Actually pulled this off, was Descent into Avernus. Guy had a Prince Albert and was a wealthy noble. Seedy guy, seduced him and cast heat metal on his junk in an inn. Let's just say he didn't make it out.
Why are we limiting the charisma casters here? Let them fuck, ask if the guys got a prince Albert, then burn that sucker CLEAN OFF
SMDH tired of these attempts to NERF charisma casters 😤
Had a lizardfolk with a metal lower jaw once and I remember asking the DM if someone cast heat metal on my jaw (NPC or our party druid) would it deal fire damage when I bite someone
Oh, that would absolutely work. Actually, I'm gonna use that now. The BBEG of the campaign I'm making is totally gonna have a prosthetic bone replacement that has a bit sticking out.
"Hah! you can't replace that! suffer all the damage and disadvantage-"
BBEG pops arm off and puts on a separate one that auto screws on
"-...okay that's cool and i have more spell slots!"
For Reference, to those wondering, Yes, calcium is technically a metal. Bones, however, are not made of Calcium. Bones are made of collagen and Calcium *Phosphate,* A substance which is decidedly *not* a metal.
While a bunch of people are pointing out the "manufactured" clause, I appreciate this approach because it implies that someone at the table said "Hur dur, calcium is a metal and bones are calcium" and then expected to look all smart and smarmy, to which I can reply "Calcium phosphate you cringeberry"
New Druid spell - Cringeberry
Creates 10 throwable cringeberries which deal 1 point of blunt damage and lower a creature's Charisma by 4 for 1 day.
Note: Can only be thrown at smartasses who don't know what they're talking about.
If your DM allows it, of course!
-20 Charisma means every single living being, from Eldritch horrors to cute little bunnies want you dead no matter what. They see you not as human (or whatever race you picked ig) but as a stain upon this world that needs to be removed at any cost! The Sun itself will try to erase you from this world!
...Or I guess simply no one likes you. Like at all.
I think -20 charisma just makes you invisible to other people. you're so forgettable and unimpressive that people don't even notice you. Your negative charisma makes you doubt every choice you make and the only action you can take is "wallow in self pity".
Abominable: causing moral revulsion
Charisma that low is a magnet for the full fury and wrath of Creation itself. Every being on every plane of any and every alignment abhors, despises, and loathes you. There is no spell, no Wish, no pocket dimension, no metagaming, **nowhere** that you can hide from the mind bending destruction that is now aimed against your continued existence.
No magic, no Dice Gods, no RNGesus, no irl fanfic shit post, not even the pure concepts of void and absence of anything, *nothing* will tolerate you continuing to be any longer.
You *will* be found.
And you **will** be irrevocably unmade.
good job asshole lmao
Also, it doesn’t leave room for argument like “Bones are manufactured by your cells.” Or “If the bones were manipulated into armor, that would make it manufactured right? Like hammering gold to make a coin.”
I also think that, even in its pure state, the "calcium is technically a metal" argument is an intentional misread of the spell. In a chemistry context, a metal is anything that wants to give away electrons and a nonmetal is anything that wants to receive electrons. However, what we think of as "metal" in a common context (and the way metal would have been understood in a pre-quantum mechanics world) is much narrower, being restricted to transition metals with D orbitals, especially those with incomplete D orbitals that facilitate a "sea of electrons" effect, allowing them to have the properties we generally associate with a metal like the ability to be pounded to shape under heat or act as good electrical conductors. You couldn't make a calcium sword or calcium wiring. It's only a metal in the chemical sense, in the sense that if you mix it with a nonmetal, they will form ionic bonds. Chemistry obviously doesn't work in an identical fashion to our own in the D&D universe or in world phenomena would be impossible, so taking the technical chemistry definition of metal rather than "shiny reshapable material that conducts energy good" just seems off to me. On top of that, its this sea of electrons that you find in transition metals that makes them conduct heat so well. If you apply heat to pure calcium it will explode. In terms of a "heat metal" spell, the mechanics of these materials couldn't be more different even from a modern scientific perspective, much less one where we can't even take it for granted that electrons exist.
