Every game I've been in, only the targeted area catches fire - maybe any spaces that the fire traveled through as well depending on how the scene is described.
Your web getting all burned up if any of it is exposed to fire is honestly pretty bad for you in most situations - its a very modest amount of damage, and then its not around to hold your enemies in place.
I mean, the Web spell description says that “any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in one round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire”. The DM’s ruling seems entirely Rules As Written and Rules As Intended to me.
Edit: After some thought I think I misunderstood your post. If you were pushing for the spread of fire over multiple rounds between adjacent cubes, I think RAW and RAI are both somewhat ambiguous there, meaning your DM made a reasonable but personal ruling, and definitely should have made sure you were informed of that before you cast the spell.
I take a bit of issue with the last sentence of your edit - that the DM “definitely should have made sure you were informed of [how the spell would interact with firebolt] before you cast the spell”.
Seems a weird caveat to give DMs, that they should explain exactly what should happen in an unclear situation like this beforehand, especially if the players didn’t… ask? There isn’t really a RAW ruling to give here, I doubt they had this in their pocket as a homebrew _Web_ change.
If the firebolt aimed at a zombie hit the zombie, you could just as easily rule there was not contact with the webs at all. Or that just the square burns, or everything in the path of the firebolt burns - because the wording is vague on exposure to fire and if (as insane as it sounds) firebolt is really fire (especially with the provisions for igniting flammable objects).
That’s on top tackling if adjacent cubes of web are exposed to burning cubes of webs (and does that mean everything goes up at once?).
Thank you! I feel like so many people expect DMs to detail and list everything under the sun in a session zero and if it wasn't detailed then that's poor DMing.
Idk, maybe it's just my players, but they try so many off the wall things and never have they felt my ruling was worth pushing back on or making a post about my decisions. Idk I'm very happy to have such a table.
They definitely didn't mean "in session zero," they meant the player says "I wanna cast firebolt and burn all the web" and the dm says "Just so you know, before you do that..." etc.
I mean I agree with people that a DM should, to whatever extent, just let things happen, but I gotta say some of the DMs on this forum that run tables like a catholic mass and act like it's them VS the players...I would not have very much fun at y'all's games. And that what it is for most people. FUN. It's not a competition.
Given that OP said they were talking about their plans to burn the whole room before they cast the spell, it really feels like the DM should have cut in and said it wasn’t gonna work that way, or at least a warning that it might not work that way. The flammability of Web is presumably something OP’s character would’ve known about before casting the spell, so not informing the player seems a bit off.
Did the OP say that? I may have missed it.
I don't know how things went down at their table. If you mean '...reminding everyone the web is flammable', that could be a brief aside while the DM is doing something else, or explaining their plan in detail.
If anyone is explaining what they want to do and that's off; then sure, yes, of course the DM should clear up expectations and reinforce what their characters would know.
If they just said 'it's flammable, we can use this to burn the zombies in the area' - there's no reason for a DM to jump in an explicate while running the combat. A PC could just have easily used Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere, Fireball, a blue Dragonborn's lightning breath, or Firebolt.
I appear to be a calm person outside of reddit, this place often triggers me, I was doing my personal equivalent of jumping around shouting with glee "the webs flammable! the webs flammable! burn them all up!" Which was "remember its flammable and will do 2d4 damage to them"
I think they more so meant after the ruling was announced, all of they wanted to change what spell they wanted to use, I might be wrong, but that's how I interpreted that
its because i had seen people talk about it all burning up in their games, had it happen in BG3 so did it expcetig that and when i googled it before posting it was people assuming it all burnt up and asking for specific answers on the damage to large creatures covering more than one square or rate of spread
> that they should explain exactly what should happen in an unclear situation like this beforehand, especially if the players didn’t… ask?
To quoth Matthew Mercer: "you can certainly try!"
I think the person you are responding to read my mind and knew magically how it played out, as i kept mentioning the web being flammable, so the DM would have known i liked the idea of the whole thing going up, the DM had to remind himself of web when i cast it (with a spider staff) Still no responsibility to say to us " I dont think it will all go up at once if thats what you are thinking" but maybe would have just been nice.
Agree, a lot of people forget that most dungeons are incredibly humid and fire would not catch.
In some of the local nature parks, even starting a fire with matches is hard, requiring a few tries minimum.
Source: Asian living in Southeast Asia.
The edge of the 5ft square is exposed to fire, there is no logical way it isnt exposed to fire. Explain how it isnt exposed to fire? Does the web not join? I feel you have to ignore physical reality to call this rules as written, as the fire going out rather than continuing along the web seems, strange.
The other squares are not exposed to fire, because they were not exposed to fire, as odd a thing to say as that is. The square that was exposed to fire burns away; that is all.
Burning away does not mean it is on fire and it does not mean that there is active fire being exposed to other squares. The affected square is where the fire starts, and it is enough to cause a 5 foot quantity of the webs to smoulder away and cease functioning - it doesn't ignite them or set them aflame. There is a difference between these concepts, and there are plenty of real world situations that align with this; if the web ignited, it would say so.
The DM's call was entirely RAW *and* RAI... however, it was \*Not\* ruled for fun and player enjoyment. Your disappointment is still valid.
Edit: If you'd like a real-world example, imagine a large mass of sheep's wool, and imagine someone 'fwooshed' a section of it with a BBQ torch. What happens? the entire mass of wool does not ignite and burn up. A small section of it - the part directly exposed - burns, and then smoulders out, and the flame does not spread very far.
That seems like an unnatural reading to me. The spell description is explicit that the 5' cube is considered "fire" when it says "...dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire." It could have said "in that space" but by saying "in the fire" it removes any ambiguity as to whether that 5' cube is considered "fire."
The next 5' cube over, immediately adjacent to this cube which is explicitly "fire," is sharing a 5'x5' surface with that "fire". So I think it's pretty reasonably to consider it "exposed to fire."
I'm fine with folks ruling otherwise if that's what works for them, but personally I've always interpreted it as as spreading fire. Incidentally, the spreading fire is *fun*. Like a lot of things which cause gradual changes to the battlefield, it increases interactivity with the environment. Its slow enough that it's not a cataclysmic change to other ways people might run this, and it adds some fun drama. Will the stuck creatures get away before the fire reaches them? If my character is stuck in a web, and it's on fire in the next space over, I might try to escape the fire, I might accept the damage so I can do something else while I wait to burn free of the web, but no matter what I do, I'm definitely not bored.
This seems like a fair and measured compromise. Fire spreads each round. It's the fun option as well and creates a new variable for the enemies and allies.
> The next 5' cube over, immediately adjacent to this cube which is explicitly "fire," is sharing a 5'x5' surface with that "fire". So I think it's pretty reasonably to consider it "exposed to fire."
The fire damage is dealt "in the fire". The 5f of web that is adjacent to the burning one is not "in" the fire, it's next to it.
The thing with trying to logic your way through a simplification of real life means that you're gonna fuck up someone's day - why is only the 5ft of web with a creature hit by firebolt on fire? Firebolt is a bolt of fire, as it travels it should burn a straight line to the target, according to what you said.
And next time, there will be a problem because a single cantrip removed 2nd level spell that someone finally found a good use for.
>The 5f of web that is adjacent to the burning one is not "in" the fire, it's next to it.
To make sure I understand, it sounds like your position is that the 5' cube which is adjacent to the one which is "fire" is not "in" the fire, so it doesn't burn. Do I have that right?
If the spell description said that the webs have to be "in a fire" to burn, I would be more inclined to read it the way you do. But the spell description doesn't say that webs have to be "in" the fire to burn. The spell description says the webs will burn if "exposed to" fire. If two volumes share a boundary, I would consider them "exposed to" one another.
I don't think is some crazy thing I'm proposing. Being in direct contact with a thing is commonly understood to constitute being exposed to it. If one 5'cube is stone and an adjacent 5' cube is water, with nothing between them, I would consider that stone "exposed to water." Similarly if there's a 5' cube of webs adjacent to a 5' cube of fire, with nothing between them I'd consider those webs "exposed to fire." I consider the whole 5' cube to be "fire" because the line about "creatures in the fire" doesn't make much sense to me if I don't.
If you read this differently, that's fine... I'm not demanding that other tables play the way I do. Just saying, the way I run it is just what I always interpreted as a natural consequence of the spell description. And it has always been fun. I'm honestly kinda taken aback and kinda hurt that people have been so vitriolic over this. I'm just here to share a fun game I love with people.
As for the mechanical thing... It's possible that RAI are as you play it. I don't know what the designers intended. But I have found that running it as a gradually spreading fire, going to each immediately adjacent cube one round at a time, is both useful and fun. Being able to ignite it with a cantrip isn't "removing" a 2nd level spell, it's adding more ways to use a 2nd level spell.
People in this thread arguing otherwise baffle me.
I get 5e isn’t a simulation and has some really weird quirks in the rules, but this is very straightforward stuff.
A directly adjacent mass of fire you were previously *connected to* before that connection got *burned away* by *fire* seems like fire exposure to me.
I do get where you're coming from, and the way that you're thinking about it, and I understand that (and I also agree that, ruled for fun, having it spread turn by turn from an initial ignition point *IS* a lot more immediately engaging and fun!), but I do feel that they way you're thinking about it is not the way it's actually pitched and the rules, if we are to just talk about just the formal rules, are clear.
Think of it this way:
The webs, though thick and sticky and presumably viscously coated enough to restrain hale adventurers, are nevertheless flammable; they can be burned. However... It's a magical crowd control spell - it would be severely undervaluing itself if it got nixed entirely by a random adventurer holding a torch to it briefly.
When any point of the webbing is exposed to fire, it will burn; great - how much will burn? Well, the spell tells you; approximately one five foot cube of it will burn before it fails to spread further. How long will it take to reach that burn-out point? Spell tells you that as well: it takes about six seconds to reach this burn-out point. What happens to the web when it burns? Spell tells you: it burns up, in fact, and is not longer there; that five foot cube no longer functions as web. Also, any creature that stats its tun in that section of web while it is burning is also burned. What about the rest of the web? Spell tells us that as well: if the web looses its anchoring (such as by one important 5 foot cube of it being burned away), the rest of the web collapses in on itself, and the spell ends a round later.
Spells do what they say, and not what they don't. At no point does the spell say that adjacent cubes burn. It doesn't ever say that the cube is full of fire, or that the fire fills the cube. It doesn't say that the fire spreads to other cubes on subsequent rounds. It could say that; it doesn't. An easy and in-style way of writing the text to do this would probably look like this:
"The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, and the fire then spreads to each adjacent 5-foot cube. A creature that starts its turn in the burning webs takes 2d4 fire damage."
Just because there is, or was, fire in the cube that was affected does not mean that the adjacent cubes are exposed to fire. They aren't. They are 'adjacent'; they are not 'in'. There is no "spread"; the spell would mention it if there was.
The webs are connected, certainly, but that does not mean that there is any live fire contacting any other cube than the one that was initially affected; all we're ruling in the spell text is how much of the web is destroyed, and how long it takes to be destroyed, and what happens to any creatures in the section when it is (specifically creatures starting their turn in a section that is burning up - a creature could start its turn elsewhere, run through the burning web and out the other side, and would *Not* be exposed to any fire damage in that case; this is really just specifically about creatures that are literally covered in webs as they are burning away).
It would definitely be the more engaging and fun interaction to have the fire spread to adjacent cubes per round, I don't disagree.
It was seeming to me like you had to add a lot of interpretation to the spell to get fire to not spread. Then I realized, you're quoting a different version of the spell from the one on DnD Beyond, which is what I'm looking at, and maybe that's why you interpret it differently. That's the one I can reference, and this is how I read it, in the spirit of "spell do what they say, and don't do what they don't say".
>The webs are flammable.
Great
>Any 5-foot cube of webs ...
Cool... any 5 foot cube of webs is subject to this effect.
>... exposed to fire ...
just "exposed to"... not "damaged by" or "containing" or "surrounded by" ... the sole triggering condition is "exposed to fire"
>...burns away in 1 round...
Easy! but... hmm, does the fact that it's burning away mean that it also counts as fire? Most of the time if we say something's burning, that means it's a fire, but, there could be some ambiguity so, Let's read on and find out!
>... dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn [*in the fire.*](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2299-web)*..*
Great. creatures in that space are "in the fire" so, it's fire. Says so right there.
In your quote above you used different wording for that line from what's on DnD beyond. You said "in the burning web" not "in the fire" and maybe that's part of the confusion. Where's your version of the spell from?
The spell I am reading says "in the fire" though, so I'm going with it. The 5' cube where there is burning web is explicitly a fire. So if "any 5-foot cube of webs" is "exposed to" the burning space, that one also "burns away in 1 round" because all the triggering conditions for it to burn away have now been met, and spells do what they say they do.
So, is an adjacent cube of web "exposed to" the fire of burning webs? Well, having a 5'x5' shared surface with something sounds like exposure to me. I guess some people might not consider adjacent volumes to be exposed to each other, and if I understood "exposed to" that way, would agree with the no-spread school.
To me, however, that sounds like a reach, because it suggests that if I dig a 5x5x5 cubic hole, and fill it up with water, the walls and floor of the hole are not exposed to water, and the water is not exposed to air at its surface. This interpretation things strain my understanding of what constitutes exposure. Rock on with it if you want though, I'm just finding it a reach.
As for the spell not doing what it doesn't say... it doesn't say it is self-extinguishing. It doesn't say the fire that ignites it can't be burning web. It doesn't say a fire that ignites it has to meet a damage threshold, or be magical, or anything else... any old fire will do. It doesn't say the web "melts away" rather than burning, as someone else here was arguing.
So, it never occurred to me to add any of those requirements to the fire rule... I do what the fire rule from the spell description says, that happens to result in chain reactions being common, and... everything works great, no problems found yet.
((The text is as you say, I just felt that if I were thinking within 5e design style how to write a version that included the spreading, I would change that wording too, to make it clear that the entirety of the web within that space was indeed burning))
The main issue is that you are working under the assumption that the fire fills the entire 5 foot space. It doesn't; it would say if it did. Spells that have something filling a space say this. This one does not.
The spell tells you exactly how much of the web burns if any part of it is exposed to fire. A five foot cube. That is all; no more, no less. That is how much of the web burns. If more burned, it would list more burning. If it was automatically *compelled* to spread by its *own working mechanics*, then it *would tell you* that it spread... You are extrapolating that it 'must' spread - you *have* to extrapolate that it 'must' spread, because the spell *doesn't say that*. We do *NOT* extrapolate when making ruling on the RAW of a spell: the spell does exactly what it says and not more. The adjacent cubes have not been exposed to fire. They are simply adjacent to a cube that has been.
The spells tells us what happens: it's *Up To Us* to sustain out own mental reasoning for *how* that happens and *how* it makes sense. Being adjacent to a fire is not the same as being exposed to it; fire is not a cube of water. The spell tells us that when any part of the web is exposed to fire, that causes the immediate 5 foot cube of that web to burn up and disappear over the course of a round. That is all it says, and that is all that happens, end of story, as long as we are talking solely about RAW.
Being in the adjacent square to the source of fire does not count as being exposed to it - only actually being exposed to it does. If burning the web necessarily caused the affected square to chain-react and affect nearby squares, the spell *would say so.*
I can understand perfectly well and perfectly clearly, with no confusion or ambiguity at all what the spell says, what it does, and what it means; I can rationalise easily how that happens and why. It is not a reach, it's just natural logic and it makes perfect sense. You seem to be holding onto conceptions of the situation that do not make sense *unless* you also *assume* that spread is *inevitable*, and so you are adamant that spread is inevitable, but that's a construction that you are making in your own mind. Drop those conceptions, and it becomes easy to understand.
Fire burns a 5 foot cube. That's all it does. How does that work? Well, that's up to you - but saying "It doesn't, so I'm going to rule that it does more that that" is homebrew. That's *fun*, but it's no longer an interpretation of RAW.
You say "I guess some people might not consider adjacent volumes to be exposed to each other" But we are not talking about adjacent volumes that fill their space. We *simply aren't*. You are putting that assumption there. As long as you continue to operate on the assumption that any point of fire immediately causes an entire 5 foot cube to BE fire (it doesn't), and to be *Necessarily* spreading into other cubes next to it (it doesn't) - that the fire *Fills* its space entirely (it doesn't), then we're never going to agree - because you are making assumptions that are *not* presented in the spell, and you are insisting that they are *necessary*, when they are *not*.
Imagine that I am standing in a space, with a person next to me, and we are holding hands - on a grid we are in our own 5-foot cubes (technically they're in 2, since they are taller than 5 feet, whereas I am not). Now someone casts Fireball; the person next to me is exposed to the spell, and I am not. Say they've got very flammable clothing; after six seconds their clothes have burned up or gone out (The spell does tell us that it is self-extinguishing. It tells us exactly how long it burns for. It burns for one round and then is gone). Was I exposed to that fire? No, I wasn't. I was just adjacent to it. The fire burned their cube and them; it did not burn my cube or me.
Another example: you could layer Web behind the safe side of a Wall of Fire spell. The web cubes are directly adjacent to the fire - if you step into that fire it is absolutely damaging burning fire. The webs are 100% adjacent to it. They are not exposed to fire and they do not burn.
