Keep it simple
Keep it simple
Well wrought iron melts at 1500C, brass and bronze around 1700C. And it would take considerable time at those temps so probably not just 1 cast of the spell. Also Burning Hands is a cone, so at those temps anyways it'd assuredly melt stone walls and floors, set fire to the door, roof, and anything else.
Some Object properties: Iron/steel has an AC of 19, irrelevant since it's a Dex save, and a lock has 5hp. But since it's probably immune to fire damage of this temp, the lock may very well be the only thing that remains after Burning Hands sets everything else ablaze. And the door probably has ~18hp, so 1 burning hands won't obliterate it, but the ongoing fire damage after it's set aflame likely would. Though the roof would probably go first.
and a lock has 5hp
So, punch the lock?
Technically I guess? 5e rules don't make much sense and the actually useful rules are mere suggestions.
I'd probably give it a damage threshold of 10 for iron.
If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
—The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, maxim 7
But also:
Pillage, then burn.
—ibid., maxim 1
The shitty part is that last I checked fireball had no explosive properties apart from “rule of cool” from DMs that want it to have explosive properties. It was a dinky little glowy point-and-click dot that goes fwoosh, does fire damage, then vanishes.
I think that’s ridiculous, but a rules lawyer could shoot down the fun unless that changed when I wasn’t looking.
Huh?
Could you explain this because it’s very confusing.
It’s a fireball… that has a big AoE. So if it’s a roughly hand sized sphere but it deals damage in a big sphere… logically it has to explode, right?
Beyond that it’s got the word “explosion” in the spell description, at least on dnd beyond.
A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame.
but it deals damage in a big sphere… logically it has to explode, right
It doesn’t do any special damage or bypass hardness of objects, so that doesn’t sound like an explosion except in “flavor” text. At least it ignites objects, which it didn’t do in previous editions.
“If I had just one WISH, I’d WISH that all gold and weapons I could WISH for would vanish vanWISH from shops nearby and appear before my feet to fulfill my dreams and WISHES. WISH that would work.”
WISHWISHWISH
My players are about to hit level 17 sometime soon, send help
The solution is to make your players afraid of a well-practiced DM that knows how to fuck with powerhungry wishes.
“I wish for an invincible unassailable fortress”
it appears… and then falls directly on top of the player
“I wish for true immortality where nothing can kill me ever ever ever”
granted… in a pocket plane with no way in and no way out
“I wish the final boss was already dead”"
player is time-skipped to a far future where the boss is dead and so is everything in the campaign they know or care about
To ensure the factor and keep the wishes reasonable, be sure to insist that the wish magic must be spoken, without pause, and more or less be a single sentence like in almost every example given of wishes in antiquity fiction.
Since it’s cast as an action, it’s good to require a six second cap on the wish.
Perfect.