@@godminnette2 So with a bit of checking, I'll note this was one of his tweets that did not make the official Sage Advice. It's very possible he misrembered the spell text when answering as a number of other spells use the "contiguous" wording.
@@TreantmonksTemple But if the intent is that you can split these up any way you want, why not word the spell "Five 20x10 rectangles" instead? They certainly have spells like that (Meteor Swarm, for example). Why create a "noob trap" where newbies might think they are supposed to make a contiguous shape? I think it's more likely that Crawford intended for the cubes to be contiguous, making the contiguous property RAI (but not RAW).
Tempest Domain Cleric, Metamagic Adept at 12 for Transmuted Spell, change it to Lightning Storm. Now it's a flat 70 damage (35 on a save) configurable AoE that knocks everyone you want back 10' regardless of whether they save or fail. Best blast in the game until Meteor Swarm.
@@helixxharpell not really, i didn't think that he would actually say something like that, or if he did then he would dismiss it as either untrue or unhealthy for the game. it was just my only expectation going in since it's the only special thing about fire storm that i've heard before
"If you choose, plant life in the area is unaffected by this spell" is not just neat for a Druid spell. My Sorcerer has chosen against casting Fireball numerous times as we've fought in dense forest where starting a wildfire would likely be more dangerous than the current encounter itself.
@@TheOneAverageJoehe said the "choose to not damage plants" was probably added for druids. That's what the guys posted about, it doesn't really matter if the guy also said he used the spell for that reason on his sorcerer
@fatgumthegoat I did hint at exactly what Chris spelled out. I also argued that it has mechanical value besides feeling more appropriate for (some) Druids than setting everything ablaze with a Fireball. Yet, I respect if Chris finds it too niche a boon to mention it. After all, one should aways bring spell options other than fire damage, especially when traveling through dense forest.
Idk I think that should be a feat or class feature to specifically prevent that, it shouldn't be baked into the spell specifically BECAUSE of that role-playing dilemma. God forbid the players have to make a difficult choice between optimal combat and what their character would actually do
Another point about the AOE: It says the faces have to be adjacent, it doesn't say that they have to be aligned. So as long as one tile of the cube is touching one tile of another, that should satisfy it as well, so their positioning should be even more flexible.
Though a possible reading, I feel a more honest reading would be "one (whole) face must be adjacent". If only part of a face was meant, I would rule that that would have to be included in the text.
As a devils advocate if one were to allow it: Why limit it to one tile edge? I would say even the corners touching qualifies under TRDSIC. And does "adjacent" even mean touching? I would say so, but also debatable. Maybe not a whole square away, but half that... Would at least qualify for the "neighbouring" part of adjacent. Maybe even however little less than one of the 10' cubes described in the spell COULD, if stretched to the utmost, be described as TRD(totally-and-categorally)SIC.
@@TreantmonksTemple it would still be aligned with a grid if you offset the second one by 5ft. There would still be a 5ft section of the face that is adjacent, and each 10x10 area is still aligned with the grid. It just adds a little extra flexibility if trying to avoid friendly fire in close quarters.
I would definitely interpret this as not destroying worn or carried objects. I realize there's two ways of reading this sentence, but I feel like the intent is (adding brackets for clarity) (The fire damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects) that aren't being worn or carried. rather than: The fire damages objects in the area (and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried). The order of operations is a little unclear--there's no PEDMAS for the English language. But since no other spell destroys worn and carried objects (other than disintegrate for non-magic items), and the exception "not being worn or carried" shows up in the same sentence as "the fire damages objects in the area", I think it's a safe assumption that the clause "not being worn or carried" is meant to apply to the damage as well.
Strongly agree. Breaking it down into parts: the spell (verbs objects) and (verbs objects) that meet a condition. I’d say that the condition (not worn or carried) applies to both (verbs objects) of the sentence, same as the spell applies to both. In order to split up the condition, I’d greatly prefer for it to come first. “The spell verbs objects that meet a condition and verbs objects” is an example of a structure where I think it’d be preferable and correct to split the condition. Otherwise, I don’t think we have enough evidence to do so.
actually, there is a way to clarify this: "The fire ignites flammable objects that aren't worn or carried, and damages objects in the area" is pretty unambiguous
I don't know the damage object rules are so crap I don't think I am a big fan. Like who cares about disintegrate if any spell level 5+ that damages objects also obliterates them. And conceptually this spell doing 38 damage is enough to obliterate any object large size or smaller in the game but pretty low tier creatures can just tank it no problem. Feels really screwy to me. Not that its a big part of the game but I really wish they would do a full overhaul of the damaging objects system in one.
@@Ahglock On one hand I like the idea that as you increase in level the world increasingly feels like it's made of paper, but that's a very specific style of fantasy that 5e clearly isn't aiming for. If it wants to go for that, I dislike how few spells actually damage objects. Overall though, damaging objects is a system included in the game and as such it should be functional. As it stands it just doesn't really work.
man... i may homebrew that change to fire storm to make it work like the generous reading you gave. i love the idea of a cleric holding their hands up in the air and 5 massive pillars of flame fall from the heavens to smite specific enemies while not harming any allies. but i think "a location" not "the locations" in the spell wording heavily implies it has to be a continuous chain of fire.
Yeah that is my reading as well, also based on "location" vs "locations". Also very tempted to allow the splitting, to get to closer to a level 7 spell slot value.
also, people can still see you casting fireball as a flash streaks from your pointing finger to a point that you choose. the firestorm just happens with no indication of you casting it with subtle spell.
@@Ramie0Cat Once the streak is produced, the spell has been cast. You wouldn't be able to prevent the casting at this point if you were using this as an indicator of someone "casting" fireball, as the spell is already produced (assuming this is what you meant to imply). If you just meant it would be obvious to others that you were the one casting it because of this, then yes this is true.
@@rixxy4674 it's about being obvious. The whole reason why someone would use subtle spell is to be not obvious where it came from. Unless you only use it to go against counterspell.
Man I wonder what person in the area cast this spell you need to be level 13 to cast and was done without any verbal casting of the spell. (unless you're hidden or in greater invisibility or something)
Firestorm has always been a solid cleric or druid pick. It's always a problem with a direct comparison if you leave out consideration of who can take a spell.
Chris did touch on the classes it's available to. Yet, even Clerics and Druids might use their high level spell slots differently, if they undervalue it due to focusing solely on its relatively low damage per spell slot level compared to other blast spells. Specifically, they might prefer sustained damage via Spirit Guardians or Fire Storm.
I honestly didn’t even know (or forgot) about this spell, nor have I ever seen it used. I picture flames raining down from the sky given the spell’s name, being able to place up to 5 separate areas feels so much more fitting and interesting for this 7th level spell
When talking about damaging objects all I could think of was naval battles. Damaging the enemy ship directly I feel is more impressive than just igniting it (as the opposing crew might be ready to counter that) and destroying the pole with a spell like this is visually appealing.
If they wanted it to be one continous line, they should've called the spell Fire Serpent or something. Firestorm gives me the impression of flaming pillars, which also happens in the Dark Souls games.
My artificer has a graystaff looted from a Bheur Hag that I've been trying to do this with (he's at a high enough level to ignore the race requirement of being a bheur hag).
I would actually be interested in a list of the blast spells in the current system that you do consider good (preferably without having to go back and rewatch all of the class spell list videos).
I guess another benefit of Firestorm is that you dont have to be able to see the area. Fireball requires sight to point, where Firestorm is just Cubes in Area. Stay hidden behind a door or nuke the inside of an enemy castle without being there.
I've always seen this spell and ruled it how you have without it being contiguous, just because of the Dark Souls pyromancy with the same name, which had a similar effect even down to ignoring friendly fire
8:50 U can make those areas continuous if ur DM doesn't allow you to break up the area of the spell like that and still hit all those enemies without any friendly fire. The flexibility of that spell pretty great even without this interpretation
Thanks Treantmonk. I did not imagine Firestorm could be split into separate 2xcubes like that. I always picked the spell for my red draconic sorcerer because of roleplay reasons, thinking it was a waste of a precious known spell, but now I see just how incredibly useful it can be, even with its low damage output.
It should be almost impossible. The only way you could do it is if the spear is braced against the ground, otherwise your opponent will simply move it with the blow. There's a reason why the humble spear dominated the battlefields up'til the invention of black powder.
It doesn't even need to be 10' x 20' rectangles. You can offset a pair of squares by 5 feet, because the sides are then still adjacent, just not identical.
"I do want to set the world on fire" For fire immune enemies take elemental adept:fire and multiclass into blood hunter, take blood curse of exposure and amplify it to turn the immunity into resistance and ignore that with your feat Is it viable? No Worth it to humble that arrogant ancient red dragon with fire of your own? Yes
a smaller solution would be to take metamagic adept (transmuted spell). You wouldn't be able to do it all the time, only 2x a day, but you could do it with multiple elements and do it without multiclassing.