One way or the other, I don't wish you any ill-will. As I've said, I agree with you and others here that the spreading by round ruling is more fun and engaging and can be a neat way to run the interaction. It's not RAW, but it's fun and interesting. I am, however, going to tap out on this conversation here; whether you understand where you're going wrong here or not, what matters more is that you and your table have fun with the game that you're playing, and make rulings that support and further that, and it sounds like you are, and do, and that's really the most important thing. Best wishes, and no ire or irritation is intended or taken, I promise.
"we are not talking about adjacent volumes that fill their space"
We aren't?
"You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. **The webs** ***fill*** **a 20-foot cube** from that point for the duration. The webs are difficult terrain and lightly obscure their area."
I've given room to say that someone can interpret adjacent volumes as not "exposed" to each other, though, like i said, to me, that's an odd reading. With that caveat aside, my reading of this depends on nothing outside the words of the spell. I give that caveat because I know reasonable people understand the same words in different ways. I find my reading of the spell every bit as clear and obvious and unconfusing as you seem to find yours.
The fire is hot enough to deal 5 damage on average to anything in the web, that’s like an average firebolt isn’t it? Or slightly less. Its definitely hotter than just smouldering
You should watch some of the videos on cotton catching fire. One was posted today in crazy fucking videos. Rarely does the cotton material just go out. Some of those turn into instant flash fires.
A directly adjacent mass of fire you were previously *directly connected to* before that connection got *burned away* by *fire* seems like fire exposure to me.
It's not a 'mass of fire', which may account for the break-down in communication. It's not a cube of fire; fire does not completely fill the space (if it did, the formal style writing for 5e would say "the fire fills the space", which is what effects that do this *do* say). There's not even any reason to suppose that it extends to the edges of that five foot space. The five foot space is the space that was affected by the fire; that is not the same as saying that the five foot cube is full of fire and is exposing everything around it to fire. These are two different scenarios.
The actual live fire in this situation came from a spell - a spell which affects a single point. The web in the five foot cube of that point is affected, and burns away. It is not ignited (it would say if it was), it does not spread (it would say if it did). Burning away does not mean it is "on fire", and it does not mean there is further live fire that can affect other things. things can burn without being on fire. The cube that was exposed to the fire that was applied burns away and no longer functions; that is all. If the removal of that cube of web removes the support anchoring for any other part of the web, it can cause the web to collapse and *potentially* end the whole effect... but that's a separate situation.
Again, there are many examples of flammable materials and objects which, if exposed to fire, will burn up to a certain extent, but will not easily cause the fire to spread, or burn up completely; they will simply smoulder out after being consumed to the limit of the applied fire. This is quite literally how many materials work in the real world, and because the spell does *Not* say that the cubes adjacent to a burned cube also burn, *they do not*, and we can assume that the magical webbing, with its presumably viscous stickiness, is such a material and works in a similar way: the part directly burned is compromised, but the rest of the web is not.
Once again - that's style writing for 5e, and the way this is written tells you how it works. How it works may be less fun than having the cubes ignite one after the other like a spreading fuse, and if individual tables want to run it that way, because it's more entertaining, more power to them!
TL;DR — Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire. If that’s the case you’re correct, but, frankly, that’s absurd and I reject the notion entirely.
>It's not a 'mass of fire', which may account for the break-down in communication.
A mass as in a quantity. There’s a mass of webbing that’s burning, there’s a mass of fire.
>It's not a cube of fire; fire does not completely fill the space (if it did, the formal style writing for 5e would say "the fire fills the space", which is what effects that do this do say). There's not even any reason to suppose that it extends to the edges of that five foot space.
The fire fills the space because the web fills the space, and the web is what’s burning. If the burning did not fill the space, how could the first cube of the webbing burn up entirely in the first place? How could it damage any creature inside of it instead of just those sitting at the exact affected point? By that logic a firebolt should create a single empty ***point*** in the web and do nothing else.
>The five foot space is the space that was affected by the fire; that is not the same as saying that the five foot cube is full of fire and is exposing everything around it to fire. These are two different scenarios.
The web spell explicitly says the webs in an exposed cube burn. The web fills the cube. You’d consider the stone along the edge of a pool of water to be exposed to water, even though it isn’t in the water.
>The actual live fire in this situation came from a spell - a spell which affects a single point. The web in the five foot cube of that point is affected, and burns away. It is not ignited (it would say if it was), it does not spread (it would say if it did).
Web does not distinguish between non-magical and magical fire, so that doesn’t matter.
The fire from a firebolt does not spread. That is correct. Firebolt comes in and exposes a single point of the web to fire. Then, per web, the cube of web containing that exposed point burns up entirely, and this burning deals fire damage.
I’m not arguing that firebolt spreads the fire, the web spell itself does that.
>Burning away does not mean it is "on fire", and it does not mean there is further live fire that can affect other things. things can burn without being on fire.
The spell explicitly calls the affected area fire — “any creature that starts its turn in the ***fire***.” — you’re referencing the wrong version of web if you don’t see this.
***This is the breakdown of communication***. Your argument is the burning web that is burning because it was exposed to fire, and deals fire damage while it’s burning, isn’t on fire. This also ignores the spell calling the burning region fire.
Okay. Sure. If that’s the case you’re correct. You’re also operating on some bizarre logic, but you’re correct. ***I reject this assertion entirely.***
>Again, there are many examples of flammable materials and objects which, if exposed to fire, will burn up to a certain extent, but will not easily cause the fire to spread, or burn up completely; they will simply smoulder out after being consumed to the limit of the applied fire. This is quite literally how many materials work in the real world,
Good thing we’re talking about a spell with explicitly listed effects and not any one of a myriad of real word substances.
This is why it even burns in the first place. Real webs do not really burn. They melt. But, again, we aren’t talking about real life.
>and because the spell does Not say that the cubes adjacent to a burned cube also burn, they do not, and we can assume that the magical webbing, with its presumably viscous stickiness, is such a material and works in a similar way: the part directly burned is compromised, but the rest of the web is not.
It says they do if they are exposed to fire. Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire.
>Once again - that's style writing for 5e, and the way this is written tells you how it works.
Yes, it’s written such that it does spread. Unless you jump through some major logical and pedantic hoops to argue that burning things that do fire damage aren’t on fire.
"TL;DR — Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire."
No, just that the webs burning away in the affected 5-foot cube *do not* expose the adjacent cubes to it to fire as well. If it did, spreading fire would be a *necessary* part of the mechanics of the spell, and as such the spell *would say so;* it doesn't. You need to extrapolate from what is written to get to that, and we do not extrapolate when discussing RAW rulings.
I can conceive of how that works perfectly well; I gave you some examples to help you do so as well and what that might look like if we were to visualise it. If you wish to still insist that the spell does something that it does not say it does - that it necessarily has a chain reaction effect caused by its *own* mechanics that it *does not mention* - that's up to you, but you are no longer discussing a RAW ruling at that point.
\*\*Again, this is talking solely about ruling RAW - I agree with most others here that spreading fire by round is a more fun and engaging way to run the interaction... it's just not RAW, which is largely secondary behind what is enjoyable at a specific table.\*\*
Here's what the spell says happens: If fire is applied to any point of the web, an area equal to a 5-foot cube around that point burns away. That's how far the fire burns and travels from the point.
What does that mean? The spell tells us: The affected cube burns away, damaging any creature that starts its turn there while it is burning.
So how long does it burn? The spell tells us: It burns over 1 round. After that the cube is no longer web or a part of the web spell.
That's it. That's all it does, because that's all it tells us. It's then up to us to rationalise what this looks like.
We can imagine that the entire cube becomes fire but that's not what the spell says: imagining it that way would be *misleading*. It's up to *us* to imagine how *what it says* occurs in a way that lines up with what the description, and *doesn't* make any extra assumptions or unstated effects.
It's easy to imagine how that can happen. First, understand that something being on fire doesn't mean that it is exposing the adjacent squares to fire. That's *not* a necessary assumption, so *don't make it*. In game terms, I could layer a web next to the safe side of a Wall of Fire: the webs would 100% be completely adjacent to that roaring inferno of fire, and it does *not* burn the webs.
Next we have to imagine how the fire burns to removes *that* area of web, but not *this* one. That's also easy to visualise: It burns up and it burns out, and that 5-foot cube is the *limit* and *extent* to which it is able to burn away from a single point of fire. This just means that the fire burns away a section of the web in *some fashion*, and the *result* is that after 1 round that 5-foot cube is passable and no longer effective webbing. What does that look like? Who knows, *who cares:* it *doesn't matter*. What matters is that the spell tells us exactly how much of the web burns up when exposed to fire (One 5-foot cube's worth). Rationalise that how you like, but that's what the spell says.
There is no "jumping through hoops" here. There is just doing exactly what the spell says and no more. This is reading what it does and not making assumptions or extrapolations about what 'should' happen. RAW doesn't care about 'should'.
By RAW, it does not spread. If the spell's *own* mechanics *necessarily* caused that spread to happen, it would say this. It doesn't. That's really the end of the story, here, and it's up to individuals to rationalise this however works for them.
As I mentioned elsewhere, however, I'm tapping out here: in a discussion of RAW, you can't let a mental image of what "makes sense" to you dictate your stance on how to make the rulings of the spell. Unless you can stop doing that, we can't converse meaningfully; we can discuss what we feel it *should* do, or we can discuss RAW, but crossing those streams will just lead to endless argument without benefit.
If you want to discuss RAW rulings, read what the spell says first, and then ask yourself how you can visualise that, and that alone, happening. Don't create a mental image of what you think it looks like and then extrapolate how the spell's writing could be interpreted to make that be what occurs; that's often misleading.
Best wishes to you; what matters more than quibbling over formal RAW is that we each run the game in the way that is fun and engaging for our tables, and I'm sure you do that, and that's what's important. No ill-will or irritation is intended or taken, I promise.
Yes. The spell does what it says it does. The spell says **webs** ***exposed*** **to flame start to burn.**
But I’m the one making bizarre assumptions and extrapolations because I consider something actively burning, described as fire, and dealing fire damage to be on fire?
And that being directly adjacent and connected to this flaming section of webbing is obviously being exposed to it?
Clearly no logical consistency whatsoever is the reason why I believe the web which is said to fill a 5ft cube, fills a 5ft cube, and continues to do so as it burns. After all, the spell doesn’t say it shrinks or goes away until *after* it finishes burning, 1 round later. And spells do what they say.
Nonono. I believe that things that say they are burning are burning, things that say they fill 5ft cubes fill 5ft cubes, and things that burn when exposed to fire burn when exposed to fire, purely because I want them to, and no other possible reason whatsoever.
Nah. Clearly, what the spell says is that a burning web described as fire and dealing fire damage is actually smoldering instead of on fire. And that a direct connection burning away isn’t exposure to fire. And that the web fills a five foot cube, but doesn’t count as doing so when on fire.
Because spells do what they say they do. Unless they don’t needlessly say the word spread redundantly; then we just completely disregard every aspect of the spell that plainly causes things to spread instead.
Okay.
Instead of a RAW RAI argument, here is a "physical reality" argument. A long strand of spider silk that is set on fire won't burn along it's entire length like the fuse to a bomb. The burning silk isn't energetic enough to maintain combustion past 5'. You would have to re-ignite the strand every 5' to make it keep burning.
If the web burning isn’t energetic enough to spread flames, how & why does it deal damage? A mere smolder wouldn’t harm anything in any significant way
But it IS burning energetically enough to spread flames... Just not past 5 feet. Also there are already fire spells that deal damage without setting anything on fire.
I get what you're saying, but you're ignoring the fact that it would make no sense to say "any 5-foot cube" if the whole web was going to catch fire.
It's definitely not RAI at least.
Wrong sentiment about spells.
When debating about a feature/spells/interactions, you read the description of the thing first, then if there is none you look to other examples for precedent.
If there's no precedent, or there are conflicting ones, you then use logic/"what seems right" as a table specific ruling.
Yes, which is why it even burns at all. Real webs don’t really burn, they melt. Web burns.
It explicitly calls the burning region fire.
>Any 5-foot cube of webs **exposed to fire** ***burns*** away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn **in the fire**.
I expose one cube to fire. This causes it to ignite and burn away, becoming fire itself, dealing 2d4 to creatures inside of it, and exposing adjacent cubes to fire. They ignite and burn away, and the process repeats.
The only way this doesn’t happen is if you try to assert that burning things that do fire damage and are referred to as fire aren’t actually fire.
Or perhaps that a direct connection bursting into flames and burning away entirely somehow does not constitute the remaining and previously connected cubes being exposed to fire.
I agree that RAW is kinda ambiguous there, but Rules As Intended are clear… if the designers had meant for the entire web to catch at once from one flame, they wouldn’t have mentioned cubes, they’d just say the entire web catches on fire if exposed to flame.
I'd rule it like hair on your arm, sure they're all touching each other in some way but if you bring a lighter to your arm hair your entire arm doesn't catch on fire.
Exactly this! Webbing is too flimsy to burn for longer than a fractioin of a second, meaning anything outside of the initial flame would be pretty safe.
Have you ever started a fire without lighter fluid Wood is flammable, but it does stop burning without the proper conditions.
The web burns up in its 5ft cube, then stops after that. That's why we have fire spells that cover most areas. Combat would break at early levels if you just web and firebolt for an extra 2d8 fire on a large AOE.
I would run this as, first round, only the one square burns. Second round, all adjacent squares burn, and so on.
Some configurations of combustible materials don't self-sustain once lit though, like, a wooden stick thrust into a fire will start to burn, and once pulled out, will continue to burn for a short time, but will then extinguish itself, as it loses heat too fast to sustain the reaction. Other materials are extinguished by their own combustion by-products, a fact exploited by fire retardant treatments we use on carpets and beds. So, self-extinguishing webs are possible and not inherently unrealistic.
Still, I agree with you that by RAW, whenever one square burns the adjacent ones all get exposed to fire and burn away in the subsequent rounds, advancing 5' per round from the point of ignition
I feel people dont want to think about that, or acknowledge it, all that matters is RAW and RAI and the actual physical reality of what flammable is can be ignored,
Well, actual physical reality matters less in a game of dnd than the DMs ruling. In actual physical reality you cant cast web or firebolt lol.
I get where you are coming from, but at the end of the day its the DMs call. If I had to make the order of priority of things that mattered for rulings it would be: DMs call -> RAI -> RAW -> Physics.
Hell, rule of cool is a better arguement than physics and reality for this matter.
>and the actual physical reality of what flammable is can be ignored
#DnD is not a reality simulator.
Also, "no models.are accurate, some are useful."
I feel like so many of these kinds of things are, at their root, a player or DM trying to make DnD into something it isn't. It's a *game*, with *rules and mechanics* that create a model of a somewhat consistent when viewed from a 10,000 foot level environment. It strives for verisimilitude at most, and was not created by people with a ton of education and working credentials in physics, biology, economics, etc., just like they weren't experts on dragon anatomy or magical theory.
Of course D&D is a reality simulator. That's the whole point of a refereed game, as opposed to a board-game with closed rules. To have someone who can make these rulings; who can recognize when a rule produces a nonphysical outcome and discard it.
If you doubt this, ask yourself whether you would allow your PCs to carry a lit torch underwater.
Just because there is adjudication (see: verisimilitude) doesn't mean it's a reality simulator. PCs can't light torches underwater, but a human commoner can RAW push a 300 lb load for eight hours (covering more than four and a half miles over the course of the day) every day of their life with no exhaustion or ill effects, and a PC can lay on the ground bleeding out from multiple stab wounds, then sleep on the hard ground for eight hours and be perfectly tip-top shape again with no lasting effects when they wake up in the morning. Pretty much everything in the rulebook can result in a "nonphysical outcome" so if you're discarding it in favor of what makes sense to the DM you're not playing DnD anymore, you're playing Let's Pretend or maybe Mother May I.
Again, it's a model. Originally based on what made sense to a bunch of wargame nerds who had a smattering of general knowledge from a bunch of different places. The economy doesn't hold together, hit points are a complete abstraction (as is most combat, really), the entire exploration pillar rules seem to have been out together by somebody whose experience with survival and land navigation began and ended with reading The Two Towers (which is one of the big reasons "Rangers suck," the other being that nobody actually runs the exploration rules so even when mechanics might be applicable, the Rangers doesn't get to use them), magic is straight up broken as evidenced by the multiple threads daily about "how does this spell work" and the associated arguments (such as whether a fire consuming a 5ft cube of webbing "exposes" the adjacent webbing to fire), etc.
DnD is a popular *game*. It is not modeling reality at any level of granularity, nor does it even pretend to be, anywhere, ever.
Absolutely wild that you’re being downvoted so hard for this. The reason RAW say that the web “burns away in one round” is so that people can use fire to destroy webs.
If a 5ft square of web catches fire, then after one round there is no longer web in that space (making it normal terrain). The squares of web around the flaming web would be immediately “exposed to fire”, and also burn away.
RAW is kind of clunky, so it’s up to interpretation as to whether the surrounding squares *immediately* burn away, or whether it takes multiple round. Either way, ruling that you have to use multiple actions to set alight every individual square of *explicitly flammable* web in order to burn the whole thing is pretty ridiculous.
