Shooting arrows through a Wall of Fire

[kolikeos]

A magical bow bestows its magical properties on its ammunition, but do the arrows fired from this magical bow also get the extra hardness and hit points of a magical weapon?

And does it get the saving throw magic weapons are entitled to? I know Wall of Fire does not have a save but I would still like to know.

 

[Corsair]

Except Wall of Fire doesn't damage objects. It specifically states that it damages creatures.

 

[Franky]

I'd go for miss chance due to heat haze and cover..

what you're looking at is an object travelling at speed, it wouldn't disintegrate if it passed through a wall of fire..

And ..

and arrow is not fired in a direct line .... your line of sight to target is through the fire .. the arrow goes in an arc Over the flames ..

shoot me down with fiery arrows if I'm wrong

 

[MarkB]

Nothing is said otherwise so it is +2 hardness and +10 HP per plus. But it needs it considering wood is vulnerable to fire.

2d6+8 is about 15 damage, doubled due to fire vulnerability is 30. if fire ignores an arrows hardness a +2 arrow's 21 HP has a small chance to save the arrow as it goes trough. A +3 arrow has about a 50%/50% shot.

However, that fire damage is being halved in the first place because it's being applied to an object (only acid and sonic damage don't get halved), so doubling it only brings it back up to the original damage, which makes it 20 at the maximum, averaging 15, so an arrow with 21 hit points will always get through. And vulnerability may or may not include ignoring hardness, depending upon how vulnerable the item is to the particular form of attack.

 

[shilsen]

I'd go for miss chance due to heat haze and cover..

It doesn't provide cover. But it does provide total concealment, since a Wall of Fire is opaque. So someone firing through it has to pick the right square and gets a 50% miss chance even if he does.

From the previous posts, I get the impression that a few people have missed that little factor, but I could be wrong.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Except Wall of Fire doesn't damage objects. It specifically states that it damages creatures.

So if you hold a piece of paper in a wall of fire, it won't burn? That's really grasping.

 

[RigaMortus2]

So if you hold a piece of paper in a wall of fire, it won't burn? That's really grasping.

Depends, are you talking about an in-game MAGICAL Wall of Fire? Where there are specific rules one usually follows (even if they don't make sense), and where magic can alter/change/ignore physics all together?

Or are you talking about a wall of fire in the real world?

Are we discussing what makes sense, or what RAW says?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I italicized wall of fire, didn't I? That means I'm talking about the spell.

So in your campaign pieces of paper can pass through a wall of fire without burning? Um, okey-dokey.

But a paper golem would burn because it's a creature? So a wall of fire has some kind of special power to distinguish between the two?

Burning up arrows that pass through a wall of fire sounds like a cool and innovative use of the spell to me. Ultimately it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.

But blind adherence to the letter of the law ultimately produces silly results. Having a wall of fire deal fire damage to creatures but not to pieces of paper is one such example.

 

[Corsair]

A wall of opaque violet fire that is only hot on one side and deals double damage to undead even if they have no particular vulnerability to normal fire.

Clearly we're dealing with some sort of strange mystical effect that is only vaguely similar to real fire in that it deals fire damage.

 

[kolikeos]

There is nothing in the spell's description that says it provides concealment.

Let's say I house rule that a Wall of Fire does damage arrows. Now I need to know how many HP does a normal arrow fired from a +1 bow has, what's its hardness (and is it ignored by fire damage?) and does it take half, full, or double damage from fire?