Hello everyone,
I'd love to know how you would deal with a player that would want to set fire to a 30 feet high wooden watchtower (made with interlaced tied trunks and a flat platform at the top) in blasting it with Fireball(s). My question isn't really about direct damage dealing but rather how far it would catch fire with each fireballs and without any intervention (rain, buckets of water or spells or whatever) how long would it takes before it collapse... I figured out it would take less time than just fire flaming arrows on it I guess... But I still really don't know how to evaluate this time.
Furthermore, I'd love to know how to deal with crushed glass in dog's food to kill or put out of the fight. Intelligent creatures would surely cut themselves superficially before stop eating, but about animals, IRL there were some cases where cats or dogs died because of such malevolence. Do we have to deal it as a poison? Or something deadlier?
Thx
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If the crushed glass were at all noticeable, there's no reason a cat or dog would continue to choke it down any more than a human would (they might even be quicker about it, in fact), all the more so since such a judgment call would be based on Wisdom rather than Intelligence.
If this particular dog does anyway, however (they'd probably have to be starving and/or very accustomed to pain and abuse), then treating it like a poison that does hit point damage does in fact sound like a good way to handle it.
I would have the different sections of the wooden structure catch fire, taking instant damage from the fireball as well as another 1d6 damage per round for being on fire (see catching on fire). How long the structure holds would depend on the strength of the fireball and the strength of the structure.
As for killing the dog, dogs are intelligent creatures. Not as intelligent as humans, sure, but they're not suicidal. I can't imagine a healthy dog doing anything worse than getting a single cut before walking away from the food, or even picking through the glass. However if the dog was somehow forced to ingest a significant amount of broken glass, I would have it function as suggested: a poison that does damage. Probably on the hour based on how quickly the digestive system works.
Thx for all your answers,
Actually there are some good indications in "Catastrophe!" from Adventure Path #30 "the Twice Damned Price".
Any fire effect with a duration of "instantaneous" can't actually catch things on fire under the rules.
Fire effects with durations can (wall of fire and flaming sphere being good examples).
Maybe this will help?
Walls / Structure Hardness and Hit Points
According to the Environment chapter of the Core Rulebook, a 6-inch thick wooden wall had 60 hit points and hardness 5.
Ultimate Combat also has siege towers, which might be similar in size to the one you mention.
Siege towers have a hardness of 5, and hit points based on their size. A Large siege tower has 60 hit points, a Huge one has 240 hit points, a Gargantuan one has 640 hit points, and a Colossal one has 1,250 hit points. Ultimate Combat also has hit points and hardness listings for structures. Like siege towers, wood buildings have a hardness of 5, and hit points based on their size. A Large wood building has 120 hit points, a Huge one has 270 hit points, a Gargantuan one has 960 hit points, and a Colossal one has 3,240 hit points.
Buildings are sizable structures with many hit points and very poor ACs (a Large building is AC 4, a Huge building is AC 3, and a Gargantuan or larger building is AC 0). When a building is reduced to half its hit points, it is broken—it still stands, but only partially. It can be easily entered, and for all intents and purposes it has been breached. Reducing a building to 0 hit points completely destroys that building. Creatures inside the building suffer the effects of a cave-in.
All these building statistics assume that the structure's inside is somewhat hollow but sturdily built, with enough space for its occupants to walk around inside. Flimsy buildings have half the hit points of the buildings detailed. Buildings can be magically treated, like dungeon walls and doors can. Doing so doubles their hardness and hit points. Magically treating a building costs 5,000 gp for a Large building, 10,000 gp for a Huge building, 20,000 gp for a Gargantuan building, and 40,000 gp for a Colossal building. A spellcaster with the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat can magically treat buildings.
For larger buildings, put together multiple buildings of these sizes and add the hit points together.
I would use the former rule set if you are concerned with the players burning through a section of the tower, and the latter rule set to see if they destroy the tower in its entirety.
Any fire effect with a duration of "instantaneous" can't actually catch things on fire under the rules.
Fire effects with durations can (wall of fire and flaming sphere being good examples).
Combustible materials will ignite, burn, support combustion, or release flammable vapors. Wood is by far the most common combustible material used for structural purposes in building construction.
Fireball would seem to be the exception.
Given a large area catching on fire at once I'd expect the watchtower would be uninhabitable inside a minute or two. Which is an eternity in combat time but pretty fast by any other measure.
Crushed glass won't work. If it's fine enough to eat then it is too fine to be harmful.
I've not heard that before. Quite the contrary in fact. If what I've heard/read is any indication, crushed glass is absolutely dangerous to swallow at an size--as it's a matter of coarseness rather than size.
EDIT: But, according to Google, I may well be totally wrong.
