I've got a wizard that wants to cast grease then use a torch, or another spell to light it on fire.
This seems just fine but i can't find how it would work mechanically, like how much damage it would do, and how long it would last is what i'm curious
Nothing in the rules says it is flammable. It is magical grease that serves to be slippery.
|
Catching on Fire
Characters exposed to burning oil, bonfires, and non-instantaneous magic fires might find their clothes, hair, or equipment on fire. Spells with an instantaneous duration don't normally set a character on fire, since the heat and flame from these come and go in a flash.
Characters at risk of catching fire are allowed a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid this fate. If a character's clothes or hair catch fire, he takes 1d6 points of damage immediately. In each subsequent round, the burning character must make another Reflex saving throw. Failure means he takes another 1d6 points of damage that round. Success means that the fire has gone out—that is, once he succeeds on his saving throw, he's no longer on fire.
A character on fire may automatically extinguish the flames by jumping into enough water to douse himself. If no body of water is at hand, rolling on the ground or smothering the fire with cloaks or the like permits the character another save with a +4 bonus.
Those whose clothes or equipment catch fire must make DC 15 Reflex saves for each item. Flammable items that fail take the same amount of damage as the character.
I'd rule that the grease fire itself lasts for 2d4 rounds. If you decide that the magical grease is flammable at all.
|
Nothing in the rules says it is flammable. It is magical grease that serves to be slippery.I've got a wizard that wants to cast grease then use a torch, or another spell to light it on fire.
This seems just fine but i can't find how it would work mechanically, like how much damage it would do, and how long it would last is what i'm curious
Exactly, nothing in the spell says that the substance is oil- or fat-based. I think of it as slippery ectoplasm.
my answer is generally No, though I have in the past ruled that an exceptionally hot fire could cause it to burn, inflicting 1d4 points of damage to anybody standing inside of it for 1d4 rounds before it burned out (by exceptionally hot fire I mean fireball, flame strike, red dragon breath etc, tossing a torch on it will just make the torch go out).
If it is indeed 'like butter' it would require prolonged high heat from a naked flame to make it burn.
Few spells or effects would set it on fire, and if they did the damage would be really low.
|
There was a huge thread on this not too long ago. Most say no. The logic is that if you have a huge tub of bacon grease and throw a match on it, the match goes out. Grease fires start when the substance is at a high, constant temperature and the vapors ignite. The grease created by the spell would be at ambient room temperature. Dropping a torch on it wont do it, a couple seconds of burning hands or fireball wont do it. Grease =/= gasoline
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wasn't it a AD&D rule that you could set it on fire, but it got phased out somewhere in 3.0 or 3.5?
There was a huge thread on this not too long ago.
And another one not too long before the last one.
If you want your grease to deal damage use the alchemical power component (acid) to have it deal 1 point of acid damage per turn.
If you cast the grease on something the opponent can't drop (like his armor) that's enough damage for a level 1 spell. With a duration of 1min/level thats 10 damage per level.
If a GM wants to HR something I'd suggest that using a flask of alchemists fire as a power component makes it flamable.
So basically what I'm seeing here is that when my sorcerer catches some poor (but deserving) bastard in a Sirocco he can throw a Grease down under the victim's feet to make him hate life even more and the Grease won't burn?
Excellent.
There was a huge thread on this not too long ago. Most say no. The logic is that if you have a huge tub of bacon grease and throw a match on it, the match goes out. Grease fires start when the substance is at a high, constant temperature and the vapors ignite. The grease created by the spell would be at ambient room temperature. Dropping a torch on it wont do it, a couple seconds of burning hands or fireball wont do it. Grease =/= gasoline
I think the biggest point was that there's a higher level spell that lets you light the grease on fire, so the 1st level spell won't. Realistically speaking, it depends on what one means by "grease." I've seen some nasty grease fires before. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj5ex0cDTUs
In my opinion, though, I'd say no, because of the higher level spell that says yes. And I play a lot of spellcasters who use the 1st level grease spell fairly often.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Needlessly angry post about four year old thread? (Edit: thread-resurrecting post now deleted - was angry at people who wanted to shut down creative uses of spells like this.)
One reason GMs habitually shut down 'creative' uses of the rules is game balance. This would take an already very good spell and makes it better. It's not like it takes any actual effort to find a creative use of a spell (of the 'you can do 20d6 damage to an enemy by summoning a rhinoceros above their head' variety, if that wasn't ruled out explicitly) these days - you can just find them on the internet.
It is also very clear that the standard Grease is not intended to be flammable; otherwise we would not have rules like this.
2) I can't find it, but I think there was a higher level version of grease that could specifically be ignited.
You're thinking of the Mythic augmented version of the spell. By expending two uses of Mythic Power, you can make the spell flammable.
So no, you cannot set the regular Grease spell on fire.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Mythic power wasent a thing in 2011;)
2) I can't find it, but I think there was a higher level version of grease that could specifically be ignited.You're thinking of the Mythic augmented version of the spell. By expending two uses of Mythic Power, you can make the spell flammable.
So no, you cannot set the regular Grease spell on fire.
At the time of the original posting, there was a 2nd level spell from the Spell Compendium that was a flammable form of grease. And now, all these years later, you have to give it a mythic bump to have flammable grease.
It is something that comes back from the 2E era... and that was a common and recurrent combo at those times.
The idea of flammable grease lives on and makes appearances in a few places. The Bioware CRPG Dragon Age: Origins for one, which has a Grease + Fireball combo. That said Bioware have been making computer RPGs since 2nd Edition, so it shouldn't be a surprise.
One 2E GM was very fond in the grease + burning hands and web + burning hands combo... we were not very fond with them xD
Do what the spell says.
If your GM says it can burn, the GM will tell you the new mechanics he has fabricated to allow for this.
Grease, as written, doesn't burn.
Magic doesn't have to make sense.
It is an artifact from old ages. Or maybe there were two similar spells for the same purpose.
I remember the explosive lessons from army. Most of those in use are actually difficult to light by fire. You can't use matches or lighter on them as their flame is too cold to surely ignite them.
If anyone wants to simulate real world, I suggest these simplifier rules:
Manually added fat, butter or grease got Fire Resistance 20.
Vegetable and cooking oils got Fire Resistance 15
Mineral oils like varnish, got Fire Resistance 10
Lamp Oil got Fire Resistance 5
+5 if freezing temperature
-5 if hot temperature
Spellcaster can select if the spell uses Fire Resistance of material component or it is inert. Spellcaster without material component can make only inert grease.
Grease wont ignite, if source of fire doesn't make enough damage. If it ignites, it burns until it burns out, making 1d3 damage/round to anyone standing on area, 1d6/round if the burning grease covers armor or clothes and 2d6/round if the burning grease covers bare skin. Manually added grease burn 1d6 rounds, while magical grease burns 1 round per caster level.
I someone really wants, they could also use some evaporation rules for more flammable oils, but I don't have enough expertise to get that correct.