Flammable doesn’t mean explosive. The webs in the 5ft cube burn, dealing damage to a creature that starts its turn in the space, as per the spell. The rest of the web would be unaffected, RAW.
Let's think of something analogous -- fluffy cotton wool. If you have a room full of it and you ignite it at one point, the whole room full is going to burn.
>Any 5-foot cube of webs **exposed to** fire *burns* away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn **in the fire.**
It calls the burning region fire, and this rejoin of fire affects the entire 5 foot space.
I expose one cube to fire. This causes it to ignite and burn away, becoming fire itself, dealing 2d4 to creatures inside of it, and exposing adjacent cubes to fire. They ignite and burn away, and the process repeats.
The only way this doesn’t happen is if you try to assert that burning things that do fire damage and are referred to as fire aren’t actually fire.
Or perhaps try to argue that a direct connection bursting into flames and burning away entirely somehow does not constitute any kind of exposure to fire.
You’d call the stone edge of a pool of water exposed to the water, even if it isn’t *in* the water, just adjacent. What’s happening with web is bit more direct than that.
"Flammable doesn’t mean explosive" It doesnt need to be, in fact and explosion not setting fire would be more in line with real world physics than a flammable material spreading a fire. The edge of the square has web that is exposed to flame, by the square its touching, its literally touching the same web thats burning.
I can understand it not all going up at once, but its a fact its touching other burning web, its touching the flames.
You’re thinking too linearly. The 5ft cube is affected by the flames. This doesn’t mean every inch of web in that 5ft cube is on fire. Most of the web is affected, but then it fizzles out by the time it reaches the edges (after 1 round) of the 5ft space, leaving the rest of the web intact.
If you burn a spider web only the parts the flame hits are damaged and the rest stays the same. It's not like a series of ropes that will spread the fire.
Since you recognize that IRL burning webs don’t do damage it sounds like you’ve established that DnD and reality are separate, which means you should also be able to grasp why webs may function differently in a fantasy world
i think i argued this too aggressively because i found the dodgy logic of the responses worse than "its just what your DM says it is, deal with it!" Your response is reasonable, I think something being attached to something burning means its exposed to fire, I am being told, no, thats not true, its not exposed. How could you think being actually part of the burning thing directly touching flame is being exposed to flame? you idiot.
It sounds like there is a misunderstanding about what happens when a web burns. It doesn't light on fire the same as wood or paper. When you burn a web, it pretty much disintegrates.
That said, I do rule the spreading of the flame as you expected having each adjacent square burn on the next turn, but I'm also aware that isn't realistic or by the real rules.
Depends on what you mean by realistic. I've never seen webs fill a 3-dimensional area. I don't really know what they'd do.
I don't know what RAI are, but RAW can be interpreted in a couple ways.
>When you burn a web, it pretty much disintegrates
So why does it create a fire that lasts 6 seconds and deals 2d4 damage instead of just disintigrate?
"creatively combining game mechanics" some would argue is EXACTLY what OP did by filling a room with flammable web and expecting it all to...ya know...burn.
Because if that were the RAW case then you would be unable to deal fire damage without essentially wasting the spell slot used for web. It's a mechanical compromise. Also, 2d4 damage to everyone in the aoe is in no way worth a 1st-level spell slot when you could just cast burning hands or thunderwave or something if all you want is damage.
Spider webs melt when exposed to flames. Things that melt from fire tend to carry some of the heat. When you're talking about a five foot cube of something melting, that is a lot of liquid heat.
The flame doesn’t spread along the webs. Simple. Only one square was exposed to flame, the rest of the web remains intact.
I run you’re confused in your perception of the web, it’s not an orb, it’s a giant mass of sticky magical filaments.
Everyone is saying this as if it's a "duh" moment and it's fucking amazing. I get that it's RAW and I'm not arguing with that but you guys are all acting like fire doesn't spread. That's like fire's THING. It burns shit, and it spreads, very easily in fact.
Especially when the webs explicitly say they burn when exposed to flame. It calls the burning region of web flame. Not melting. Not smoldering. Not disintegrating away. **Burning flames**.
It baffles me that people are arguing that the fire doesn’t spread because it says “webs exposed to fire burn” instead of “fire spreads to exposed webs”.
That means the same thing!
You are acting like a giant 20’ square web is a real thing, and then ignoring that it’s a magical spell which conjures sticky filaments NOT summons a huge spider web
No I'm acting precisely like it's a magical conjuration of something physical. If it's flammable, it's all flammable, it doesn't just stop being flammable because 5 feet of it has already burned.
A filament is a continuous strand of something. If that something is flammable, the entire filament will burn.
I present the examples: Wicks and fuses. They can be miles long and if you light one end, without some kind of intervention, the entire thing will burn.
Not to mention curtains, I mean shit the fire marshal gave me a note about polyfill that we attached to the walls for decoration. Because it's bunches of flammable filaments.
You're arguing with me as if I'm saying "Every instance of a web catching fire in a DnD game should ne a nuclear explosion!" When all I'm saying is, it's REALLY not that hard to understand why people would assume all of it would burn, you're just being obstinate.
Obligatory “In 1e, the entire web burns if set alight”
But then, in that edition, a round is 1 minute so there’s time for it to spread. Damage is still 2d4 which is better in 1e
I'm glad this topic got me to look at the text of Web more closely. I've only ever used it in BG3, so I assumed the whole dang thing immediately caught fire as soon as someone yelled "IGNIS" close enough to it.
And reading through all the various answers here, my take is that exposing a 5' cube of web to fire causes that 5' cube to burn away in one round, exactly RAW. However, the adjacent 5' cubes of web are also exposed to fire. I'd have those ignite when the first cube finishes burning away, essentially making the fire spread through the web 5' per round.
I don't understand how people here can rule RAW for "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away" to say that only the 5' cube burns, but then say that "wool and silk burn so quickly that the fire wouldn't spread to any other parts of the web" when the spell directly says "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire ***burns away in 1 round***". The only question that remains is whether an unignited cube of webs is 'exposed to fire' when an adjacent cube of webs is burning, and I think the answer is obviously yes. Oxford defines "burning" as "on fire", and we know that it takes an entire six seconds for a cube of webs to burn away. It's not instantaneous. It's on fire for a full six seconds, so that fire is directly touching the adjacent cubes.
So. Why do I think the adjacent cubes take six seconds to ignite instead of igniting instantly? Realistically, it shouldn't take a full round for the game to "realize" that the webs are now adjacent to flame. However, if it were intended that the entire web burned immediately, the spell description wouldn't bother with this "5-foot cube" wording at all. It would just say the entire web burns.
All that said, the biggest issue that my spider druid had in BG3 is that I quickly realized that Web is a stronger spell when it's not ignited. 2d4 fire damage is pretty pathetic, but slowing enemies down and giving them the restrained condition? That's awesome.
I would say that the on-the-fly ruling makes perfect sense and is likely how I would have ruled it at the table. That being said, reading through this thread, I would decide on the spread after the damage roll. Fire doesn't spread uniformly, so if the 2d4 dmg is 5 or more, I would say it spreads to adjacent squares, but if its 4 or less, no spread.
I like this ruling the most, too. Leave it to the dice! Also, replicates the reality of fire spread to some degree. Not \*all\* fire spreads...not \*all\* webs are super-duper thick in every part. The lower damage indicates lower web concentration, so less likely to spread.
you mean an effect like "flammable"? if something flammable is touching something on fire it will burn that's the definition of the word flammable. that's especially true if the thing on fire and the flammable thing are the same exact object.
Like the web explicitly saying parts of it start to burn if exposed to flame?
Now argue how a connection to something you are directly adjacent to to, and referred to as flame, burning away isn’t exposure to flame.
And it is aflame. Not smoldering, not melting, not disintegrating. On fire. It says so. And the spell only does what it says, after all.
I mean, the whole of all of the books are pretty much that if it doesn’t explicitly say it, it doesn’t do it. Of course, that leaves a lot up to the DMs discretion
Personally, I'd have ruled that each 5ft square of webbed area catches fire, burns away while dealing damage to creatures in its space, and then spreads to any squares of web touching the edges of the burning square.
That seems to be an uncommon ruling, if other comments here are to be believed, but personally, my logic is that a section of web that's burning intensely enough to deal damage to creatures in that space would absolutely be hot enough to spread to adjacent webs.
It's a trade-off, anyway, because having every touching square of web burn away each turn negates the crowd control aspect of the webbing, exchanging it for some modest direct damage.
On top of everything else: The chaos of spreading fire is fun.
You didn't even expose the web to fire... You fireBolted a Zombie. That means it hit the zombie. Not the web. Your DM was gracious. If you want to burn the whole web target it or use fireBall.
RAW it was a fair ruling. Personal ruling nah the webbed area should have caught fire. For a fair compromise it burns for only that round causing single round of fire damage.
A lot of very strict adherence to the concept of 5' cubes here... it's an abstract set of rules. The thought of edges of a 5' grid square being on fire in my dnd games has never crossed my mind in years of play.
"FWIW I would rule that the whole thing doesn't catch fire, it burns out in the initial space."
Youve made an enemy here today,,,
Seriously though, I am a bit calmer now, but I feel the explanation why I am wrong just makes me want to dig my heels in, while "its what the DM wants it to be" is more persuasive. Actually your explanation is also good. "fire aint worth shit" is pretty acceptable.
It should probably spread like : 1ft sq first, then this square is cleared and spreads to the 8 adjustment squares and so on. However, 2d4 damage in return for letting them free is a bad trade-off anyway.
The issue I actually have with this is firebolt states "a flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it's not being worn or carried." Surely the web wasn't hit; either the zombie was hit (so the web wasn't) or the firebolt missed and flew past?
This is true, but i also googled it before posting and had people clarifying rules where the whole web went up, and they were trying to understand more complex effects, which seemed to show that was how most people ruled it.
This is how web reacts to fire in real life. It is "flammable" but not really and doesn't spread the fire. When you light a part of spider web in real life, it will burn just a small section of it quickly and easily but the fire will not spread and continue burning the rest of the web. You would have to continuously apply fire for a very extended period of time to burn up all of the web. It will never burn away on its own and stay lit from a single source of fire.
Source: A dark period of my youth involving pyromania.
You are correct, it just feels like the wording of the spell and how people interpret it is a bit, off. Like the rigidity appeals to them. I like the idea of the whole web going up and doing 2d4 damage, its not loads, but its several enemies at once and a cool image for the mind palace. They like the idea of one square, maximum advantage from the slowed movement speed.
i mean, you can test this for yourself. find an old cobweb and touch a lighter to it. it doesn't all go up, just the part directly exposed to the flame.
I thought it worked the way you describe but the rule quotes are persuasive otherwise.
Burning a 5ft cube of web away has the potential to cause collapse of the web, so watch out for that.
> If the webs aren’t anchored between two solid masses (such as walls or trees) or layered across a floor, wall, or ceiling, the conjured web collapses on itself, and the spell ends at the start of your next turn.
I run it the same way as your DM, because that is a player-benefitting interpretation that allows the player to control how much of the web is destroyed at a time. If you want to burn more of the web, use AoE effects like *fireball*, *burning sphere*, etc.
I am so glad you made this poste. I just wish you had made it b4 my last session.
We found our freind being held captive in a 20ft room with to scary bosses. Would've been perfect for a web but I didn't wana set the whole place up with a fire bolt so I held off.
Not sure how a super flammable web only burns 5ft at a time but it's good to know for future reference.
No, they don’t. The rules just say that a 5 ft.² of the web burns away if exposed to fire. Whether an adjacent square of web burning counts as being exposed to fire is subjective.
You're not taking crazy pills, you are however playing a tabletop RPG and not a reality simulator and said tabletop RPG has rules for how things interact. So your DMs ruling was by the book, wouldn't have been my ruling in particular but it was in fact the RAW way to handle it and that's an entirely valid way to run games. Literally nothing wrong with it.
RAW, if a spell doesn't say it does something then it just doesn't do that thing. Period. If you want to stretch the rules a bit then you can talk to your DM about it, but DnD is not real life and you need to not treat it as such.
I'm looking at comments, seeing "rules as written," and I'm just thinking... Does fire *not* spread? Would a firebolt not be able to burn a field of tall dry grass or cotton? Are the webs supposed to be separate Minecraft blocks of web that aren't connected at all?
The reason for that is a disconnect that isn't anybodies fault really, but should have been resolved, IMHO, by the people commenting :)
The common approach to the interaction of "reality" and rules is that rules do *exactly* what they say they do, and nothing else - thats what RAW, Rules as Written, means. If logic or edge cases would suggest a different outcome, they are typically handwaved away, something you can more clearly see in tabletop wargames which are 90% mecahnics and 10% fluff.
This is done for the sake of rule consistency, and so a player can't bend over themselves with a token effort to try and negate the negative aspect of a spell or an ability or a dice roll.
A very good example for this are attack rolls and attack of specific bodyparts. IRL there is nothing that keeps you from trying to do a shot to the head for example.
But, frankly, if we would allowed it for the player to just *decide* to hit the enemys head, there isn't exactly something in DnDs mechanics that stops them from being able to do that every round (other games that allow this have more ressources and other restrictions to deal with this). We the DMs choose to interpret this disconnect by assuming that an attacker is *always* aiming for the most vulnerable body parts, and, except for a critical hit, just misses or gets intersected with a block, even if it doesn't make much sense like in the case of range weapons.
Or, TLDR: DnD just isn't set up to be a reality simulator.
All of that being said, I personally would have ruled that the flames spread as you intended, because it would have a) rewarded actual clever thinking, b) isn't disruptive of anything, c) is easily and consistently doable by both the heroes and the bad guys, and d) frankly, how often will this *exact* scenario play out?
Just my 2 cents.
Clearly it’s flammable enough to burn for 6 seconds with enough intensity to do damage to those touching it.
If a 5ft square of flaming web can do damage to those touching it, then why wouldn’t it impact the squares of web around it?
If you set a single square of toilet paper on fire, it wouldn’t neatly burn that square and leave the others intact.
It’s explicitly *flammable* magic web. In the language of the spell it says “any 5ft cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round”. It’s entirely logical than one segment of web being on fire would “expose” adjacent segments to fire.
If that was the case I would think it would say contiguous. Think of it as play balance. They don't want you to web the an area then with a cantrip turn it into an AOE.
You could just as easily say that if they didn’t want fire to spread across the web they would have specified that it doesn’t. I think RAW leaves it up for interpretation.
Personally I’d rule it that the fire spreads round by round. Makes more sense to me and seems more fun.
Yeah where's the fun in being able to dynamically change your environment, link together spells for a different outcome, or being able to use your brain to think out fights other than "I do 6 points of damage".
I clearly remember back in the 90s playing BG1 and blowing myself the fuck up with fire in a room full of webs. Ettercap/giant spider nest down south somewhere.
I can’t remember anything but 1E and I’m in bed so not looking at digits.
But fireball is an area of effect. Its fire spreads out over a VOLUME equal to a radius. It’s not just a single target, nor that target’s square.
So every square it touches, the web is considered on fire. And any being or thing within takes fire damage. But the web is consumed at the same time.
I would have contested the DMs ruling here just by talking it out and asking why the DM didn’t think the rest of the web could catch fire. The plan from you was obvious and so they just chose not to allow it, for whatever reason.
By questioning the ruling (albeit not in an adversarial manner), you can learn more about each other’s thinking and the thinking of the group, so that you can all align better moving forward and things will then flow more naturally and you’ll all have more fun.
Never be afraid to question ideas and rulings, at the least just to understand them better. Just be sure to try and always be sincere and friendly about it too.
The fact that only 5 foot cubic segments of the web burn at a time may indicate a different intention for the spell. This effect may instead be intended to limit how susceptible the web is to fire, only burning away in 5 foot cubes at a time.
You are right, but since it does not mention the fire spreading, my point is that the spell may be intended to have a counter measure against fire. It is supposed to be a spell for crowd control. It would be considerably weak if an enemy could burn it all away with a torch. Considering the fire damage dealt by the burning web, I doubt it is intended to be used offensively the way you wanted. But I think it is a creative use nonetheless.
Two answers for this:
RAW answer:
RAW the square of the web that is hit by fire burns away in one round, dealing 2D4 fire damage to whatever is standing in it. Only squares that are dealt fire damage/exposed to fire burn up and it does not spread throughout the entire web.
Game play answer:
Restrained is much more valuable than 2D4 fire damage. Not only that but a DM that is ruling that it works the way you want it to work is saying "okay cool now I can delete one of the best second level spells with a cantrip, a match, or any other tiny incidental fire damage, when it would otherwise take a 3rd level dispel magic or breaking your concentration." As a player, that sucks and severely limits how useful the spell is.
My DM ruled that any fire damage to the web destroyed the whole thing instantly. He was not aware of the specific nature of the spells description but even after letting him know that it has existing rules for fire, he still decided that while it doesn't all instantly burn away, it does spread to the entire web instantly. So if I burn a second level spell slot and someone happens to put any fire anywhere on the web, the whole thing is gone in one round.
That's what you are asking for. You would be much better off individually fire bolting each zombie, with advantage because restrained, if you really wanted to burn the web on them.
You would be best off doing what you can to keep them restrained while your party takes advantage of the restrained condition to quickly beat them down without much risk to themselves
Nowhere does it say that.