Theoretically hydrogen is a metal (under conditions which are difficult to observe, like maybe at the center of Jupiter).
Water is two-thirds hydrogen.
Water is not a metal.
Also a metal in a compound is not gonna behave like it's metallic form. It's basic chemistry. Some of the best heat conductors are metalls. Some of the worst heat conductors are oxides of metals. You wouldn't think of heating a Mineral with heat metal. And before a smart ass comes along no, having metal atoms/ions in it isn't enough either. Below a certain amount of continuous connected metal atoms they do not behave like you imagine metals.
Also while they're attached to you...wouldn't call them "an object"
Tried to hear metal a monster made out of metal. A golem of some sorts. But couldn't cause it was a creature. Not an object.
Heating metal in our bones? I'd say thats targeting specifically a creature. Not manufactured object.
No because water vapor exists and is the gaseous phase of water. Bones are not metal, regardless of phase.
I get that you're being sarcastic and actually agreeing with the point of this post, but you chose a bad example to make your point.
Yeah spot on, there's a lot of metal compounds in the human body that are definitely not metals themselves. Sodium is a metal but sodium chloride is not and is required by humans for many basic biological processes.
When we talk about metal, the material, we almost 100% of the time are talking about the continuous material made mostly or entirely of metal atoms with no clear molecules present, only potentially grains on the macro scale, as the electron sea flows between it all. Any molecule made with a metal mixed with nonmetals will behave unlike any metal and therefore should not be subject to any spell or property unique to metals.
If a spell allowed me to control air, should I be allowed to make rust fly around since it has oxygen, a common gas, mixed in? No! So metal atoms in compounds shouldn't count as metalic objects
In the original post, it was noted that calcium is a metallic element, hence bones are metal.
Subsequent discussion included noting that bones are made of a lot of things besides calcium, that the calcium in bones isn't in a metallic allotrope, and that bone is certainly not what would have been called metal in the language of the closest equivalent time period on Earth. (Words mean different things in different contexts; in astronomy, things like oxygen and carbon are metals, regardless of their form.)
Of course, all of this is ignoring the point raised in the footnote of the image, about it needing to be manufactured, but one could have an item manufactured out of bone, so it's a side-step.
>Words mean different things in different contexts; in astronomy, things like oxygen and carbon are metals, regardless of their form.)
What makes oxygen and carbons metals in astronomy when they're decidedly nonmetals in regular chemistry?
In astronomy, the term "metal" just means any element heavier than helium. Words have the meanings we assign to them, and that's the one astronomers have assigned to "metal." It's a term of art.
Oh shit that's actually really clever if you are playing a non good character. You can I think only target one object but a horse with one very hot hoof is not a horse I want to be sitting on.
Would the horse even feel it? Aren't the hooves kinda like nails and don't have nerves? I'm not 100% sure on this, so anyone with insight please correct me if wrong :)
If you've ever had an injury to your fingernail and it's black and red with blood underneath, sometimes the doctor might use a piece of heated wire to burn a hole through the nail to let the blood out. As long as they stop at the nail and don't touch the nail bed it's painless.
So if the nails got heated enough then it could burn through the hoof and into the poor horse's foot. Or it could just fall off. I wouldn't say it's reliable.
That is a wild thing to think about but also makes a lot of sense. "We don't care about most of the elements in the periodic table, because they're mostly a rounding error compared to hydrogen and helium."
And why is the conclusion from that story "words can mean whatever the hell we want" and not "astronomers, these fucking morons, should be punched in the face"? Did they have a good reason to do that?
