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+1
If a single globe is not thrown, then there is no detonation. Throwing the entire necklace is like throwing an entire sling at someone instead of just the stone in the sling.
But if it were to land fairly near by (don't forget the range penalty of -2 per 10 feet and a limited range of 50 feet), then one or two fireballs soon afterward could be fun. :)
He looks at you funny, picks up the inactive item, then detaches the largest sphere and throws it at you?
Kind of like the dumb insurgents who forget to pull the pins on their RPGs.
To be fair, a conventional RPG doesn't have a "pull" pin - they have a pressure pin that detonates when the trigger impact on the front of the device strikes an object/surface. For hand-tossed grenades, our own troops are just as "dumb" when it comes to pin-pulling when things get heated ;-)
My party of pyromaniacs and mayhem makers have got their hands on a necklace of fireballs, and I just know that this will crop up.
Teamwork!
Player 1: Detach sphere (move action) drop necklace in adjacent square (free action) Hold action to throw sphere (standard action).
Player 2: Pick up necklace (move action) Throw necklace at bad guy's square (standard action)
Player 1: Throw sphere at bad guy's square (held action)
GM: Roll a 7 or better and laugh (Reflex +7 vs DC14)
It seems like a better idea is to just toss and drop to pass the necklace around the whole party, if that's what they want to do. (This also has the PCs adjacent to each other, perfect for a retaliatory lightning strike/fireball/cloudkill/etc.)
You can still willfully fail a saving throw right?
This tactic works best if you can somehow manage to render a PC (or pet) immune or highly resistant to fire.
Step 1. Give necklace to fire-resistant PC.
Step 2. Fire-resistant PC charges the BBEG.
Step 3. Rest of party target the FRPC with a fire spell or effect that allows a saving throw.
Step 4. FRPC fails his saving thow, right beside the BBEG.
Step 5. BOOM
If you have quick draw and two weapon fighting could you toss two at once?
Toss the entire string seems, odd. And it gives rules for it going off if you fail a check. I'd have to say you would need to get someone else to "light it" to get them all to go off.
Could the rest of the party take orbs off the PC?
The trouble here is that you're talking the trouble of RAW vs. what the magical necklace was intended to model.
It's rather ludicrous to go with the idea that if someone wearing the necklace is hit by fire, the necklace may explode, but if the necklace is unworn, slagging it with fire just melts a necklace and there is never any resulting *KABOOM!*.
It would also be useful to go with gaming precedent. I believe way back in 1st edition, somewhere in the DMG, it was mentioned that there was a halfling with a full necklace of fireballs who detached the whole lot at once and pitched them into the lair of a bunch of frost giants, saving the party.
I'd rule that you can take as many of the fireballs off the necklace as you want at a go and pitch them all at a single target unless you have some special proficiency that lets you throw rocks at multiple targets.
Also, if the necklace is hit by fire, it may blow up, regardless of whether it's worn or not. And if the necklace is destroyed by fire--tossing it into lava, for example--it most certainly blows up.
It's rather ludicrous to go with the idea that if someone wearing the necklace is hit by fire, the necklace may explode, but if the necklace is unworn, slagging it with fire just melts a necklace and there is never any resulting *KABOOM!*.
Yet when unattended it appears to be a plain string of beads. Only when held is it revealed as a chain and golden spheres.
Also, if the necklace is hit by fire, it may blow up, regardless of whether it's worn or not.
Actually:
"If the necklace is being worn or carried by a character who fails her saving throw against a magical fire attack... [kaboom]"
This implies when unworn and unheld, it doesn't detonate (and just takes damage and is destroyed, like a bead of force)
Which makes my previous post require another irritating step: Player 1 must hold his action until the Bad Guy picks up the necklace.
It's rather ludicrous to go with the idea that if someone wearing the necklace is hit by fire, the necklace may explode, but if the necklace is unworn, slagging it with fire just melts a necklace and there is never any resulting *KABOOM!*.Yet when unattended it appears to be a plain string of beads. Only when held is it revealed as a chain and golden spheres.
Also, if the necklace is hit by fire, it may blow up, regardless of whether it's worn or not.Actually:
"If the necklace is being worn or carried by a character who fails her saving throw against a magical fire attack... [kaboom]"
This implies when unworn and unheld, it doesn't detonate (and just takes damage and is destroyed, like a bead of force)
Which makes my previous post require another irritating step: Player 1 must hold his action until the Bad Guy picks up the necklace.