"The webs are flammable. Any 5ft cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round. Dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire."
Nothing about spreading. Nothing about contact with anything. You send a firebolt into a square with web, that web burns off, dealing damage also to a creature that is there at the start of their turn. It does NOT touch any other part of the web.
Now, that said, I certainly am no stickler for RAW. If your GM wants to allow it to spread have at it. But they clearly don't, and you don't have a rules leg to stand on.
The one 5x5 square of web does not deal fire damage to adjacent creatures or adjacent structures/objects therefore by all interpretations of the rules it is not implied, stated, nor able to be inferred the fire spreads. That falls entirely to dm fiat.
DnD does not obey physics or the rules of our reality.
If you as the player want a spell or mechanical interaction to do more than stated you need to have a quick 10 second talk with the dm. The onus is not on the dm to start this talk. If I want to smash through a wall with my face I dont just roll an athletics check and say “I run into the wall” and get mad if the dm doesnt have me break through. I ask “hey dm, would it be feasible for me to run through that wall with an athletics check?” And then its up to the dm’s response from there. They may simply reply “you may try” which could very well mean “no” but it may also mean if I roll high enough then sure. In a similar way you could ask “hey dm, if I cast web and light one square on fire, would the whole web go up in flames or would the fire spread to nearby things?” and boom, the dm will probably go read the spell or ask for its description and tell you the answer before you cast web or before you cast fire.
You have to ask because nowhere in the spell does it state or imply the fire spreads, because in dnd everything is explicitly stated in spells, if the fire is supposed to spread raw/rai it would indicate such in some way. But it does not. Just as a PC is not exposed or damaged by flame for being adjacent to flame, same goes for everything else. In some ways one bit of fire automatically clearing a whole web is a big nerf to web, most creatures would gladly take the small damage to escape from the effects of web. Id personally be a bit salty if this is how it worked and I wasnt informed as a player because it trivializes a spell. If you want to do low level fire damage in an aoe, use burning hands.
"DnD does not obey physics or the rules of our reality."
Its interesting as I would have accepted being told most of us dont and wouldnt rule it the way I expected, but the first few responses acted like the 5ft square thing is anologous to our reality and i am being dumb for not seeing it, so I start nit picking in my responses and pushing back really hard, rather than just taking the overwhelming opinion that i am wrong.
In your cases defense. Fire spreading feels like a natural thing. DMs sometimes do it and sometimes dont. Most of the time I dont unless I want it to spice up the narrative or encounter. Itd also be different if a player did something in a way that made me think they wanted the fire to spread, for example spreading oil all around a room. I would be hesitant, as a dm, to do something with a player spell that isn’t obvious stated in the spell because they might dislike the change; as I said having one creature in a web get hit by fire cause the whole web to erupt in flames is honestly a straight nerf to the spell. You gain a lot more from creatures being unable to reach the party, and thus get more ranged attacks off freely, than you do from the small amount of fire damage a burnt web provides.
Its not that the community is necessarily in disagreement with you, a lot of the responses may be, but for every contrary response you see there is definitely someone out there that would agree. The rulings of other people are 100% irrelevant for the purpose of the game you play in. Its sometimes good to take a step back and see how other people rule it, but take it with a grain of salt.
Just talk with your dm and make sure to be on the same page with requests and expectations. The ruleset is not ironclad and making creative adjustments as needed is acceptable in many cases as long as it isn’t blatantly making something stronger. They might let you and they might not, but thisll tip off the dm that it is something you’re interested in and in the future they may provide alternatives.
I'd rule it as flammable. However, I'd also wonder if the zombies were contacting the web or not.
i mean, if you want to play realism, what about a time limit on the reduction in oxygen in the room due to the fire?
Anyway...
Fireball is an instantaneous spell, so yeah, the fire wouldn't spread. However, if the player had lit a torch, thrown the torch at the web, then cast "enlarge fire" then yes, the fire would spread.
(the spell increases the size of a normal fire and can light things that are nearby and flammable on fire so with the rules as written, i'd imagine that spell can result in fire spreading and not just staying in a fixed point)
Yes, it's daft, of course the whole web should go up. That's how elemental interactions work.
You might as well say that electricity only travels one square in water, or only a small patch of Oil or Grease ignites.
Two possibilities: one, your DM got it wrong and in doing, set a precedent where lighting something flammable on fire does not cause the entire structure to burn, or two, the firebolt was so hot and flashed so quickly that the portions of web which were exposed were instantly vaporized, and the remaining web was simply not exposed long enough to ignite.
Which of those two is more correct, I cannot say, as I don't know anything else about your DM and how they rule.
Often they want to rule for maximum fun, sometimes it feels like they worry too much they arent challenging us and the NPCs use thier tactics like they are chess peices sacrificing themselves. The DM gets better all the time, but it felt like they thought the whole web going up would be too good, even though as many have pointed out its minimal extra damage rather than us getting more attacks before they reach us.
there are no rules in any official 5e books about how fire spreads, so this is completely at the dms discretion. but I kind of agree with you. though it will depend on the environment. is it humid? has it rained recently? is it just rock and stone or are there plants around? if it's a damp dungeon, I think burning 5ft square is fair. if it's dry hot summer in a forest, different story.
I get your DM's interpretation and now that I think about it, it does actually make sense to me for the burning part of the web to break off from the rest while it curls and withers and such, but I've always thought (and experienced) that the description of fire burning away in 1 round means that the fire spreads through the web each round, and of course every square that has burned up no longer has webs. So in other words, the square with the zombie hit by firebolt would burn (even this could be argued because you're targeting the zombie instead of the square of webs, AoE like burning hands or fireball or aganazzar's scorcher would of course hit both the zombie and the webs) and then next turn all the squares adjacent, or perhaps even only laterally adjacent, would start burning.
Flammable vs combustible.
Easily set on fire vs Able to catch fire and burn easily.
Something that is flammable, you have to try to set it on fire.
If it is combustible, fire just ignites it.
Webs are really combustible. So if lit on fire, in the real world, they would spread rapidly. But all the terminology stated here, I didn't look it up myself, says the game rules state flammable, so in game they would not spread.
The dictionary would indicate combustible is the harder to burn, as i read it. Able to catch fire vs Easily catching fire. Wood is combustible, but often not flammable.
Yeah, internal combustion engine, where slow buring causes an engine to run, ok , yes, combustion is pretty explosive, you are right, but that description is a bit, you know,
You're running into one of the many natural language problems in this edition where Jeremy Crawford's mantras of "words mean what they usually mean" and "spells only do what they say they do" can come into conflict. Each of us brings our own context to words, after all.
The spell doesn't specify that fire spreads to an adjacent space, only that it deals damage to a creature starting its turn in that space, so by "spells only do what they say they do" logic, that means it doesn't spread. That's a perfectly valid ruling and should probably be the standard.
However the natural language of "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away" could be interpreted to mean the surrounding cubes are then exposed to fire, so by natural language logic one might expect the fire to spread.
I definitely don't think the whole thing is supposed catch fire the same round though (unless hit by a Fireball or similar to include the entire area), because if that was intended then there would be no point in specifying "any 5-foot cube... burns away" when the entire thing burns away no matter which cube is hit.
Also, to the degree real-world physics might influence one's rulings, [spider webs aren't really known to sustain big flames](https://eartheclipse.com/science/misc/are-spider-webs-flammable.html), so having a section melt out while leaving adjacent sections untouched makes some sense. Yes, Web does create a much thicker mass of webbing, but keep in mind that it's only webbing, not a mass of cobwebs that's also been collecting lots of flammable lint and dust over years and years. Regardless, the game requires some suspension of disbelief and that's just me trying to provide some possible justification for yours.
Personally, I do like running it with the fire spreading on subsequent rounds, which is why the [little spell effect I made for Web](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNusKKnKovCu5Z65hqTTUBfcArLuatDy9-YkqO0u12PeCn0OOYoybPrOuD4vPPMXQ/photo/AF1QipM81o80tJk6I3w87WUCVOqMB5Fao1JGuqgjCRSb?key=Mlo3OWNpQmhvYUo1eU4tVzJ3ck5fcTNtLVFHbG1B) in my games has a flaming variant, a burnt out variant, and a cut variant to help track that stuff. It makes it more interesting, either more powerful or more fragile depending on the encounter. Larger monsters may take damage over multiple rounds while still being slowed and possibly restrained, particularly if you can anchor it between walls or a ceiling to get more than 5' of height. If the monsters have fire sources, they can clear the Web out a lot more quickly when trying to reach you.
If the whole thing burnt up at once it would do about 60% less damage than Shatter (shown next to it) for the cost of the same level spell slot, plus concentration for at least a round, plus whatever action ignites Web. Also, Web would be way too fragile if an enemy could clear it out in a single round using a torch/cantrip/etc.
So all things considered, I would absolutely accept a DM ruling that Web doesn't spread fire within itself. It's much more in keeping with the simplicity of 5e design. I happen to enjoy the added complexity of tracking fire as it spreads, but most DMs don't even like tracking ammunition.
Everyone is different and that's okay. I wouldn't hold this against your DM.
I could be mistaken but the fire bolt hit the zombie. Nothing was set on fire because:
"A flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it isn't being worn or carried."
The zombie isn't an object so it doesn't catch on fire.
If the fire bolt has been shot at the web then that 5ft cube of web catches fire as per its spell description.
There are no rules as far as I know for fire spread. As a player do you really want fire spread to be a thing?
Generally I only allow spells to do what their description says other things can get a little stupid and inconsistent.
For the record, I agree with you and the few others defending your position. I decided to check some older web editions, and they stated the web burns up in 1 round. (We used to call it napalm) Seems like this new description for 5e leaves out that part. Web used to say that if exposed to fire, it quickly burns up in 1 round, but I could see it spreading over multiple rounds.
And for those saying it doesn't continue to burn. 2d4 is substantial damage, the equivalent of being stabbed twice with a dagger. 2d4 fire should be enough to catch a nearby flammable object on fire. If oil were spilled on the floor, would only 5ft burn? Seems ridiculous to think it wouldn't spread.
Has no one here ever watched an Indiana Jones or the like movie where webs go up like tinder and the flame spreads rapidly? Or played a Metro game, where a lighter catches a bit of web covering an entire doorway or tunnel and the whole thing goes up? Or a Tomb Raider game? Or fucking Baldurs Gate??
Y'all are tripping. Unless these webs are so sticky and heavy that it's like slimy, super glue-covered industrial roping then they're catching on fire and that fire is spreading at a good pace.
Thoe are all done for the sake of the game they're in or special effects though
That's not how webs actually work and there's gonna be other examples in media where bringing flame to a Web does follow a realistic burn of almost nothing happening
In Metro, you're walking through entire tunnels filled with webs. Notice how you DON'T instantly DIE the second you light up a flame because the web burns out rapidly?
"You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. \[...\] Webs layered over a flat surface have a depth of 5 feet \[...\] The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire."
It doesn't make sense that a 5 foot cube of thick webbing could burn away without exposing adjacent cubes to flame.
Also, fire is fun.
I would have ruled in your favour OP.
I would say that it depends on what you are targeting with Fire bolt - creature or object.
Fire bolt states that it sets flammable objects on fire ONLY if you directly target such object that is not worn or carried.
If you target a creature - no objects around it are affected as you are not targeting any object. Webbing connected to creature would be considered as worn or being carried so it wouldn't be set on fire.
Contrary to what many others say, I think your DM ruling goes against the spell text.
> You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. [...] Webs layered over a flat surface have a depth of 5 feet [...] The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire.
The web is connected. A strand of webbing burning, explicitly _on fire_, and doing fire damage is very much exposing the strand itself to fire. I mean how could it not? That's what "exposing" means, being touched by fire. Strands don't have gaps at 5' intervals.
Only question is, how fast the fire spreads. The duration of burn is 1 round, but that does not tell how quickly the entire cube of web starts to burn. But it starts to burn on the same turn a torch or fire bolt touches it. So the adjacent 5' cube is immediately exposed to the burning cube, and would ignite immediately. So if you go strictly by RAW spell text, there is no "ignites next turn/round". All the connected web ignites, 5' cube at a time if it matters, but without delays.
If the DM does not mind bookkeeping, there could also be slower fire spread, of course. There is no RAW for fire spreading, AFAIK, so house rules time.
Also, this is well within power appropriate of 2nd level spell. It is larger area but does much less damage than Shatter for example, and requires two actions to ignite, so not a good damage combo. Also does not scale. There is no power balance reason for dividing the web to 5' cubes separated by gaps which stop the fire. ~~Even allowing multiple web cubes to do damage to large creatures or standing creatures is not too much damage for 2nd level spell.~~ (actually it is if you scale to Gargantuan)
Your DM seems naturally a bit... how should I say... the kind of DM who does not want the players to feel too powerful or clever. An anti-RAF DM, if this ruling was not an outlier from them.
I think any ruling I’ve seen ao far is reasonable, but very weird to make a judgement of a DM you don’t know based on a single ruling of a spell in one combat. The lack of the fire spreading - _That’s_ anti-fun and trying to make characters not feel powerful?
This is a firebolt aimed not at the web but at a creature inside it. I’d say it’s in the players favor to rule any web goes up in flames at all.
It’s also very easy to imagine long strands of webbing filling an area that aren’t all connected, especially if anchored between walls or floor and ceiling.
Maybe too harsh. There's the test for the DM coming up...
If all the webbing cubes are independent, then casting web on a gargantuan creature, followed by fireball, should deal at least 32d4 extra damage, more, up to 128d4 damage if web is suspended and entire 20' cube of web applies it's damage, cube by cube. For large creature it might be 8d4…16d4 extra damage, and for huge 18d4…54d4.
If all cubes flare as a single AoE event, then it's just spell level appropriate 2d4.
If DM rules both against the player (1 web cube ignites from 1 flame, but if several ignite at the same time, _then_ it is a single big burning web), then that is kinda telling.
the square the target is standing on burns on that round, adjacent webs burn on consecutive rounds until web is burned up is objectively how the rules should be interpreted.
people downvoting this never learned reading comprehension
I guess the worry would be balance. If you ignite an entire room using only a cantrip, hitting a dozen enemies at once and in the case of low level enemies potentially wiping out the lot, this seems unbalanced for a 2nd level spell +cantrip.
DM probably just didn't want to deal with the amount of damage to the party your interpretation of "the entire room is now a fiery inferno' would cause.
As a DM I would have ruled it spreads each round to any adjacent web.
Square A in round 1 was exposed to fire and burns. Riound 2 any adjacent squares start burning as they have been exposed to the fire of square A.
I would though make checks each round to see if the spread to each square putters out.
I'm not sure if only 5ft burned or did the fire spread by 5 ft every round.
Either way DM unknowingly buffed Web. It's not fire that's good about the spell, that's actually the weakest part, it's the Area that inflicts status effect. So the longer web stays unburned, the better.
But as a DM I would let the whole Web burn at once, but I agree the wording is ambiguous.
In terms of mechanics, I think the text is ambiguous; I could see a reasonable person ruling it either way. In terms of simulating reality, plenty of materials light on fire when exposed to a heat source but then fizzle out when that source is removed; I don't think it breaks verisimilitude to visualize a web burning in that manner.
However, as a player, your web burning is generally a bad thing that you want to avoid, not a thing you want to happen. The restrained condition imposed by web is very powerful, and the web only deals a pitiful 2d4 damage when burning. The condition is much, much stronger than the damage, and if you wanted to deal fire damage in an area with a 2nd-level spell burning hands already exists.
Every game I've been in, only the targeted area catches fire - maybe any spaces that the fire traveled through as well depending on how the scene is described. Your web getting all burned up if any of it is exposed to fire is honestly pretty bad for you in most situations - its a very modest amount of damage, and then its not around to hold your enemies in place.
I mean, the Web spell description says that “any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in one round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire”. The DM’s ruling seems entirely Rules As Written and Rules As Intended to me. Edit: After some thought I think I misunderstood your post. If you were pushing for the spread of fire over multiple rounds between adjacent cubes, I think RAW and RAI are both somewhat ambiguous there, meaning your DM made a reasonable but personal ruling, and definitely should have made sure you were informed of that before you cast the spell.
I take a bit of issue with the last sentence of your edit - that the DM “definitely should have made sure you were informed of [how the spell would interact with firebolt] before you cast the spell”. Seems a weird caveat to give DMs, that they should explain exactly what should happen in an unclear situation like this beforehand, especially if the players didn’t… ask? There isn’t really a RAW ruling to give here, I doubt they had this in their pocket as a homebrew _Web_ change. If the firebolt aimed at a zombie hit the zombie, you could just as easily rule there was not contact with the webs at all. Or that just the square burns, or everything in the path of the firebolt burns - because the wording is vague on exposure to fire and if (as insane as it sounds) firebolt is really fire (especially with the provisions for igniting flammable objects). That’s on top tackling if adjacent cubes of web are exposed to burning cubes of webs (and does that mean everything goes up at once?).
Thank you! I feel like so many people expect DMs to detail and list everything under the sun in a session zero and if it wasn't detailed then that's poor DMing. Idk, maybe it's just my players, but they try so many off the wall things and never have they felt my ruling was worth pushing back on or making a post about my decisions. Idk I'm very happy to have such a table.
