The proper Fireball

[Jeph]

This is fun!

Ice Burst from Tome and Blood
Sor/Wiz 3

When a mage casts Ice Blast, thermal energy and moisture from the surrounding area pours towards the caster, freezing everything within 30 feet solid. Flesh will dry to dust, vapors such as air will solidify into a rock-hard mass, metals and stone will become brittle and easily shatterable. The resulting displacement of air will cause an immense inverted shockwave, sucking everything within hundreds of feet towards the caster.

When temperatures in the surrounding area are only microdegrees above absolute zero, and light it's self has slowed almost to a halt, seeming to congeal in pools as it passes through clear, solid air, the thermal energy will be discharged in an immense kinetic blast. Fragments of ice will rip through and incinerate everything near the caster, causing slight damage to trees and homes even miles away. Anything in the vicinity will be riddles with tiny holes if it is lucky enough to survive the concussive force of the outbound ice crystals.

The conversion of heat creates immense amounts of light that can be seen miles off. If this spell were to be cast in the great plains, and you were to stand ten miles away from the mage, you would be blinded by its brilliance seconds before the shockwave rips through you, defeaning you and driving the last of the frozen fragments through your shocked body. The noise created by the consecutive implosion and then explosion is frightening, a thundering sound that will wash through and dissipate any solid objects that were lucky enough to escape the deadly darts of ice.

When used in a close environment like a dungeion, the caverns will be expanded widely, and a cieling collapse is imminent. The sections of the roof that aren't vaporized by the tremendous blast will smash down home, only serving to further the destruction of this powerful spell.

Game Terms: Ice Blast deals 1d4+1 points of damage per caster level to all within a 30 foot radius. Victims are allowed a Reflex save for half damage.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Well now, I don't know about 3rd level spells damaging objects ten miles away!
An Epic Level spell might have such effects, but a 3rd level spell?

My 3rd level Fireball (and I noted my Fireball should be 5th level) did most of it's damage within 20 feet, and minor damage out to 100 feet.
I simply thought that a globe of air that hot (hot enough to melt soft metals, according to the old descriptions of Fireball ... anything hot enough to melt metal in an instant is truly HOT) would cause a heat flash, and a concussive blast.
In some of the settings books (paperback novels) I read, Fireball has been described as having a heat flash effect, a concussive effect, or both.

I appreciate your support, Ace. Thank you.

I agree that too many vivid descriptions of the same spell will eventually become annoying, not to mention game-delaying.
On the other hand, I would - as a DM - try to keep magic from becoming mundane for as long as possible.

I appreciate that space considerations in the Player's Handbook prevents such lucrative descriptions of the effects of magical spells (with descriptions as long as these, they could have maybe 1/3rd as many spells in that book ...)
And yet ... magic should be magic. MAGIC. It SHOULD be awe-inspiring. It should be terrifying, or overawing. It should not be taken for granted.

Even my most powerful characters (including Edena the PC, who is an Epic character) do not cavalierly stand there and say: I can take it ... when they see an enemy mage or magistress preparing a Fireball.
They prepare counterspells, if possible. They hope their own magical defenses will protect them. They hope magic armor is all it's cracked up to be. And failing that, they dive for cover, or when everything else fails, they RUN.

Even the most powerful of characters can be incapacitated by a Fireball, even if they have spells such as Hide Life (the 9th level spell) protecting them.
At the very least, when you have turned into a human torch, that makes it a bit hard to see the foe, and properly target him, no?
When all your robes and mundane items are burning up, it makes it inconvenient to cast spells.
When your armor is melting (and armor can melt from a Fireball) all over your body in molten goo, it makes it a bit difficult to move around and fight, doesn't it?
And obviously if parts of your body melt or evaporate, this is inconvenient, even if you have Silent Spell or Still Spell or all the special Feats of high level characters.

That's not meant as a joke. That assumes you have Hide Life or other high powered protections.
Without those protections, if you turn into a human torch or your armor melts, you are simply out of luck. You're probably dead, and if not dead, probably wishing you were.

Even if you are not physically mutilated or destroyed ... when your magical arrows, magical bow, magical cloak, magical bag of holding (along with EVERYTHING in it, including all your monetary treasure), magical girdle of giant strength, and other miscellaneous magical items all fail their saving throws and are destroyed, your character is badly weakened. (I could use some other words for such a situation, but Eric Noah's Grandmother would not care for them.)
Pity your character, if your magical weapons and armor also fail their saves, and are destroyed.
Pity your character, if his spellbooks fail their saves, and are burned to cinders.

Your character may be fine, but walking around the dungeon naked and helpless isn't conducive to a long and productive adventuring career.

So yeah, my characters - even the most powerful of them - do not sneer or stand around when the enemy is readying fireballs, lightning bolts, ice bursts, or similar such spells.
Take the more powerful assault spells of 6th level and higher, and you better bet my characters are VERY quick to dive for cover when they see THOSE coming!

