So we were fighting a cleric who was wearing plate armor with fire resistance and I casted heat metal the d said the spell fizzled out amd I didn't get to role but  I looked it up resistance halves damage can some one explain please

It is mostly a DM choice, and I'd actually agree that a fire-resistant armor might be less subject to the effects of heat metal. I guess the reasoning was that the time the spell would heat up the armor is not enough for it to actually damage the wearer, so I would be inclined to agree with you DM's ruling.

In any other situation, you are correct in that resistance to a type of damage halves the damage.

 Ah thanks I was mostly confused due to why it didn't work thanks for clearing this up

Actually I would argue (shock!) that it should be half damage. This is magic not physics. The spell says the item goes red hot - this is "instant" there is no "warm up" and if worn/held you take 2d8 fire damage. It doesn't matter what the weapon or armour is, magical or not, resistant or not, it just needs to have metal. You take 2d8 fire damage. Now if that item or anything else grants you fire resistance then you halve that damage (round down) and if that item or anything else gives you fire immunity then you take no damage.

While a DM can overrule anything it is wiser to just go by what the spell actually says instead of making stuff up about it and changing how fire resistance works (which, halves not negates). The spell says you take 2d8 damage, you take 2d8 damage. Fire resistance will halve that, not negate it because it's resistance not immunity.

Comedictragedy, can you please clarify: Did the cleric have fire resistance (granted by the armour or something else), or did the armour have fire resistance? The armour having fire resistance would be extremely weird, unless the purpose was for the armour to be protected from fire/heat.

I'm guessing that the armour was magical and granted fire resistance to the cleric. In this case the magical property of the armour does not grant fire resistance to itself only to the wearer, which means how ling it takes to heat up the armour is irrelevant.

The correct ruling by the book should have been that the cleric took half-damage.

The armor to the knowledge he gave that was he only thing so just the armor

Quote from comedictragedy >>

The armor to the knowledge he gave that was he only thing so just the armor

This could be my brain glitching, haven't slept in like 2 days, but I have no idea what this says.

Sorry I mean he made an enemy npc  from  a dead pc and gave him a lot of magic items so far I only know he has fire resistant  plate armor and an unknown item that heals him for more when he heals

Quote from comedictragedy >>

Sorry I mean he made an enemy npc  from  a dead pc and gave him a lot of magic items so far I only know he has fire resistant  plate armor and an unknown item that heals him for more when he heals

If it's just Armor of Resistance which is an armour that grants the wearer resistance to fire then the enemy should have taken 2d8 fire damage halved.

That's what I thought  but it he is also using some he made up because lost mine has so little items so our characters can have more items being the little  3rd levels we are

Quote from comedictragedy >>

That's what I thought  but it he is also using some he made up because lost mine has so little items so our characters can have more items being the little  3rd levels we are

If it is fire resistance, half damage, if fire immunity no damage. He told you fire resistance so should be half damage. It doesn't matter if the item itself has fire resistance or if it confers it to the wearer.

If the armour confers fire resistance to wearer then the armour gets 100% of heat level (worth 2d8 damage) and burns the wearer but they take half of that.

If the armour itself had fire resistance then the armour gets 50% of heat level (worth 1d8 damage) and burns the wearer but they take all of that.

It works out the same either way.  Even if the armour itself had fire resistance AND conferred fire resistance to wearier then the armour gets 50% of heat (worth 1d8 damage) and burns wearer who takes half that. Anything above 1 means damage is still being done to the wearer.

Your DM is rewriting how fire resistance works. That is a very silly thing to do here and should have told you before you got fire-based spells.

It seems to be that either your DM is making a mistake or being a dick because he doesn't like the heat metal spell and if the latter he should tell you and let you choose an alternative spell instead.

Seems really weird to me for armour to have fire resistance at all, let alone fire resistance that wouldn't be conferred to the wearer.

I would disagree with Cyb3rM1nd on only one point, if this is something your DM made up, and it's the armour that gets the resistance, and not the wearer, I would rule that the wearer takes full damage.

To clarify, I mean that, if the armour gets the resistance, then the assumption is that the resistance is protecting the armour from taking damage. Objects can have HP, so theoretically if the armour took enough damage it would break/crack/melt and no longer work as amour.

I would argue that in this case the damage to the armour gets reduced, but the armour still gets just as hot, and the full damage is passed to the wearer, unless the wearer also has fire resistance from something.

Fair point, I totally agree with you.

Ah ok cause I think it's home brewed because resistance can only have one right he said it was a resistance of frost aND flame so I wanted to use ice knife but it wouldn't have worked right but he said that was fine

Quote from mjsoctober>>

Seems really weird to me for armour to have fire resistance at all, let alone fire resistance that wouldn't be conferred to the wearer.

Magic items other than potions and scrolls are resistant to all damage by default (on top of the usual object immunity to poison and psychic.)

How so I mean magic still damages rightI was dealing full d age to him with thorn whip

Quote from comedictragedy >>

How so I mean magic still damages rightI was dealing full d age to him with thorn whip

 Comedictragedy, what's happening here is that we are all talking about two different things.

There are two different objects in the example you gave: 1. the cleric; and 2. the armour.

Is it the cleric who is resistant to fire, or is it the armour that is resistant to fire, or is it both?

InquisitiveCoder was referring to damage of any type being done to a magic item (like armour), and not to a person (a cleric).

So there are three possibilities:

1. The armour is NOT resistant to fire, but the magic from the armour makes the cleric fire resistant. In this case, any potential damage done to the armour is irrelevant. If the cleric is resistant to fire, then the cleric takes half the damage dealt by the spell.

2. The armour  is resistant to fire, but not the cleric. In this case if damage were being done to the armour by the spell, the armour would only take half as much damage. But since in this case the cleric does NOT have fire resistance, I would rule that the cleric takes all the damage. The armour isn't "stopping" damage from going through, it's just not getting as badly "hurt" by it. (If, however, as InquisitiveCoder points out magic items are resistant to all damage types anyway, then there is no reason for the armour to be fire resistant).

3. Both the armour and the cleric have fire resistance. In this case, they both take only half the damage from the spell.

Sorry I think he did say the cleric had armor of fire resistance  I'm a little clusterm with a little one though  when I casted thorn whip it dealt normal damage

Okay, so if the DM says that the cleric is wearing "armour of fire resistance" then that means (unless your DM is changing it) that the armour itself does not have fire resistance, the armour gives fire resistance to the cleric.

Just so we are being perfectly clear for you, when you attack an opponent, and you succeed on an attack roll, you are not hitting their armour, you are hitting the person/monster. This is why your thorn whip deals normal damage to the cleric, because the damage is being done to the cleric, not the armour.

Your heat metal spell should have done half-damage to the cleric because it is the cleric who has fire resistance, not the armour. The armour is called "Armour of Fire Resistance" because it give fire resistance to the person who is wearing the armour.

The armour of fire resistance does not negate fire damage.

Ahhh ok but I would still roll for damage yes  though it is halved