Crushed glass can absolutely harm or kill an animal, a human tends to chew its food and would notice glass large enough to be harmful, but a carnivore will typically swallow large chucks, meaning dangerous pieces of glass could be swallowed as well. It doesn't kill instantly however. They eat it and hours or days later it cuts their insides. This can lead to death, but it won't be quick, certainly not something you would use in a fight.
There isn't a great Pathfinder system to model this, but the closest would probably actually be a disease that does hp damage.
A reasonable question as well would be whether the ropes tying the tower together fail before the wood takes significant structural damage. It could very well be that the tower falls over of its own accord while on fire because the ropes were burned away.
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Ignoring the conditions around the animal consuming the glass, I'd roll it like a drawn out poison. Fort saves to resist 1d6 damage each time, and have them make a roll every hour for 8 hours, no means of ending the effect. I might be inclined to add a sickened, staggered, and/or bleed effect as well due to pain/internal bleeding.
It would potentially kill weak animals/characters, particularly those without magical healing, but stronger ones would manage well enough.
Furthermore, I'd love to know how to deal with crushed glass in dog's food to kill or put out of the fight.
Personally, I'd tell the player to find another way and work with him to figure it out. For someone who lived with dogs for years such actions can be quite disgusting.
Anyway, if the whole table is fine with it: Poison, disease and bleed were already mentioned and all fit more or less. A disease with Con damage each hour might be a good approximation.
I don't know if a dog would even touch the food in the first place. They have a pretty amazing sense of smell. At the most, they'd take a careful bite, then stop.
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Crushed glass can absolutely harm or kill an animal, a human tends to chew its food and would notice glass large enough to be harmful, but a carnivore will typically swallow large chucks, meaning dangerous pieces of glass could be swallowed as well. It doesn't kill instantly however. They eat it and hours or days later it cuts their insides. This can lead to death, but it won't be quick, certainly not something you would use in a fight.
There isn't a great Pathfinder system to model this, but the closest would probably actually be a disease that does hp damage.
It's a dog in question, not animals in general though. Dogs do chew their food well enough for the glass to be no significant danger. Yes, they don't chew as thoroughly as humans, but they also have a shorter and straighter digestive system. A dog can swallow a relatively larger piece or pieces of glass, something that would kill a human, and pass it just fine.
I raise english mastiffs, which are quite large, guard dog sized to say the least, and you'd be amazed what they can eat without dying. True story, I once had to help one of my dogs finish passing a small slipper that had disappeared. Aside from the bit of trouble at the end (forgive the pun) the dog was just fine. Slipper was ruined.
If you want to kill a dog by perforating its digestive tract, just use cooked bones, especially poultry. Cooked bones are deadly BECAUSE the dog chews. They break lengthwise into splinters. But even then the dog will more then likely be okay. It's dangerous but not a death sentence. Dogs chew up and eat uncooked bone chunks as a matter of course. They're quite good for them actually.
Poison is very effective of course.
I seriously hope that is an evil character because putting ground glass in a dog's food is pretty horrible.
I have a friend who pretty regularly eats glass as part of a circus/magic show routine. The trick is to chew a long time.
I have a friend who pretty regularly eats glass as part of a circus/magic show routine. The trick is to chew a long time.
No one should try this without professional training.
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No one should try this without professional training.I have a friend who pretty regularly eats glass as part of a circus/magic show routine. The trick is to chew a long time.
Drat, there go my dinner plans.
I seriously hope that is an evil character because putting ground glass in a dog's food is pretty horrible.
Does a Paladin who puts ground glass in a dog's food fall?
I seriously hope that is an evil character because putting ground glass in a dog's food is pretty horrible.Does a Paladin who puts ground glass in a dog's food fall?
Is it Holy glass blessed by their deity for the task?
Is the dog ebil?
Is the GM a 'GOTCHA' GM or a 'We'll run with that' GM?
More information needed.
W/r/t actually damaging the watchtower Ravingdork has the best answer, and I think these mechanics dominate the actual situation you describe. As has been noted fireball ignites combustibles, but there's a big difference between igniting some papers or even logs and, you know, burning down a *building*. Lighting a tree-trunk on fire is a *huge* amount of work - speaking as someone for whom wildfire is a part of the job.
That said, I think this sort of clever play is fun, and you weren't actually asking about the damage. How I would handle it, probably, is use the HP from the structure guidelines, and say after a few fireballs and perhaps about 1/4 of the tower's HP (perhaps 200 or so), you could get it burning decently. At this point I would deal at least 1d6 fire damage/round to the tower and anyone in it, increasing as the fire grows in strength. Hmm, perhaps for every 20hp of damage the fire does to the structure, it goes up a d6? Could do 10 if you want it to turn into a conflagration quick.