Depends on how you interpret things. I look at the necklace as a string of alchemical grenades disguised by a mild illusion, not a string of ordinary beads that magically transmutes into grenades when worn but still appears as ordinary beads to everyone but the wearer.
If we go with your interpretation, no sane person would ever wear the necklace except just before using it. If it goes inert the moment it's unclasped and/or worn in an inappropriate slot, any sane person would drop it in a pocket or wear it as a bracelet except when they expect to use it.
Of course, even with my interpretation you could still stash it in a handy haversack, but that requires a second magic item, not just a pocket or a wrist for safety's sake.
I look at the necklace as a string of alchemical grenades disguised by a mild illusion, not a string of ordinary beads that magically transmutes into grenades when worn but still appears as ordinary beads to everyone but the wearer.
Everyone can see what it is when someone holds it, not just the wearer.
If we go with your interpretation, no sane person would ever wear the necklace except just before using it.
Except when held (or worn about the neck, I suppose) you wouldn't have to spend an action digging it out of your bags.
It doesn't specify what kind of action detaching a bead is, but I would say it's part of the standard action to throw it as long as the necklace is handy.
If it goes inert the moment it's unclasped and/or worn in an inappropriate slot, any sane person would drop it in a pocket or wear it as a bracelet except when they expect to use it.
Word or carried, I would think that would include wrist instead of neck (it doesn't take up the neck slot after all). Inert when unattended makes sense. Put away in a bag or pocket seems like a good trade off. It's safe from kaboom, but it's a move action to ready it. Getting into house rule territory, though. Maybe the item needs a good FAQing.
I look at the necklace as a string of alchemical grenades disguised by a mild illusion, not a string of ordinary beads that magically transmutes into grenades when worn but still appears as ordinary beads to everyone but the wearer.Everyone can see what it is when someone holds it, not just the wearer.
That's a change from 1st ed. Admittedly I was remembering the flavor text from the earlier item.
If we go with your interpretation, no sane person would ever wear the necklace except just before using it.Except when held (or worn about the neck, I suppose) you wouldn't have to spend an action digging it out of your bags.
And I think this is the root of the problem. 3.X puts in all the business about what sort of action it is to do whatever. Back in 1st ed, it was just a string of grenades and the DM simply houseruled how quickly you could pop the pins.
It doesn't specify what kind of action detaching a bead is, but I would say it's part of the standard action to throw it as long as the necklace is handy.
Which seems reasonable.
If it goes inert the moment it's unclasped and/or worn in an inappropriate slot, any sane person would drop it in a pocket or wear it as a bracelet except when they expect to use it.Word or carried, I would think that would include wrist instead of neck (it doesn't take up the neck slot after all). Inert when unattended makes sense. Put away in a bag or pocket seems like a good trade off. It's safe from kaboom, but it's a move action to ready it. Getting into house rule territory, though. Maybe the item needs a good FAQing.
Inert when unattended only makes sense if you think of it as a string of inert beads that magically transmutes into a string of grenades when touched. If you look at it as a string of grenades disguised by illusion that vanishes on contact with skin, that can work too, but becomes problematic.
Let's say you use the necklace to decorate, say, Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Clasped around the fir tree, does it look like "a string of beads" or does it look like "a golden chain from which hang a number of golden spheres"? Then you have the druid cast Animate Plant. What then? Has the Necklace of Fireballs become a way to detect sentience? If you clasp it around a Treeshaped druid, what does it look like?
IMHO, the less metagamey an item is, the better, even if that requires retcon to a previous appearance/behavior or houseruling some new behavior, such as the necklace only taking on its fancy golden appearance when clasped and its drab beaded appearance when unclasped, and clasping or unclasping it is a standard or move action or whatever sort of action it takes to preserve both game balance and believability.
That way, you also don't have the Necklace of Fireballs functioning as a life detector either. Someone dies from ordinary stabination while wearing a Necklace of Fireballs. The necklace does not go off, obviously. Does it suddenly turn back into a string of beads because it's now worn by a corpse, and is the necklace thus a way to distinguish between corpses, undead, and those merely playing dead?
Way too metagamey for my taste. I'd either houserule it back to the 1st ed behavior where only the wearer can see it as it truly is or else just go with the clasped/unclasped toggle switch to activate it and switch appearance.
