D&D 5E (2024) Why doesn't D&D have fire arrows?

[Charlaquin]

As others have said, flame arrows are not particularly useful against individual opponents, they're used for setting objects on fire. On the other hand I made a flametongue bow that adds 1d6 fire damage to any arrow it shoots because I'm not overly concerned about real world logic.

If you don't want a magic bow the real issue is to me that we already have alchemist fire that sells for 50 GP per flask. I could see adding alchemist fire arrows but considering how much more useful they'd be I'd also make them more expensive. So 75 GP, add 1d4 fire and dex save or start burning (continue taking 1d4 damage until you take an action to put it out)?

Fire arrows weren’t generally used on individual opponents, but not because they wouldn’t have been effective. Rather, because they were expensive to make. Getting hit with a fire arrow is always going to be more of a problem for your target than getting hit with a normal arrow. But, in most cases, getting hit with a normal arrow is going to be enough of a problem for them anyway, you don’t really need to put in the extra investment. On the other hand, using a fire arrow for area denial or for damaging infrastructure like buildings and grain stores in a seige context is going to be a much more worthwhile investment. So, I do agree that making fire arrows more expensive is a great way to model it.

 

[Cergorach]

Because we are rarely fighting thatched roof cottages, dry timber framed houses and bales of hay?

I suppose they would come in handy if you were forced to kill a gazebo but at that point just have some +1 arrows of gazebo slaying

incredibly effective against Dread Gazibos! Mimics that turned into wooden objects, wood golems, mummies and anything that is highly flamable (vulnerability to fire)...

As the video indicated that it required gunpowder and certain (al)chemical processes, it would be kinda rare, similarly rare to Greekfire I would assume. I also think that it could be very effective against clothed individuals, as certain cloths were treated with oils and tars, I would suspect especially adventuring gear like cloaks and backpacks.

I think it could work with a party that normally would carry torches, in combat they drop them on the ground, depending on the ground they could stay on (or someone would spend an action to plant a torch in the ground, while lit), then the archer would use a bonus action to light the arrow on fire and an action to shoot it. The danger of course being that unintended things in a forest, plain, dungeon or castle get lit on fire...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because D&D is allergic to actually taking seriously the technology and social structures of early-Renaissance Europe.

It wants elements of technology and culture that literally span from a mere couple of centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, all the way up to the late Renaissance, but very specifically doesn't want a variety of other elements from technology and culture...that literally also span that exact same period.

It is a schizotech, schizocutural hodgepodge that looks genuinely nothing like any actual period of human history.

 

[Hriston]

Here you go! Fire arrows are at the bottom.

Here's my homebrew write-up for medieval period gunpowder weapons. Feel free to mine for ideas:

Gunpowder Weapons​

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Simple Melee Weapon​

Fire lance, cost: 2 gp, damage: 1d6 fire, weight: 6 lb., properties: Two-handed, smoke cloud, special.​

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Simple Ranged Weapon​

Hand cannon, cost: 25 gp, damage: 1d6 piercing, weight: 6 lb., properties: Ammunition (range 30/120), loading, two-handed, armor-piercing, smoke cloud.​

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Martial Ranged Weapon​

Arquebus, cost: 50 gp, damage: 1d8 piercing, weight: 11 lb., properties: Ammunition (range 80/320), loading, two-handed, armor-piercing, smoke cloud, supportable.​

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Weapon Properties​

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Armor-piercing. When making an attack with this weapon, the target's AC is effectively reduced for the purposes of this attack by up to 3 points deriving from the target's armor and/or a shield it is wearing. Also, the weapon emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet.​

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Smoke cloud. When used, this weapon creates a 5-foot-radius sphere of smoke centered on the attacker. The sphere's area is heavily obscured. It lasts for one hour or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it.​

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Supportable. Attacks made with this weapon gain advantage while the weapon is resting on a strong support (wall, prop, etc.)​

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Special Weapon Properties​

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Fire lance. When ignited as an action, this weapon emits a 10-foot cone of flame. All creatures in the area must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 fire damage. The fire ignites any flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

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Ammunition​

Fire arrows (20), cost: 2 gp, weight: 1 lb.​

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Fire arrows. When fired from a bow or crossbow, this ammunition not only deals the weapon's damage to the target on a hit, but, whether the attack hits or misses, all creatures within a 10-foot radius of the target must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 fire damage. The fire ignites any flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

 

[Cergorach]

It is a schizotech, schizocutural hodgepodge that looks genuinely nothing like any actual period of human history.

What gave it away? The Dragons or the magic?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What gave it away? The Dragons or the magic?

Neither.

The hatred of gunpowder, but fetishization of plate.

I wasn't talking about the magic. I was talking about how gunpowder is utterly unacceptable, despite cannons predating plate armor by a full century. The first cannon appeared in Europe sometime in the early 14th century (e.g. we have a document from the Signoria of Florence dated 1326, February 11, appointing two men to obtain "canones de mettallo" and ammunition). Hand cannons date to the late 13th century. The first plate armor doesn't appear until the 1420s.

And that's not even getting into the other bizarre social and cultural things, like "divine right of kings" rulership (a late-medieval to early-renaissance concept) paired with "courtly love" behaviors (a High Medieval concept) paired with frequent castle-building (a roughly 9th-10th century concept) paired with other things from even earlier.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, I can accept a setting where gunpowder simply doesn't work due to some variable of the local physical laws or a divine mandate. Zelazny's Amber series has this as a plot point early on.

But when your setting presents alchemy as a legitimate practice and allows for things like thunderstones, greek fire, and the like, and also has good reasons for someone to want to deliver elemental damage to foes, surely methods to do just that will be developed and available to the masses!

Alternatively, if magic is simply the easiest way to do this, then everyone would learn some! Even basic warriors would learn cantrips or the ability to bypass resistances and inflict elemental damage!

D&D's problem is, it's rules indicate a narrative where anyone could learn magic, but insists that players be required to "opt in" on having magical abilities, rather than having them integrated into each character class. While the Fighter class, for example, could have a "fire and stone strike" that lets them inflict a small amount of fire damage on an attack, they are presented as a group that scoff at leaning into anything supernatural, with only a few specialists like arcane archers and eldritch knights breaking from tradition- but these same individuals would happily pick up a flame tongue sword or a ring of regeneration!

In other words, external magic is just fine, but internal magic? They scoff and sneer at it, apparently. And it's not like you couldn't develop internal magic without becoming an actual spellcaster- the Monk does this just fine, as do some subclasses.

That some players of the game insist that they be allowed to play warriors who have no magic, who need no magic (but hey, let me see that +2 longsword you got there!) and firmly reject any attempts to get peanut butter in their chocolate maintains this status quo. I remember a lot of the criticism heaped on 3.5's Tome of Battle, not the least of which involved someone seeing a Swordsage maneuver of the Desert Wind school that let you inflict fire damage and immediately denouncing this "anime nonsense" in their D&D game!

Which you know, that's fine, to a point. If someone's ideal of a warrior is Conan the Cimmerian as opposed to Elric of Melnibone, or Corwin of Amber, and that's fun for them, I don't have a problem with that. It's when this becomes so enshrined in the rules that only the most basic uses for alchemy or scientific innovation are presented as options (seriously, look at 3.5's alchemical items list and compare it to 5e) by the designers that I have a problem with it. I mean, I know people who still twitch when they see a basic healing potion in the PHB, lol.