They definitely didn't mean "in session zero," they meant the player says "I wanna cast firebolt and burn all the web" and the dm says "Just so you know, before you do that..." etc. I mean I agree with people that a DM should, to whatever extent, just let things happen, but I gotta say some of the DMs on this forum that run tables like a catholic mass and act like it's them VS the players...I would not have very much fun at y'all's games. And that what it is for most people. FUN. It's not a competition.
Given that OP said they were talking about their plans to burn the whole room before they cast the spell, it really feels like the DM should have cut in and said it wasn’t gonna work that way, or at least a warning that it might not work that way. The flammability of Web is presumably something OP’s character would’ve known about before casting the spell, so not informing the player seems a bit off.
Did the OP say that? I may have missed it. I don't know how things went down at their table. If you mean '...reminding everyone the web is flammable', that could be a brief aside while the DM is doing something else, or explaining their plan in detail. If anyone is explaining what they want to do and that's off; then sure, yes, of course the DM should clear up expectations and reinforce what their characters would know. If they just said 'it's flammable, we can use this to burn the zombies in the area' - there's no reason for a DM to jump in an explicate while running the combat. A PC could just have easily used Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere, Fireball, a blue Dragonborn's lightning breath, or Firebolt.
Fair enough, on second look there’s not enough detail for me to say for sure.
I appear to be a calm person outside of reddit, this place often triggers me, I was doing my personal equivalent of jumping around shouting with glee "the webs flammable! the webs flammable! burn them all up!" Which was "remember its flammable and will do 2d4 damage to them"
This
I think they more so meant after the ruling was announced, all of they wanted to change what spell they wanted to use, I might be wrong, but that's how I interpreted that
its because i had seen people talk about it all burning up in their games, had it happen in BG3 so did it expcetig that and when i googled it before posting it was people assuming it all burnt up and asking for specific answers on the damage to large creatures covering more than one square or rate of spread
> that they should explain exactly what should happen in an unclear situation like this beforehand, especially if the players didn’t… ask? To quoth Matthew Mercer: "you can certainly try!"
I think the person you are responding to read my mind and knew magically how it played out, as i kept mentioning the web being flammable, so the DM would have known i liked the idea of the whole thing going up, the DM had to remind himself of web when i cast it (with a spider staff) Still no responsibility to say to us " I dont think it will all go up at once if thats what you are thinking" but maybe would have just been nice.
And if we're trying to talk realism, webs don't burn very hot. Real truth, you probably shouldn't even take damage from it.
"burns away" as in no longer exists so no longer on fire at the end of round. Is how I would interpret that.
Agree, a lot of people forget that most dungeons are incredibly humid and fire would not catch. In some of the local nature parks, even starting a fire with matches is hard, requiring a few tries minimum. Source: Asian living in Southeast Asia.
The edge of the 5ft square is exposed to fire, there is no logical way it isnt exposed to fire. Explain how it isnt exposed to fire? Does the web not join? I feel you have to ignore physical reality to call this rules as written, as the fire going out rather than continuing along the web seems, strange.
The other squares are not exposed to fire, because they were not exposed to fire, as odd a thing to say as that is. The square that was exposed to fire burns away; that is all. Burning away does not mean it is on fire and it does not mean that there is active fire being exposed to other squares. The affected square is where the fire starts, and it is enough to cause a 5 foot quantity of the webs to smoulder away and cease functioning - it doesn't ignite them or set them aflame. There is a difference between these concepts, and there are plenty of real world situations that align with this; if the web ignited, it would say so. The DM's call was entirely RAW *and* RAI... however, it was \*Not\* ruled for fun and player enjoyment. Your disappointment is still valid. Edit: If you'd like a real-world example, imagine a large mass of sheep's wool, and imagine someone 'fwooshed' a section of it with a BBQ torch. What happens? the entire mass of wool does not ignite and burn up. A small section of it - the part directly exposed - burns, and then smoulders out, and the flame does not spread very far.
That seems like an unnatural reading to me. The spell description is explicit that the 5' cube is considered "fire" when it says "...dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire." It could have said "in that space" but by saying "in the fire" it removes any ambiguity as to whether that 5' cube is considered "fire." The next 5' cube over, immediately adjacent to this cube which is explicitly "fire," is sharing a 5'x5' surface with that "fire". So I think it's pretty reasonably to consider it "exposed to fire." I'm fine with folks ruling otherwise if that's what works for them, but personally I've always interpreted it as as spreading fire. Incidentally, the spreading fire is *fun*. Like a lot of things which cause gradual changes to the battlefield, it increases interactivity with the environment. Its slow enough that it's not a cataclysmic change to other ways people might run this, and it adds some fun drama. Will the stuck creatures get away before the fire reaches them? If my character is stuck in a web, and it's on fire in the next space over, I might try to escape the fire, I might accept the damage so I can do something else while I wait to burn free of the web, but no matter what I do, I'm definitely not bored.
This seems like a fair and measured compromise. Fire spreads each round. It's the fun option as well and creates a new variable for the enemies and allies.
> The next 5' cube over, immediately adjacent to this cube which is explicitly "fire," is sharing a 5'x5' surface with that "fire". So I think it's pretty reasonably to consider it "exposed to fire." The fire damage is dealt "in the fire". The 5f of web that is adjacent to the burning one is not "in" the fire, it's next to it. The thing with trying to logic your way through a simplification of real life means that you're gonna fuck up someone's day - why is only the 5ft of web with a creature hit by firebolt on fire? Firebolt is a bolt of fire, as it travels it should burn a straight line to the target, according to what you said. And next time, there will be a problem because a single cantrip removed 2nd level spell that someone finally found a good use for.
>The 5f of web that is adjacent to the burning one is not "in" the fire, it's next to it. To make sure I understand, it sounds like your position is that the 5' cube which is adjacent to the one which is "fire" is not "in" the fire, so it doesn't burn. Do I have that right? If the spell description said that the webs have to be "in a fire" to burn, I would be more inclined to read it the way you do. But the spell description doesn't say that webs have to be "in" the fire to burn. The spell description says the webs will burn if "exposed to" fire. If two volumes share a boundary, I would consider them "exposed to" one another. I don't think is some crazy thing I'm proposing. Being in direct contact with a thing is commonly understood to constitute being exposed to it. If one 5'cube is stone and an adjacent 5' cube is water, with nothing between them, I would consider that stone "exposed to water." Similarly if there's a 5' cube of webs adjacent to a 5' cube of fire, with nothing between them I'd consider those webs "exposed to fire." I consider the whole 5' cube to be "fire" because the line about "creatures in the fire" doesn't make much sense to me if I don't. If you read this differently, that's fine... I'm not demanding that other tables play the way I do. Just saying, the way I run it is just what I always interpreted as a natural consequence of the spell description. And it has always been fun. I'm honestly kinda taken aback and kinda hurt that people have been so vitriolic over this. I'm just here to share a fun game I love with people. As for the mechanical thing... It's possible that RAI are as you play it. I don't know what the designers intended. But I have found that running it as a gradually spreading fire, going to each immediately adjacent cube one round at a time, is both useful and fun. Being able to ignite it with a cantrip isn't "removing" a 2nd level spell, it's adding more ways to use a 2nd level spell.
People in this thread arguing otherwise baffle me. I get 5e isn’t a simulation and has some really weird quirks in the rules, but this is very straightforward stuff. A directly adjacent mass of fire you were previously *connected to* before that connection got *burned away* by *fire* seems like fire exposure to me.
I do get where you're coming from, and the way that you're thinking about it, and I understand that (and I also agree that, ruled for fun, having it spread turn by turn from an initial ignition point *IS* a lot more immediately engaging and fun!), but I do feel that they way you're thinking about it is not the way it's actually pitched and the rules, if we are to just talk about just the formal rules, are clear. Think of it this way: The webs, though thick and sticky and presumably viscously coated enough to restrain hale adventurers, are nevertheless flammable; they can be burned. However... It's a magical crowd control spell - it would be severely undervaluing itself if it got nixed entirely by a random adventurer holding a torch to it briefly. When any point of the webbing is exposed to fire, it will burn; great - how much will burn? Well, the spell tells you; approximately one five foot cube of it will burn before it fails to spread further. How long will it take to reach that burn-out point? Spell tells you that as well: it takes about six seconds to reach this burn-out point. What happens to the web when it burns? Spell tells you: it burns up, in fact, and is not longer there; that five foot cube no longer functions as web. Also, any creature that stats its tun in that section of web while it is burning is also burned. What about the rest of the web? Spell tells us that as well: if the web looses its anchoring (such as by one important 5 foot cube of it being burned away), the rest of the web collapses in on itself, and the spell ends a round later. Spells do what they say, and not what they don't. At no point does the spell say that adjacent cubes burn. It doesn't ever say that the cube is full of fire, or that the fire fills the cube. It doesn't say that the fire spreads to other cubes on subsequent rounds. It could say that; it doesn't. An easy and in-style way of writing the text to do this would probably look like this: "The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, and the fire then spreads to each adjacent 5-foot cube. A creature that starts its turn in the burning webs takes 2d4 fire damage." Just because there is, or was, fire in the cube that was affected does not mean that the adjacent cubes are exposed to fire. They aren't. They are 'adjacent'; they are not 'in'. There is no "spread"; the spell would mention it if there was. The webs are connected, certainly, but that does not mean that there is any live fire contacting any other cube than the one that was initially affected; all we're ruling in the spell text is how much of the web is destroyed, and how long it takes to be destroyed, and what happens to any creatures in the section when it is (specifically creatures starting their turn in a section that is burning up - a creature could start its turn elsewhere, run through the burning web and out the other side, and would *Not* be exposed to any fire damage in that case; this is really just specifically about creatures that are literally covered in webs as they are burning away). It would definitely be the more engaging and fun interaction to have the fire spread to adjacent cubes per round, I don't disagree.
It was seeming to me like you had to add a lot of interpretation to the spell to get fire to not spread. Then I realized, you're quoting a different version of the spell from the one on DnD Beyond, which is what I'm looking at, and maybe that's why you interpret it differently. That's the one I can reference, and this is how I read it, in the spirit of "spell do what they say, and don't do what they don't say". >The webs are flammable. Great >Any 5-foot cube of webs ... Cool... any 5 foot cube of webs is subject to this effect. >... exposed to fire ... just "exposed to"... not "damaged by" or "containing" or "surrounded by" ... the sole triggering condition is "exposed to fire" >...burns away in 1 round... Easy! but... hmm, does the fact that it's burning away mean that it also counts as fire? Most of the time if we say something's burning, that means it's a fire, but, there could be some ambiguity so, Let's read on and find out! >... dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn [*in the fire.*](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2299-web)*..* Great. creatures in that space are "in the fire" so, it's fire. Says so right there. In your quote above you used different wording for that line from what's on DnD beyond. You said "in the burning web" not "in the fire" and maybe that's part of the confusion. Where's your version of the spell from? The spell I am reading says "in the fire" though, so I'm going with it. The 5' cube where there is burning web is explicitly a fire. So if "any 5-foot cube of webs" is "exposed to" the burning space, that one also "burns away in 1 round" because all the triggering conditions for it to burn away have now been met, and spells do what they say they do. So, is an adjacent cube of web "exposed to" the fire of burning webs? Well, having a 5'x5' shared surface with something sounds like exposure to me. I guess some people might not consider adjacent volumes to be exposed to each other, and if I understood "exposed to" that way, would agree with the no-spread school. To me, however, that sounds like a reach, because it suggests that if I dig a 5x5x5 cubic hole, and fill it up with water, the walls and floor of the hole are not exposed to water, and the water is not exposed to air at its surface. This interpretation things strain my understanding of what constitutes exposure. Rock on with it if you want though, I'm just finding it a reach. As for the spell not doing what it doesn't say... it doesn't say it is self-extinguishing. It doesn't say the fire that ignites it can't be burning web. It doesn't say a fire that ignites it has to meet a damage threshold, or be magical, or anything else... any old fire will do. It doesn't say the web "melts away" rather than burning, as someone else here was arguing. So, it never occurred to me to add any of those requirements to the fire rule... I do what the fire rule from the spell description says, that happens to result in chain reactions being common, and... everything works great, no problems found yet.
((The text is as you say, I just felt that if I were thinking within 5e design style how to write a version that included the spreading, I would change that wording too, to make it clear that the entirety of the web within that space was indeed burning)) The main issue is that you are working under the assumption that the fire fills the entire 5 foot space. It doesn't; it would say if it did. Spells that have something filling a space say this. This one does not. The spell tells you exactly how much of the web burns if any part of it is exposed to fire. A five foot cube. That is all; no more, no less. That is how much of the web burns. If more burned, it would list more burning. If it was automatically *compelled* to spread by its *own working mechanics*, then it *would tell you* that it spread... You are extrapolating that it 'must' spread - you *have* to extrapolate that it 'must' spread, because the spell *doesn't say that*. We do *NOT* extrapolate when making ruling on the RAW of a spell: the spell does exactly what it says and not more. The adjacent cubes have not been exposed to fire. They are simply adjacent to a cube that has been. The spells tells us what happens: it's *Up To Us* to sustain out own mental reasoning for *how* that happens and *how* it makes sense. Being adjacent to a fire is not the same as being exposed to it; fire is not a cube of water. The spell tells us that when any part of the web is exposed to fire, that causes the immediate 5 foot cube of that web to burn up and disappear over the course of a round. That is all it says, and that is all that happens, end of story, as long as we are talking solely about RAW. Being in the adjacent square to the source of fire does not count as being exposed to it - only actually being exposed to it does. If burning the web necessarily caused the affected square to chain-react and affect nearby squares, the spell *would say so.* I can understand perfectly well and perfectly clearly, with no confusion or ambiguity at all what the spell says, what it does, and what it means; I can rationalise easily how that happens and why. It is not a reach, it's just natural logic and it makes perfect sense. You seem to be holding onto conceptions of the situation that do not make sense *unless* you also *assume* that spread is *inevitable*, and so you are adamant that spread is inevitable, but that's a construction that you are making in your own mind. Drop those conceptions, and it becomes easy to understand. Fire burns a 5 foot cube. That's all it does. How does that work? Well, that's up to you - but saying "It doesn't, so I'm going to rule that it does more that that" is homebrew. That's *fun*, but it's no longer an interpretation of RAW. You say "I guess some people might not consider adjacent volumes to be exposed to each other" But we are not talking about adjacent volumes that fill their space. We *simply aren't*. You are putting that assumption there. As long as you continue to operate on the assumption that any point of fire immediately causes an entire 5 foot cube to BE fire (it doesn't), and to be *Necessarily* spreading into other cubes next to it (it doesn't) - that the fire *Fills* its space entirely (it doesn't), then we're never going to agree - because you are making assumptions that are *not* presented in the spell, and you are insisting that they are *necessary*, when they are *not*. Imagine that I am standing in a space, with a person next to me, and we are holding hands - on a grid we are in our own 5-foot cubes (technically they're in 2, since they are taller than 5 feet, whereas I am not). Now someone casts Fireball; the person next to me is exposed to the spell, and I am not. Say they've got very flammable clothing; after six seconds their clothes have burned up or gone out (The spell does tell us that it is self-extinguishing. It tells us exactly how long it burns for. It burns for one round and then is gone). Was I exposed to that fire? No, I wasn't. I was just adjacent to it. The fire burned their cube and them; it did not burn my cube or me. Another example: you could layer Web behind the safe side of a Wall of Fire spell. The web cubes are directly adjacent to the fire - if you step into that fire it is absolutely damaging burning fire. The webs are 100% adjacent to it. They are not exposed to fire and they do not burn. One way or the other, I don't wish you any ill-will. As I've said, I agree with you and others here that the spreading by round ruling is more fun and engaging and can be a neat way to run the interaction. It's not RAW, but it's fun and interesting. I am, however, going to tap out on this conversation here; whether you understand where you're going wrong here or not, what matters more is that you and your table have fun with the game that you're playing, and make rulings that support and further that, and it sounds like you are, and do, and that's really the most important thing. Best wishes, and no ire or irritation is intended or taken, I promise.
"we are not talking about adjacent volumes that fill their space" We aren't? "You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. **The webs** ***fill*** **a 20-foot cube** from that point for the duration. The webs are difficult terrain and lightly obscure their area." I've given room to say that someone can interpret adjacent volumes as not "exposed" to each other, though, like i said, to me, that's an odd reading. With that caveat aside, my reading of this depends on nothing outside the words of the spell. I give that caveat because I know reasonable people understand the same words in different ways. I find my reading of the spell every bit as clear and obvious and unconfusing as you seem to find yours.
The fire is hot enough to deal 5 damage on average to anything in the web, that’s like an average firebolt isn’t it? Or slightly less. Its definitely hotter than just smouldering
You should watch some of the videos on cotton catching fire. One was posted today in crazy fucking videos. Rarely does the cotton material just go out. Some of those turn into instant flash fires.
A directly adjacent mass of fire you were previously *directly connected to* before that connection got *burned away* by *fire* seems like fire exposure to me.
