Oh hey, look at that: improvised damage list from dmg says crushed by a wall and wading through lava both do 10d10 damage 

So, with the ground covered in 500 pounds of burning oil dumped out from a bag of holding in a single turn, with a flask of alchemist fire inside to set it all on fire on impact, one might put this in the 6d10 points of fire damage category of improvised damage, and last for 2 rounds.

Thats 66 points of damage, on average.

Oh, man. And to think of all the stuff everyone was making up to say, with absolute certainty, that this wouldnt work at all or would only do 5 points dmg.

60 to 70 damage works for me

*Improvised damage is at the whims of the DM and only found in the DMG, player discretion advised

"If you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t play D&D, it’s that easy"

Thank you for your help, adventurer. But Im afraid we have no gold to reward your noble work

I cannot tell if your trying to make everyone mad or that your mad because we objected to what was clearly a faulty reading of the rules. I mean, if your dm allows it sure, but don’t say that it’s totally RAW or normal, especially when you're forced to use your dm's good graces.

"your mad because we objected to what was clearly a faulty reading of the rules."

Remember when you told me this:

"This doesn’t work at all, both  Iin theory and practically. A [magic items]Bag of Holding[/magic items] has a size of 2 feet square and is 4 feet deep on the inside, because of how a barrel works, you cannot contain a barrel inside a bag of holding unless it is especially small. "

 by "faulty" did you mean a slightly smaller barrel isnt on the equipment list therefore is impossible to exist? 

I know thousands of points of damage isnt realistic in the game. I assume any reasonable dm would figure out a reasonable amount of damage.  But weirdly, out of everyone who commented on this post, not one person said, a thousand is too high, but id let you roll 5d10 or 8d6 or something.

You apparently were absolutely certain it was an impossible idea, in part, because a bag of holdijg has a 2 foot opening, and you couldnt imagine a barrel existed that could possibly fit. You wrote an entire paragraph based on being unable to improvise a slightly smaller-than-standard barrel. I mean, the equipment list doesnt even give the diameter of a barrel, so im not sure how youre so certain that it wont fit while youbalso insist on only allowing rules as written.

Dnd is not a computer game. Theres a lot of stuff that players are going to want to do thats not on any rule book anywhere. And a complete and total inability to improvise in response to that, is not helping anyone.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"your mad because we objected to what was clearly a faulty reading of the rules."

Remember when you told me this:

"This doesn’t work at all, both  Iin theory and practically. A [magic items]Bag of Holding[/magic items] has a size of 2 feet square and is 4 feet deep on the inside, because of how a barrel works, you cannot contain a barrel inside a bag of holding unless it is especially small. "

 by "faulty" did you mean a slightly smaller barrel isnt on the equipment list therefore is impossible to exist? 

I know thousands of points of damage isnt realistic in the game. I assume any reasonable dm would figure out a reasonable amount of damage.  But weirdly, out of everyone who commented on this post, not one person said, a thousand is too high, but id let you roll 5d10 or 8d6 or something.

You apparently were absolutely certain it was an impossible idea, in part, because a bag of holdijg has a 2 foot opening, and you couldnt imagine a barrel existed that could possibly fit. You wrote an entire paragraph based on being unable to improvise a slightly smaller-than-standard barrel. I mean, the equipment list doesnt even give the diameter of a barrel, so im not sure how youre so certain that it wont fit while youbalso insist on only allowing rules as written.

Dnd is not a computer game. Theres a lot of stuff that players are going to want to do thats not on any rule book anywhere. And a complete and total inability to improvise in response to that, is not helping anyone

 1. After checking, yea, the barrel would fit, a 40 gallon barrel (as seen in the basic rules) would be around 22 inches wide and be considered to be able to contain 151 litres, so it would indeed fit, my bad.

2. Just because you would allow it doesn’t mean others would, if your assuming the dm is agreeing, than it’s completely on their terms and should be placed in a homebrew forum instead, seeing as it’s closer to discussions of more flexible rules rather than Tips & Tactics. Which uses the closest to RAI or RAW rulings as possible due to there being massively differing interpretations per table.

3. You literally included a barrel for no reason, removing the barrel from the equation would have made it (slightly) more usable. If you didn’t want me to calculate the barrel, why include it in there? Additionally, the barrel is only a 1/3 of the argument, if you forgot this: “If multiple effects impose the same condition on you, each instance of the condition has its own duration, but the condition’s effects don’t get worse. Either you have a condition or you don’t. The Exhaustion condition is an exception; its effects get worse if you have the condition and receive it again.” - D&D Beyond Basic Rules

Although it focuses on conditions, it’s still related to how Oil actually works in the game. D&D is not a computer game, chess is also not a computer game, saying that a large branch a player found does 1d6 Bludgeoning is a good improvisation of rules, claiming that you can create an instant firebomb because more oil = more hot is not good improvisation, if you are suggesting this as a player, it’s just that, a suggestion. Maybe don’t misinform possible players who are just getting into the game, cheers 😊.

And always remember that whatever you do, the monsters can do too =)

I have never imagined a whole barrel of oil would stay stuck to a target.

If you have ever dumped out a full barrel of water (or oil) most goes out of the 5 foot area. So most would not burn someone inside their 5 foot area.

And what keeps the target in place?

Its not dragon fire. Its more like a camp fire.

I have used a gallon jug of alchemists fire as an area denial weapon.

After the target is about 3rd level its a pretty useless tool/weapon.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

 

..

 There is so much wrong with your line of arguments ... it's difficult to address them all. I'll give it a shot.

