D&D (2024) Web: Power Overwhelming

[Clint_L]

I'm not surprised I'm not the first one to come up with this combo, it's right on the page.

I do like the idea that a web spell going up in flames would do more damage to a large creature. But cubic scaling is clearly too much. Is my "square scaling" compromise still too much? I'm not sure.

Are you going to apply that reasoning to every AoE spell? The bigger the creature the more damage they take? If not, what makes web special? If so, then you are going to have some serious rebalancing to do.

 

[Ancalagon]

Are you going to apply that reasoning to every AoE spell? The bigger the creature the more damage they take? If not, what makes web special? If so, then you are going to have some serious rebalancing to do.

What makes web special? Don't ask me, ask the designers! The rules are clear:

" Any 5-foot Cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 Fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire."

So each cube deals damage.

This doesn't affect other AOE spells because they do not have that verbiage.

Edit: again, I do not disagree this is too much damage for a 2nd level spell. And yes it's odd that web would do this and not other AOE effects. But this isn't some kind of specious reading of the rules, some bizarre unseen edge case. It's the exact wording of the spell!

 

[mamba]

just for funnsies, it looks like a 20 foot cube contains 64 5 foot cubes if I did my math right. So 128d4 damage if you can find something big enough!

If you find something big enough, chances are most of your inner 5 foot cubes do not contain any web

 

[Demetrios1453]

just for funnsies, it looks like a 20 foot cube contains 64 5 foot cubes if I did my math right. So 128d4 damage if you can find something big enough!

Yeah, but the creature itself will likely make up a significant number of cubes of that volume.

 

[Nefermandias]

" Any 5-foot Cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 Fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire."

The sane reading is that this line is in place only to indicate that fire only destroys the web in increments of 5 foot cube.

 

[Clint_L]

What makes web special? Don't ask me, ask the designers! The rules are clear:

" Any 5-foot Cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 Fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire."

So each cube deals damage.

This doesn't affect other AOE spells because they do not have that verbiage.

 

[James Gasik]

Imagine that your party is armed with torches and decides to light the ogre you've webbed up on fire. Each party member thrusts a torch into a different 5' cube on their turn. At the start of the Ogre's turn it takes no more damage than if only one cube was lit on fire?

Another scenario. Our poor webbed ogre is unable to move for some reason. Each turn, a single square of web is burned, so he takes 2d4 damage each turn. Why is this scenario, unlikely as it may be, acceptable and the previous one isn't?

The answer, likely, would be "game balance", and I'm not arguing that hitting a web spell with a burning hands and dealing an additional 8d4 damage to a large sized creature at the start of it's turn is a great ruling- but you're basically saying that only fire can hurt someone at a time. And that can't be right- if I'm being cooked by a heat metal spell, it's not like flaming sphere can't hurt me.

If I were to stick my hand in a forge, I wouldn't expect to take the same damage as if I had stuck both hands into the forge.

That having been said, the size of a fire has little to do with the damage it deals in D&D. And spells that deal damage at the start of one's turn don't do more damage if you're larger (as has been pointed out already). Fireball vs. ogre does not do more damage, nor does an ogre who finds himself affected by multiple sections of a wall of fire.

So while it may not seem logical, one has to remember that D&D is not a simulation of reality, and spells, especially, are not bound to logical rules. Web enveloping a larger enemy in multiple small fires to deal more damage is similar to ruling as a larger enemy taking more damage from spike growth, as it may very well be entering multiple 5' squares when it moves, and has the same issues with balance.

If you believe in your heart of hearts that this interaction with web is intentional, in your own games you can allow the spell to be more lethal. Or you can attempt to convince your DM that this should be allowed- but they might balk, and they are allowed to- "rulings not rules", after all.

Personally, if this came up in my game, I'd probably rule that the target takes more damage, but not an additional 2d4 per cube. Maybe 1d4. I'm not sure. You want to reward clever play, but if you're not careful, "web bomb" might suddenly become a standard tactic at your table!