In general, I hope more spells target objects (and the DMG has a large table of object HP/thresholds) as its a lot of fun for players to interact with the environment.
As you've shown in this vid, I think square counting is abit of a trap when assesing AOE effects. Alot of people devalue Lightning bolt due to the fact that its substantially harder to affect multiple targets with it when compared to Fireball, but forget that its also easier to use without risking friendly fire and also catching the Barbarian and fighter currently in melee. Cone of cold is even worse in this regard due to it always originating from you, unlike fireball which can be detonated away from you, despite COC having more squares.
The spell doesn’t say “the entire face must be shared”. I would rule that even sharing 5ft of a face satisfies the condition. With D&D’s diagonally adjacent hazy rules you could argue that the faces aren’t touching, but are still adjacent. I wouldn’t let that ruling pass, but an argument could be made.
I'm also super happy Sorcerers are getting access to more elemental spells that Wizard can't. With Wizards getting better force spells I think it's a great way to differentiate the two classes.
At that level spell and a bit earlier more spells start effecting objects. Bigbys hand, chain lightning, delayed blast fireball, crown of stars, reverse gravity(if not anchored) and a few more specific case ones. I would rather all spells that make sense effect objects but they just come up with better damage object rules. Delaying it until high levels and then having players obliterate everthing instantly seems weird to me.
The cubes can also be stacked vertically and don't need to (but can) have at least one touch the ground - this is good for getting groups of enemies with some high-ish flying cover, even if your DM doesn't allow the multiple separate clumps of fire interpretation
At the table I play at, a Cleric player did use Firestorm, and we let the cubes touch faces offset by 5feet. So they faces still touch, but only on half of the face, rather than the entire face. Perhaps that is too permissive, but to us that seemed to technically satisfy the meaning of 'adjacent'. Using your chaotic melee as an example, this ruling would still let you 'thread the needle' and hit all those enemies with only 6 of the pillars, leaving 4 spare for threading through hypothetically more intricate scenarios.
This video really feels more like a 'how to break the rules' type of rules lawyering more than 'what the rules say' version. As to the damage, I think most damage spells around now have completely fallen off unless they are 10+ enemies or so. The DM in my 5e game wants to keep stuff challenging for us, which has ended up with being less attrition and more really tough monsters. Enemies either end up with 300+ hp with 20 AC, Legenday actions, spells (like shield), and mooks, or we don't really feel it is worth using resources on.
Dealing damage to objects with spells is very fun! I played an Artillerist artificer recently that used the spell storing item for Shatter being used by an owl familiar. I used it to break the edges of cliffs to make enemies fall, to break the ceiling and make the rubble fall on a caster (damage + potential prone), and was going to use it to make a column topple so I could cast Web and restrain enemies (but the fight ended before I could do that). My DM used similar tactics against me and used Shatter to destroy a boulder I was using as cover. AOE damage to objects is underrated IMO and can lead to some unexpected battlefield control.
The ability to control the shape of a blast of spell is so hugely valuable - usually PC's are either outnumbered or fighting single monsters, and when outnumbered having little choice but dealing friendly fire damage is way way more impactful than hitting a bit softer BUT not hurting most or even any of your allies!!!
AD&D actually did have a universal saving throw table for carried objects that you could optionally use for dragon breath, fireballs, and so on - each "plus" on weapons and armour applied - and my brothers used it!
7:20 - And what qualifies as adjacent? Technically, if you offset so only half the face is adjacent, it is till adjacent. It may not be fully adjacent (sharing a face). But, if they wanted you creating 10x20 segments only, they should just say 'up to 5 10x20 cubes'. Though, reading over the description again, "... appears in a location..." kind of implies you pick a location and it stems from there. - I would argue that they all must connect to one chosen point. Basically, you place the first one and then the second bust have at least 5ft of a face shared with the first. Then the third cube must share at least 5ft of a face with one or both of the first cubes. And so on until it has become a burning mayhem mass. Build a pyramid of flames. A leaning tower of flameza. A ring of fire to fall into. A wavy ripple that bounces over the heads of your allies. Clarification : If the intent was multiple locations within the area, better wording would be, 'place the cubes anywhere within range. Each cube must be adjacent to at least one other cube.' For that matter... what is 'adjacent'? Does anything that would qualify as melee range also count as adjacent? Would "cat's corner" count as adjacent for the spell? I mean, melee can do it. - All in all, another spell that needs heavy clarification.
I wish this was available for Warlocks. My favorite class for years has been the tanky Barbarian/Warlock multiclass and some of the most fun I’ve had is lighting a building on fire or destroying part of it then battling in the wake of that destruction. This spell is perfect for that. Fingers crossed I can live that fantasy with the reworked PHB.
7:15 "But this spell does not say these cubes have to be contiguous or in sequence" That's something I hadn't realized (which is interesting), but now I'm wondering if this is a case of RAW vs RAI (I'm inclined to say that the likely intention was to have the cubes be continuous - otherwise it would be a weird restriction to make the cubes appear in pairs like that -, though I can't be sure of that).
The ability to exempt plant life from burning is really good, since if your DM is feeling nasty, they could easily have Fireball start a forest fire. It also has a potentially unintended but still useful effect: it doesn't specify nonsapient plants, just plant life. So say a party member has animated plants, either through Awakening, Animate Objects, or a class feature (like Circle of the Blighted), which is the more common situation, or the party has somehow recruited the help of Treants, for example. You could drop Firestorm, say 'I exempt plant life' and as a DM, I would allow you to exempt the animated plants or Treants from the effect, letting you not have to worry about hitting them. Not the most common situation, but it could happen (I'd say Animate Object being the most common, or if there's a Circle of the Blighted Druid in the party) and would be very useful if it does.
As far as interpretations that could make this broken one might also note that it doesn't specify whether "each creature in the area" refers to the area of the entire spell or the area of each cube. Meaning in some interruptions you could spiral pattern multiple cubes on to a single enemy resulting in multiple instances of damage to a single target.
It's tempting to say if a character/creature caught in the firestorm rolled a Natural 1 on their save, it could slag their gear. Maybe if the damage exceeded the objects AC+hp - which is still highly likely for firestorm.
If you want to do it that way I think you have to in effect let the player choose - you have 5 objects that are exposed to the firestorm (arbitrary number) so you take 6x the firestorm damage shared between yourself and those objects - after all if the player has that highly sentimental, valuable, or effective something to preserve they should be able to act to preserve it. Then your objects get damaged, and will cost you to repair but you don't immediately and certainly destroy the important item they were using or render the wizard useless by taking away their spell book trivially - the wizard would have had to choose to let the book burn or been at deaths door. I'd also say for that 6x damage that if you succeeded on your save it halves the effective number of objects not just the damage you would personally take - so 3x the total instead. As otherwise the saving throw is rendered nearly pointless as the PC is likely going to feel rather forced to choose one of the two extremes - take all they can themselves or push it all onto their gear. Which makes taking a paltry 15 ish less damage in total not enough.
So what I’m hearing is, if there is a Dire Troll that is running around the battlefield absorbing other trolls to gain more heads, arms, and legs; best to hit all of them with a fire storm straight away.
It could also be a very high damage single target spell. There is no wording saying you can't cast on a previously cast location. so you could theoretically cast 1st cube on enemy, 2nd on adjacent to meet requirement, then every cast after be on enemy since 2nd cast fulfilled adjacent requirement, making it 63d10. Even if it has to be cast contiguously you can cast back and forth between the 2 locations and get 35d10 on a single target. 70d10 on large+ targets o lala
Worth noting you're treating diagonals as 5ft, which will skew the power of Fireball and Cone of Cold up a bit. I know it's not the main point, just throwing it out there.
There are multiple official ways to handle AOE spells in D&D. For example, the Token Method states, "This method depicts everything using squares, and a circular area of effect becomes square in it, whether the area is a sphere, cylinder, or radius. For instance, the 10-foot radius of flame strike, which has a diameter of 20 feet, is expressed as a square that is 20 feet on a side, as shown in diagram 2.3. Diagram 2.4 shows that area with total cover inside it."
Pack Tactics is the one who started popularizing the idea that the default is that circles are squares, despite the fact that: 1. The rules say to skip diagonals for measuring distance for movement, not for all measurements. 2. There's literally a rule in the core rules telling you how to measure circles on a grid: half or more of the square's area in the grid. When playing with default DMG style grid rules without diagonals, that still only applies to movement. The rules completely fail to tell you how to measure everything else. That's where XGTE comes in.
