Hey everyone, I came up with a presumably nice combo for my druid and wanted to make sure that I got everything right:
Let's say my druid is of 8th level and therefore able to target 4 creatures.
Either prepare Chill Metal with Rime Spell or use a Rod for doing so.
I cast Rime Chill Metal, targeting the metal equipment of 4 knights in range.
Each of them wear metal armor, use a sword and metal shield, as far is I understand the spell ALL metal gear of a creature is targeted.
So, each of the mentioned Items (Armor, Sword, Shield) of each knight would have to save against the spell, using the knights WILL-Save.
If Shield or Sword would fail, the knights could simply let go of it and suffer no penalties except losing their gear.
Armor is much harder to get rid of, so for the follwing thoughts let's assume at least each armor failed the save.
Each knight suffers 1d4 of cold damage, for wearing their icy armor.
They suffer cold damage so they would be entangled for 2 rounds per rime spell metamagic.
So my main question would be the following:
Question 1
Am I correct, that the equipment only get one initial save?
Question 2
The rime spell feat states, that the entangled condition is obtained when a creature takes cold damage from the modified spell. Since the spell deals cold damage over multiple rounds, it would also deal the entangle condition again every time, correct?
Question 3
If the answer to question 2 is Yes, than would the spell add +2 rounds of entangle per damage tick (resulting in a total 14 rounds of entangle) or only reset the condition to 2 rounds (for a total 7 rounds).
Question 4
Is there a way to get rid of the entangle condition itself (other than dispelling or countering the actual spell). The spell Entangle has conditions for breaking out of it, but neither rime spell nor the entangled condition mention something alike.
Looking forward to your answers and clarification for above scenario.
1) Equipment only gets one save but the players carrying equipment, no matter how many different valid items only saves once for all of their items together
2) While I will admit this is RAW, I would not believe it was intended to be so. There are other multiple round cold damage spells but the majority of them have other mitigating factors or are things like icy prison where you're entangled anyway. The vast majority of cold spells are simply instantaneous and that is what I believe the metamagic was designed around. That said, even at level 5 when you can first cast a rimed chill metal, giving up your first turn to only entangle the enemy on the second of your turns is giving up a massive amount of tempo. You could use this spell to stop someone wearing something metal from running away but it isn't really a spamable opening salvo, especially middle and late game when there are far better options that do more damage and better control.
3) Even if you got a gm to rule the opposite of the above, durations are not stackable unless they say otherwise, so it would just be 2 rounds after the last incident of damage. (Entangle would end at round 8 assuming the target took damage on round 6.)
4) No, the condition sticks until it says it runs out or something else that can cleanse the effect does so (e.g. freedom of movement).
1) Equipment only gets one save but the players carrying equipment, no matter how many different valid items only saves once for all of their items together
The spell targets "metal equipment of one creature per two levels"
Also, the spell says "An item in a creature's possession uses the creature's saving throw bonus unless its own is higher."
It doesn't say all items or even items as plural in a creature's possession, but "an item" as singular.
For me it reads as (RAW) that while you target a creature's equipment as whole, each affectable item would need to save individually, using the wearing characters save (or its own if higher in case of magic items).
It targets the equipment, but the wearer of the item gets to make saves for the items if they are attended (and if they aren't attended, then they aren't worn for the "wearer" to be affected). The wearer only makes one save for multiple attended objects affected in any spell.
Another way to look at it is "you don't save forever plate, ring, or separate piece of metal on a single piece of armor, wearing/holding more than one item doesn't make a difference either." You wouldn't save two extra times because you have more than one item, and that becomes clear when you read the second paragraph and see there is no rider clause for if more than one possible target is affected:
A creature takes cold damage if its equipment is chilled. It takes full damage if its armor, shield, or weapon is affected. The creature takes minimum damage (1 point or 2 points; see the table) if it's not wearing or wielding such an item.
I can be wearing 10 rings, and still only take 1 point of damage on rounds 2/5 should I fail the save, but if I am wearing either of the bigger pieces then the damage doesn't get minimized.
It is also very unlikely to be the case, but it is possible that the fighter wielding his +1 sword, shield, and armor has less than a +3 will save, which is why his sword/shield/armor would get to use their save bonus instead of their wielder's, and thus the reminder text. It is still the creature however that is being targeted and thus making the save in the end.