Which spells cause you to catch on fire?

[Plane Sailing]

Trine, you need to read the very first line of the section you are referring to in the PHB (p150)

Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried and worn are assumed to survive a magical attack. If the character rolls a natural 1 on his ST, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects)

(my emphasis)

Which prompts me to ask why you think that the spells I quote explicitly say that they will ignite certain things, eh?

 

[Trine]

Because carried and worn items follow different rules from unattended ones? Burning hands and any of the other spells you've stated work great for lighting unattended items on fire, but attended items don't get lit on fire.

 

[AEtherfyre]

If I'm not mistaken - I currently don't have my DMG, and it doesn't seem to be listed in the SRD - any non-instantaneous fire effect can set characters alight.

Given that, I'd say that Wall of Fire, Incendiary Cloud, Flaming Sphere, Flame Arrow's buffing version, the aforementioned Fire Seeds hollybomb (not acorn) version, Flame Blade, Heat Metal, and possibly Fire Shield would all be capable of setting characters on fire. Some other spells or effects used in ingenious ways probably also could, but don't have the effect directly.

Edit - Wall of Fire, not Fire Wall. Diablo II has rotted my brain.

 

[aurellius]

Why does it really matter if you set someone on fire....

Just does a d6 to them....
They can still take actions.......
At no penalties.........



Or am I missing something in the rules somewhere, because it seems like to me if you were on fire you should have only one concern and that is to stop being on fire.

Side Note: Can you be set on fire if you have enough fire resistance to take no damage?


Marcus

 

[DM_Matt]

I've always player in accordace with the game's logical rule regarding this: Flash-fires like fireballs do not light things on fire, beucase they were only exposed for a moment. things that craete open flames can.