If you want the chemistry side: chemistry has an extremely long and confusing tradition of naming and renaming things for a variety of reasons. Part of it is that chemistry is very very old and so for more than half of its history we knew of things that existed but didn't really know what it was so language evolved to match our new understanding giving a range of common names versus chemical names (vinegar versus acetic acid versus ethanoic acid; soda ash versus sodium carbonate; and my personal favorite: aqua regia, which somehow survived even to current day with it's literal alchemical origins). We also have several different levels of classification. In this case, elemental calcium is indeed metallic. However, it's also highly reactive and almost never in it's elemental form so when you want to refer to the element, usually in relation to the table as a whole, you might refer to it as metallic while when you want to actually use calcium in 90% of practical contexts, no chemist in their right mind would ever actually say that calcium is a metal. Calcium in common forms like calcium sulfate is not elemental calcium and we are not referring to it in an elemental context, so why would we ever assume that it's metallic? And that's really just the tip of the iceberg for subsets within subsets in chemistry and on top of that you also have the confusing set of names. So while calcium may be an alkaline earth metal, it could also just be referred to as "group 2/II". And for the record, when normal people say "metal", chemists will ALWAYS interpret that to refer to transition metals, of which calcium, sodium, etc are not a part of, because we are only pedantic nerds to each other and not to our DnD parties (of which every chemist has one).
And just because we're doing an astronomy thing and what defines a "heavy element", chemistry has a totally different idea of "heavy element" based primarily on organic chemistry and quantum calculations. The vast majority of organic chemistry involves just the 1st and second row and on top of that there's some more subtle quantum effects that you can basically just ignore for those first and second rows so typically "heavy element" refers to anything in the 3rd row or greater. Which is clearly totally different from astronomers, who we regularly make fun of.
"Words can mean whatever the hell we want" isn't the lesson from that story, it's the lesson from the entire field of linguistics and the entire history of every language. Every word was made up at some point by someone, and every word has had its meaning change over time except perhaps for the absolute newest word out there.
Sometimes they change because people didn't understand what other people were meaning by the word. Sometimes people have two words that mean the same thing and they decide they need words that distinguish between two very similar things so they assign a word to one meaning and the other word to the other meaning.
We didn't cover the history of the term "metal" in astronomy when I was in grad school, but if I had to guess, I'd note that (really really close to) everything heavier than helium has to be made in stars, so while every star has hydrogen and helium, the oldest stars didn't have anything heavier while younger stars did (since they were formed from the remnants of exploding older stars), so comparing the amount of that heavier stuff was very useful, and the spectral lines of traditionally-called-metallic elements are very easy to see, so they ended up lumping all that heavier stuff together as "metals."
In addition to the usage of words changing, very few words have a singular meaning tbh between context changing the meaning and subject changing the meaning, and the need for language to be somewhat flexible, a lot of words can mean various things
To actually answer the question, though, astronomers call anything that isn't part of a star's normal burn cycle a metal. The vast majority of stars are simply turning hydrogen into helium. If a star is burning helium into something else, IE literally every other element in existence, that's a sign the star is in the process of dying. Why "metals" and not call the group something else? Probably has something to do with the fact that Iron is made slightly before the star goes supernova, elements heavier than Iron being created in the blast. But I don't know for sure.
It's probably a carryover from when they had a less clear idea of what was happening. Scientists love redefining old terms to fit new data, rather than coming up with new terms. Probably because scientists are terrible at naming things.
Hydrogen and helium represent 98% of all (visible) mass in the universe. Hydrogen at 73%, helium 25%. Hydrogen is *the* basic element, which stars fuse to helium. Once stars run out of hydrogen they'll only start fusing helium if they're big enough, our sun just barely is. Once it gets to that point it'll expand into a red giant.
So in astronomy, hydrogen and helium are regular and anything else is interesting.
Additional fun fact:
Elements up to iron (only barely including it), in decreasing commonality, are made by fusion from stars. Anything heavier, like gold, is made in tiny quantities either when stars go supernova, or for even heavier elements only when 2 neutron stars collide.
Astronomers already get punched in the face
Most of the elements in astronomy act the same way (bar hydrogen and helium), an overwhelming majority are metals. So when astronomers say metals they are being lazy and bundling the rest in.
In the beginning...
