the moment that debuff gets on a big bad thing which can't get it off (god help a Drow caster in robes or chain in the middle of some dungeon or stony cavern or the like) and the party decides to drop of little bits of fire damage...

(4EMonk is particularly good as you say - for 1 Ki point they get the Fire Snakes out, and with 2 attacks/round that's potentially +10 DPR, and another 1 Ki point would get them two more for another +10 DPR. That's a heck of a lot more efficient a usage than the 1 Ki point for +1d10 fire damage each time after you hit - though wait, if the DM counted that as a separate "instance of fire damage" (I wouldn't, some would), then that's 1d10+5 and oh boy you could pretty much vapourize some poor NPC that way. If you did rule that way then if you spend 2 Ki to get fiery, and get extra attacks, that's 4 attacks, and if all four landed and you did +1d10 fire damage on each, total spend 6 Ki, you're getting a total of +40 Fire damage in a round from this indeed it would. Indeed at level 6 you could potentially do 1d8+4+5+1d10+5 twice (avg. 23 each) and 1d6+4+5+1d10+5 twice (avg. 22 each) for a total of 90 Fire damage in a round. That's quite a thing for level 6. Or to be more efficient skip the +1d10s and do 1d8+4+5 twice a round, and 1d6+4+5 twice a round for "only" 52 damage/round, but you can keep it up for 3 rounds. Without this the same spend gets you 50 (big burst) damage avg. or 32 avg. for three rounds. So that's like what, about an 80% damage gain? And obviously anyone else who can do fire damage can get in on the act.)