I like your take on the positioning requirements only specifying that 2 of them have to touch, but I have to say, 'The fire damages objects in the area and ignites flammable obkects that aren't being worn or carried.' is one complete sentence. It both Damages objects, and ignites flammable objects, that aren't being worn or carried. There's no punctuation to seperate the items being specified, so the entire sentence applies as one string of logic.
It brings up a real interesting debate on RAW vs RAI vs DM interpretation. I'd be interested when you DM if you have those meta conversations with players when they're thinking about a spell to check out if it achieves what they're hoping for - particularly if it's a bit outside the first interpretation (e.g. when someone tries to use mould earth to Bury a target)
Bit of a non-issue really as RAW/RAI are the great unknown much of the time, which only leaves DM interpretation. And very clearly off label use of the unambiguously written skill has to be agreed by the DM. My players are rarely running into those areas where the RAW become an issue - for the most part they are either way too imaginative for the rules or not enough to notice the grey areas. But when it does come up there will be a statement of intent from the player, the rules are then discussed - mostly to consider how much potency the spell has or time required to create that effect. As the DM you want to let your players interact with the world, so while their idea might need some limitations - often just simply that it costs more time or won't just work reliably first time - drop the chandelier on the BBEG with my skill = roll to hit and/or meet some damage target, perhaps with a dex save for the BBEG, not it just happens because you want it to.
I would never argue with my DM at allowing this spell to destroy worn & carried objects, because that kind of power would then just get used against you and in essence would be like having the 'Ruin' card of the Deck of Many Things aimed at you and possibly your whole party.
@@TreantmonksTemple I was using the cone AOE rules defined in the basic rules and in the players handbook: "A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin. A cone’s width at a given point along its length is equal to that point’s distance from the point of origin. A cone’s area of effect specifies its maximum length." I wasn't familiar with the token rules, but I was indeed using the template rules. It's interesting that when using the token rules that the cone changes shape significantly when firing off at a diagonal, but is supposed to have the same overall area. Note: I think that your cone in the image is still quite a bit bigger than it should be using the token method. At first, I thought it was 13 squares long, instead of 12 like it should be, but actually this is just because it was incorrectly laid out on the grid, overlaying a 12 square cone onto a 13 square long area. But secondly, it shouldn't have a curve at the front, but should have a flat diagonal 'front' to the cone if you are using the diagonal direction token method. In mathematical terms, using the token method should hit 1+2+3...+N squares, where N is the cone length divided by five. In this case you should hit 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12 squares (78 squares). Your cone hits 96 squares (even when looking at just the shape and not the fact that it is overlaid bigger than it should be), so it is too big by about 23%, and when accounting for the overlay stretch issue, it hits around 115 squares on the background grid that you are comparing it to (and is 47% bigger than it should be).
I think the intended wording of the spell is that it's meant to be continuous. But that doesn't mean it has to be a line - there are more shapes possible.
So you can cast Toll the dead on a stone and the stone simply burst? For me personally this sounds like a lot of work for the Dm if it is justifiable for something to deal damage, which would result in a lot of inconsistencies or questions about every spell in every scenario. Also it would render Firebolt useless. So I don’t think this house rule is very common. But if it works for you its great 😊
At 11:00, Oh WotC suggests GM's should wing it? Huh, good thing the rest of the rules are much more explicit, wouldn't want GM's to have too much to figure out without support...
I typically always pick both shatter and fire ball for damage options because both are big AOEs and let me divvy out the AOE using 3rd and 2nd level slots early level.
MY daughter always plays a fire class. she was a wildfire druid previously and plays a Dragon sorcerer now. I bet an optimized fire blaster sorc could get some solid mileage out of this. Especially after the playtest stuff goes official this year.
I think the phrase “that aren’t being worn or carried” modifies the entire phrase “damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects.“ Otherwise, there would be a comma after “area.”
The different placement of the fire is a cool idea and i can agree with that way of reading it but the other half of the spell beeing the apocalypse to opbjects both feels wrong and i also feels like there are different ways of reading it. If we are reading the rules as written to the point where the dm can only deside that opbjcts have resistance and invounbilty but not immunity so stones can burn i think its a bit stupid but yea technically raw. But The spell also says that each CREATURE in the area must make a Dex save for 7d10 damge half on a save. In the part where it talks about it damaging opbjects there are no damge dice mentioned so it is purly esthetical damge (though this is a bit stupid to). The spell shatter uses the text "also takes the damge" to reference to the damged rolled.
What about catching a gargantuan size creature in the area of effect. Do multiple instance of the fire damage get applied? I would argue it would stack cumulatively. Also I dont think firestorm is necessarily continuous in shape. When I see the word storm i think of a large area of effect😮
I noticed the same "carried" interaction with Disintegrate. Why target a knight when you can target their horse with a much lower save and everything the horse is carrying is Disintegrated without a save.
Area of effect is generally a bait stat in my experience. You almost never fight more than like 4-5 enemies. And, bigger areas, especially if they have friendly fire, like fireball, are usually a trap, since, like Chris demonstrated, if the enemy is mixed with the allies, then fireball becomes basically a single-target spell. Also, I always assumed the cubes have to all 10 be in an unbroken chain. Technically, Chris is correct with the positioning in pairs. And even if you think about it, a firestorm in nature can start out as a bunch of separate flames before it coalesces into a huge inferno that sweeps the whole forest. So it is kind of thematic. But I still feel like it was probably meant to be continuous.
There's no reason the cubes all have to be at the same height. You can easily avoid friendly fire even with a contiguous Firestorm by spending 1-2 cubes *above* as connection points. You could also just hit a group of large+ enemies without friendly fire by starting the Firestorm above the heads of medium creatures, and have some cubes sticking down from the storm at ground level to affect medium enemies.
Or like set down one cube, then set down 9 cubes to the first cubes left doing 7d10 fire damage in one cube and 63d10 fire damage to the second cube area, and if happens to be on a large target they would take 70d10 and be making 10 separate saves for half damage on each cube?
@@jeremyleyland1047 Nothing in the spell's description implies the target takes damage per cube. What it says is "The area consists of..." and then "Each creature in the area takes...". All cubes are one big area, and if the target is within that area, it takes 7d10 damage. That's it, no stacking.
Does this discovery warrant a re-reading of Wall of Force (an already-powerful spell that could grow more powerful with this interpretation)? "Each panel must be contiguous with another panel", but similarly to Fire Storm apparently need not be contiguous with the entire structure
The idea of a physical object having hit points on the same scale as creatures is dumb. Well, paper, clothing, soft leather, and the like are vulnerable to many kinds of damage. Gold and silver can be damaged easily, especially fine decorations. Stone or ferrous metal is far more tough than flesh. Brass is used for containing burning coals (called a brazier because it was made of brass). If any living creature can stand in the blast and survive, then objects of stone, iron, massive wood, etc will all survive. Large structural timber and firewood does not ignite. Put a pool of lighter fluid in the bottom of your charcoal grill. Put a non-kindling piece of firewood on top. Light the fluid. It goes foof. Firewood is singed but doesn't ignite. It takes sustained exposure to heat and flame to ignite wood. Starting a fire often begins with paper. Kindling is split or shaved thin, so that a small flame can heat the material through to the point where it can ignite. Small pieces of wood get larger pieces heated deep enough to allow the surface to ignite, and so on. That's why starting a camp fire is a skill, and idiots with lighter fluid are a danger. That said, magical fire does not behave the same as natural fire. It could heat up various materials faster than normal flame, but that would apply to worn and carried items as well. I saw a table that indicated material vulnerability against slashing, chopping, blunt force, fire, etc. Some would do only ½ damage, or even none. Thought it was 3e, but maybe it was a different TTRPG. So why does 5e say worn and carried items are unaffected? Laziness. 1e said that on a failed save, all a person's stuff has to save as well, starting at the outer layers. Anything that fails is damaged and the next layer has to save. But that's too much work. Easier to just grant everything blanket immunity and say "job done."
Could you start in one square, target the adjacent square, and then retarget the original square and repeat. Potentially hitting the two sections 5 times each for 35d10?
Being able to break warn or equiped weapons is not broken, per se. Older editions had saves on items, even magic items, and it created an interesting dynamic in play where your magic user did not want to use aoe spells around the big bad with cool magic items because you did not want to destroy. It makes a more tactical. I would say the contiguous 10 square foot areas might make a sticky situation where you could target certain areas or avoid targeting certain areas. Ie, it could target a hydra's tail to avoid the heads taking damage and avoiding the regeneration power it has. In the case of gigantic creatures, it could make a targeting system that d&d explicitly tries to avoid.