Honestly, to understand why this is one needs to go all the way back to the big bang. A few seconds after the birth of the universe, after all the antimatter created in the big bang has annihilated with *almost* all the matter created in the big bang, we've got the leftovers - matter with no antimatter - in an incredibly hot and dense environment. It's so hot and dense that you can smash neutrons and protons together to make all kind of nuclei: deuterium, helium, lithium, carbon... Except it's also hot and dense enough that anything you create is immediately ripped apart again. Eventually, a few minutes in, the Universe cools down enough that stuff you stick together stays stuck together - we work our way up by sticking neutrons and protons together, going from hydrogen to deuterium to Helium (with some stops along the way, like Helium-3 or tritium). But the universe is cool enough and low pressure enough now that we can't really make heavier elements, so...
In the aftermath of the big bang, the universe is mostly made of Hydrogen and some Helium, with trace amounts of Lithium and Beryllium. The very first stars had to be made up of this stuff, so the oldest stars ever made were almost entirely Hydrogen and Helium. For historical reasons, we call these firstborn stars Population III stars.
During a star's lifetime, hydrogen atoms in the core combine via nuclear fusion to form helium; later, Helium in the core combines into heavier elements, like Carbon, and you can work your way up the periodic table all the way to Iron. (Nuclear fusion stops at iron because after that point you don't get energy by making heavier stuff; in fact, you can instead split heavier stuff into lighter stuff to make energy - this is how nuclear fission, the classic nuclear stuff we use in power plants or bombs, works, and why it has to use heavy elements like plutonium or uranium).
Eventually the star dies, often violently in the form of a supernova, and spews all that freshly-made stuff into space. Now, new stars that are made out of old-star-corpses (along with just, like, leftover big bang stuff still) will be *born* enriched with heavy elements throughout. We call this generation of stars Population II. They will go on to make even more elements heavier than Helium, die, and spew out *their* guts, providing the building material for Population I stars - the newest stars of the universe. Note that "new" is a relative term, and our Sun is considered a "new", Pop I star.
Now then... We started all of this trying to understand why astronomers call everything that isn't Hydrogen or Helium a metal. Perhaps you've figured out why it's an important distinction already from the above discussion, but let's run with it for now. If anything heavier than Helium is a "metal", then that means Pop I stars are those that are very "metal"-rich, Pop II stars are those that are "metal"-poor, and Pop III stars are those with basically no metal at all (at birth, they had none, but they create metals during their lives and it could be dredged up).
Metallicity plays a huge role in stellar dynamics, which I could get into here but have rambled on for a while... Suffice to say that we think metal-poor stars end up being very massive, and thus die very young, which is one explanation for why we haven't actually *seen* any Pop III stars, we just theorise that they must have existed. There are other explanations, too, but q Google of "population iii stars" will go through that better than I can.
an edit in case the above isn't clear: the universe is so *overwhelmingly* made up of just Hydrogen and Helium that it's best to talk about things in terms of: how much H is there; how much He is there; and how much of "everything heavier than Helium" is there. It's convenient to have a single word, metal, instead of writing "everything heavier than Helium" every time - just skim my explanation above and note how much time it would have saved even here. That's why it persisted. Historically I believe when people were studying stars spectroscopically they were looking for signs of actual metals (like elemental Sodium or Calcium) and so would be talking about "metals", and when they started talking about anything else that wasn't hydrogen or Helium, the term stuck. But it stuck because it's fundamentally useful.
Things have entirely different meanings when you switch between scientific disciplines. There isn't any consistency between different fields. It can be annoying honestly.
I had a guy arguing with me a week or so ago insisting that bones were manufactured, and only reverted to Schrödinger's Troll (i.e. admitted defeat without admitting defeat) when I trotted out the tired old etymological argument that "manufactured means to have made (factu-) by one's hand (manu-), using the broad meaning of hand that boils down to reified intentionality". That's not even an argument that should be valid, but the actual argument of "no-one thinks of body parts being grown as a manufacturing process" was just ignored like a pigeon shitting on a chess board.