W/r/t to crushed glass - I realize we're playing a game about, conventionally, murderhobos, but I find this sort of play extremely distasteful. Tell your player to come up with a new plan.
W/r/t to crushed glass - I realize we're playing a game about, conventionally, murderhobos, but I find this sort of play extremely distasteful. Tell your player to come up with a new plan.
Suffocation, Symbol of Insanity, Transmute Blood To Acid, Explode Head and all kinds of other spells could be cast on the dogs and they aren't evil spells. What is it about a mundane way to do something similar makes it "extremely distasteful"? We're a LONG way from bunnies and teddy bears with pathfinder and MUCH closer to The Grimms' Children's and Household Tales (The original Grimms Fairy Tales)...
I can understand if it's something YOU dislike, but it's not something out of place in Pathfinder.
Snopes has a long article on why ground glass isn't a poison. I'm guessing that the players want the dog to instantly die quietly. I glanced over the alchemical items list on d20pfsrd and the closest I think they might to their desired effect, if they don't have any other poisons is arsenic, which probably also doesn't immanently work.
Let's keep the conversation on topic. We're not here to discuss the morality of different ways to kill dogs.
Are all those spells for dogs only?
Because grinding glass into dog food and watching them die slowly over hours in pain seems pretty evil.
And I don't mean "pathfinder alignment " I mean the player needs a head check.
We have several non-evil pain spells, so LG gods are cool with giving out spells that cause pain and death, sometime a lingering one. In this light, infernal healing is more 'evil' than a slowly dying in pain. See Eyebite, Howling Agony, Inflict Pain and Boneshatter. All spells mentionsed work JUST as well on dogs and people so if they aren't evil when used on people I don't see it being more evil to use it on a dog.
Apocalyptic Dream: I'd emulate a poison too, with a perception check for a circumstance bonus to the save. My guess is that they are looking for a cheep way to do it as poisons are hideously expensive.
CampinCarl9127: I don't intend to talk about real life morality. That's pointless.
Game morality is fair game though and I don't see this as anything strange. I often hear plans about how to deal with guards and guard animals. it's not unusual to see them killed. LOTS of powers, abilities and spells cause death and/or pain. Alchemist get use poison and most of the other classes can get the option through archetypes, spells, ect. If Suffocation, Transmute Blood To Acid or Boneshatter are spells a LG god would approve of for cleric use, I just don't see how glass in food is worse.
Burning from the inside = not evil
Suffocation = not evil
breaking your bones = not evil
Glass in food just doesn't seem to compare on the 'this is bad' chart.
EDIT: For a REAL poison, they could feed the dogs chocolate. It's only 5 gp for 1/2 lb so it's cheep for a 'poison'. 1 oz of dark chocolate will sicken 10 lbs of dog or likely kill 5lbs of dog. If it's a baking chocolate, 1oz sickens a 50lb dog.
I made no distinction on real life vs game morality. This thread is about how the rules cover setting fire to wooden structures and crushed glass in a dog's meal. It is not about if these acts are evil, or if anything else is evil. Stay on topic, we do not need another derailed thread.
I made no distinction on real life vs game morality. This thread is about how the rules cover setting fire to wooden structures and crushed glass in a dog's meal. It is not about if these acts are evil, or if anything else is evil. Stay on topic, we do not need another derailed thread.
I know what distinctions both you and I made. I disagree with you on the relevance. The in game morality IS part of "I'd love to know how to deal with crushed glass in dog's food to kill or put out of the fight." If it's an evil act it may well have consequences for good characters doing it so that should fall under 'how to deal with it'. If the OP says he doesn't care about that part of it, then that's a different story. You, however, can't say one way of another on it's relevance to his query.
*sigh*
Furthermore, I'd love to know how to deal with crushed glass in dog's food to kill or put out of the fight. Intelligent creatures would surely cut themselves superficially before stop eating, but about animals, IRL there were some cases where cats or dogs died because of such malevolence. Do we have to deal it as a poison? Or something deadlier?
I see nothing asking about the morality, simply how the actual rules would function.
But the derail is now getting derailed, and I make it a point not to get into pointless arguments anymore, so I will no longer be responding to any of your comments. Try to keep the thread on topic.
CampinCarl9127: Morality isn't part of the actual rules? Good to know! I've always hated the alignment section. ;)
On a serious note, he asks "Do we have to deal it as a poison?" One of the questions that hangs over poisons are threads like "Is using Poison Evil?", "Is poisoning an evil act?", "Poison use an evil act?", "Seeking clarifications on poison", ect. So having it act like a poison brings these same questions to the thread. As I said above; those may not be concerns of the OP, however the OP isn't you so you can't really tell me if it's on or off topic.
I must say you did a mighty fine job of derailing a thread with an debate on derailing. Good job! Very ironic... you should really "Try to keep the thread on topic." :P