I like listening to you talk about stuff. My game is so heavily homebrewed that nothing official matters to me. In my setting mundain items can be destroyed weather they are being worn or not. But the damage threshold means that it doesnt happen that much early, and you need a magical sword to cut through a regular sword or shield. But this is not in a vacuum, my enemies dont roll for damage they just do double the average, and have half hp. But my monsters also dont roll to attack, the players roll to avoid the attack, which means that things like bless are really powerfull. (armour save is AC minus 10, enemy attack DC is Hit + 12. Spell saving throws are spell attacks against the monsters spell save + 14) Really its so different that nothing offical applies.
I appreciate the good faith approach to analysis and optimization here. I'm honestly tired of 5e "how to break the game" content with bad faith interpretations and your channel is a refreshing take.
Interesting video! Firestorm is such a great spell conceptually; but I‘m pretty certain everything you pointed out is an oversight and not intended that way. For instance: if the cubes were intended to be placed freely and independently, then why have a facing requirement to begin with? Why would 2 squares alone be fine, but not 1? To me, comparing spells depending on the casters available choices is already a folly; I would rather compare it to the monsters HP at the appropriate level. An HP that, I would reckon, was likely not considered when the DMG rules for objects were made. Those objects seem to be fitted to the basic weapon attacks of a Tier 1 character; as much as I personally like using them, I don‘t think they work properly at higher levels.
Also also firestorm has no wording on line of sight. So regardless if your blinded or not or face a heavy obscured area you can deal the damage. So instead of going inside a potentially difficult room in a dungeon you can set the room ablaze before even rolling initiative. Or if you fear Glyphs or Symbols you can ignore those now by spending just a 7th lvl spellslot (so most Glyphs are either worded to go off regardless or just fizzle. Bye bye potentially 200 years of work if you face a lich trying to protect its home). You can also get maybe a round of surprise out of the casting of the spell… Thank you for the video. I think I should reconsider my opinion about some spells by quite a bit. Have a nice day AEther
Nowhere does it say you can't place a cube inside another cube. As written you could place 2 cubes next to each other and the rest inside one or both cubes stacking massive damage. Not the way I would interpret it but it does not say you can't.
What we need in the new ruleset is not better wording of spells, but better framework for them. If a spell deals continous damage, only the continous reference should be in the description not its mechanic, that should be outside in the framework and work the same way for every spell. It's a headache to memorize every spell if it deals damage at the start or end on a creature's turn, it breaks gameplay to look it up on the fly and these 2 reasons are enough for most DMs to overrule them already. The same goes for object ignition, most tables correctly overrule it as fire damage ignites and not spells, while if you go the RAW way, then produce flame can't ignite objects, while the damage type switched iceball or psyonicball does, which make no sense at all. And it can be done in an intelligent and intuitive way. BG3 already uses it that way, damage effect comes from the damage type, AoE effects damage objects, including doors and spiderwebs and sturdier objects have damage thresholds. It's already done, so WotC should have no excuse to not have the same minimal standards as Larian Studios. Ease of play should be supported, instead of the current fighting over the wording!
The usefulness seems incredibly DM dependent. I agree with your interpretation of object damage, but I'd say most stone buildings would be resistant or outright immune to the damage.
What if we blast 20 ft deep pits under 5 creatures we are pretty confident cant get out? Or how about like one pit thats 100 ft deep? What if we arrange the blasts so that they cover a 20 by 20 by 20 (plus change) area, and drop some gargantuan creature in there? Unless they can get out (via climbing walls, teleporting, or somehow jumping out), it would be like a poor man's forcecage right?
I may be thinking of a different system because lord knows I dabble in too many and I am really not inclined to go dredging through 5e to verify it's non-existence, but don't worn and carried objects benefit from the defensive statistics of the character wearing or carrying them? For example, if you were to attempt to Firebolt the enemy's sword they are currently wielding you would use the AC of the character being attacked and not the AC assigned to objects the size of longswords. So if Firestorm does damage carried and worn objects, even though objects do not get saving throws themselves they should benefit from the saving throw of the character wearing or carrying them. Might not make much difference for most mundane items but could make a difference in magical items surviving as well as the impact of class features like Evasion coming into play. And if I remember correctly Firestorm wouldn't be the only effect in D&D 5e that has similar effects to carried and worn equipment.
Why are you analysing this by a square Fireball? This is a pretty strange variant rule to apply here: the spell says 20' radius sphere and even if you use grid (variant) with its base squares-as-circles -simplification, this actually does not extend to spell areas. DMG page 251 specifies that circular AOEs are circular and affect a square if half a square is covered. Your variant significantly increases the number of squares affected by a Fireball (52 -> 64).
I am pretty sure, every single DM would not allow Firestorm to damage worn or carried objects, I know I wouldn't. My reasoning is that if it was supposed to, and if we consider that every object would be destroyed by it, the text about igniting objects NOT worn or carried would be moot as worn objects would just be destroyed regardless of being ignitable or not, so this bit would be redundant, and within the context it implies that worn objects would be exempt from the effects of firestorm. I also would not allow walls and floors exceeding the size of the spell to be destroyed. I wouldn't consider those sections to be targeted individually by default, although I would allow a spellcraft roll if the player explicitly attempted to do so, but that would be my DM fiat in response to a creative use of the spell.
Obvious exception to the AOE issue is the evocation wizard who simply throw fire balls wherever they please because their teammates will suddenly become immune to explosions.
you also missed where multiple nodes of the firestorm can hit the same creature that's riding the edge, or you just didnt mention it in your calculation rant.
Wouldn't all spells using panels/cubes function the same way? Like Wall of Stone says contiguous with at least 1 other panel. So it can also be split up to different areas, as long as you have 2 panels touching. I haven't looked through all spells like this, so I don't know if any use panels/cubes and specifically say they must be unbroken.
Jeremy Crawford tweated "Fire storm-the spell's cubes must be contiguous."
I bet it gets added to the spell text in the new PHB then
@@TreantmonksTemple Significantly devalues the spell! Hopefully new PHB gives it a damage bump to make up for this.
If it gets added to the new PHB, and the damage isn't dramatically increased, this spell goes right back onto the "ignore pile".
@@godminnette2 So with a bit of checking, I'll note this was one of his tweets that did not make the official Sage Advice. It's very possible he misrembered the spell text when answering as a number of other spells use the "contiguous" wording.
@@TreantmonksTemple But if the intent is that you can split these up any way you want, why not word the spell "Five 20x10 rectangles" instead? They certainly have spells like that (Meteor Swarm, for example). Why create a "noob trap" where newbies might think they are supposed to make a contiguous shape?
I think it's more likely that Crawford intended for the cubes to be contiguous, making the contiguous property RAI (but not RAW).
Tempest Domain Cleric, Metamagic Adept at 12 for Transmuted Spell, change it to Lightning Storm. Now it's a flat 70 damage (35 on a save) configurable AoE that knocks everyone you want back 10' regardless of whether they save or fail. Best blast in the game until Meteor Swarm.
If you’re fighting a titanic creature this could theoretically do 700 damage
@guydude6388 a creature only takes the damage once regardless of how many of the 10-foot cubes cover some of its area.
Tempest is crazy awesome
@@dominicl5862 It’s a really underrated subclass.
When it comes to spells like this, I default to interpretting it as powerful as it can be because "there's got to be a reason it's so high level".
The game designers are not competent enough for this to be a good strategy
i'm so relieved that this video wasn't "you can put all of the cubes together to do 70d10 damage in one area"
Oh dang I hadn't even considered doing this! Firestorm just gets better and better.
@@Prismatic_Rain no don't do that
This is what I thought too!
I like that you were overtly critical of Chris here. 😂😉😉
@@helixxharpell not really, i didn't think that he would actually say something like that, or if he did then he would dismiss it as either untrue or unhealthy for the game. it was just my only expectation going in since it's the only special thing about fire storm that i've heard before
"If you choose, plant life in the area is unaffected by this spell" is not just neat for a Druid spell. My Sorcerer has chosen against casting Fireball numerous times as we've fought in dense forest where starting a wildfire would likely be more dangerous than the current encounter itself.
Yeah, I'm sure that wording is there specifically for druids
@@TreantmonksTemple not to be rude but I think you misread his comment he didn't say that
@@TheOneAverageJoehe said the "choose to not damage plants" was probably added for druids. That's what the guys posted about, it doesn't really matter if the guy also said he used the spell for that reason on his sorcerer
@fatgumthegoat I did hint at exactly what Chris spelled out. I also argued that it has mechanical value besides feeling more appropriate for (some) Druids than setting everything ablaze with a Fireball. Yet, I respect if Chris finds it too niche a boon to mention it. After all, one should aways bring spell options other than fire damage, especially when traveling through dense forest.
