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In a recent PFS Scenario, a player took a direct hit from alchemist fire while climbing a ladder. The player fell unconscious, fell from the ladder, taking falling damage.
I wasn't familiar with the rules on inventory taking damage from alchemist fire so I decided to let it pass this time. The player barely got healed before he died completely from the ongoing fire damage and survived.
The player was carrying several bottles of alchemist fire and said they might go off. In interest of time, I decided to let it pass this time and will research the rules in case this comes up again.
I haven't found anything about this. Does anyone know where the rules are for items taking damage from aoes (or even items taking damage from a player carrying them falling?) Also, how much damage can alchemist fire take before it ignites?
The most I have found is the Magic Chapter's comment about spells, not fire damage.
Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.
If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.
I am looking for official rules rather than people's personal interpretations because I can't house rule anything, this is Pathfinder Society Organized Play. So please, let me know where you got your information.
Thank you,
Terek
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The pages you're looking for are pages 173-175 in the CRB. Here are some specific points:
Energy Attacks: Energy deals half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object's hardness. Some energy types may be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
Magic Armor, Shields, and Weapons: Each +1 enhancement bonus adds 2 to the hardness of armor, a weapon, or a shield, and +10 to the item's hit points.
Vulnerability to Certain Attacks: Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object's harness.
Saving Throws: Nonmagical, unattended items never make saving throws. They are considered to have failed their saving throws, so they are always fully affected by spells and other attacks that allow saving throws to resist or negate. An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn) makes saving throws as the character (that is, using the character's saving throw bonus).
Magic items get saving throws. A magic item's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will save bonuses are equal to 2 + half its caster level. An attended magic item either makes saving throws as its owner or uses its own saving throw bonus, whichever is better.
Table 7-13 gives glass a hardness of 1 and hit points of 1 per inch of thickness.
I don't see specifics for your case, but I think it would be reasonable to have the glass vials (assuming they're glass, they could also be metal) take the falling damage, or you could give them a Will save using the character's bonus.
There may be more detailed info in the GMG, I'm not sure.
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The pages you're looking for are pages 173-175 in the CRB. Here are some specific points:
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There may be more detailed info in the GMG, I'm not sure.
Thank you, this helps. So as far as I can tell, the items get splash damage because they were not directly hit like the player; unless I am proven wrong of course. They would take only 1 damage (because I believe half of one is not rounded down), not getting past the hardness; unless you argue that the vial has less than one inch of thickness and thus no hardness at all, but I have seen no rules about that.
The ongoing damage from alchemist's fire only says the target directly hit would take fire damage. While it would make sense for that to affect other things like clothing, equipment, the rules do not specify it and I am not allowed to house rule anything.
Unless I can find rules about items taking damage on falling, which I don't see on the section on falling (page 443), the alchemist fire in PFS will not take damage.
Terek
I don't think you are going to find the rules you are looking for, there are just too many corner cases for the rules to cover absolutely everything. Just like the rules don't specifically call out that if you put a piece or paper with ink on it in a burlap bag and then submerge the bag, the paper gets wet and the ink will fade. These types of scenarios cannot be explicitly ruled, the game designers expect some sort of "common sense" ruling by the GM in such places.
The fact that the character was far enough off the ground to take damage is given. The fact that the character was unconscious means they couldn't try to break the fall, or not land on fragile objects they were carrying. Dead weight on small glass flasks could easily cause them to break in reality. This isn't a "house rule," this is a judgement call. As long as you apply the judgement call across the board, so it effects everyone equally (PCs and NPCs alike) it should be fine.
RAW, each item that fell with the character should take the damage as they were in essence helpless, unless the item was secured on the person in such a way as to not take damage. Scrolls in a scroll case should be okay, a fragile item wrapped in a blanket and stored in a backpack would probably be okay, the glass flask hanging off your belt so you can access it quickly, not going to be okay... RAW also states that a medium sized object deals 3d6 damage when it falls 30' to 149', it deals half that when falling under 30'.
As for the alchemist fire, when a character is subject to a flame attack that isn't instant RAW allows for a reflex save DC 15 to not catch fire. If they fail and their clothes/hair catch fire, they immediately take 1d6 damage and their flammable items need to start making saves as well and on a fail take the same amount of damage. The save is made every round until it succeeds or the fire put out. I imagine if multiple items catch fire each of them needs to be put out. IE the character could save the third round (and not take damage) but any items that failed are still on fire and need to be put out as well individually.
I think the general rule is that items will take no damagefrom aoarea effect energy damage unless specifically called in an exception orvspecial case.
So basically if you roll a 1 on your saving throw. An exception being necklace of fireballs having ac special failed save rulle.
So bob is carrying gasoline say and is hit by a fireball and fails his save. The gasoline takes no damage. ( btw im pretty sure in most home games it woukd probly burst into flames but tlking trictly rukes here)
Hoever if the pc dies all the rules change.
So bob is hit by alchemists fire fails hissave and dies because he had 3 hps aftercte fireball. Bob is now on fire and a corpse. So the burn effect on him would then light the gs on fire.
I think the general rule is that items will take no damagefrom aoarea effect energy damage unless specifically called in an exception orvspecial case.
So basically if you roll a 1 on your saving throw. An exception being necklace of fireballs having ac special failed save rulle.
So bob is carrying gasoline say and is hit by a fireball and fails his save. The gasoline takes no damage. ( btw im pretty sure in most home games it woukd probly burst into flames but tlking trictly rukes here)
Hoever if the pc dies all the rules change.
So bob is hit by alchemists fire fails hissave and dies because he had 3 hps aftercte fireball. Bob is now on fire and a corpse. So the burn effect on him would then light the gs on fire.
RAW for flames and "catching fire" under the environmental heat rules say anything flamable will need to make to make a save if the PC fails/catches fire (which would mean every round exposed). The vast majority of spells that inflict damage are instant (like fireball) and couldn't make a PC catch fire or force a save for the items, unless you roll a 1 on the save.
Typically items aren't exposed but as I pointed out, flames have special rules. As do the falling rules. An unconscious PC would be a medium (or small) object, which in the scenario give by the OP, would easily break fragile (low hardness/hp) objects when the character falls on them from any significant height (3d6/2 for damage). Given the intentional abstraction the game is designed on, RAW would probably lean to an across the board application of damage (either falling or being fell on). As it is falling damage, there is no save for the items, just *whistle* BOOM roll damage a bunch of times and wait for the *cracks/shatters*.
I have quite literally never seen a PFS DM enforce the "1 on a saving throw vs AoE famage, items now need to save" rule in PFS.
I personally don't use those rules for monsters, so I wouldn't make PCs use them.
I have enforced that rule (though it can be tough to remember, and often doesn't matter). It is just one item that needs to save though. See the table mentioned in the OP.
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I have quite literally never seen a PFS DM enforce the "1 on a saving throw vs AoE famage, items now need to save" rule in PFS.
I personally don't use those rules for monsters, so I wouldn't make PCs use them.
I've absolutely had GMs use these on me, and used it on players as well. Hell, I had it happen in Bonekeep, no less. Rough times. (I literally lost my clothes.)