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I had a player cast grease onto a dungeon floor which was covered in 2' of water. My ruling was the grease was ineffective because it floated to the surface. I didn't find any other posts on this, so thought I'd ask. The spell states : A grease spell covers a solid surface with a layer of slippery grease. Technically, he was trying to coat the floor and not the water, but I was thinking about pouring bacon grease in a sink full of water - it floats. Any thoughts?
Just gotta make those calls I guess. I would have had it work normally. Surface is still there under the water.
If I did decide water was going to stop the spell from working I'd call for a low DC spell craft or knowledge arcana check on the spot to determine it wasn't going to work before the player wasted the action and the spell slot. Caster should have some idea how his magic works.
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Just gotta make those calls I guess. I would have had it work normally. Surface is still there under the water.
If I did decide water was going to stop the spell from working I'd call for a low DC spell craft or knowledge arcana check on the spot to determine it wasn't going to work before the player wasted the action and the spell slot. Caster should have some idea how his magic works.
+1 on all counts. Maybe DC15 for the spellcraft/arcana check, nothing too high.
Only exception is if the water was opaque such that he couldn't see the floor, then he wouldn't have LoS to cast the spell at all.
Grease/lard is adhesive to the surface upon which it sits, so if it is disturbed, chucks of it might float, but it would still be slippery. The spell creates the grease in place, it doesn't pour it over the surface through the water.
I suppose it depends on whether the 'grease' is considered to be a solid or a liquid upon creation.
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That's the difference between old school and new school, right there. I started play in 1977 and let me tell you,some of the charm of OD&D is lost when there are so many rules so rigidly applied.
In fact, I think your example (baby oil in the tub) is an example of applying real world logic to magic. And you'd be right to do it.
Who's right? I don't know. The question I'd have is whether the game went well.
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My main problem with applying real world logic to magic is when people apply "real"-world logic to magic. A lot of people don't realize just how weird real life can get and apply their own version of what is sensible to situations they themselves don't really understand.
You can melt metal at room temperature, have transforming liquid metal (albeit not in any way useful at this point), use water to cut through stone, cause an entire bridge to vibrate noticably with a machine the size of your forearm, throw a metal pin through glass, survive a gunshot wound to the head, cut a (slow-ish) bullet in half with a sword from a sheathed position, fire a revolver (single action) 6 times before a quarter can hit the floor, etc.
There's a shrimp that shoots its prey with water by closing its claw really fast, a fish whose males rarely (if ever) eat since they immediately seek out a female and *physical merge with her* eventually becoming nothing more than a pair of testies, a mammal with poison armpits that rubs its pits then its teeth to get a poisonous bite, and even a slug that incorporates its food (algae) into its body until it accumulates enough to become almost entirely solar-powered (going months without real food).
The world is just downright weird and fantastic, and that's without magic to make it even weirder.
It's best if we keep the "real"-world logic to a minimum. Grease can easily be heavier than water, and LoS means you can summon it straight to the solid surface beneath the water. Boom. Greased floors despite the water. We can all move on.
TL;DR - When in doubt, it works.
+1 to it works unless the water is so turbid that you lack line of sight to the surface below it.