Idk I think that should be a feat or class feature to specifically prevent that, it shouldn't be baked into the spell specifically BECAUSE of that role-playing dilemma. God forbid the players have to make a difficult choice between optimal combat and what their character would actually do
Another point about the AOE: It says the faces have to be adjacent, it doesn't say that they have to be aligned. So as long as one tile of the cube is touching one tile of another, that should satisfy it as well, so their positioning should be even more flexible.
Though a possible reading, I feel a more honest reading would be "one (whole) face must be adjacent". If only part of a face was meant, I would rule that that would have to be included in the text.
Some DM's like spell effects to be "snapped to the grid" and others don't.
As a devils advocate if one were to allow it: Why limit it to one tile edge? I would say even the corners touching qualifies under TRDSIC.
And does "adjacent" even mean touching? I would say so, but also debatable. Maybe not a whole square away, but half that... Would at least qualify for the "neighbouring" part of adjacent.
Maybe even however little less than one of the 10' cubes described in the spell COULD, if stretched to the utmost, be described as TRD(totally-and-categorally)SIC.
Also, the cubes could be _above_ each other, if that helps prevent friendly fire.
@@TreantmonksTemple it would still be aligned with a grid if you offset the second one by 5ft. There would still be a 5ft section of the face that is adjacent, and each 10x10 area is still aligned with the grid. It just adds a little extra flexibility if trying to avoid friendly fire in close quarters.
I would definitely interpret this as not destroying worn or carried objects. I realize there's two ways of reading this sentence, but I feel like the intent is (adding brackets for clarity)
(The fire damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects) that aren't being worn or carried.
rather than:
The fire damages objects in the area (and ignites flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried).
The order of operations is a little unclear--there's no PEDMAS for the English language. But since no other spell destroys worn and carried objects (other than disintegrate for non-magic items), and the exception "not being worn or carried" shows up in the same sentence as "the fire damages objects in the area", I think it's a safe assumption that the clause "not being worn or carried" is meant to apply to the damage as well.
Strongly agree. Breaking it down into parts: the spell (verbs objects) and (verbs objects) that meet a condition. I’d say that the condition (not worn or carried) applies to both (verbs objects) of the sentence, same as the spell applies to both. In order to split up the condition, I’d greatly prefer for it to come first. “The spell verbs objects that meet a condition and verbs objects” is an example of a structure where I think it’d be preferable and correct to split the condition. Otherwise, I don’t think we have enough evidence to do so.
I was going to comment this exact thing if no one else said it. You phrased it better than I could have and I strongly agree.
actually, there is a way to clarify this:
"The fire ignites flammable objects that aren't worn or carried, and damages objects in the area" is pretty unambiguous
Why do people insist on calling parentheses brackets? This " [ " is a bracket. This " ( " is a parenthesis. #TheMoreYouKnow
@@Dyanosis Wrong, depending on where you're from. Lots of counties use the word brackets for ().
I'm on board with Firestorm destroying floors, walls, and ceilings. That's a great call out that gives it a lot more tactical uses.
Also fantastic way to incinerate one target and dig a 90-ft deep 10x10 pit straight down for fall damage and removal from combat!
@@Duskbreaker1780 ahh but can you target those deeper spaces when you can't see them?
I don't know the damage object rules are so crap I don't think I am a big fan. Like who cares about disintegrate if any spell level 5+ that damages objects also obliterates them. And conceptually this spell doing 38 damage is enough to obliterate any object large size or smaller in the game but pretty low tier creatures can just tank it no problem. Feels really screwy to me. Not that its a big part of the game but I really wish they would do a full overhaul of the damaging objects system in one.
@@Ahglock On one hand I like the idea that as you increase in level the world increasingly feels like it's made of paper, but that's a very specific style of fantasy that 5e clearly isn't aiming for. If it wants to go for that, I dislike how few spells actually damage objects.
Overall though, damaging objects is a system included in the game and as such it should be functional. As it stands it just doesn't really work.
man... i may homebrew that change to fire storm to make it work like the generous reading you gave. i love the idea of a cleric holding their hands up in the air and 5 massive pillars of flame fall from the heavens to smite specific enemies while not harming any allies.
but i think "a location" not "the locations" in the spell wording heavily implies it has to be a continuous chain of fire.
Yeah that is my reading as well, also based on "location" vs "locations". Also very tempted to allow the splitting, to get to closer to a level 7 spell slot value.
The clause about not affecting plants is very interesting. Pairs well with Druid's Plant Growth.
Fireball doesn't damage magical Plant Growth either. Web is an exception as it spells out how its area can be set ablaze and burned up.
Subtle spell works completely on Fire Storm. On Fireball, there's still a material component.
also, people can still see you casting fireball as a flash streaks from your pointing finger to a point that you choose. the firestorm just happens with no indication of you casting it with subtle spell.
"This is fine"
@@Ramie0Cat Once the streak is produced, the spell has been cast. You wouldn't be able to prevent the casting at this point if you were using this as an indicator of someone "casting" fireball, as the spell is already produced (assuming this is what you meant to imply). If you just meant it would be obvious to others that you were the one casting it because of this, then yes this is true.
@@rixxy4674 it's about being obvious. The whole reason why someone would use subtle spell is to be not obvious where it came from. Unless you only use it to go against counterspell.
Man I wonder what person in the area cast this spell you need to be level 13 to cast and was done without any verbal casting of the spell. (unless you're hidden or in greater invisibility or something)
Firestorm has always been a solid cleric or druid pick. It's always a problem with a direct comparison if you leave out consideration of who can take a spell.
Chris did touch on the classes it's available to. Yet, even Clerics and Druids might use their high level spell slots differently, if they undervalue it due to focusing solely on its relatively low damage per spell slot level compared to other blast spells. Specifically, they might prefer sustained damage via Spirit Guardians or Fire Storm.
I honestly didn’t even know (or forgot) about this spell, nor have I ever seen it used. I picture flames raining down from the sky given the spell’s name, being able to place up to 5 separate areas feels so much more fitting and interesting for this 7th level spell
When talking about damaging objects all I could think of was naval battles. Damaging the enemy ship directly I feel is more impressive than just igniting it (as the opposing crew might be ready to counter that) and destroying the pole with a spell like this is visually appealing.
If they wanted it to be one continous line, they should've called the spell Fire Serpent or something.
Firestorm gives me the impression of flaming pillars, which also happens in the Dark Souls games.
If they wanted it to be "one contiguous line", it'd have been Wall of Fire, which already exists.
A point to note is that cone of cold has an ENORMOUS area of effect when cast from the air.
My artificer has a graystaff looted from a Bheur Hag that I've been trying to do this with (he's at a high enough level to ignore the race requirement of being a bheur hag).
Also worth pointing out that spells like mTelekenesis which can effect items worn/ carried are quite explicit about the ability to do so.
I would actually be interested in a list of the blast spells in the current system that you do consider good (preferably without having to go back and rewatch all of the class spell list videos).
I guess another benefit of Firestorm is that you dont have to be able to see the area. Fireball requires sight to point, where Firestorm is just Cubes in Area. Stay hidden behind a door or nuke the inside of an enemy castle without being there.
You are wrong.
You always need a line of sight and a line of effect to the target of the spell. This is true for all spells.
I've always seen this spell and ruled it how you have without it being contiguous, just because of the Dark Souls pyromancy with the same name, which had a similar effect even down to ignoring friendly fire
I mean. Mood.
8:50 U can make those areas continuous if ur DM doesn't allow you to break up the area of the spell like that and still hit all those enemies without any friendly fire. The flexibility of that spell pretty great even without this interpretation
Thanks Treantmonk!
Thanks Treantmonk. I did not imagine Firestorm could be split into separate 2xcubes like that. I always picked the spell for my red draconic sorcerer because of roleplay reasons, thinking it was a waste of a precious known spell, but now I see just how incredibly useful it can be, even with its low damage output.
What I learned is there’s rules for trying to cut an enemies spear In half with my sword
It should be almost impossible.
The only way you could do it is if the spear is braced against the ground, otherwise your opponent will simply move it with the blow.
There's a reason why the humble spear dominated the battlefields up'til the invention of black powder.
Arguably a rifle with a bayonet is still a spear.
Nice, cutting off spear heads with a sword is cool and cinematic!
And most important of all, not possible,@@Autonym.
@@WexMajor82 shadiversity actually showed that it was possible , they just couldn’t do it in a single swing
It doesn't even need to be 10' x 20' rectangles. You can offset a pair of squares by 5 feet, because the sides are then still adjacent, just not identical.
"I do want to set the world on fire"
For fire immune enemies take elemental adept:fire and multiclass into blood hunter, take blood curse of exposure and amplify it to turn the immunity into resistance and ignore that with your feat
Is it viable? No
Worth it to humble that arrogant ancient red dragon with fire of your own? Yes
a smaller solution would be to take metamagic adept (transmuted spell). You wouldn't be able to do it all the time, only 2x a day, but you could do it with multiple elements and do it without multiclassing.