I will post a few more descriptions of spells.
Just your common, ordinary spells from the Player's Handbook.
My descriptions may spruce up the spells. I'm trying to add some flare to the more mundane descriptions I've read in the books.

 

[Anabstercorian]

AND once again...

The Proper Sound Lance

When a Sound Lance is launched at an opponent, the appearance of the caster varies depending on their technique - Some fire from their fingertips, others from their palms, still others shout it from their mouth. The sound begins loud and deep, like a drumline, but suddenly grows indistinct as it rises out of the audible range. It is invisible as it streaks through the air, but characters with sound-related Blindsight sense it much like a character with low-light vision would sense the sun.

Upon impact, the hypersonic vibrations are instantly muted to audible range as the target absorbs the vast majority of the energy. Skin parts like water, and muscle spreads like soil before the spade. Bone crackles and pops under the immense stress, and blood pours from the newly made orifice.

If the bolt hits an exceptionally soft target, such as an ooze, the flesh simply splatters and sprays about, spattering nearby people with the well pulped flesh. Harder targets such as stone golems might spray nearby people with little flecks of stone.

 

[Norfleet]

Lovely sound bites. Nothing like the sound of damage looking to take a loan out on some collateral.

 

[Anubis]

Fireball
Level: Wizard/Sorcerer 3rd (but it should be 5th)

Upon casting this spell, the mage or magistress chants mighty words of power. His or her lifeforce responds, empowered by and linking to the Weave, and flares up with a roar of power.
A small sphere will erupt from the finger of the mage or magistress, and travel to the set distance stated by said mage or magistress.
This sphere radiates a blinding silvery radiance, but is otherwise harmless so long as nothing gets in it's way (if something gets in it's way, it will impact that something and detonate prematurely.)
Once it reaches the stated distance, the sphere detonates into the Fireball.

The Fireball erupts in a colossal silver-white flash of light. It is so bright it can be seen for up to 20 miles away, and it will light up the sky as if a lightning bolt had gone off.
Those looking at the shining fireball will be temporarily blinded, and the heat flash from it will cause burns and ignite fires for hundreds of feet outward from the center of the blast.
The fireball pushes away the air from the center of it's blast, producing a shockwave that can knock people over, shatter glass, or push over even heavy objects.
Rising into the sky like a hot-air balloon, the fireball will gleam a brilliant white, slowly changing to molten yellow, then fade into scarlet-yellow glory. After about a minute, it will have cooled enough to have turned a sullen red, and after that it will slowly fade and go dark.

All creatures caught within the fireball (within 20 feet of the blast center) will be melted into pools of burning fat within 3 seconds, and the fat will boil away in a few more seconds.
If a creature was only partially caught in the blast, charred bones and smeared and blackened flesh on the ground will give mute testimony to the power of the fireball.
Trees and shrubs (any green wood) will char black within one second, then burst into flame and turn into white ash in another few seconds, then vaporize.
Deadwood will simply evaporate in puffs of sudden smoke.
Metals with a low melting temperature, such as lead, will slump and melt under the incredible heat, forming pools on the ground.
Metals with a higher melting temperature, such as steel, mithril, and adamantite, will glow cherry red after mere seconds of exposure to the heat, and iron will turn white with the heat. Such metals, after cooling, will be structurally ruined (if appropriate) from this sudden and massive heating, and will be useless as armor, weapons, or fortifications for buildings.
The fireball will instantly evaporate the soil, if cast on the ground, and the underlying rock will be exposed, and in a few seconds will heat until it is glowing bright red. Dungeon hallways made of stone will fare better - they will not melt, but they will be glowing brilliant red for long minutes after the fireball has expended itself.

Thus, if a fireball is cast on an armed and armored human standing in a dungeon hallway, the result will be:

Said human will melt into a pile of burning fat, and that fat will pour out of his armor and boil away on the glowing stone floor. A few large bones will last for a few seconds before they crumble into ash.
The fighter's cloak, bedroll, and other such flammable items will simply vaporize, puffing into clouds of smoke.
Belts, weapon harnesses, the fighter's surcoat and his underarmor padding, will burst into furious flame, then evaporate, taking a few seconds longer to do so than items such as cloaks would.
The fighter's scabbards will burn away, revealing weapons glowing crimson or even white with the heat (and the pommels of such weapons will be destroyed, melting away or shattering, as appropriate.)
The fighter's armor will heat to glowing red, yellow, or white with the heat. It will take hours to cool, and the result will be a deformed and twisted mess, permanently ruined, never usable for any good purpose again.
The floor under the fighter will glow cherry red. Anything that survived the fireball, will roast on the superheated floor.

