Fireball vs Bag of Holding (2e Question)

[spectrevk]

Recently, my group's druid decided to deal with a pair of Invisible Stalkers by casting Fireball in the party's own bedroom. The Stalkers survived, but I'm concerned about the party's stuff, and I can't find any proper 2E rules for how magical item saving throws work. A Bag of Holding is described as being made of Cloth, and according to the Core rulebook that means it has a Hardness of 1 and 4 HP, so a 16 damage fireball would have incinerated it, along with everything inside, but that doesn't seem right to me. On the other hand, simply stating that the bag of holding is immune to damage doesn't make sense either. Nobody was holding the bag during combat; as they were attacked after bedding down for the night. Any help?

[Deadmanwalking]

I'd generally rule that magic items need to be targeted in some fashion to be destroyed, making them immune to area effect damage for the most part. Otherwise, the Bag of Holding would logically get destroyed by a fireball even if in someone's possession (I mean, the person getting hit will still take half damage even on a success...that's enough to destroy the bag, and it taking less damage than the person holding it makes little sense unless there's magic at work), which is clearly not the intent.

In terms of a strict reading of the rules...items are, for the most part, technically invulnerable by the RAW right now due to the Strike action not being able to target them, them not having AC or Saves for the most part, and spells needing specific text to meaningfully effect them.

All of that's ridiculous, of course, but it's what a strict reading of the rules results in.

[thenobledrake]

The game is meant to be fun, not a slog of rolls simulating out all the details of what would happen if a room suddenly filled with roughly 33,510 cubic feet of flame.

To that end, items don't take damage unless the rules explicitly say they do - whether that's basic wear and tear on the weapons you mash into your enemies, your clothes ripping or burning, the massive pile of coins the dragon perches upon melting to slag as it breathes flame, or a bag of holding the party would absolutely get mad about losing when one member casts a spell that doesn't specify an exemption to the general rule "A spell that has an area but no targets listed usually affects all creatures in the area indiscriminately." in a way that makes it seem possible than objects could be affected.

[spectrevk]

Alright. In the moment I ruled that the bag(s) of holding were undamaged, but clothing and anything glass that wasn't in a magical bag would be destroyed, which seems fair and cinematic to me.

[Deadmanwalking]

spectrevk wrote:

Alright. In the moment I ruled that the bag(s) of holding were undamaged, but clothing and anything glass that wasn't in a magical bag would be destroyed, which seems fair and cinematic to me.

That seems fine to me, yeah.

[Henro]

I run the game in a similar fashion. A fireball cast in a cluttered room is going to cause collateral damage, but not destroy important items unless that item is being specifically targeted.

If the PCs own the room, they may have to pay for its renovation though.

[spectrevk]

They were in a temple of Gozreh, which I decided would be made of green/living wood, so the fire didn't catch, but there was (fixable) damage to the walls.