No. A spell never does anything it doesn't say it does. Fireball does not cause a massive puddle of acid to appear on the ground, even if it's transmuted to acid damage.
Unless, of course, the DM rules otherwise anyway.
This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It makes no sense for an acid ball to set things on fire. Therefore, I would let it leave small puddles of acid on the ground and try my best, with the authority and power granted to me as GM, to balance it.
I would not let that acid remain permanently. It would evaporate like ectoplasm.
No. A spell never does anything it doesn't say it does. Fireball does not cause a massive puddle of acid to appear on the ground, even if it's transmuted to acid damage.
Unless, of course, the DM rules otherwise anyway.
This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
A DM's perogative to change any given rule for their table is, itself, actually a rule, though.
No. A spell never does anything it doesn't say it does. Fireball does not cause a massive puddle of acid to appear on the ground, even if it's transmuted to acid damage.
Unless, of course, the DM rules otherwise anyway.
This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
A DM's perogative to change any given rule for their table is, itself, actually a rule, though.
Which is still beyond the point of this particular forum. Otherwise, if the rule is "GMs can just do whatever they want," there's no point for a forum devoted to the rules.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No. A spell never does anything it doesn't say it does. Fireball does not cause a massive puddle of acid to appear on the ground, even if it's transmuted to acid damage.
Unless, of course, the DM rules otherwise anyway.
This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
A DM's perogative to change any given rule for their table is, itself, actually a rule, though.
Which is still beyond the point of this particular forum. Otherwise, if the rule is "GMs can just do whatever they want," there's no point for a forum devoted to the rules.
Said rule does not say that DM's must change anything they do not feel appropriate for their table, merely that they can. The rest of RAW is still there for that table unless that DM changes it. This, all of it, including the ability of a DM to set up house rules, is RAW.
Think of it as an optional rule. Or is it offside to mention or discuss other optional rules in this particular forum, too?
This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
A DM's perogative to change any given rule for their table is, itself, actually a rule, though.
Which is still beyond the point of this particular forum. Otherwise, if the rule is "GMs can just do whatever they want," there's no point for a forum devoted to the rules.
It is entirely within the scope of the forum to remind DMs that they can, and probably should, overrule RAW because RAW is silly in this particular edge case.
In another campaign I played an order of scribes wizard who had the crusher feat, and used the manifested mind to peer around corners. I then used the shatter spell changed to bludgeoning damage to push enemies out of cover. I reflavoured this as 'batter'.
RAF: Rules as Fun, also referred to as ‘Rule of Cool’ and ‘Rule 0’. This is a big part of making a ruling at your own table, where a DM can make a judgement based on their own players on what will enhance the game- rules shouldn’t get in the way of that! However in this forum, RAF isn’t going to be that helpful when folk are asking what the rules actually are.If you’d like to best discuss how to make your own ruling independently of RAW Homebrew & Houserules will help you out.
So remember that when someone is trying to inform you of what the rules say, this isn’t them saying that is how you must play it. They’re not trying to ruin your fun, prevent you using a cool idea, or convince you to terrify your players with elephants. They’re just trying to help explain what the rules say. However, saying that, for answers where RAW doesn’t seem to be the most helpful answer, focusing on it to the exclusion of all else will not be helpful either.
So yes, Rule 0/ DM can rule is more at home in Homebrew and Houserules. If you have RAI insights or just want to point out 'The RAW is a bit silly on, so I'd recommend houseruling' that's fine (Feel free to make a thread in H&H when ever that situation comes up to continue the conversation in that space). But indeed, in the land of Rules and Game Mechanics, our duty is to explain the RAW- not saying that you have to use it, just what it is, so the DM can make their own informed decision.
I think when people read RAW in a way that makes the end result absurd on its face and obviously counter to RAI, its probably not RAW they are reading. Though in this case all of this would have been solved if they had made damage types a glossary entry, so fire/water/thunder etc always did certain things based on the element.
Yeah, except that WotC very much did not assign secondary effects to damage types and there are spells that deal fire damage without the chance to ignite things, like Heat Metal.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, except that WotC very much did not assign secondary effects to damage types and there are spells that deal fire damage without the chance to ignite things, like Heat Metal.
Sure, which is why I would not advocate for acid ball leaving a pool of acid. But I am fairly certain in no way waterball was intended to ignite things. Their rules require in many cases the DM and player to make logical calls. I think this is one of those cases. Part of their natural language kick is RAW does include decisions like that.
The spells were (originally) written without transmute being available. It came later creating a special case - which trumps the general rule ( originally spell description). So no a transmuted fire spell ( that says it ignites objects) doesn’t if transmuted. That covers RAW. For RAI it gets more nuanced - cold clearly doesn’t ignite things but it might shatter something’s (glass, ceramics,etc). Acid and lightning are where DM disgression really comes in. A lightning ball might well ignite paper, wood, cloth it contacts. Acid eating at things is typically exoteric and could potentially ignite things. of course there is also the flip side - if I cast cone of cold and transmute it to fire does it force everything in the cone to save vs igniting?
I think when people read RAW in a way that makes the end result absurd on its face and obviously counter to RAI, its probably not RAW they are reading.
This can lead to people casting around for alternate readings because they find the RAW absurd. I'm pretty sure a lot of the arguments about the weapon-swapping rules were because of this tendency. (This is not an invitation for anyone to relitigate that argument here. It's just the most immediate example.)
RAW can lead to absurd results, especially if pushed to the edge cases, or you've got two different abilities interacting, which is what we have here. One explicitly says it sets things on fire, and one says it changes the damage type, but doesn't say anything about knock-on effects. (Because trying to is just a massive can of worms, and most spells don't have explicit knock-on effects.)