First off: This is a game. I get where you're going, and it's kinda cool imagining a little flying critter dropping an air-fuel bomb on unsuspecting enemies. But that's just not how the game works. The game works like this: If you throw a bottle of greek fire at an enemy, they take 1d4 points of damage. If you have big hands, and you throw two at the same time, they take 1d4 points of damage. If you're a catapult, and you throw 20 at the same time ..... they take 1d4 points of damage. It's 1d4 points of damage ... not per bottle, but pr. attack roll. It's part of the action economy, so to speak. And also, the game is very robustly designed around the heroic efforts of the characters, not industrial scale warfare.

Second off: You'd like to sidestep the mechanics. Now, that's .... 'fine', but it's just not playing the game. If you play the game, then various things are problematic: If you use your action to open the bag and retrieve the 'bomb' - well then you cannot use your action to attack with it. Also, since you've retrieved it, it's now in your hands. Was it 400 pounds? I don't think a homonculus can carry that much. Anyways, the point is that within the rules, this just doesn't stick.

Third off: You feel like this magic reality should somehow adhere to the rules of real reality. Ok then. But if so, we have other problems. Dropping a barrel of oil on the ground doesn't do anything in real life. Dropping a barrel of oil on the ground then throwing a match in it has a very good chance of doing no more than the barrel alone. There's a whole science to detonators, primers, proper sequencing and timing, details upon details to get explosives to work properly. There are mechanics of pressure, temperature, dispersion .. and so on, and so on, and so on. 

So if you want a game of industrial scale warfare ... there are other games for that. This isn't the one for that. Because you cannot realistically weaponize a barrel of oil without all the rest of the mechanics involved.

"There is so much wrong with your line of arguments"

Thank you for your reply. I assume you missed the very first line of the original post that said i'm going with improvised damage, which given the examples in that rule, would probably put the damage from an entire barrel of burning oil at somewhere around 5d10 fire damage for a turn or two.

Have a great day!

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"There is so much wrong with your line of arguments"

Thank you for your reply. I assume you missed the very first line of the original post that said i'm going with improvised damage, which given the examples in that rule, would probably put the damage from an entire barrel of burning oil at somewhere around 5d10 fire damage for a turn or two.

Have a great day!

Sorry. Whatever I say, I'm not saying it to offend. I'm just trying to explain. That's why there are examples in there. That's why I'm specifically telling you I agree it's a cool idea.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"There is so much wrong with your line of arguments"

Thank you for your reply. I assume you missed the very first line of the original post that said i'm going with improvised damage, which given the examples in that rule, would probably put the damage from an entire barrel of burning oil at somewhere around 5d10 fire damage for a turn or two.

Have a great day!

 Which I believe you are the only one that thinks it is reasonable. Totally ok though,  just have to clear it with your GM.

I think the topic has been pretty well covered, but wanted to add my 2.4 copper anyway. 

Removing stuff from a bag of holding (assuming you don't want to destroy it), can be done in basically two ways. Stick your hand in-side, say what you want, and it appears in your hand or turning the bag inside out to dump everything all at once.

If filling the bag with flasks of oil and one alchemist fire flask - then removing them one at a time to drop onto enemies from above is incredibly inefficient and would not have the desired effect (1 flask per round). So I'm going to assume that you would take method 2, and just invert the bag and turn it inside out. I'll also note that emptying the oil into the bag (without the flasks) would not ruin the bag, as the items don't actually touch the material of the bag on the inside - they are in an extra-dimensional space instead - a pocket dimension.

Inverting the bag and dropping all contained flasks and alchemist fire from height would break most of the flasks open (let's say all), but would not inflict the damage the original poster hopes for. Let's not forget that liquid doesn't burn, gasses burn. The way fire works, is heat causes the fuel to 'melt' (go from solid to liquid then to vapor), then it mixes with Oxygen in the presence of that heat causing the oxidation chemical reaction to occur. This produces more heat, and the visible light we call fire. Oversimplified, but basically that's how fire works. The chemical reaction occurs at just the base of the flame, above the visible surface of the burning material. Ok - chemistry lesson over.

The vast majority of the oil will arrive on target in a liquid state, and flow away from the target LONG before it catches fire. The vapor above the liquid, would ignite causing (per D&D) 5 pts of damage. That 5pts would be inflicted on every grid space that the oil flows/splashes into, but (unless the DM says otherwise) RAW says it all burns off in 2 rounds.

Simply put, the devs of D&D have made flasks of oil simply not burn hot enough to do more than 5pts, and apparently their intent is to make it evaporate away quickly. Again - your DM can rule however he wants, but that's RAW.

If the desire is to make a massive death-from-above style attack, the best bet is to use the boulder idea. Find a chunk of stone that weighs close to 500 lbs of a shape that fits into the bag of holding, and use that. Keep in mind the bag of holding weighs a constant weight, regardless of what is in it, and whatever creature you use to deliver it must be capable of carrying that weight.

I would argue that a tiny creature would have a hard time carrying a bag of holding due to its size alone, not to mention its weight. The rules actually help you on this one, because in 5e and 5e24 STR score alone determines carrying weight, which is absurd, but it is the 'new way' and apparently something 12" tall weighing about 6 lbs can somehow carry something that weighs 10x their own weight - but it is what it is.

As always, keep in mind that any tactic/strategy that a player can use, the monsters can use as well. So if you have a character that makes a habit of this, don't get upset when 20 Harpies or Gargoyles fly in each carrying boulders to bombard the party as some point in the campaign.