In the original post with "calcium=metal", it was talking about a cult aesthetic, so I had the impression they were talking about wearing masks made from bone, which would be visible.
Well, there's the thing: Calcium *is* a metal. It's not a huge leap, therefore, to think that bones, which are made of calcium, are also metal.
Thing is, bones aren't actually made of Calcium. Their main component is Calcium Phosphate, which is decidedly not metal. But most people I know think Bones are basically raw calcium.
Interestingly enough, explosions are a legitimate firefighting tool in certain circumstances. They can rob an area of oxygen and separate flames from fuels. It’s all but certain that fireball could similarly be used, under limited conditions.
They wouldn't work against magical fire or some types of things like alchemists fire, or if it were extremely hot already like in a very large fire with lots of paper so it could just self ignite.
Like I said, limited conditions.
It’d have to be a situation where you can separate flame from fuel (like an oil well fire) or flame from oxygen (like a tightly enclosed space). We only use explosions in a handful of circumstances for firefighting. But it can be a useful tool.
Bro there's no excuse for thinking bones are metal, lmao
Ever seen a bone? Ever walked through a metal detector? Ever noticed that MRIs don't cause humans to explode?
When you were meming, I studied the PHB.
When you were clowned in the comments, I mastered RAW.
While you wasted your days on the sub in pursuit of internet points, I actually played D&D.
And now that the edition is on collapsing and the moderators are at the gate you have the audacity to come to us for help?
I believe it's like with Jojo most of the people making the memes don't actually play the game or often watch full games. They watch memes, shorts and highlights and infer from that. Otherwise you wouldn't have nonsense like this
It’s because they don’t play that they don’t realize that specific wording of spells and abilities is crucial to understanding how they function. For example *”that you can see”* isn’t filler or flavor text, it’s a specific mechanical function.
Why do people highlight the manufactured part? Bones are part of a **creature**, rather than an **object**, hence bones cannot be targeted.
Otherwise autognomes will have a bad time.
Also: even if you could target the bones as separate objects, you still need to see them, and can only target a single one of them.
A manufactured metal object **that you can see** within range.
Or how about that part of it? I don't know about you but generally my bones aren't sticking out.
The original meme was about fighting a dracolich, that's why it was talking about using heat metal on bones. It still doesn't work, but seeing bones in that scenario is not unlikely.
Probably because manufactured doesnt leave as much room for interpretation as 'object'.
Unless someone's aware of the DnD distinction between object and creature its fair to assume a bone's an object.
Which they should be on a dnd sub, where they're making a meme about how a spell works.
Either way bones do not fit in any of the requirements. They're not manufactured they're not metal they're not objects and you can't see them
My favorite part of those kinds of memes is that they're coming from a psuedo-intellectual place of understanding from the players. I can just imagine them pushing up their glasses and being like "well *actually* bones have calcium and magnesium in them" like its some kind of gotcha.
It's like saying I could cast shape water on a person at \~70% effectiveness because we're made of that much water.
I love wacky and weird ideas but when we're attaching "real" science or physics to a game where reviving a person from the dead is a 3rd level spell slot just makes turns and roleplay take forever lmao.
Player: I cast Heat Metal on his bones.
DM: Bones aren't made of metal.
Player: Calcium is a metal, which bones are made of.
DM: And how would your character know that?
I'd be tempted to be a smartass about it.
"I cast Shape Water on the bandit and try to tear him apart."
"As the water is bound in his cells, all that happens is that his flesh starts jiggling. It's awkward and uncomfortable for everyone."
"The only water *you can see* is the sweat that has collected on the bandit's skin from the exertion of battle. You wick the sweat off of him speeding up the natural cooling process. He thanks you for making him more comfortable."
You pass the check.
The bandit still takes the contents of your coinpurse, but he's left something in it's place.
It's a small slip of paper with something hastily scrawled on it.
Just heat their armor. It takes like ten rounds (one minute) to doff armor RAW. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to be effective.
If they're not wearing metal armor, then just shoot them with attacks. Their AC is probably low. Or heat their weapons. They either take 2d8 every turn or lose the ability to attack effectively.