Targets of this spell are allowed a saving throw. Should they make it, they are assumed to have somehow leaped out of the fireball area, before the fireball actually detonated (or, if the fireball expands in a constricted underground area, are assumed to have outrun it's expansion.)
Thus, these lucky folk will only have to deal with assorted third degree burns, the fact that everything flammable on them is now indeed burning, that any armor worn is superheated and must quickly be doffed, and that any greek fire they are carrying is likely to explode in a few seconds.
This will also be the fate of anyone within 100 feet of the center of the fireball's burst, and all buildings of a wooden nature in that area will alight, all deadwood will flare up in lusty flame, trees will wither and their charred leaves drop, the grass blacken leaving the ground exposed, and metal objects will be heated to the scalding point.

Thus, if a fireball is lobbed into a heavily crowded inn in the middle of a town build of wood, the following will happen:

It is likely that most of the inn will simply cease to exist, turning into a giant torch and evaporating.
If the inn is larger than the area of the fireball, all it's peripheral areas will burn as if soaked in greek fire. (Any barrels of ale in the cellar will burn, rupture, and the contents boil.)
The muddy street in front of the inn will be cooked dry, the water in the inn's horse trough will boil merrily, and those horses stabled out front will perish as their coats burst into flame.
All buildings out to one hundred feet will alight, their windows will shatter from the heat and blast, and objects inside those buildings directly exposed (line of sight) to the fireball (if applicable) will also alight.
Buildings shielded by other buildings will be protected from this heat flash, but the blast from the fireball is likely to rock them like an earthquake, and most buildings immediately around the inn will be heavily damaged or destroyed by the concussive blast.
The earth will shake across the entire town. The fireball will rise up and shed it's glaring red-orange light luridly across the entire habitation, a mute testimony to the carnage and destruction inflicted.
Unless firefighting capabilities are onhand, it is likely the entire town will burn down.

If a fireball is cast in a forest, it will vaporize all those trees within it's blast area.
Branches falling from on high (no longer being supported by vaporized tree trunks) will plummet into the fireball and they also will be vaporized.
Creatures who are in those branches (including assorted elves and humans, if applicable) will also fall into the fireball and vaporize.
The heat from the fireball will dry out everything for some distance sufficiently to start a large fire. This fire will be over one hundred feet in diameter, and it's heat will further dry out all vegetation in the area, ensuring it's further spread.
Furthermore, the concussive blast from the fireball will knock small limbs down from all trees within one hundred feet, and closer in will knock down many trees. (Any treehomes within said trees will be destroyed.)
Unless firefighting capabilities are on hand, or a rainfall is in progress, a forest fire will be the result of this spell.

This is not a fireball, it's a low payload nuclear blast.

Name it properly. Nuke.

Oh, and only a foolish DM would make this a Level 5 spell. See the Epic Level Handbook for the details of how to do this spell for real. I'm sure the Energy, Destroy, and Slay seeds together would form the basis of this spell.

 

[demiurgeastaroth]

I'm just trying to describe these spells as a casual onlooker - who is not a mage - might see them.

Keep it up. I'm nabbing these descriptions for use in my non-D&D fantasy game, where magic is rare and genuinely frightening.

Darren

 

[Norfleet]

The description definitely sounds much more like a proper fireball to me. It's just that everyone here, when they think of fireballs, think "1d6/level, 10d6 max, reflex for half" and write it off as a weak spell obviously undeserving of such a cool description. When the effects of the spell are described in such clinical, dry terms, as depicted in the PHB spell listings, everything seems impotent. In fact, the above description looks not unlike the 2E description of fireball, which *ALSO* did.....yep, 1d6/lvl, 10d6 max, save for half.

3E, of course, marginalizes the obvious environmental side effects, the results that, in the military, we refer to as "collateral damage". And the description above tells us what SHOULD happen when this spell is cast, and as a result, some damage is looking to take a loan out on some collateral.

 

[Al]

The problem is that the flavour text and the crunch text are incompatible.

Think about it: a 5d6 fireball does only 17 points of damage. This may sound a lot to Joe Commoner, but it doesn't kill the average draft horse. That's right: it doesn't even kill it. Let alone turn it into a molten puddle of horse-fat.

Something more appropriate would be:

With a gesture and a few words, the caster launches a bead of superheated plasma, which detonates at a targeted distance or upon impacted something solid. Upon impact, its heat is released, causing powerful heat waves out to a maximum radius of 20'.

Anyone within this area is assaulted by the powerful heat. They take severe burns and many may be killed through shock or other heat-related injuries. Flammable items will tend to combust, and non-flammables will grow red-hot for a brief period of time. Nevertheless, studier creatures and animals may survive the blast, albeit badly burned.

It's not as fun or flambuoyant, but it's far more in keeping with the *actual* effects of the spell. Creative narrative can be taken too far, after all...

 

[Malin Genie]

Just make sure you don't call that horse a mare just because it happens to be female and start DreamChaser off on another rant....

 

[Norfleet]

Okay, true, it is a bit exaggerated.

But you know, we really could use a spell which actually *DOES* produce the effects described. All of the offensive spells, even high level ones, don't do anything interesting, and have rather unimpressive damage potential.

I mean, it's okay to inflict mass amounts of save-or-die-instantly on everyone, but not ok to nuke something?