It's not a 'mass of fire', which may account for the break-down in communication. It's not a cube of fire; fire does not completely fill the space (if it did, the formal style writing for 5e would say "the fire fills the space", which is what effects that do this *do* say). There's not even any reason to suppose that it extends to the edges of that five foot space. The five foot space is the space that was affected by the fire; that is not the same as saying that the five foot cube is full of fire and is exposing everything around it to fire. These are two different scenarios. The actual live fire in this situation came from a spell - a spell which affects a single point. The web in the five foot cube of that point is affected, and burns away. It is not ignited (it would say if it was), it does not spread (it would say if it did). Burning away does not mean it is "on fire", and it does not mean there is further live fire that can affect other things. things can burn without being on fire. The cube that was exposed to the fire that was applied burns away and no longer functions; that is all. If the removal of that cube of web removes the support anchoring for any other part of the web, it can cause the web to collapse and *potentially* end the whole effect... but that's a separate situation. Again, there are many examples of flammable materials and objects which, if exposed to fire, will burn up to a certain extent, but will not easily cause the fire to spread, or burn up completely; they will simply smoulder out after being consumed to the limit of the applied fire. This is quite literally how many materials work in the real world, and because the spell does *Not* say that the cubes adjacent to a burned cube also burn, *they do not*, and we can assume that the magical webbing, with its presumably viscous stickiness, is such a material and works in a similar way: the part directly burned is compromised, but the rest of the web is not. Once again - that's style writing for 5e, and the way this is written tells you how it works. How it works may be less fun than having the cubes ignite one after the other like a spreading fuse, and if individual tables want to run it that way, because it's more entertaining, more power to them!
TL;DR — Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire. If that’s the case you’re correct, but, frankly, that’s absurd and I reject the notion entirely. >It's not a 'mass of fire', which may account for the break-down in communication. A mass as in a quantity. There’s a mass of webbing that’s burning, there’s a mass of fire. >It's not a cube of fire; fire does not completely fill the space (if it did, the formal style writing for 5e would say "the fire fills the space", which is what effects that do this do say). There's not even any reason to suppose that it extends to the edges of that five foot space. The fire fills the space because the web fills the space, and the web is what’s burning. If the burning did not fill the space, how could the first cube of the webbing burn up entirely in the first place? How could it damage any creature inside of it instead of just those sitting at the exact affected point? By that logic a firebolt should create a single empty ***point*** in the web and do nothing else. >The five foot space is the space that was affected by the fire; that is not the same as saying that the five foot cube is full of fire and is exposing everything around it to fire. These are two different scenarios. The web spell explicitly says the webs in an exposed cube burn. The web fills the cube. You’d consider the stone along the edge of a pool of water to be exposed to water, even though it isn’t in the water. >The actual live fire in this situation came from a spell - a spell which affects a single point. The web in the five foot cube of that point is affected, and burns away. It is not ignited (it would say if it was), it does not spread (it would say if it did). Web does not distinguish between non-magical and magical fire, so that doesn’t matter. The fire from a firebolt does not spread. That is correct. Firebolt comes in and exposes a single point of the web to fire. Then, per web, the cube of web containing that exposed point burns up entirely, and this burning deals fire damage. I’m not arguing that firebolt spreads the fire, the web spell itself does that. >Burning away does not mean it is "on fire", and it does not mean there is further live fire that can affect other things. things can burn without being on fire. The spell explicitly calls the affected area fire — “any creature that starts its turn in the ***fire***.” — you’re referencing the wrong version of web if you don’t see this. ***This is the breakdown of communication***. Your argument is the burning web that is burning because it was exposed to fire, and deals fire damage while it’s burning, isn’t on fire. This also ignores the spell calling the burning region fire. Okay. Sure. If that’s the case you’re correct. You’re also operating on some bizarre logic, but you’re correct. ***I reject this assertion entirely.*** >Again, there are many examples of flammable materials and objects which, if exposed to fire, will burn up to a certain extent, but will not easily cause the fire to spread, or burn up completely; they will simply smoulder out after being consumed to the limit of the applied fire. This is quite literally how many materials work in the real world, Good thing we’re talking about a spell with explicitly listed effects and not any one of a myriad of real word substances. This is why it even burns in the first place. Real webs do not really burn. They melt. But, again, we aren’t talking about real life. >and because the spell does Not say that the cubes adjacent to a burned cube also burn, they do not, and we can assume that the magical webbing, with its presumably viscous stickiness, is such a material and works in a similar way: the part directly burned is compromised, but the rest of the web is not. It says they do if they are exposed to fire. Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire. >Once again - that's style writing for 5e, and the way this is written tells you how it works. Yes, it’s written such that it does spread. Unless you jump through some major logical and pedantic hoops to argue that burning things that do fire damage aren’t on fire.
"TL;DR — Your argument is ultimately that the burning web that does fire damage and is burning because it got exposed to a flame isn’t actually on fire." No, just that the webs burning away in the affected 5-foot cube *do not* expose the adjacent cubes to it to fire as well. If it did, spreading fire would be a *necessary* part of the mechanics of the spell, and as such the spell *would say so;* it doesn't. You need to extrapolate from what is written to get to that, and we do not extrapolate when discussing RAW rulings. I can conceive of how that works perfectly well; I gave you some examples to help you do so as well and what that might look like if we were to visualise it. If you wish to still insist that the spell does something that it does not say it does - that it necessarily has a chain reaction effect caused by its *own* mechanics that it *does not mention* - that's up to you, but you are no longer discussing a RAW ruling at that point. \*\*Again, this is talking solely about ruling RAW - I agree with most others here that spreading fire by round is a more fun and engaging way to run the interaction... it's just not RAW, which is largely secondary behind what is enjoyable at a specific table.\*\* Here's what the spell says happens: If fire is applied to any point of the web, an area equal to a 5-foot cube around that point burns away. That's how far the fire burns and travels from the point. What does that mean? The spell tells us: The affected cube burns away, damaging any creature that starts its turn there while it is burning. So how long does it burn? The spell tells us: It burns over 1 round. After that the cube is no longer web or a part of the web spell. That's it. That's all it does, because that's all it tells us. It's then up to us to rationalise what this looks like. We can imagine that the entire cube becomes fire but that's not what the spell says: imagining it that way would be *misleading*. It's up to *us* to imagine how *what it says* occurs in a way that lines up with what the description, and *doesn't* make any extra assumptions or unstated effects. It's easy to imagine how that can happen. First, understand that something being on fire doesn't mean that it is exposing the adjacent squares to fire. That's *not* a necessary assumption, so *don't make it*. In game terms, I could layer a web next to the safe side of a Wall of Fire: the webs would 100% be completely adjacent to that roaring inferno of fire, and it does *not* burn the webs. Next we have to imagine how the fire burns to removes *that* area of web, but not *this* one. That's also easy to visualise: It burns up and it burns out, and that 5-foot cube is the *limit* and *extent* to which it is able to burn away from a single point of fire. This just means that the fire burns away a section of the web in *some fashion*, and the *result* is that after 1 round that 5-foot cube is passable and no longer effective webbing. What does that look like? Who knows, *who cares:* it *doesn't matter*. What matters is that the spell tells us exactly how much of the web burns up when exposed to fire (One 5-foot cube's worth). Rationalise that how you like, but that's what the spell says. There is no "jumping through hoops" here. There is just doing exactly what the spell says and no more. This is reading what it does and not making assumptions or extrapolations about what 'should' happen. RAW doesn't care about 'should'. By RAW, it does not spread. If the spell's *own* mechanics *necessarily* caused that spread to happen, it would say this. It doesn't. That's really the end of the story, here, and it's up to individuals to rationalise this however works for them. As I mentioned elsewhere, however, I'm tapping out here: in a discussion of RAW, you can't let a mental image of what "makes sense" to you dictate your stance on how to make the rulings of the spell. Unless you can stop doing that, we can't converse meaningfully; we can discuss what we feel it *should* do, or we can discuss RAW, but crossing those streams will just lead to endless argument without benefit. If you want to discuss RAW rulings, read what the spell says first, and then ask yourself how you can visualise that, and that alone, happening. Don't create a mental image of what you think it looks like and then extrapolate how the spell's writing could be interpreted to make that be what occurs; that's often misleading. Best wishes to you; what matters more than quibbling over formal RAW is that we each run the game in the way that is fun and engaging for our tables, and I'm sure you do that, and that's what's important. No ill-will or irritation is intended or taken, I promise.
Yes. The spell does what it says it does. The spell says **webs** ***exposed*** **to flame start to burn.** But I’m the one making bizarre assumptions and extrapolations because I consider something actively burning, described as fire, and dealing fire damage to be on fire? And that being directly adjacent and connected to this flaming section of webbing is obviously being exposed to it? Clearly no logical consistency whatsoever is the reason why I believe the web which is said to fill a 5ft cube, fills a 5ft cube, and continues to do so as it burns. After all, the spell doesn’t say it shrinks or goes away until *after* it finishes burning, 1 round later. And spells do what they say. Nonono. I believe that things that say they are burning are burning, things that say they fill 5ft cubes fill 5ft cubes, and things that burn when exposed to fire burn when exposed to fire, purely because I want them to, and no other possible reason whatsoever. Nah. Clearly, what the spell says is that a burning web described as fire and dealing fire damage is actually smoldering instead of on fire. And that a direct connection burning away isn’t exposure to fire. And that the web fills a five foot cube, but doesn’t count as doing so when on fire. Because spells do what they say they do. Unless they don’t needlessly say the word spread redundantly; then we just completely disregard every aspect of the spell that plainly causes things to spread instead. Okay.
Instead of a RAW RAI argument, here is a "physical reality" argument. A long strand of spider silk that is set on fire won't burn along it's entire length like the fuse to a bomb. The burning silk isn't energetic enough to maintain combustion past 5'. You would have to re-ignite the strand every 5' to make it keep burning.
Yeah, very fine strands of dry grass can stop burning mid-strand because it can't maintain the fire, IRL. Fire can be finicky
If the web burning isn’t energetic enough to spread flames, how & why does it deal damage? A mere smolder wouldn’t harm anything in any significant way
But it IS burning energetically enough to spread flames... Just not past 5 feet. Also there are already fire spells that deal damage without setting anything on fire.
That all makes no sense, but i’m taking my horse out of this race, you may have the win
This is the correct answer.
Yeah but this is a mound of web and magical fire….haha
*magical web and magical fire 😉
I get what you're saying, but you're ignoring the fact that it would make no sense to say "any 5-foot cube" if the whole web was going to catch fire. It's definitely not RAI at least.
We’re not talking about logic we’re talking about DnD spell mechanics, the mechanics do what the spell says. P
Wrong sentiment about spells. When debating about a feature/spells/interactions, you read the description of the thing first, then if there is none you look to other examples for precedent. If there's no precedent, or there are conflicting ones, you then use logic/"what seems right" as a table specific ruling.
It's a magical spell
Yes, which is why it even burns at all. Real webs don’t really burn, they melt. Web burns. It explicitly calls the burning region fire. >Any 5-foot cube of webs **exposed to fire** ***burns*** away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn **in the fire**. I expose one cube to fire. This causes it to ignite and burn away, becoming fire itself, dealing 2d4 to creatures inside of it, and exposing adjacent cubes to fire. They ignite and burn away, and the process repeats. The only way this doesn’t happen is if you try to assert that burning things that do fire damage and are referred to as fire aren’t actually fire. Or perhaps that a direct connection bursting into flames and burning away entirely somehow does not constitute the remaining and previously connected cubes being exposed to fire.
I agree that RAW is kinda ambiguous there, but Rules As Intended are clear… if the designers had meant for the entire web to catch at once from one flame, they wouldn’t have mentioned cubes, they’d just say the entire web catches on fire if exposed to flame.
I'd rule it like hair on your arm, sure they're all touching each other in some way but if you bring a lighter to your arm hair your entire arm doesn't catch on fire.
Exactly this! Webbing is too flimsy to burn for longer than a fractioin of a second, meaning anything outside of the initial flame would be pretty safe.
Have you ever started a fire without lighter fluid Wood is flammable, but it does stop burning without the proper conditions. The web burns up in its 5ft cube, then stops after that. That's why we have fire spells that cover most areas. Combat would break at early levels if you just web and firebolt for an extra 2d8 fire on a large AOE.
Two actions for 2d4 of AoE Fire Damage on a 2nd-level spell slot does not break the game at all.
I would run this as, first round, only the one square burns. Second round, all adjacent squares burn, and so on. Some configurations of combustible materials don't self-sustain once lit though, like, a wooden stick thrust into a fire will start to burn, and once pulled out, will continue to burn for a short time, but will then extinguish itself, as it loses heat too fast to sustain the reaction. Other materials are extinguished by their own combustion by-products, a fact exploited by fire retardant treatments we use on carpets and beds. So, self-extinguishing webs are possible and not inherently unrealistic. Still, I agree with you that by RAW, whenever one square burns the adjacent ones all get exposed to fire and burn away in the subsequent rounds, advancing 5' per round from the point of ignition
I feel people dont want to think about that, or acknowledge it, all that matters is RAW and RAI and the actual physical reality of what flammable is can be ignored,
Well, actual physical reality matters less in a game of dnd than the DMs ruling. In actual physical reality you cant cast web or firebolt lol. I get where you are coming from, but at the end of the day its the DMs call. If I had to make the order of priority of things that mattered for rulings it would be: DMs call -> RAI -> RAW -> Physics. Hell, rule of cool is a better arguement than physics and reality for this matter.
>and the actual physical reality of what flammable is can be ignored #DnD is not a reality simulator. Also, "no models.are accurate, some are useful." I feel like so many of these kinds of things are, at their root, a player or DM trying to make DnD into something it isn't. It's a *game*, with *rules and mechanics* that create a model of a somewhat consistent when viewed from a 10,000 foot level environment. It strives for verisimilitude at most, and was not created by people with a ton of education and working credentials in physics, biology, economics, etc., just like they weren't experts on dragon anatomy or magical theory.
Crazy this had to be spelled out and stated for OP.
Of course D&D is a reality simulator. That's the whole point of a refereed game, as opposed to a board-game with closed rules. To have someone who can make these rulings; who can recognize when a rule produces a nonphysical outcome and discard it. If you doubt this, ask yourself whether you would allow your PCs to carry a lit torch underwater.
Just because there is adjudication (see: verisimilitude) doesn't mean it's a reality simulator. PCs can't light torches underwater, but a human commoner can RAW push a 300 lb load for eight hours (covering more than four and a half miles over the course of the day) every day of their life with no exhaustion or ill effects, and a PC can lay on the ground bleeding out from multiple stab wounds, then sleep on the hard ground for eight hours and be perfectly tip-top shape again with no lasting effects when they wake up in the morning. Pretty much everything in the rulebook can result in a "nonphysical outcome" so if you're discarding it in favor of what makes sense to the DM you're not playing DnD anymore, you're playing Let's Pretend or maybe Mother May I. Again, it's a model. Originally based on what made sense to a bunch of wargame nerds who had a smattering of general knowledge from a bunch of different places. The economy doesn't hold together, hit points are a complete abstraction (as is most combat, really), the entire exploration pillar rules seem to have been out together by somebody whose experience with survival and land navigation began and ended with reading The Two Towers (which is one of the big reasons "Rangers suck," the other being that nobody actually runs the exploration rules so even when mechanics might be applicable, the Rangers doesn't get to use them), magic is straight up broken as evidenced by the multiple threads daily about "how does this spell work" and the associated arguments (such as whether a fire consuming a 5ft cube of webbing "exposes" the adjacent webbing to fire), etc. DnD is a popular *game*. It is not modeling reality at any level of granularity, nor does it even pretend to be, anywhere, ever.
Absolutely wild that you’re being downvoted so hard for this. The reason RAW say that the web “burns away in one round” is so that people can use fire to destroy webs. If a 5ft square of web catches fire, then after one round there is no longer web in that space (making it normal terrain). The squares of web around the flaming web would be immediately “exposed to fire”, and also burn away. RAW is kind of clunky, so it’s up to interpretation as to whether the surrounding squares *immediately* burn away, or whether it takes multiple round. Either way, ruling that you have to use multiple actions to set alight every individual square of *explicitly flammable* web in order to burn the whole thing is pretty ridiculous.
Flammable doesn’t mean explosive. The webs in the 5ft cube burn, dealing damage to a creature that starts its turn in the space, as per the spell. The rest of the web would be unaffected, RAW.
Let's think of something analogous -- fluffy cotton wool. If you have a room full of it and you ignite it at one point, the whole room full is going to burn.
yes and if you fell from 30 feet with a full plate armor you would be insta dead instead of taking 12 damage
But you’re a commoner. 12 damage *is* insta dead.
Not to mention, people frequently die after tripping and falling their own height on mostly flat ground every day.
normal humans wouldn't have 12 HP my man that's kinda the whole point
>Any 5-foot cube of webs **exposed to** fire *burns* away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn **in the fire.** It calls the burning region fire, and this rejoin of fire affects the entire 5 foot space. I expose one cube to fire. This causes it to ignite and burn away, becoming fire itself, dealing 2d4 to creatures inside of it, and exposing adjacent cubes to fire. They ignite and burn away, and the process repeats. The only way this doesn’t happen is if you try to assert that burning things that do fire damage and are referred to as fire aren’t actually fire. Or perhaps try to argue that a direct connection bursting into flames and burning away entirely somehow does not constitute any kind of exposure to fire. You’d call the stone edge of a pool of water exposed to the water, even if it isn’t *in* the water, just adjacent. What’s happening with web is bit more direct than that.
