Shooting arrows through a Wall of Fire

[MarkB]

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

It says it's opaque. That means it can't be seen through. It doesn't need to come out and say it provides concealment any more than wall of iron does.

 

[glass]

Although no examples are given, I'd consider a thin wooden stick to be particularly vulnerable to fire, and wouldn't halve the fire damage, in which case the arrow is definitely toast.

Wood is not vulnerable to fire. Have you ever lit a bonfire? It takes real effort to get it going! And wood can char/blacken on the surface for a long time before being singnificantly damaged.

Now if they were metal arrows...


glass.

 

[phindar]

Yeah, I think paper is vulnerable to fire, but an arrow probably not. Thinking about it in real world terms, a fire that could vaporize a arrow moving somewhere between 100-200 fps would have to be pretty freakin' hot. Of course, thinking of it in real world terms is only so useful because its magic, but heck, you got to start somewhere.

Stormwrack lists spells which can start fires, and it lists Wall of Fire as one that can't. (I find the fire starting table a bit hinky in Stormwrack, but that's a separate issue.) They say that Fireball can start fires, but Flame Strike can't. Lightning Bolt can, but Scorching Ray can't. I was really hoping that I'd find some sort of correlation between spells that don't affect objects not being able to start fires, but that was apparently just pie in the sky dreaming on my part.

Dealing damage to the arrows seems like a pretty good ruling, though I'd go with the half damage to objects and I'd probably half that again to reflect the fraction of a second the arrow spends in the flames. Looking at the SRD I don't see anything mentioning the wall as being see-through, so I'd rule it blocks line of sight. (If the opague nature of the wall is mentioned elsewhere, I might go back on that.)

 

[boolean]

Looking at the SRD I don't see anything mentioning the wall as being see-through, so I'd rule it blocks line of sight. (If the opague nature of the wall is mentioned elsewhere, I might go back on that.)

From the spell description:
Effect: Opaque sheet of flame up to 20 ft. long/level or a ring of fire with a radius of up to 5 ft. per two levels; either form 20 ft. high

 

[phindar]

Aha, the Effect line. Foolish me, reading the description hoping for a description of the Wall. According to the Wik, Opacity means visible light doesn't pass through. Which I'd say blocks line of sight, as opposed to a transparent or translucent wall, which would let all or some light through.

While many materials are so opaque (steel in visible light), and others so transparent (air in visible light), that opacity often seems to be a boolean property, others are "somewhat" opaque.

Since the spell description (or more correctly, the Effect entry) doesn't specify the degree of opacity, I'm going to go with the boolean property. What's your feeling, boolean?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

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?

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. It's a cool effect but it requires more knowledge of game mechanics if you're dealing with anything other than mundane arrows. In which case, it might not be worth it.

 

[kolikeos]

It's a cool effect but it requires more knowledge of game mechanics if you're dealing with anything other than mundane arrows.

That's the reason I'm here, to gain more knowledge of game mechanics

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would go with the wall dealing 1D6+4 {half damage} to an arrow passing through it. Assuming the arrow has a hardness of 5 and hps of 1 means that firing an arrow through a Wall of Fire is not a good idea.

Magical arrows would gain the normal +2 hardness and +10 hps per +1 of a bonus enhancement.

IMO, Opaque is, in this case, a boolean variable, meaning the Wall blocks LOS.

However, since the wall is only 20' high an archer could fire indirectly {for which I HR an additional range increment penalty} at a target on the other side...selecting a square and rolling a 50% miss chance.

Very intruiging idea.. and timely since my group will soon be facing this effect

 

[Infiniti2000]

Wood is not vulnerable to fire. Have you ever lit a bonfire? It takes real effort to get it going!

So, you've tried to light a bonfire made of arrow shafts? If not, exactly how does your analogy help? I'm no expert, but I'd think an arrow shaft is kept as dry as possible. A bonfire is typically (IME) made from surrounding logs that are not dried out, and sometimes slightly damp.

And wood can char/blacken on the surface for a long time before being singnificantly damaged.

That's a reasonable explanation for halving the fire damage. I'm not sure I agree with it enough to use it as justification, but it's a lot more reasonable than the faulty bonfire analogy.

 

[ScipioX]

Whether wood is particularly vulnerable to fire is a DM call. IMHO, wood isn't. The bonfire analogy works fine for me.

However, I would say the fletching is vulnerable. An arrow without fletching (or even worse, unevenly burned fletching) is not going to go anywhere near the target. So taken as a whole, I'd say that an arrow is vulnerable to fire.