@@KissMyConverseFool but that changes fire to something else. It's not about being optimal, it's about sending a message...
@@KissMyConverseFool but that changes fire to something else. It's not about being optimal, it's about sending a message...
Hello. Where can we find your spells rating document at 0:47 ?
In general, I hope more spells target objects (and the DMG has a large table of object HP/thresholds) as its a lot of fun for players to interact with the environment.
As you've shown in this vid, I think square counting is abit of a trap when assesing AOE effects. Alot of people devalue Lightning bolt due to the fact that its substantially harder to affect multiple targets with it when compared to Fireball, but forget that its also easier to use without risking friendly fire and also catching the Barbarian and fighter currently in melee. Cone of cold is even worse in this regard due to it always originating from you, unlike fireball which can be detonated away from you, despite COC having more squares.
The spell doesn’t say “the entire face must be shared”. I would rule that even sharing 5ft of a face satisfies the condition. With D&D’s diagonally adjacent hazy rules you could argue that the faces aren’t touching, but are still adjacent. I wouldn’t let that ruling pass, but an argument could be made.
I'm also super happy Sorcerers are getting access to more elemental spells that Wizard can't. With Wizards getting better force spells I think it's a great way to differentiate the two classes.
İt was like this?
At that level spell and a bit earlier more spells start effecting objects. Bigbys hand, chain lightning, delayed blast fireball, crown of stars, reverse gravity(if not anchored) and a few more specific case ones. I would rather all spells that make sense effect objects but they just come up with better damage object rules. Delaying it until high levels and then having players obliterate everthing instantly seems weird to me.
The cubes can also be stacked vertically and don't need to (but can) have at least one touch the ground - this is good for getting groups of enemies with some high-ish flying cover, even if your DM doesn't allow the multiple separate clumps of fire interpretation
At the table I play at, a Cleric player did use Firestorm, and we let the cubes touch faces offset by 5feet.
So they faces still touch, but only on half of the face, rather than the entire face. Perhaps that is too permissive, but to us that seemed to technically satisfy the meaning of 'adjacent'.
Using your chaotic melee as an example, this ruling would still let you 'thread the needle' and hit all those enemies with only 6 of the pillars, leaving 4 spare for threading through hypothetically more intricate scenarios.
This video really feels more like a 'how to break the rules' type of rules lawyering more than 'what the rules say' version.
As to the damage, I think most damage spells around now have completely fallen off unless they are 10+ enemies or so. The DM in my 5e game wants to keep stuff challenging for us, which has ended up with being less attrition and more really tough monsters. Enemies either end up with 300+ hp with 20 AC, Legenday actions, spells (like shield), and mooks, or we don't really feel it is worth using resources on.
Dealing damage to objects with spells is very fun! I played an Artillerist artificer recently that used the spell storing item for Shatter being used by an owl familiar. I used it to break the edges of cliffs to make enemies fall, to break the ceiling and make the rubble fall on a caster (damage + potential prone), and was going to use it to make a column topple so I could cast Web and restrain enemies (but the fight ended before I could do that). My DM used similar tactics against me and used Shatter to destroy a boulder I was using as cover. AOE damage to objects is underrated IMO and can lead to some unexpected battlefield control.
Definitely made me reconsider the spell. I also interpreted it to mean every cube had to be a continuous line or shape.
The ability to control the shape of a blast of spell is so hugely valuable - usually PC's are either outnumbered or fighting single monsters, and when outnumbered having little choice but dealing friendly fire damage is way way more impactful than hitting a bit softer BUT not hurting most or even any of your allies!!!
AD&D actually did have a universal saving throw table for carried objects that you could optionally use for dragon breath, fireballs, and so on - each "plus" on weapons and armour applied - and my brothers used it!
7:20 - And what qualifies as adjacent? Technically, if you offset so only half the face is adjacent, it is till adjacent. It may not be fully adjacent (sharing a face). But, if they wanted you creating 10x20 segments only, they should just say 'up to 5 10x20 cubes'.
Though, reading over the description again, "... appears in a location..." kind of implies you pick a location and it stems from there.
- I would argue that they all must connect to one chosen point. Basically, you place the first one and then the second bust have at least 5ft of a face shared with the first. Then the third cube must share at least 5ft of a face with one or both of the first cubes. And so on until it has become a burning mayhem mass. Build a pyramid of flames. A leaning tower of flameza. A ring of fire to fall into. A wavy ripple that bounces over the heads of your allies.
Clarification : If the intent was multiple locations within the area, better wording would be, 'place the cubes anywhere within range. Each cube must be adjacent to at least one other cube.'
For that matter... what is 'adjacent'? Does anything that would qualify as melee range also count as adjacent? Would "cat's corner" count as adjacent for the spell? I mean, melee can do it.
- All in all, another spell that needs heavy clarification.
I wish this was available for Warlocks. My favorite class for years has been the tanky Barbarian/Warlock multiclass and some of the most fun I’ve had is lighting a building on fire or destroying part of it then battling in the wake of that destruction. This spell is perfect for that. Fingers crossed I can live that fantasy with the reworked PHB.
7:15 "But this spell does not say these cubes have to be contiguous or in sequence" That's something I hadn't realized (which is interesting), but now I'm wondering if this is a case of RAW vs RAI (I'm inclined to say that the likely intention was to have the cubes be continuous - otherwise it would be a weird restriction to make the cubes appear in pairs like that -, though I can't be sure of that).
The ability to exempt plant life from burning is really good, since if your DM is feeling nasty, they could easily have Fireball start a forest fire.
It also has a potentially unintended but still useful effect: it doesn't specify nonsapient plants, just plant life.
So say a party member has animated plants, either through Awakening, Animate Objects, or a class feature (like Circle of the Blighted), which is the more common situation, or the party has somehow recruited the help of Treants, for example. You could drop Firestorm, say 'I exempt plant life' and as a DM, I would allow you to exempt the animated plants or Treants from the effect, letting you not have to worry about hitting them.
Not the most common situation, but it could happen (I'd say Animate Object being the most common, or if there's a Circle of the Blighted Druid in the party) and would be very useful if it does.
As far as interpretations that could make this broken one might also note that it doesn't specify whether "each creature in the area" refers to the area of the entire spell or the area of each cube. Meaning in some interruptions you could spiral pattern multiple cubes on to a single enemy resulting in multiple instances of damage to a single target.
It's tempting to say if a character/creature caught in the firestorm rolled a Natural 1 on their save, it could slag their gear. Maybe if the damage exceeded the objects AC+hp - which is still highly likely for firestorm.
Play a halfling!
If you want to do it that way I think you have to in effect let the player choose - you have 5 objects that are exposed to the firestorm (arbitrary number) so you take 6x the firestorm damage shared between yourself and those objects - after all if the player has that highly sentimental, valuable, or effective something to preserve they should be able to act to preserve it. Then your objects get damaged, and will cost you to repair but you don't immediately and certainly destroy the important item they were using or render the wizard useless by taking away their spell book trivially - the wizard would have had to choose to let the book burn or been at deaths door.
I'd also say for that 6x damage that if you succeeded on your save it halves the effective number of objects not just the damage you would personally take - so 3x the total instead. As otherwise the saving throw is rendered nearly pointless as the PC is likely going to feel rather forced to choose one of the two extremes - take all they can themselves or push it all onto their gear. Which makes taking a paltry 15 ish less damage in total not enough.
So what I’m hearing is, if there is a Dire Troll that is running around the battlefield absorbing other trolls to gain more heads, arms, and legs; best to hit all of them with a fire storm straight away.
Appriciate the content, make me learn :)
It could also be a very high damage single target spell. There is no wording saying you can't cast on a previously cast location. so you could theoretically cast 1st cube on enemy, 2nd on adjacent to meet requirement, then every cast after be on enemy since 2nd cast fulfilled adjacent requirement, making it 63d10. Even if it has to be cast contiguously you can cast back and forth between the 2 locations and get 35d10 on a single target. 70d10 on large+ targets o lala
Worth noting you're treating diagonals as 5ft, which will skew the power of Fireball and Cone of Cold up a bit. I know it's not the main point, just throwing it out there.
There are multiple official ways to handle AOE spells in D&D. For example, the Token Method states, "This method depicts everything using squares, and a circular area of effect becomes square in it, whether the area is a sphere, cylinder, or radius. For instance, the 10-foot radius of flame strike, which has a diameter of 20 feet, is expressed as a square that is 20 feet on a side, as shown in diagram 2.3. Diagram 2.4 shows that area with total cover inside it."