 

[M_Natas]

Wow, this thread gave me a great homebrew idea.

One of the 5e / 5.5e problems is that fighting one monster or 4 monsters with the same xp budget is not the same difficulty.
Solo Monsters and Horde of Monsters are different and AOE Spells are only good against hordes, but weaker against solos.

But we could completely rebalanced the game - we would need to change the Solo Monsters (any creature bigger than medium) - but what if we did, what is suggested here?

A medium Monsters takes 1x AoE damage and Webdamage.
A large Monster takes 2x AoE and Web Damage.
A huge Monster takes 4x AoE and WebDamage.
A Gargantuan takes 8x AoE Damage.
(Multipliers I just made up, if we would go completely by the size difference, I think x4, x9 and x16 multipliers would be a little too much).

You only.limit AoE spells by their size. So a 10x10 Feet AoE spell only does maximum 2x damage per creature, for example, while a 20x20 AoE can do gargantuan level damage (x8).

One would have to adjust the HP of larger creatures accordingly. But now a large creature behaves basically like 2 medium creatures, a huge creature like 4 medium creatures and a gargantuan like 8 medium creatures.

So if we would rebalanced all the creatures with this in mind, we could balance 5e way better and make it it more balanced between solo creatures and horde Monsters.

Because now of you cast Web on 4 Orcs and than a fireball on the next round, the orcs take 8d6 + 2d4 fire damage x4, so you do 32d6 and 8d4 fire damage (average 132 damage). And large or huge creatures in the same Web only gets 8d6 + 2d4 fire damage (average 33 damage).

With my new rule a large creature would get 66 damage and a hughe one 132.

Maybe one could do that as a feat for a Big Game Hunter or something ...

It is just a crazy idea this thread got me and would mean rebalancing every large or bigger Monster ...
But it would make it a little more realistic and could fix the disparity between single Monster vs Horde Monsters.

 

[Clint_L]

Wow, this thread gave me a great homebrew idea.

One of the 5e / 5.5e problems is that fighting one monster or 4 monsters with the same xp budget is not the same difficulty.
Solo Monsters and Horde of Monsters are different and AOE Spells are only good against hordes, but weaker against solos.

But we could completely rebalanced the game - we would need to change the Solo Monsters (any creature bigger than medium) - but what if we did, what is suggested here?

A medium Monsters takes 1x AoE damage and Webdamage.
A large Monster takes 2x AoE and Web Damage.
A huge Monster takes 4x AoE and WebDamage.
A Gargantuan takes 8x AoE Damage.
(Multipliers I just made up, if we would go completely by the size difference, I think x4, x9 and x16 multipliers would be a little too much).

You only.limit AoE spells by their size. So a 10x10 Feet AoE spell only does maximum 2x damage per creature, for example, while a 20x20 AoE can do gargantuan level damage (x8).

One would have to adjust the HP of larger creatures accordingly. But now a large creature behaves basically like 2 medium creatures, a huge creature like 4 medium creatures and a gargantuan like 8 medium creatures.

So if we would rebalanced all the creatures with this in mind, we could balance 5e way better and make it it more balanced between solo creatures and horde Monsters.

Because now of you cast Web on 4 Orcs and than a fireball on the next round, the orcs take 8d6 + 2d4 fire damage x4, so you do 32d6 and 8d4 fire damage (average 132 damage). And large or huge creatures in the same Web only gets 8d6 + 2d4 fire damage (average 33 damage).

With my new rule a large creature would get 66 damage and a hughe one 132.

Maybe one could do that as a feat for a Big Game Hunter or something ...

It is just a crazy idea this thread got me and would mean rebalancing every large or bigger Monster ...
But it would make it a little more realistic and could fix the disparity between single Monster vs Horde Monsters.

Because so many people were thinking spell casters need a massive damage buff?

 

[M_Natas]

Because so many people were thinking spell casters need a massive damage buff?

You don't? ^^