There are some official F.A.Q about Heat Metal works with firarms and how they are damaged (bullet;gunpowder) from the spell?!?
As far as I read, only kegs of gunpowder are explosive enough to worry. Since you put very little in a gun, there shouldn't be an issue.
Heat Metal should simply fire the gun, IMO.
Cheers,
DH
I would agree, but man that would be messed up to use on someone's pepperbox before they got to use it. Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop! And what if an ally was in front of the gunslinger?
I would agree, but man that would be messed up to use on someone's pepperbox before they got to use it. Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop,Pop! And what if an ally was in front of the gunslinger?Heat Metal should simply fire the gun, IMO.
Cheers,
DH
Gun safety 101 don't point it at something you don't intented to shoot. If I'm aiming at the bard i plan on killing it of course.
I would probably make the guns cook off on round 3 of the effect (since heat metal has a kind of unique damage/round mechanic that tops out in rounds 3-5).
That is pure houserule for an interesting corner case. RAW gunpowder isn't even volatile unless its in a keg of roughly 100 shots worth of powder.
Heat Metal should work exactly as written in the spell description when cast upon firearms.
This; if a particular GM wants to alter the rules to allow secondary, more specialized effects, then that's fine. But it should not be core.
|
Heat Metal should work exactly as written in the spell description when cast upon firearms.
If you get into trying to treat spell effects as if they are related to the laws of physics, you start getting into all sorts of idiocy very quickly. The spells are only even vaguely balanced when they are used exactly as stated, w/o inflating their effects with various flights of fancy. YMMV.
-Kle.
I disagree on the basis of verisimilitude. We should be able to rely upon certain assumptions in the fantasy world; otherwise our characters and their actions are nothing more than numbers on a page.
For example, lets say our fighter in full plate gets encased in ice. Could we not use heat metal to free him?
For example, lets say our fighter in full plate gets encased in ice. Could we not use heat metal to free him?
And cook him in the process...
For example, lets say our fighter in full plate gets encased in ice. Could we not use heat metal to free him?And cook him in the process...
That's what hit points are for.
I asked the same thing of my GM with Burning Disarm and firearms. He hasn't got back to me yet.
There`s no facing for characters, so doing this isn`t going to get anybody shot.
Neither would a spell that specifically discharged loaded cartriges, unless it had some mechanic for doing so.
I agree with the cook-off (discharge) effect, and I would also say that for the duration of the effect any more rounds loaded would immediately cook-off (unless the effect is negated, obviously). As to when it happens, I would guess you decide how much HPs the cartriges have, and/or resistance vs. fire, and at 0 they discharge... Possibly as soon as 1 round / 1 dmg. Obviously, saying that barrels of gunpowder is explosive but cartridges aren`t doesn`t work (or rather, guns wouldn`t work if that was the case).
Over-all, sounds pretty reasonable to me, Druids already have anti-civilization effects in other ways, so on-par for flavor.
As a held item, the wielder gets a Save to negate...
I don`t see much difference vs. targetting a Greatsword-specialist with Grease in terms of in-game dynamics.
Given the possibility of mis-fires with firearms, most gun specialists will/should carry different backups anyways.
Sounds like a great case for a firearm misfire. Then a gunslinger gets to use their "quick clear" class feature more! Everyone wins.
I love this question.
On verisimilitude, it's worth noting that overheated barrels are one of the biggest problems with firearms. If the barrel's too hot, the metal is weakend and it can blow up, and it can discharge just by loading a new round into the hot barrel. Everything from the water cooled WWI machine guns, to modern guns with gatling gun style multiple barrels are about getting around this problem.
If you're houseruling a more realistic effect, you'd proably not only want the thing to go off, but also be unusable until it cooled down, and maybe even damage it when it goes off, as though the gun made a sunder attack on itself.
On rules - it's important to note that firearms weren't in the game when the spell was written, but by RAW, if you consider gun flammable (it has a wooden stock, regardless of the explosive powder that may be in the barrel which may itself be weakend by the heat), and if you consider 'red hot' being enought to risk the flammable parts of it to catch fire, then you can use the catch on fire rule:
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 don't see the need to apply any additional rules.
Heat metal makes metal hot. Not enough to damage the items themselves (armor or weapons) but hot enough to damage someone touching them.
What does a gun do? Make heat. The barrel and chamber of a vintage gun like these in Pathfinder is going to be hot from your previous shot yet you incur no penalty sticking in a new load. Why? Because the autoignition temperature of paper is 450°C (883°F). Assuming a paper cartridge, that barrel would have to be HOT to ignite paper by simple contact. Black powder evidently can sustain 5 seconds at 427°C (801°F) before it explodes. How much damage do you imagine a fighter taking in 700°F armor in a couple rounds?
Point is... there's no need to imagine heat metal making firearms any hotter than they get under operation, which won't prematurely detonate.
The spell description defines the the metal affected by it as "Red Hot".
Heat metal causes metal objects to become red-hot
Guns don't get red hot from normal use, infact if they are that hot they're lible to blow up if you fire them. Steel is 752F degrees to be visible red in the dark, under normal lighting conditions cherry red is 1,652F degrees.
If the metal is red hot it's HOT!!
Keep in mind that a normal person has 1d6 or 1d8 hit points, the spell does 1d4 then 2d4 damamge - it makes the item hot enough that it can kill a normal person. If it's hot enough to kill a person holding it, seems it'd be hot enough to damage a weapon with flammable and intricate parts, especially one holding an explosive charge in it.
Honestly, I think situations like this should be house rules. It was common practice back in 1e and 2e.
I could see heat metal cooking of a gun on turn 3 and might houserule it as such on the rare occasions that it came up. I have done similar things, such as having the heat from a fireball (cast be a PC) melt enough snow and ice to treat the area of effect as a grease spell (using the fireball DC). For the record, Frost Giants have horible Reflex saves.
I tend to encourage creative spell use when applicable and houserule as needed.
|
As far as I read, only kegs of gunpowder are explosive enough to worry. Since you put very little in a gun, there shouldn't be an issue.At the least, Heat Metal should probably be able to cook off a loaded shot.
I disagree. The flash-point of black powder depends upon composition, but is generally around 350F-400F (lower than paper's infamous 451F -- but gunpowder doesn't always ignite when gradually heated (the mixture of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter will often just emit noxious fumes and break down, resulting in a "dud" when later fired).