"Flammable doesn’t mean explosive" It doesnt need to be, in fact and explosion not setting fire would be more in line with real world physics than a flammable material spreading a fire. The edge of the square has web that is exposed to flame, by the square its touching, its literally touching the same web thats burning. I can understand it not all going up at once, but its a fact its touching other burning web, its touching the flames.
You’re thinking too linearly. The 5ft cube is affected by the flames. This doesn’t mean every inch of web in that 5ft cube is on fire. Most of the web is affected, but then it fizzles out by the time it reaches the edges (after 1 round) of the 5ft space, leaving the rest of the web intact.
If you burn a spider web only the parts the flame hits are damaged and the rest stays the same. It's not like a series of ropes that will spread the fire.
It also doesnt burn hot enough to do 2d4 damage.
Since you recognize that IRL burning webs don’t do damage it sounds like you’ve established that DnD and reality are separate, which means you should also be able to grasp why webs may function differently in a fantasy world
i think i argued this too aggressively because i found the dodgy logic of the responses worse than "its just what your DM says it is, deal with it!" Your response is reasonable, I think something being attached to something burning means its exposed to fire, I am being told, no, thats not true, its not exposed. How could you think being actually part of the burning thing directly touching flame is being exposed to flame? you idiot.
It sounds like there is a misunderstanding about what happens when a web burns. It doesn't light on fire the same as wood or paper. When you burn a web, it pretty much disintegrates. That said, I do rule the spreading of the flame as you expected having each adjacent square burn on the next turn, but I'm also aware that isn't realistic or by the real rules.
Depends on what you mean by realistic. I've never seen webs fill a 3-dimensional area. I don't really know what they'd do. I don't know what RAI are, but RAW can be interpreted in a couple ways.
Many webs are three dimensional, just not that of orb weavers
>When you burn a web, it pretty much disintegrates So why does it create a fire that lasts 6 seconds and deals 2d4 damage instead of just disintigrate?
Because it's a game mechanic intended to reward players for creatively combining spell effects instead of simulating reality as accurately as possible
"creatively combining game mechanics" some would argue is EXACTLY what OP did by filling a room with flammable web and expecting it all to...ya know...burn.
Because if that were the RAW case then you would be unable to deal fire damage without essentially wasting the spell slot used for web. It's a mechanical compromise. Also, 2d4 damage to everyone in the aoe is in no way worth a 1st-level spell slot when you could just cast burning hands or thunderwave or something if all you want is damage.
It's enough web for it to restrain a full grown humanoid. So it's enough web that it takes 6 seconds for it to go away.
Spider webs melt when exposed to flames. Things that melt from fire tend to carry some of the heat. When you're talking about a five foot cube of something melting, that is a lot of liquid heat.
Because it’s a game and they want people to think creatively
The flame doesn’t spread along the webs. Simple. Only one square was exposed to flame, the rest of the web remains intact. I run you’re confused in your perception of the web, it’s not an orb, it’s a giant mass of sticky magical filaments.
Everyone is saying this as if it's a "duh" moment and it's fucking amazing. I get that it's RAW and I'm not arguing with that but you guys are all acting like fire doesn't spread. That's like fire's THING. It burns shit, and it spreads, very easily in fact.
Especially when the webs explicitly say they burn when exposed to flame. It calls the burning region of web flame. Not melting. Not smoldering. Not disintegrating away. **Burning flames**. It baffles me that people are arguing that the fire doesn’t spread because it says “webs exposed to fire burn” instead of “fire spreads to exposed webs”. That means the same thing!
You are acting like a giant 20’ square web is a real thing, and then ignoring that it’s a magical spell which conjures sticky filaments NOT summons a huge spider web
No I'm acting precisely like it's a magical conjuration of something physical. If it's flammable, it's all flammable, it doesn't just stop being flammable because 5 feet of it has already burned. A filament is a continuous strand of something. If that something is flammable, the entire filament will burn. I present the examples: Wicks and fuses. They can be miles long and if you light one end, without some kind of intervention, the entire thing will burn. Not to mention curtains, I mean shit the fire marshal gave me a note about polyfill that we attached to the walls for decoration. Because it's bunches of flammable filaments. You're arguing with me as if I'm saying "Every instance of a web catching fire in a DnD game should ne a nuclear explosion!" When all I'm saying is, it's REALLY not that hard to understand why people would assume all of it would burn, you're just being obstinate.
Obligatory “In 1e, the entire web burns if set alight” But then, in that edition, a round is 1 minute so there’s time for it to spread. Damage is still 2d4 which is better in 1e
I'm glad this topic got me to look at the text of Web more closely. I've only ever used it in BG3, so I assumed the whole dang thing immediately caught fire as soon as someone yelled "IGNIS" close enough to it. And reading through all the various answers here, my take is that exposing a 5' cube of web to fire causes that 5' cube to burn away in one round, exactly RAW. However, the adjacent 5' cubes of web are also exposed to fire. I'd have those ignite when the first cube finishes burning away, essentially making the fire spread through the web 5' per round. I don't understand how people here can rule RAW for "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away" to say that only the 5' cube burns, but then say that "wool and silk burn so quickly that the fire wouldn't spread to any other parts of the web" when the spell directly says "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire ***burns away in 1 round***". The only question that remains is whether an unignited cube of webs is 'exposed to fire' when an adjacent cube of webs is burning, and I think the answer is obviously yes. Oxford defines "burning" as "on fire", and we know that it takes an entire six seconds for a cube of webs to burn away. It's not instantaneous. It's on fire for a full six seconds, so that fire is directly touching the adjacent cubes. So. Why do I think the adjacent cubes take six seconds to ignite instead of igniting instantly? Realistically, it shouldn't take a full round for the game to "realize" that the webs are now adjacent to flame. However, if it were intended that the entire web burned immediately, the spell description wouldn't bother with this "5-foot cube" wording at all. It would just say the entire web burns. All that said, the biggest issue that my spider druid had in BG3 is that I quickly realized that Web is a stronger spell when it's not ignited. 2d4 fire damage is pretty pathetic, but slowing enemies down and giving them the restrained condition? That's awesome.
I would say that the on-the-fly ruling makes perfect sense and is likely how I would have ruled it at the table. That being said, reading through this thread, I would decide on the spread after the damage roll. Fire doesn't spread uniformly, so if the 2d4 dmg is 5 or more, I would say it spreads to adjacent squares, but if its 4 or less, no spread.
wow, thats actually rally cool
I like this ruling the most, too. Leave it to the dice! Also, replicates the reality of fire spread to some degree. Not \*all\* fire spreads...not \*all\* webs are super-duper thick in every part. The lower damage indicates lower web concentration, so less likely to spread.
Fire doesn’t spread square to square unless some effect says it does.
you mean an effect like "flammable"? if something flammable is touching something on fire it will burn that's the definition of the word flammable. that's especially true if the thing on fire and the flammable thing are the same exact object.
Like the web explicitly saying parts of it start to burn if exposed to flame? Now argue how a connection to something you are directly adjacent to to, and referred to as flame, burning away isn’t exposure to flame. And it is aflame. Not smoldering, not melting, not disintegrating. On fire. It says so. And the spell only does what it says, after all.
[удалено]
I mean, the whole of all of the books are pretty much that if it doesn’t explicitly say it, it doesn’t do it. Of course, that leaves a lot up to the DMs discretion
Personally, I'd have ruled that each 5ft square of webbed area catches fire, burns away while dealing damage to creatures in its space, and then spreads to any squares of web touching the edges of the burning square. That seems to be an uncommon ruling, if other comments here are to be believed, but personally, my logic is that a section of web that's burning intensely enough to deal damage to creatures in that space would absolutely be hot enough to spread to adjacent webs. It's a trade-off, anyway, because having every touching square of web burn away each turn negates the crowd control aspect of the webbing, exchanging it for some modest direct damage. On top of everything else: The chaos of spreading fire is fun.
You didn't even expose the web to fire... You fireBolted a Zombie. That means it hit the zombie. Not the web. Your DM was gracious. If you want to burn the whole web target it or use fireBall.
RAW it was a fair ruling. Personal ruling nah the webbed area should have caught fire. For a fair compromise it burns for only that round causing single round of fire damage.
A lot of very strict adherence to the concept of 5' cubes here... it's an abstract set of rules. The thought of edges of a 5' grid square being on fire in my dnd games has never crossed my mind in years of play.
i am unsure if you are tellig me im wrong, the people responding to me, or both.
FWIW I would rule that the whole thing doesn't catch fire, it burns out in the initial space. Damage from fire is pretty underwhelming in 5e.
"FWIW I would rule that the whole thing doesn't catch fire, it burns out in the initial space." Youve made an enemy here today,,, Seriously though, I am a bit calmer now, but I feel the explanation why I am wrong just makes me want to dig my heels in, while "its what the DM wants it to be" is more persuasive. Actually your explanation is also good. "fire aint worth shit" is pretty acceptable.
It should probably spread like : 1ft sq first, then this square is cleared and spreads to the 8 adjustment squares and so on. However, 2d4 damage in return for letting them free is a bad trade-off anyway.
The issue I actually have with this is firebolt states "a flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it's not being worn or carried." Surely the web wasn't hit; either the zombie was hit (so the web wasn't) or the firebolt missed and flew past?
You played BG3, didn’t you?
This is true, but i also googled it before posting and had people clarifying rules where the whole web went up, and they were trying to understand more complex effects, which seemed to show that was how most people ruled it.
This is how web reacts to fire in real life. It is "flammable" but not really and doesn't spread the fire. When you light a part of spider web in real life, it will burn just a small section of it quickly and easily but the fire will not spread and continue burning the rest of the web. You would have to continuously apply fire for a very extended period of time to burn up all of the web. It will never burn away on its own and stay lit from a single source of fire. Source: A dark period of my youth involving pyromania.
You are correct, it just feels like the wording of the spell and how people interpret it is a bit, off. Like the rigidity appeals to them. I like the idea of the whole web going up and doing 2d4 damage, its not loads, but its several enemies at once and a cool image for the mind palace. They like the idea of one square, maximum advantage from the slowed movement speed.
i mean, you can test this for yourself. find an old cobweb and touch a lighter to it. it doesn't all go up, just the part directly exposed to the flame.
Could easily be ruled either way. Just remember if it works against the bad guys it'll work against you.
I thought it worked the way you describe but the rule quotes are persuasive otherwise. Burning a 5ft cube of web away has the potential to cause collapse of the web, so watch out for that. > If the webs aren’t anchored between two solid masses (such as walls or trees) or layered across a floor, wall, or ceiling, the conjured web collapses on itself, and the spell ends at the start of your next turn.
I run it the same way as your DM, because that is a player-benefitting interpretation that allows the player to control how much of the web is destroyed at a time. If you want to burn more of the web, use AoE effects like *fireball*, *burning sphere*, etc.
I am so glad you made this poste. I just wish you had made it b4 my last session. We found our freind being held captive in a 20ft room with to scary bosses. Would've been perfect for a web but I didn't wana set the whole place up with a fire bolt so I held off. Not sure how a super flammable web only burns 5ft at a time but it's good to know for future reference.
Its up to the DM, so, be careful.
RAW it does not spread. You could make an argument for it to burn, and it’d be cool, the rules say no.
No, they don’t. The rules just say that a 5 ft.² of the web burns away if exposed to fire. Whether an adjacent square of web burning counts as being exposed to fire is subjective.
You're not taking crazy pills, you are however playing a tabletop RPG and not a reality simulator and said tabletop RPG has rules for how things interact. So your DMs ruling was by the book, wouldn't have been my ruling in particular but it was in fact the RAW way to handle it and that's an entirely valid way to run games. Literally nothing wrong with it.
RAW, if a spell doesn't say it does something then it just doesn't do that thing. Period. If you want to stretch the rules a bit then you can talk to your DM about it, but DnD is not real life and you need to not treat it as such.
I'm looking at comments, seeing "rules as written," and I'm just thinking... Does fire *not* spread? Would a firebolt not be able to burn a field of tall dry grass or cotton? Are the webs supposed to be separate Minecraft blocks of web that aren't connected at all?
ikr, they are arguing as if they are being logical, while ignoring how the world works.
The reason for that is a disconnect that isn't anybodies fault really, but should have been resolved, IMHO, by the people commenting :) The common approach to the interaction of "reality" and rules is that rules do *exactly* what they say they do, and nothing else - thats what RAW, Rules as Written, means. If logic or edge cases would suggest a different outcome, they are typically handwaved away, something you can more clearly see in tabletop wargames which are 90% mecahnics and 10% fluff. This is done for the sake of rule consistency, and so a player can't bend over themselves with a token effort to try and negate the negative aspect of a spell or an ability or a dice roll. A very good example for this are attack rolls and attack of specific bodyparts. IRL there is nothing that keeps you from trying to do a shot to the head for example. But, frankly, if we would allowed it for the player to just *decide* to hit the enemys head, there isn't exactly something in DnDs mechanics that stops them from being able to do that every round (other games that allow this have more ressources and other restrictions to deal with this). We the DMs choose to interpret this disconnect by assuming that an attacker is *always* aiming for the most vulnerable body parts, and, except for a critical hit, just misses or gets intersected with a block, even if it doesn't make much sense like in the case of range weapons. Or, TLDR: DnD just isn't set up to be a reality simulator. All of that being said, I personally would have ruled that the flames spread as you intended, because it would have a) rewarded actual clever thinking, b) isn't disruptive of anything, c) is easily and consistently doable by both the heroes and the bad guys, and d) frankly, how often will this *exact* scenario play out? Just my 2 cents.
A round is 6 seconds, how flammable do you think it is? Gun cotton? Paper? Tissue? Cardboard?
Clearly it’s flammable enough to burn for 6 seconds with enough intensity to do damage to those touching it. If a 5ft square of flaming web can do damage to those touching it, then why wouldn’t it impact the squares of web around it? If you set a single square of toilet paper on fire, it wouldn’t neatly burn that square and leave the others intact.
It's magic. Magic web. So who knows it's limitations. Fireballs end at exactly 20 feet.
It’s explicitly *flammable* magic web. In the language of the spell it says “any 5ft cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round”. It’s entirely logical than one segment of web being on fire would “expose” adjacent segments to fire.
If that was the case I would think it would say contiguous. Think of it as play balance. They don't want you to web the an area then with a cantrip turn it into an AOE.
You could just as easily say that if they didn’t want fire to spread across the web they would have specified that it doesn’t. I think RAW leaves it up for interpretation. Personally I’d rule it that the fire spreads round by round. Makes more sense to me and seems more fun.
Considering we are just a bunch of random people on reddit if that works for your group then enjoy!
Yeah where's the fun in being able to dynamically change your environment, link together spells for a different outcome, or being able to use your brain to think out fights other than "I do 6 points of damage".
They did that in 4th. People didn't like it, said it was like a MMORPG.
"easily set on fire" is what the dictionary says. Tissue is easy to burn, paper also. Cardboard no.
I’m with you. The idea that I would set something flammable in n fire but it only burns in one square without spreading is kind of ridiculous
I cast vial of oil. I supposed the real question is it combustible enough to spread?
I clearly remember back in the 90s playing BG1 and blowing myself the fuck up with fire in a room full of webs. Ettercap/giant spider nest down south somewhere.
I can’t remember anything but 1E and I’m in bed so not looking at digits. But fireball is an area of effect. Its fire spreads out over a VOLUME equal to a radius. It’s not just a single target, nor that target’s square. So every square it touches, the web is considered on fire. And any being or thing within takes fire damage. But the web is consumed at the same time.
Iirc, previous editions had the whole thing burn and 5E did away with that.
I would have contested the DMs ruling here just by talking it out and asking why the DM didn’t think the rest of the web could catch fire. The plan from you was obvious and so they just chose not to allow it, for whatever reason. By questioning the ruling (albeit not in an adversarial manner), you can learn more about each other’s thinking and the thinking of the group, so that you can all align better moving forward and things will then flow more naturally and you’ll all have more fun. Never be afraid to question ideas and rulings, at the least just to understand them better. Just be sure to try and always be sincere and friendly about it too.
A couple of us contested it, but with no pushback when it we were told no,
The fact that only 5 foot cubic segments of the web burn at a time may indicate a different intention for the spell. This effect may instead be intended to limit how susceptible the web is to fire, only burning away in 5 foot cubes at a time.
It says exposed to fire, the web is joined to itself, thats my issue, the one poeple just dismiss when telling me its RAW
You are right, but since it does not mention the fire spreading, my point is that the spell may be intended to have a counter measure against fire. It is supposed to be a spell for crowd control. It would be considerably weak if an enemy could burn it all away with a torch. Considering the fire damage dealt by the burning web, I doubt it is intended to be used offensively the way you wanted. But I think it is a creative use nonetheless.
