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Had a GM last weekend that did something different from what I expected.
I think it was about 2/3 of the NPC bad guys were killed by Spontaneous Immolation, Burning Hands, or Fireball. GM said since they failed their save, all of their gear was destroyed. Is that correct?
Now I am not upset or anything since it made zero difference to my char. (But a couple of the other guys lost chance for captured scrolls and spellbooks.) I mostly just want to know for future reference.
You what?
Yeah, no. A failed save with a natural 1 causes 1 piece of gear - randomly determined - to take damage. That's it, unless the spell explicitly states otherwise.
Key note: "Spells with instantaneous duration don't normally catch things on fire."
Note the "normally" qualifier in that sentence; this means that some spells might, and will likely be noted in the spell description. For example, the Mythic Fireball spell does catch people on fire. So if it takes a mythic version of the spell to do it, why is a normal spell doing it?
And here are the rules for equipment surviving a failed saving throw. If you roll a natural 1, then your items may have a chance to get damaged, not completely destroyed.
Attended items (items you are wearing or holding or on your person) are only damaged (unless specifically targeted) when a natural 1 is rolled on the saving throw against the effect. And then, it affects one specific item. Not all items.
In short, your GM did this wrong by the rules. He is free to change them, but this is something he should have discussed with you before doing so.
However for the sake of balance it could have been a GM "storyline" reason for the gear burning up.
But personally I would talk to the GM on the side and see what's up, in a non-confrontational manner.
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It was a PFS event. So no house rules, though everyone is mistaken some times.
iirc I don't think any were hit by another fire effect after dead. It was 4 separate combats.
Well a bunch of scrolls and a spell book were the items. So If they did take any fire damage, I could easily see destroyed not just damaged.
I don't know if any of the opponents rolled a 1 on the save, but I doubt they all did. And it wasn't a single random piece of equipment, it was all of it.
The only thing of significance that we lost was the opportunity for 2 book casters to add some 1st level spells to their books.
If it was PFS, he dun goofed. Pretty sure you can report this somehow and get everything squared away.
As long as the one who holds/wears the item is still alive only a natural 1 on a Ref-Save might damage one piece of equipment.
But once the wielder is dead its all unattended equipment and thus if a lets say Fireball hits an area with a fresh unlooted corpse in it, all its equipment must save (if it is magical) or simply take the damage (not-magical). A DM might rule that items in a container dont take damage as long as the container is still intact, but stuff like Cloaks, and openly worn Books or Scrolls (for easy access) will almost certainly be ash if the get caught in a fire AOE-spell.
Also take note that Hardness applies to lessen the damage taken by the items, and that different types of energy damage are reduced differently against objects.
If someone died from being lit on fire id say the fire keeps on going a bit.
But never just because someone just died by regular instantaneous fire damage instantly turning all his stuff and him into Ash. Thats a special monster ability from a Ancient Red Dragon iirc. Especially not his weapons and armor if its metal, which is basically immune against firedamage thats not from the most intense quality. Refer to the "damaging objects" and "hardness" parts of the rules.