(And, of course, "absurd" is oft subjective.)
So, by RAW, we have a cold ball that sets things on fire, which is absurd.
And that's why we have DMs. Because there's no way for the rules to cover every possible interaction that might happen, and sometimes just following them leads to something absurd. So we have somebody whose job is (in part) to say "yeah, no, that's not happening".
The problem with citing RAI is that in a case like this we don't actually know the rules as intended. This isn't an instance where a literal reading of the rules makes the effect useless or detrimental to players (like the 2014 version of See Invisible): starting fires is a minor effect that GMs often don't even bother with unless the player is deliberately trying to set something on fire. And with spells that have a distinct secondary effect, like Shocking Grasp or Ray of Frost, changing the effect because the damage type changed can really affect the game's balance in unintended ways that changing damage types does not.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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This is the rules forum. We don't deal with house rules here, only what the actual rules state.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I invoke the rule of cool.
It makes no sense for an acid ball to set things on fire. Therefore, I would let it leave small puddles of acid on the ground and try my best, with the authority and power granted to me as GM, to balance it.
I would not let that acid remain permanently. It would evaporate like ectoplasm.
From my point of view
Fire ignite thing, cold freeze the things, acid melt the thing and lightning should also ignite the things.
A DM's perogative to change any given rule for their table is, itself, actually a rule, though.
Which is still beyond the point of this particular forum. Otherwise, if the rule is "GMs can just do whatever they want," there's no point for a forum devoted to the rules.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Said rule does not say that DM's must change anything they do not feel appropriate for their table, merely that they can. The rest of RAW is still there for that table unless that DM changes it. This, all of it, including the ability of a DM to set up house rules, is RAW.
Think of it as an optional rule. Or is it offside to mention or discuss other optional rules in this particular forum, too?
It is entirely within the scope of the forum to remind DMs that they can, and probably should, overrule RAW because RAW is silly in this particular edge case.
I once worked with a DM to create alternative damage type spells for my Sorcerers fire based spells
Fire Bolt
Acid
Cold
Lightning
Poison
Thunder
Fireball
Acid
Cold
Lightning
Poison
Thunder
In another campaign I played an order of scribes wizard who had the crusher feat, and used the manifested mind to peer around corners. I then used the shatter spell changed to bludgeoning damage to push enemies out of cover. I reflavoured this as 'batter'.
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ModeratorAs a reminder for folk: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/216563-rules-discussion-guidelines
So yes, Rule 0/ DM can rule is more at home in Homebrew and Houserules. If you have RAI insights or just want to point out 'The RAW is a bit silly on, so I'd recommend houseruling' that's fine (Feel free to make a thread in H&H when ever that situation comes up to continue the conversation in that space). But indeed, in the land of Rules and Game Mechanics, our duty is to explain the RAW- not saying that you have to use it, just what it is, so the DM can make their own informed decision.
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Of course, remember that, as what the DM says goes, houserules can have unexpected consequences. Helping people foresee those consequences is helpful.
I think when people read RAW in a way that makes the end result absurd on its face and obviously counter to RAI, its probably not RAW they are reading. Though in this case all of this would have been solved if they had made damage types a glossary entry, so fire/water/thunder etc always did certain things based on the element.
Yeah, except that WotC very much did not assign secondary effects to damage types and there are spells that deal fire damage without the chance to ignite things, like Heat Metal.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Sure, which is why I would not advocate for acid ball leaving a pool of acid. But I am fairly certain in no way waterball was intended to ignite things. Their rules require in many cases the DM and player to make logical calls. I think this is one of those cases. Part of their natural language kick is RAW does include decisions like that.
The spells were (originally) written without transmute being available. It came later creating a special case - which trumps the general rule ( originally spell description). So no a transmuted fire spell ( that says it ignites objects) doesn’t if transmuted. That covers RAW. For RAI it gets more nuanced - cold clearly doesn’t ignite things but it might shatter something’s (glass, ceramics,etc). Acid and lightning are where DM disgression really comes in. A lightning ball might well ignite paper, wood, cloth it contacts. Acid eating at things is typically exoteric and could potentially ignite things.
of course there is also the flip side - if I cast cone of cold and transmute it to fire does it force everything in the cone to save vs igniting?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
This can lead to people casting around for alternate readings because they find the RAW absurd. I'm pretty sure a lot of the arguments about the weapon-swapping rules were because of this tendency. (This is not an invitation for anyone to relitigate that argument here. It's just the most immediate example.)
RAW can lead to absurd results, especially if pushed to the edge cases, or you've got two different abilities interacting, which is what we have here. One explicitly says it sets things on fire, and one says it changes the damage type, but doesn't say anything about knock-on effects. (Because trying to is just a massive can of worms, and most spells don't have explicit knock-on effects.)
(And, of course, "absurd" is oft subjective.)
So, by RAW, we have a cold ball that sets things on fire, which is absurd.
And that's why we have DMs. Because there's no way for the rules to cover every possible interaction that might happen, and sometimes just following them leads to something absurd. So we have somebody whose job is (in part) to say "yeah, no, that's not happening".
The problem with citing RAI is that in a case like this we don't actually know the rules as intended. This isn't an instance where a literal reading of the rules makes the effect useless or detrimental to players (like the 2014 version of See Invisible): starting fires is a minor effect that GMs often don't even bother with unless the player is deliberately trying to set something on fire. And with spells that have a distinct secondary effect, like Shocking Grasp or Ray of Frost, changing the effect because the damage type changed can really affect the game's balance in unintended ways that changing damage types does not.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.