Pack Tactics is the one who started popularizing the idea that the default is that circles are squares, despite the fact that:
1. The rules say to skip diagonals for measuring distance for movement, not for all measurements.
2. There's literally a rule in the core rules telling you how to measure circles on a grid: half or more of the square's area in the grid.
When playing with default DMG style grid rules without diagonals, that still only applies to movement. The rules completely fail to tell you how to measure everything else. That's where XGTE comes in.
>hitpoint damage
heh, I remember my first time learning about optimization. don't worry kid, you'll get there. keep at it.
I like your take on the positioning requirements only specifying that 2 of them have to touch, but I have to say, 'The fire damages objects in the area and ignites flammable obkects that aren't being worn or carried.' is one complete sentence. It both Damages objects, and ignites flammable objects, that aren't being worn or carried. There's no punctuation to seperate the items being specified, so the entire sentence applies as one string of logic.
It brings up a real interesting debate on RAW vs RAI vs DM interpretation.
I'd be interested when you DM if you have those meta conversations with players when they're thinking about a spell to check out if it achieves what they're hoping for - particularly if it's a bit outside the first interpretation (e.g. when someone tries to use mould earth to Bury a target)
Bit of a non-issue really as RAW/RAI are the great unknown much of the time, which only leaves DM interpretation. And very clearly off label use of the unambiguously written skill has to be agreed by the DM.
My players are rarely running into those areas where the RAW become an issue - for the most part they are either way too imaginative for the rules or not enough to notice the grey areas. But when it does come up there will be a statement of intent from the player, the rules are then discussed - mostly to consider how much potency the spell has or time required to create that effect. As the DM you want to let your players interact with the world, so while their idea might need some limitations - often just simply that it costs more time or won't just work reliably first time - drop the chandelier on the BBEG with my skill = roll to hit and/or meet some damage target, perhaps with a dex save for the BBEG, not it just happens because you want it to.
I would never argue with my DM at allowing this spell to destroy worn & carried objects, because that kind of power would then just get used against you and in essence would be like having the 'Ruin' card of the Deck of Many Things aimed at you and possibly your whole party.
3:13 That's not what a cone is shaped like... It should be an isosceles triangle with a base of 60ft and a height of 60ft.
Sounds like you use the template method, but there are 3 official ways to handle AOE's (The one in the picture uses the token method)
@@TreantmonksTemple I was using the cone AOE rules defined in the basic rules and in the players handbook:
"A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin. A cone’s width at a given point along its length is equal to that point’s distance from the point of origin. A cone’s area of effect specifies its maximum length."
I wasn't familiar with the token rules, but I was indeed using the template rules. It's interesting that when using the token rules that the cone changes shape significantly when firing off at a diagonal, but is supposed to have the same overall area.
Note: I think that your cone in the image is still quite a bit bigger than it should be using the token method. At first, I thought it was 13 squares long, instead of 12 like it should be, but actually this is just because it was incorrectly laid out on the grid, overlaying a 12 square cone onto a 13 square long area. But secondly, it shouldn't have a curve at the front, but should have a flat diagonal 'front' to the cone if you are using the diagonal direction token method.
In mathematical terms, using the token method should hit 1+2+3...+N squares, where N is the cone length divided by five.
In this case you should hit 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12 squares (78 squares).
Your cone hits 96 squares (even when looking at just the shape and not the fact that it is overlaid bigger than it should be), so it is too big by about 23%, and when accounting for the overlay stretch issue, it hits around 115 squares on the background grid that you are comparing it to (and is 47% bigger than it should be).
Also, each cube doesn’t need to be on the ground. So it can easily hit flying enemies as well.
I think the intended wording of the spell is that it's meant to be continuous. But that doesn't mean it has to be a line - there are more shapes possible.
My DM and I suspect alot of others allow all spells to target objects, regardless of the text about targeting.
So you can cast Toll the dead on a stone and the stone simply burst?
For me personally this sounds like a lot of work for the Dm if it is justifiable for something to deal damage, which would result in a lot of inconsistencies or questions about every spell in every scenario.
Also it would render Firebolt useless.
So I don’t think this house rule is very common.
But if it works for you its great 😊
@aetherwolf9288 firebolt is still a d10 attack cantrip, but it's certainly not my first pick. Our warlock loves blasting doors down with EB though.
At 11:00, Oh WotC suggests GM's should wing it? Huh, good thing the rest of the rules are much more explicit, wouldn't want GM's to have too much to figure out without support...
Thank you for your information video
I typically always pick both shatter and fire ball for damage options because both are big AOEs and let me divvy out the AOE using 3rd and 2nd level slots early level.
MY daughter always plays a fire class. she was a wildfire druid previously and plays a Dragon sorcerer now. I bet an optimized fire blaster sorc could get some solid mileage out of this. Especially after the playtest stuff goes official this year.
I think the phrase “that aren’t being worn or carried” modifies the entire phrase “damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects.“ Otherwise, there would be a comma after “area.”
The different placement of the fire is a cool idea and i can agree with that way of reading it but the other half of the spell beeing the apocalypse to opbjects both feels wrong and i also feels like there are different ways of reading it.
If we are reading the rules as written to the point where the dm can only deside that opbjcts have resistance and invounbilty but not immunity so stones can burn i think its a bit stupid but yea technically raw. But
The spell also says that each CREATURE in the area must make a Dex save for 7d10 damge half on a save.
In the part where it talks about it damaging opbjects there are no damge dice mentioned so it is purly esthetical damge (though this is a bit stupid to). The spell shatter uses the text "also takes the damge" to reference to the damged rolled.
I find it interesting how you draw a sphere on a square grid.
What about catching a gargantuan size creature in the area of effect. Do multiple instance of the fire damage get applied?
I would argue it would stack cumulatively. Also I dont think firestorm is necessarily continuous in shape. When I see the word storm i think of a large area of effect😮
I noticed the same "carried" interaction with Disintegrate. Why target a knight when you can target their horse with a much lower save and everything the horse is carrying is Disintegrated without a save.
people have joked about instant nudity spells for years, well everyone, looks like we finally found it. nsfw campaigns are delighted
"oh baby, mind if i... take those off for you?"
"yeah sure"
"FIRE STORM"
Could this work in a similar way with wall of ice? (The AOE placing)
I was expecting an Eldritch BLAST video. :)
It’s a good candidate for sorcerer’s empowered spell as well
Area of effect is generally a bait stat in my experience. You almost never fight more than like 4-5 enemies. And, bigger areas, especially if they have friendly fire, like fireball, are usually a trap, since, like Chris demonstrated, if the enemy is mixed with the allies, then fireball becomes basically a single-target spell.
Also, I always assumed the cubes have to all 10 be in an unbroken chain. Technically, Chris is correct with the positioning in pairs. And even if you think about it, a firestorm in nature can start out as a bunch of separate flames before it coalesces into a huge inferno that sweeps the whole forest. So it is kind of thematic. But I still feel like it was probably meant to be continuous.
It may have been.
There's no reason the cubes all have to be at the same height. You can easily avoid friendly fire even with a contiguous Firestorm by spending 1-2 cubes *above* as connection points.
You could also just hit a group of large+ enemies without friendly fire by starting the Firestorm above the heads of medium creatures, and have some cubes sticking down from the storm at ground level to affect medium enemies.
Stupid question, nothing I see in the spell indicates that the cubes can’t overlap. Can I put all 10 cubes right on top of each other?
Or like set down one cube, then set down 9 cubes to the first cubes left doing 7d10 fire damage in one cube and 63d10 fire damage to the second cube area, and if happens to be on a large target they would take 70d10 and be making 10 separate saves for half damage on each cube?
If you overlapped the cubes (so a creature was hit with multiple cubes) you would use the rules for stacking spell effects. (Only one would apply)
@@jeremyleyland1047 Nothing in the spell's description implies the target takes damage per cube. What it says is "The area consists of..." and then "Each creature in the area takes...". All cubes are one big area, and if the target is within that area, it takes 7d10 damage. That's it, no stacking.
Especially since it is called out in other spells that you can only take the damage once for this casting like Meteor Swarm.
Dang, I guess that would probably have made it too powerful for a 7th level spell
Does this discovery warrant a re-reading of Wall of Force (an already-powerful spell that could grow more powerful with this interpretation)? "Each panel must be contiguous with another panel", but similarly to Fire Storm apparently need not be contiguous with the entire structure
The idea of a physical object having hit points on the same scale as creatures is dumb.
Well, paper, clothing, soft leather, and the like are vulnerable to many kinds of damage. Gold and silver can be damaged easily, especially fine decorations. Stone or ferrous metal is far more tough than flesh. Brass is used for containing burning coals (called a brazier because it was made of brass).
If any living creature can stand in the blast and survive, then objects of stone, iron, massive wood, etc will all survive.