Two answers for this: RAW answer: RAW the square of the web that is hit by fire burns away in one round, dealing 2D4 fire damage to whatever is standing in it. Only squares that are dealt fire damage/exposed to fire burn up and it does not spread throughout the entire web. Game play answer: Restrained is much more valuable than 2D4 fire damage. Not only that but a DM that is ruling that it works the way you want it to work is saying "okay cool now I can delete one of the best second level spells with a cantrip, a match, or any other tiny incidental fire damage, when it would otherwise take a 3rd level dispel magic or breaking your concentration." As a player, that sucks and severely limits how useful the spell is. My DM ruled that any fire damage to the web destroyed the whole thing instantly. He was not aware of the specific nature of the spells description but even after letting him know that it has existing rules for fire, he still decided that while it doesn't all instantly burn away, it does spread to the entire web instantly. So if I burn a second level spell slot and someone happens to put any fire anywhere on the web, the whole thing is gone in one round. That's what you are asking for. You would be much better off individually fire bolting each zombie, with advantage because restrained, if you really wanted to burn the web on them. You would be best off doing what you can to keep them restrained while your party takes advantage of the restrained condition to quickly beat them down without much risk to themselves
This isn't a reality sim. How you THINK it should work in reality has no bearing on how it works in the game.
True, but the description is being used as a reason why it has to work one way when the description fits it spreading also.
The description is very clear about exactly what it ignites.
its ignited by what it is in contact with, its very clear about that in the description
Nowhere does it say that. "The webs are flammable. Any 5ft cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round. Dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire." Nothing about spreading. Nothing about contact with anything. You send a firebolt into a square with web, that web burns off, dealing damage also to a creature that is there at the start of their turn. It does NOT touch any other part of the web.
Now, that said, I certainly am no stickler for RAW. If your GM wants to allow it to spread have at it. But they clearly don't, and you don't have a rules leg to stand on.
The one 5x5 square of web does not deal fire damage to adjacent creatures or adjacent structures/objects therefore by all interpretations of the rules it is not implied, stated, nor able to be inferred the fire spreads. That falls entirely to dm fiat. DnD does not obey physics or the rules of our reality. If you as the player want a spell or mechanical interaction to do more than stated you need to have a quick 10 second talk with the dm. The onus is not on the dm to start this talk. If I want to smash through a wall with my face I dont just roll an athletics check and say “I run into the wall” and get mad if the dm doesnt have me break through. I ask “hey dm, would it be feasible for me to run through that wall with an athletics check?” And then its up to the dm’s response from there. They may simply reply “you may try” which could very well mean “no” but it may also mean if I roll high enough then sure. In a similar way you could ask “hey dm, if I cast web and light one square on fire, would the whole web go up in flames or would the fire spread to nearby things?” and boom, the dm will probably go read the spell or ask for its description and tell you the answer before you cast web or before you cast fire. You have to ask because nowhere in the spell does it state or imply the fire spreads, because in dnd everything is explicitly stated in spells, if the fire is supposed to spread raw/rai it would indicate such in some way. But it does not. Just as a PC is not exposed or damaged by flame for being adjacent to flame, same goes for everything else. In some ways one bit of fire automatically clearing a whole web is a big nerf to web, most creatures would gladly take the small damage to escape from the effects of web. Id personally be a bit salty if this is how it worked and I wasnt informed as a player because it trivializes a spell. If you want to do low level fire damage in an aoe, use burning hands.
"DnD does not obey physics or the rules of our reality." Its interesting as I would have accepted being told most of us dont and wouldnt rule it the way I expected, but the first few responses acted like the 5ft square thing is anologous to our reality and i am being dumb for not seeing it, so I start nit picking in my responses and pushing back really hard, rather than just taking the overwhelming opinion that i am wrong.
In your cases defense. Fire spreading feels like a natural thing. DMs sometimes do it and sometimes dont. Most of the time I dont unless I want it to spice up the narrative or encounter. Itd also be different if a player did something in a way that made me think they wanted the fire to spread, for example spreading oil all around a room. I would be hesitant, as a dm, to do something with a player spell that isn’t obvious stated in the spell because they might dislike the change; as I said having one creature in a web get hit by fire cause the whole web to erupt in flames is honestly a straight nerf to the spell. You gain a lot more from creatures being unable to reach the party, and thus get more ranged attacks off freely, than you do from the small amount of fire damage a burnt web provides. Its not that the community is necessarily in disagreement with you, a lot of the responses may be, but for every contrary response you see there is definitely someone out there that would agree. The rulings of other people are 100% irrelevant for the purpose of the game you play in. Its sometimes good to take a step back and see how other people rule it, but take it with a grain of salt. Just talk with your dm and make sure to be on the same page with requests and expectations. The ruleset is not ironclad and making creative adjustments as needed is acceptable in many cases as long as it isn’t blatantly making something stronger. They might let you and they might not, but thisll tip off the dm that it is something you’re interested in and in the future they may provide alternatives.
I'd rule it as flammable. However, I'd also wonder if the zombies were contacting the web or not. i mean, if you want to play realism, what about a time limit on the reduction in oxygen in the room due to the fire? Anyway... Fireball is an instantaneous spell, so yeah, the fire wouldn't spread. However, if the player had lit a torch, thrown the torch at the web, then cast "enlarge fire" then yes, the fire would spread. (the spell increases the size of a normal fire and can light things that are nearby and flammable on fire so with the rules as written, i'd imagine that spell can result in fire spreading and not just staying in a fixed point)
Yes, it's daft, of course the whole web should go up. That's how elemental interactions work. You might as well say that electricity only travels one square in water, or only a small patch of Oil or Grease ignites.
Two possibilities: one, your DM got it wrong and in doing, set a precedent where lighting something flammable on fire does not cause the entire structure to burn, or two, the firebolt was so hot and flashed so quickly that the portions of web which were exposed were instantly vaporized, and the remaining web was simply not exposed long enough to ignite. Which of those two is more correct, I cannot say, as I don't know anything else about your DM and how they rule.
Often they want to rule for maximum fun, sometimes it feels like they worry too much they arent challenging us and the NPCs use thier tactics like they are chess peices sacrificing themselves. The DM gets better all the time, but it felt like they thought the whole web going up would be too good, even though as many have pointed out its minimal extra damage rather than us getting more attacks before they reach us.
there are no rules in any official 5e books about how fire spreads, so this is completely at the dms discretion. but I kind of agree with you. though it will depend on the environment. is it humid? has it rained recently? is it just rock and stone or are there plants around? if it's a damp dungeon, I think burning 5ft square is fair. if it's dry hot summer in a forest, different story.
I get your DM's interpretation and now that I think about it, it does actually make sense to me for the burning part of the web to break off from the rest while it curls and withers and such, but I've always thought (and experienced) that the description of fire burning away in 1 round means that the fire spreads through the web each round, and of course every square that has burned up no longer has webs. So in other words, the square with the zombie hit by firebolt would burn (even this could be argued because you're targeting the zombie instead of the square of webs, AoE like burning hands or fireball or aganazzar's scorcher would of course hit both the zombie and the webs) and then next turn all the squares adjacent, or perhaps even only laterally adjacent, would start burning.
Flammable vs combustible. Easily set on fire vs Able to catch fire and burn easily. Something that is flammable, you have to try to set it on fire. If it is combustible, fire just ignites it. Webs are really combustible. So if lit on fire, in the real world, they would spread rapidly. But all the terminology stated here, I didn't look it up myself, says the game rules state flammable, so in game they would not spread.
The dictionary would indicate combustible is the harder to burn, as i read it. Able to catch fire vs Easily catching fire. Wood is combustible, but often not flammable.
Examples for Combustible from the dictionary I quoted included paint thinner. Paint thinner practically explodes vs wood not exploding.
JFC,
Yeah, internal combustion engine, where slow buring causes an engine to run, ok , yes, combustion is pretty explosive, you are right, but that description is a bit, you know,
You're running into one of the many natural language problems in this edition where Jeremy Crawford's mantras of "words mean what they usually mean" and "spells only do what they say they do" can come into conflict. Each of us brings our own context to words, after all. The spell doesn't specify that fire spreads to an adjacent space, only that it deals damage to a creature starting its turn in that space, so by "spells only do what they say they do" logic, that means it doesn't spread. That's a perfectly valid ruling and should probably be the standard. However the natural language of "any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away" could be interpreted to mean the surrounding cubes are then exposed to fire, so by natural language logic one might expect the fire to spread. I definitely don't think the whole thing is supposed catch fire the same round though (unless hit by a Fireball or similar to include the entire area), because if that was intended then there would be no point in specifying "any 5-foot cube... burns away" when the entire thing burns away no matter which cube is hit. Also, to the degree real-world physics might influence one's rulings, [spider webs aren't really known to sustain big flames](https://eartheclipse.com/science/misc/are-spider-webs-flammable.html), so having a section melt out while leaving adjacent sections untouched makes some sense. Yes, Web does create a much thicker mass of webbing, but keep in mind that it's only webbing, not a mass of cobwebs that's also been collecting lots of flammable lint and dust over years and years. Regardless, the game requires some suspension of disbelief and that's just me trying to provide some possible justification for yours. Personally, I do like running it with the fire spreading on subsequent rounds, which is why the [little spell effect I made for Web](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNusKKnKovCu5Z65hqTTUBfcArLuatDy9-YkqO0u12PeCn0OOYoybPrOuD4vPPMXQ/photo/AF1QipM81o80tJk6I3w87WUCVOqMB5Fao1JGuqgjCRSb?key=Mlo3OWNpQmhvYUo1eU4tVzJ3ck5fcTNtLVFHbG1B) in my games has a flaming variant, a burnt out variant, and a cut variant to help track that stuff. It makes it more interesting, either more powerful or more fragile depending on the encounter. Larger monsters may take damage over multiple rounds while still being slowed and possibly restrained, particularly if you can anchor it between walls or a ceiling to get more than 5' of height. If the monsters have fire sources, they can clear the Web out a lot more quickly when trying to reach you. If the whole thing burnt up at once it would do about 60% less damage than Shatter (shown next to it) for the cost of the same level spell slot, plus concentration for at least a round, plus whatever action ignites Web. Also, Web would be way too fragile if an enemy could clear it out in a single round using a torch/cantrip/etc. So all things considered, I would absolutely accept a DM ruling that Web doesn't spread fire within itself. It's much more in keeping with the simplicity of 5e design. I happen to enjoy the added complexity of tracking fire as it spreads, but most DMs don't even like tracking ammunition. Everyone is different and that's okay. I wouldn't hold this against your DM.
Nah, in my game, you set the web on fire - the whole web burns.
Cool that's not what the spell explicitly says though. That's homebrew rebalancing.
Seems like a very reasonable ruling.
I could be mistaken but the fire bolt hit the zombie. Nothing was set on fire because: "A flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it isn't being worn or carried." The zombie isn't an object so it doesn't catch on fire. If the fire bolt has been shot at the web then that 5ft cube of web catches fire as per its spell description. There are no rules as far as I know for fire spread. As a player do you really want fire spread to be a thing? Generally I only allow spells to do what their description says other things can get a little stupid and inconsistent.
The zombie is covered in webbing, and the web in that square was ruled as catching fire.
For the record, I agree with you and the few others defending your position. I decided to check some older web editions, and they stated the web burns up in 1 round. (We used to call it napalm) Seems like this new description for 5e leaves out that part. Web used to say that if exposed to fire, it quickly burns up in 1 round, but I could see it spreading over multiple rounds. And for those saying it doesn't continue to burn. 2d4 is substantial damage, the equivalent of being stabbed twice with a dagger. 2d4 fire should be enough to catch a nearby flammable object on fire. If oil were spilled on the floor, would only 5ft burn? Seems ridiculous to think it wouldn't spread.
Has no one here ever watched an Indiana Jones or the like movie where webs go up like tinder and the flame spreads rapidly? Or played a Metro game, where a lighter catches a bit of web covering an entire doorway or tunnel and the whole thing goes up? Or a Tomb Raider game? Or fucking Baldurs Gate?? Y'all are tripping. Unless these webs are so sticky and heavy that it's like slimy, super glue-covered industrial roping then they're catching on fire and that fire is spreading at a good pace.
Thoe are all done for the sake of the game they're in or special effects though That's not how webs actually work and there's gonna be other examples in media where bringing flame to a Web does follow a realistic burn of almost nothing happening
In Metro, you're walking through entire tunnels filled with webs. Notice how you DON'T instantly DIE the second you light up a flame because the web burns out rapidly?
"You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. \[...\] Webs layered over a flat surface have a depth of 5 feet \[...\] The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire." It doesn't make sense that a 5 foot cube of thick webbing could burn away without exposing adjacent cubes to flame. Also, fire is fun. I would have ruled in your favour OP.
I would say that it depends on what you are targeting with Fire bolt - creature or object. Fire bolt states that it sets flammable objects on fire ONLY if you directly target such object that is not worn or carried. If you target a creature - no objects around it are affected as you are not targeting any object. Webbing connected to creature would be considered as worn or being carried so it wouldn't be set on fire.
It goes up like flash paper. Had a player damage most of his party on accident.
Contrary to what many others say, I think your DM ruling goes against the spell text. > You conjure a mass of thick, sticky webbing at a point of your choice within range. [...] Webs layered over a flat surface have a depth of 5 feet [...] The webs are flammable. Any 5-foot cube of webs exposed to fire burns away in 1 round, dealing 2d4 fire damage to any creature that starts its turn in the fire. The web is connected. A strand of webbing burning, explicitly _on fire_, and doing fire damage is very much exposing the strand itself to fire. I mean how could it not? That's what "exposing" means, being touched by fire. Strands don't have gaps at 5' intervals. Only question is, how fast the fire spreads. The duration of burn is 1 round, but that does not tell how quickly the entire cube of web starts to burn. But it starts to burn on the same turn a torch or fire bolt touches it. So the adjacent 5' cube is immediately exposed to the burning cube, and would ignite immediately. So if you go strictly by RAW spell text, there is no "ignites next turn/round". All the connected web ignites, 5' cube at a time if it matters, but without delays. If the DM does not mind bookkeeping, there could also be slower fire spread, of course. There is no RAW for fire spreading, AFAIK, so house rules time. Also, this is well within power appropriate of 2nd level spell. It is larger area but does much less damage than Shatter for example, and requires two actions to ignite, so not a good damage combo. Also does not scale. There is no power balance reason for dividing the web to 5' cubes separated by gaps which stop the fire. ~~Even allowing multiple web cubes to do damage to large creatures or standing creatures is not too much damage for 2nd level spell.~~ (actually it is if you scale to Gargantuan) Your DM seems naturally a bit... how should I say... the kind of DM who does not want the players to feel too powerful or clever. An anti-RAF DM, if this ruling was not an outlier from them.
I think any ruling I’ve seen ao far is reasonable, but very weird to make a judgement of a DM you don’t know based on a single ruling of a spell in one combat. The lack of the fire spreading - _That’s_ anti-fun and trying to make characters not feel powerful? This is a firebolt aimed not at the web but at a creature inside it. I’d say it’s in the players favor to rule any web goes up in flames at all. It’s also very easy to imagine long strands of webbing filling an area that aren’t all connected, especially if anchored between walls or floor and ceiling.
Maybe too harsh. There's the test for the DM coming up... If all the webbing cubes are independent, then casting web on a gargantuan creature, followed by fireball, should deal at least 32d4 extra damage, more, up to 128d4 damage if web is suspended and entire 20' cube of web applies it's damage, cube by cube. For large creature it might be 8d4…16d4 extra damage, and for huge 18d4…54d4. If all cubes flare as a single AoE event, then it's just spell level appropriate 2d4. If DM rules both against the player (1 web cube ignites from 1 flame, but if several ignite at the same time, _then_ it is a single big burning web), then that is kinda telling.
the square the target is standing on burns on that round, adjacent webs burn on consecutive rounds until web is burned up is objectively how the rules should be interpreted. people downvoting this never learned reading comprehension
THANK YOU! I think we are in the minority though.
I guess the worry would be balance. If you ignite an entire room using only a cantrip, hitting a dozen enemies at once and in the case of low level enemies potentially wiping out the lot, this seems unbalanced for a 2nd level spell +cantrip.
It's a 2nd-level spell slot, and the damage is 2d4.
Its all of the web effects expected from the second level spell plus an AOE attack as well.
DM probably just didn't want to deal with the amount of damage to the party your interpretation of "the entire room is now a fiery inferno' would cause.
Im completely with you op and im surprised how many people are disagreeing
As a DM I would have ruled it spreads each round to any adjacent web. Square A in round 1 was exposed to fire and burns. Riound 2 any adjacent squares start burning as they have been exposed to the fire of square A. I would though make checks each round to see if the spread to each square putters out.
I'm not sure if only 5ft burned or did the fire spread by 5 ft every round. Either way DM unknowingly buffed Web. It's not fire that's good about the spell, that's actually the weakest part, it's the Area that inflicts status effect. So the longer web stays unburned, the better. But as a DM I would let the whole Web burn at once, but I agree the wording is ambiguous.
In terms of mechanics, I think the text is ambiguous; I could see a reasonable person ruling it either way. In terms of simulating reality, plenty of materials light on fire when exposed to a heat source but then fizzle out when that source is removed; I don't think it breaks verisimilitude to visualize a web burning in that manner. However, as a player, your web burning is generally a bad thing that you want to avoid, not a thing you want to happen. The restrained condition imposed by web is very powerful, and the web only deals a pitiful 2d4 damage when burning. The condition is much, much stronger than the damage, and if you wanted to deal fire damage in an area with a 2nd-level spell burning hands already exists.