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The only specific rules in Ultimate Combat are all about exposure to water, not fire.
"Exposure to fire, electricity, or a misfire explosion causes black powder to explode — a single keg that explodes in this manner deals 5d6 points of fire damage to anyone within a 20-foot burst (DC 15 Reflex half ). Storing black powder in a powder horn protects the powder from explosion."
"Black powder becomes useless when exposed to water, but powder horns and cartridges protect black powder from exposure. You cannot normally load an early firearm underwater or fire any firearm underwater without magical aid."
As far as RAW goes, when a gunslinging character is hit by a fire or electricity damage, ask them if they have a powder horn on their inventory. One powder horn will protect 20 uses of black powder. Any black powder not stored in a powder horn is destroyed, according to RAW.
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As far as RAW goes, when a gunslinging character is hit by a fire or electricity damage, ask them if they have a powder horn on their inventory. One powder horn will protect 20 uses of black powder. Any black powder not stored in a powder horn is destroyed, according to RAW.
Correction... 10 charges of powder per horn.
However, I would ask them how they are loading without a powder horn... kind of hard to dump a handful of powder into the muzzle and get it all in.
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As far as RAW goes, when a gunslinging character is hit by a fire or electricity damage, ask them if they have a powder horn on their inventory. One powder horn will protect 20 uses of black powder. Any black powder not stored in a powder horn is destroyed, according to RAW.Correction... 10 charges of powder per horn.
However, I would ask them how they are loading without a powder horn... kind of hard to dump a handful of powder into the muzzle and get it all in.
Probably alchemical cartridges.
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Probably alchemical cartridges.
However, I would ask them how they are loading without a powder horn... kind of hard to dump a handful of powder into the muzzle and get it all in.
What I meant was, if they are not using paper cartridges, etc., but are using powder and ball, how are they reloading?
I have suggested to fellow players that they needed a powder horn for this purpose. In fact, a single horn would be good enough for most combats since you could refill it from a barrel, or whatever.
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Anyone who doesn't have a powder horn as a gunslinger and trying to reload with just bullets and black powder likely doesn't realise that powder horns exist or what they're for.
In the interests of fair play, I'd let them make a retroactive purchase to get one if that's the case, unless we're playing on hardcore mode.
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This is where Endless Bandolier, Handy Haversack, and similar extra-dimension items get handy. Protect your powder in extra-dimensional spaces.
IIRC: Only black powder is specifically called out as needing protecting. While logically paper cartridges should have the same problems, the rules do not state that they do.
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This is another instance where things are not explicitly spelled out on how it works.
So lets look at two sets of rules:
1) How are worn/held items damaged?
Typically if you make your saving throw, your items are not damaged (unless the spell or effect says otherwise). Even if you fail the save, most damaging spells don’t hurt your items unless the spell or effect says otherwise. Usually its only if you fail your save on a roll of a 1 does your items have a chance to be damaged. In this case, typically the item gets a save or it takes the damage and can become broken or destroyed.
However, mere exposure to fire causes gun powder to explode.
So I would typically not have a fireball, burning hands, or flame strike explode your gunpowder if you make your save. I would just assume you avoided it well enough to protect your explosive beltpouch/backpack. If you fail your save, however, I would. In some instances, like Alchemist’s Fire or an Alchemist’s explosive bomb discovery, you taken ongoing fire damage and/or actually catch on fire. Yeah, your gunpowder is going to blow up in this case.
If you have a powder horn, it protects against fire. But if as I noted above, you fail your save on a natural 1, the powder horn could potentially be destroyed, and if it is by fire, then the gun powder would explode.
2) How does energy damage interact with objects?
Typically energy damage does half damage to an object, and then you apply the object’s hardness before any damage would go to the object’s hit points. So if I have a standard steel sword, it typically has 10 hardness and 10 hit points. So a 30 hit point fireball would be reduced to 15, and then take off the 10 hardness, and so would only take 5 hit points damage, and become broken.
But the rule on this states that some objects are actually vulnerable to some energy damage (i.e. paper and fire, rope and fire, etc.) So up to GM discretion, the object may take full damage from the energy type, and the energy type may bypass the object’s hardness.
In this case, gun powder doesn’t have a hardness value, and it doesn’t have hit point value. And it says mere exposure to fire or electricity will cause it to explode. So even if you arbitrarily gave gunpowder a hardness and hit points, it would take full damage from fire or electricity, and it would completely bypass the hardness. I would probably also consider it vulnerable, and it would taken an extra 50% damage as well.
TL;DR: Gunpowder doesn’t have a save vs. fire or electricity. If it is naked and exposed to either, it simply blows up.
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A full keg (with 100 charges of powder) deals 5d6 in a 20' burst (REF 15 for half). If a gunslinger has a significant amount of powder blow up on him, I would pro-rate it from there (and perhaps reduce the radius as well, prorated).
Thus 20 uses would probably be 1d6. If the powder was on the gunslinger's person, I would probably not allow a reflex save.
However, this is not RAW, as there is nothing in the actual rules about pro-rated explosions. However, it does seem a little silly that we go from 5d6 @ 20' with 100 uses to nothing at 99... ;)
Just to include a little physics, gunpowder not contained in an enclosed vessel doesn't do much when ignited.
So, depending on where the gunpowder is and what its in...it might just burn up all his gunpowder.
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Since there's no clear ruling from the main GMs... it's going to be subject to table variation.
If you're a gunslinger: Watch out! GMs may try and use any fire damage to destroy your expensive powder and possibly do damage to you.
GMs who have an irrational dislike for Gunslingers: See above.
GMs who see the potential hazard of carrying unprotected explosives: Destroy unprotected powder when a player rolls a natural 1 on a Reflex Save vs. fire damage, possibly doing additional fire damage.
GMs who realize being a gunslinger is already hard and expensive: Give the powder a save, just blow up their powder if they fail.
... As an aside, I've broken potions and alchemist fire in home games when people take sonic damage and fail their saves on a natural 1. It's quite cinematic!