To be fair, a conventional RPG doesn't have a "pull" pin - they have a pressure pin that detonates when the trigger impact on the front of the device strikes an object/surface. For hand-tossed grenades, our own troops are just as "dumb" when it comes to pin-pulling when things get heated ;-)He looks at you funny, picks up the inactive item, then detaches the largest sphere and throws it at you?
Kind of like the dumb insurgents who forget to pull the pins on their RPGs.
sorry, ive never seen a grenade thrown by a professional soldier without a pin pulled.
There is a difference between partisans, freedom fighters, insurgents, etc. The widest variety in training exists here. Some, like the Chechnyans and IRA are better trained than many special operators of "professional" armies. Many are unwitting commoners with weapons, and several fall somewhere in between. Some of the terrorist training camps in the middle east (mostly staffed by chechnyans and ira operatives) turn out 'super ninja' terrorist types, which when located are promptly bombed out of existence (and then the media pans the action as dropping a 1 million dollar bomb on a 10 dollar tent).
However most insurgents (especially these days as the good ones are now dead) are blundering idiots with and ideal, and no idea.
It's no where near a fair comparison put up untrained insurgents to trained. professional troops of armies that have over a decade of constant combat experience.
Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are arguably the best in the world at this point, much like Hitlers troops were at the start of ww2, having had a decade of experience fighting on "loan" in spain.
The majority of well trained mujahadeen , are now gone, all dead, replaced with second generation fanatics.
Essential all or most of the orcs are dead, they are now fighting goblins and kobolds. So the Pin thing holds true.
The "pressure" pin assumption on RPGs isn't necessarily true either. Depending on the make/ model and country of origin, there is some assembly to the actual rocket it self, including the removal of a safety pin. Several different variants of the RPG launcher exist (as it has been a viable design since 1961) and made by different countries in different styles (to include the chineese type 69) so variable ammo/rockets and launchers as well as ammo of different types and useage (AP, HEAT, AT, ANTI-personnel) can all confuse a lay person trying to operate one, especially if one is trying to launch a modern era heat round from an rpg2 which looks very similar to the rpg7 it should be launched from, creates the illusion that (from the resulting dud) that someone didn't "pull the pin" which is the common "in country slang" used to avoid the above written paragraph about why the round dint go off.
Someone firing an AP RPG round at a group of soldiers is likely to inflict zero casualties (except someones soiled shorts) when they should be firing a HEAT or Anti-personnel rocket. The AP round will hit the dirt like a dart, and essentially, thats it.
RPG rockets also have a max range that when reached they will also explode, so the whole pressure pin thing isnt entire accurate.
I've been in a humvee that had a rocket stuck in the front grill, unexploded. The round fired, but because it was assembled incorrectly, it never detonated.
This is referred to as "failing to pull the pin"
In country slang, people who use it have either been there, done that, or know someone who has.
Let's say you use the necklace to decorate, say, Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Clasped around the fir tree, does it look like "a string of beads" or does it look like "a golden chain from which hang a number of golden spheres"?
It's not being held, so string of beads.
Then you have the druid cast Animate Plant. What then?
Assuming the tree was still alive (in order to be animated), and assuming the animated tree can't hold the necklace, it remains a string of beads.
If you clasp it around a Treeshaped druid, what does it look like?
Same deal.
Someone dies from ordinary stabination while wearing a Necklace of Fireballs. The necklace does not go off, obviously. Does it suddenly turn back into a string of beads because it's now worn by a corpse, and is the necklace thus a way to distinguish between corpses, undead, and those merely playing dead?
If they were holding it, then yes, if not, it appeared to be a string of beads the whole time.
To sum up:
Held: Looks like chain/spheres, potential Kaboom
Worn: Looks like beads, Potential Kaboom (House Rule: When worn, may grasp(hold) and detach a sphere as part of the standard action to throw it)
Neither held nor worn: Looks like beads, Inert
Adding non-magical fire to explode them, even if unattended, seems overly harsh. It's a (pricey!) magical item, it should have some benefits over regular explosives. I don't want to avoid magical (or alchemical) items because I'm afraid of falling down the stairs or my torch sputtering. But it's not crazy either way, the item is written without too many rules, and I think by design: To give the DM the ability to make it fit in whatever kind of game he's running.
=)
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I'd just let them throw the whole thing at once. If they want to burn through that much value all at once, let them.
I allowed my players to do this in a game once. The target they threw the necklace at was a BBEG fighter/shadowdancer who sniped at them from the shadows of his lair.
Of course he was a dex build, but he made all the saves. Total damage taken was significantly less than one hit from the 2-hander fighter.