a low, guttural rumble that seemed to emanate from the depths of the cave.   Then, a foul stench wafted through the air—a nauseating odor that could only mean one thing: troglodytes. Vanomir has returned to the party.

lol. JK. I'm sure he smells like daisies or something equally elflike.

Welcome back.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:33, Thu 07 Mar.

Don't forget loot XP for those who just received magical items.  I give them out sparingly so make sure you get your XP from them.

LOL, thanks Hammond! And yes, all elves smell of lavender and blossoms, or lychee and coconuts...or acorns and pine, stuff like that.

So what we are telling you DM, is we really want to have less enemies to deal with. lol.

Sleep, Sleep, Web, Darkness, Hold Person.

Yeah, we might have one at a time at this rate.

Just wait until we bring out the flamethrower...

If you ever need a quick reference, I use OSRIC for most of my rules checks.

https://osricwiki.presgas.name/doku.php?id=osric:index

We're probably not too far that.  5th+ level wizard is basically a flamethrower.

Given the volume they take up I don’t think many people fully understand how dangerous fireballs are.  Really they’re good for outdoor use only so limited in their application, which is why my mages always use lightning bolts.

One of my first DMs was a maths whizz. He loved calculating the squares my fireballs took in dungeons. It was very dangerous to use indoors!

33*10*10 cubes!

I've played lots of wizards and never thrown a fireball for that very reason.

Boss I've opened up a private thread labelled Spells for the DM. The Sleep write up is in there now, as is BB's Hypnotism spell .  Since I've got PDF's of all the rule books its a simple copy and paste with a little editing, and over time as spells are used I'll just chuck their write up in there so you have something online to always refer to if you wish.

Back in the day we had three wizards lob about 9 fireballs into a single room in the Tomb of Horrors.  Then we went outside into the wilderness overnight to let it cool.  We came back and salvaged the slag, and went back to town.  The DM told us after the fact that it was only "the fake lich" but we didn't care.  We had a bunch of gold and we (all but one) survived the Tomb of Horrors.  Who cares about "the real lich"?

That's a good example of the fireball spell being mismanaged.  Given that false treasure room was 20 x 20 room with let's say the standard 10 foot high ceiling it had a volume of 4000 cubic feet, and the 20 foot long hallway descending to the room had another 2000 cubic feet of volume, which gives a total volume of 6,000 cubic feet.

A fireball has a volume of 33,000 cubic feet and the wizard that threw the 1st fire ball, not only incinerated himself by the flashback as the expanding fireball filled the room and then extended way up the hallway, but the rest of the party as well.  Kudos to you for getting away with it though.

The size of a fireball is also one of the factors that limits its usefulness.

If you're going to throw a fireball inside, the room has to be at least 60 x 60 with a 10 foot high ceiling, and you're standing in a corner.  In most cases a fireball spell inside is TPK situation, a lightning bolt is a much better option, though that also has ricochet issue.

That's how you'd DM it.

Others might say that 5 foot thick stone walls block the area of effect such that a wizard could toss the fireball in and instead of standing majestically there in the doorway to admire his craft, pop back behind cover.  Much of running a game is adjudicating it such that the players have some fun.  Of course, you can warn them ahead of time that you are going to kill everyone the second a fireball is cast indoors.  That will at least cut down on the arguing after they cast the spell having been completely successful doing the exact same thing in their previous game.

Well, the rules in osric do explain that in good detail.

It's less specific about 10X10X10 cubes in the 1st Ed players handbook, but the "33,000 cubic feet" IS right there in the description.

I also realise that killing everyone is very fitting for Tomb of Horrors.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:44, Sun 10 Mar.

Not every door is wood. You could lob a fireball into a room and close the door. If the DM rules the wizard can't do that, someone else can close the door for him. By the time the fireball hits the wall and does its 33000 cubic feet, there's a (hopefully) iron or steel door between the party and boom. So that 33,000 has to go elsewhere...

while fireball is hot, it's generally not hot enough to melt steel. Or even Iron.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:11, Sun 10 Mar.

l
All good points, and as you say, those characters would have gotten use to my style by the time they got to that level.  It's only a third level spell and part of it's destructive force is also meant to limit its usability IMO.

There are also wooden logs soaked with oil at the back of the cave right?

Hammond lit those before we fought the first group of returning hunter trogs.  They were supposed to create a barrier along with the glyphs.  That's the fire Hammond cooked dinner on.  I don't know how much time passed between then and now.  They could still be burning, we had some spare fuel to toss on the fire.

Bitd, we just ran vanilla fireballs - as Hammond says, open the door and send in the fireballs, close the door then after they've gone off go in and see what's left. Obviously by the book is different, and I've had players killed by friendly fire that way (and by lightning bolts rebounding, for that matter). I'm happy to play it either way - not every game needs to go down to the minutiae of the rules - YMMV.

As the meme goes, "I didn't ask how big the room was, I said 'I cast FIREBALL!!'" :)

FIREBALL!

https://youtu.be/PtLeEUPtkHk?si=9kfXWVo5rF57MaIb

Wrong campaign - back to Nemrac with you! ;)

Duh!!  Lol how did that happen.  My apologies.

Lol, my poor Nemrac brothers.

Funny or not, don't forget your XP!