Large structural timber and firewood does not ignite. Put a pool of lighter fluid in the bottom of your charcoal grill. Put a non-kindling piece of firewood on top. Light the fluid. It goes foof. Firewood is singed but doesn't ignite.
It takes sustained exposure to heat and flame to ignite wood. Starting a fire often begins with paper. Kindling is split or shaved thin, so that a small flame can heat the material through to the point where it can ignite. Small pieces of wood get larger pieces heated deep enough to allow the surface to ignite, and so on. That's why starting a camp fire is a skill, and idiots with lighter fluid are a danger.
That said, magical fire does not behave the same as natural fire. It could heat up various materials faster than normal flame, but that would apply to worn and carried items as well.
I saw a table that indicated material vulnerability against slashing, chopping, blunt force, fire, etc. Some would do only ½ damage, or even none. Thought it was 3e, but maybe it was a different TTRPG.
So why does 5e say worn and carried items are unaffected? Laziness. 1e said that on a failed save, all a person's stuff has to save as well, starting at the outer layers. Anything that fails is damaged and the next layer has to save. But that's too much work. Easier to just grant everything blanket immunity and say "job done."
Could you start in one square, target the adjacent square, and then retarget the original square and repeat. Potentially hitting the two sections 5 times each for 35d10?
I mean you can choose the same target for every scorching ray, why couldn’t you completely demolish a 10ft by 20ft section of the map
Being able to break warn or equiped weapons is not broken, per se. Older editions had saves on items, even magic items, and it created an interesting dynamic in play where your magic user did not want to use aoe spells around the big bad with cool magic items because you did not want to destroy. It makes a more tactical.
I would say the contiguous 10 square foot areas might make a sticky situation where you could target certain areas or avoid targeting certain areas. Ie, it could target a hydra's tail to avoid the heads taking damage and avoiding the regeneration power it has. In the case of gigantic creatures, it could make a targeting system that d&d explicitly tries to avoid.
I like listening to you talk about stuff.
My game is so heavily homebrewed that nothing official matters to me.
In my setting mundain items can be destroyed weather they are being worn or not. But the damage threshold means that it doesnt happen that much early, and you need a magical sword to cut through a regular sword or shield.
But this is not in a vacuum, my enemies dont roll for damage they just do double the average, and have half hp.
But my monsters also dont roll to attack, the players roll to avoid the attack, which means that things like bless are really powerfull. (armour save is AC minus 10, enemy attack DC is Hit + 12. Spell saving throws are spell attacks against the monsters spell save + 14)
Really its so different that nothing offical applies.
This would wreck a spelljammer ship.
I think you could also position two cubes with only 5' of a side touching another.
I appreciate the good faith approach to analysis and optimization here. I'm honestly tired of 5e "how to break the game" content with bad faith interpretations and your channel is a refreshing take.
Interesting video! Firestorm is such a great spell conceptually; but I‘m pretty certain everything you pointed out is an oversight and not intended that way.
For instance: if the cubes were intended to be placed freely and independently, then why have a facing requirement to begin with? Why would 2 squares alone be fine, but not 1?
To me, comparing spells depending on the casters available choices is already a folly; I would rather compare it to the monsters HP at the appropriate level. An HP that, I would reckon, was likely not considered when the DMG rules for objects were made. Those objects seem to be fitted to the basic weapon attacks of a Tier 1 character; as much as I personally like using them, I don‘t think they work properly at higher levels.
Would this be a good spell to attack seige weapons?
Are we getting a deep analysis of the last UAs Monk? Would love to see ur math on it
Also also firestorm has no wording on line of sight.
So regardless if your blinded or not or face a heavy obscured area you can deal the damage.
So instead of going inside a potentially difficult room in a dungeon you can set the room ablaze before even rolling initiative.
Or if you fear Glyphs or Symbols you can ignore those now by spending just a 7th lvl spellslot (so most Glyphs are either worded to go off regardless or just fizzle. Bye bye potentially 200 years of work if you face a lich trying to protect its home).
You can also get maybe a round of surprise out of the casting of the spell…
Thank you for the video. I think I should reconsider my opinion about some spells by quite a bit.
Have a nice day
AEther
Fire Storm still can't be cast through a wall or door though (as all spells need a clear path to the target)
@@TreantmonksTemple I didn’t know this.
Well thank you.
Still it might be possible to cast it through a key hole or something.
What about the fact that large enough creatures could get caught up in multiple cubes?
Can you spiral the cubes on top of one another making a much smaller area take much more damage???
Nowhere does it say you can't place a cube inside another cube. As written you could place 2 cubes next to each other and the rest inside one or both cubes stacking massive damage. Not the way I would interpret it but it does not say you can't.
You would be stacking identical spell effects, so there are rules restricting that.
The cubes don't do damage, the spell does. The cubes are simply the drawn area for the single spell effect.
It wouldnt deal the damage more than once
What we need in the new ruleset is not better wording of spells, but better framework for them. If a spell deals continous damage, only the continous reference should be in the description not its mechanic, that should be outside in the framework and work the same way for every spell. It's a headache to memorize every spell if it deals damage at the start or end on a creature's turn, it breaks gameplay to look it up on the fly and these 2 reasons are enough for most DMs to overrule them already. The same goes for object ignition, most tables correctly overrule it as fire damage ignites and not spells, while if you go the RAW way, then produce flame can't ignite objects, while the damage type switched iceball or psyonicball does, which make no sense at all.
And it can be done in an intelligent and intuitive way. BG3 already uses it that way, damage effect comes from the damage type, AoE effects damage objects, including doors and spiderwebs and sturdier objects have damage thresholds. It's already done, so WotC should have no excuse to not have the same minimal standards as Larian Studios.
Ease of play should be supported, instead of the current fighting over the wording!
I have to assume the wording is wrong in the spell because if you can use dominos, why even have a restriction?
The usefulness seems incredibly DM dependent. I agree with your interpretation of object damage, but I'd say most stone buildings would be resistant or outright immune to the damage.
What if we blast 20 ft deep pits under 5 creatures we are pretty confident cant get out? Or how about like one pit thats 100 ft deep? What if we arrange the blasts so that they cover a 20 by 20 by 20 (plus change) area, and drop some gargantuan creature in there? Unless they can get out (via climbing walls, teleporting, or somehow jumping out), it would be like a poor man's forcecage right?
Could you stack cubes in the same area, since nothing prevents you to do it in the description ?
I may be thinking of a different system because lord knows I dabble in too many and I am really not inclined to go dredging through 5e to verify it's non-existence, but don't worn and carried objects benefit from the defensive statistics of the character wearing or carrying them? For example, if you were to attempt to Firebolt the enemy's sword they are currently wielding you would use the AC of the character being attacked and not the AC assigned to objects the size of longswords. So if Firestorm does damage carried and worn objects, even though objects do not get saving throws themselves they should benefit from the saving throw of the character wearing or carrying them.
Might not make much difference for most mundane items but could make a difference in magical items surviving as well as the impact of class features like Evasion coming into play. And if I remember correctly Firestorm wouldn't be the only effect in D&D 5e that has similar effects to carried and worn equipment.
Why are you analysing this by a square Fireball? This is a pretty strange variant rule to apply here: the spell says 20' radius sphere and even if you use grid (variant) with its base squares-as-circles -simplification, this actually does not extend to spell areas. DMG page 251 specifies that circular AOEs are circular and affect a square if half a square is covered. Your variant significantly increases the number of squares affected by a Fireball (52 -> 64).
You can cast fireball 5 feet off the ground to target all those large opponents without hitting any ally.
I am pretty sure, every single DM would not allow Firestorm to damage worn or carried objects, I know I wouldn't. My reasoning is that if it was supposed to, and if we consider that every object would be destroyed by it, the text about igniting objects NOT worn or carried would be moot as worn objects would just be destroyed regardless of being ignitable or not, so this bit would be redundant, and within the context it implies that worn objects would be exempt from the effects of firestorm. I also would not allow walls and floors exceeding the size of the spell to be destroyed. I wouldn't consider those sections to be targeted individually by default, although I would allow a spellcraft roll if the player explicitly attempted to do so, but that would be my DM fiat in response to a creative use of the spell.
Obvious exception to the AOE issue is the evocation wizard who simply throw fire balls wherever they please because their teammates will suddenly become immune to explosions.
you also missed where multiple nodes of the firestorm can hit the same creature that's riding the edge, or you just didnt mention it in your calculation rant.
Wouldn't all spells using panels/cubes function the same way? Like Wall of Stone says contiguous with at least 1 other panel. So it can also be split up to different areas, as long as you have 2 panels touching. I haven't looked through all spells like this, so I don't know if any use panels/cubes and specifically say they must be unbroken.