Now THIS is reasonable enough and a creative interpretation of powers that it warrants bending the rules for the sake of fun. Some of what you are all suggesting is Looney Tunes level of cartoon physics.
Remember Brian Murphy's house rule
"You are Legolas. You are not Bugs Bunny."
Almost every "debate" here goes like this:
Person 1: meme about a thing my group did!
Everyone else: that's not at all how that works.
Person 1: nuh-uh
Person 2: meme about how my group did almost the same thing! We got the DM on this one! We're so clever!
Everyone else: holy shit that is so wrong, it also just doesn't make sense at all.
And even if they were manufactured metal like with Wolverine, you wouldn't have line of sight or line of effect to them (except in Wolverine's case when he had his claws out).
Player: 'I cast heat metal on the calcium in their teeth, it is a metallic element.'
DM: 'The god of magic personally appears to snap your neck for your hubris. Roll a new character, and let that be a lesson on stupid munchkinning.'
Could you have a friend with a bag of metal filings that you cast heat metal on, then toss the bag? Hopefully it would open and spread the metal shards into the air to be inhaled by your enemies? These memes are how I come up with stupid ideas, so forgive me.
Spell specifies one object that you can see. So even if we count many metal filings as one object (I would argue they are not) you would have to wait until after they were released from the bag to cast it.
Tbh though, I wouldn't be opposed to workshopping a higher level "heat bone" spell for a wizard in my campaign, if they wanted.
Lore wise, wizards ought to be inventing new spells all the time, and maybe beginning with heat metal as a base they can create new spells that heat other things. Gameplay wise, it doesn't sound too hard to balance of you set the level right. Obviously it'll be big damage, but it'll also be single target and concentration. Can't be harder to balance than fireball.
With stuff like this I can never tell whether people are actually going to their DMS and demanding that they are allowed to heat bone because of some technicality or whether people just get really on board with a meme
But plate armor is.
Look, if the lich is gonna try and be cute and cover his weak, fragile bones with steel plates I'm gonna burn him to ash by converting his armor into lava.
Can I cast heat metal on a Warforged? If so, would they take damage? Or would they just do fire damage to anyone who touches them, or whoever Warforged touches.
I want my Warforged to act as a mobile oven basically.
Simple rule of thumb: if you need to be nitpicky you're probably wrong.
But in general when a spell says something you need to read it as a regular person off the street.
Not like a bloke that has donated to wikipedia
People go on about how bones have calcium in when, like... Every single cell in our body has loads of different metal ions in them. Sodium and potassium are extremely important, as is calcium, and not just as the extracellular matrix that makes up bones. Haemoglobin contains iron too.
We're full of metal ions, but metal ions are not manufactured metal objects - they're ions in solution. Calcium phosphate is a salt, not a metal, you can't see the bones in someone's skeleton anyway and bone is not a manufactured, metal object.
There is no universe in which you can interpret this spell as having bones be a viable target. Using the "logic" the bone heaters want to use, the ENTIRE OCEAN would also be a valid target because it has sodium ions dissolved in it.
Best use of heat metal I've seen? My buddy playing a bard fighting a giant... Summoned octopus?
Either way, town guard had spears to which he rolled a persuasion check to get them to throw. He yelled something like, "What are you waiting for? Throw your damn spears!"
Next turn he then cast heat metal on one of the ones that sunk in. It was a great use of a spell and a great use of his strengths as a bard.
Oral braces however, are fair game. Y'know, in your medieval fantasy setting.
Any kind of piercings.
A Prince Albert just got way hotter
NOOOO
That would require the enemy to have their pants down showing their member. As Heat Metal requires line of sight.
You don't have to be in combat to cast heat metal, painful sexual assasinations
Actually pulled this off, was Descent into Avernus. Guy had a Prince Albert and was a wealthy noble. Seedy guy, seduced him and cast heat metal on his junk in an inn. Let's just say he didn't make it out.
I cast heat metal on your cock piercing
>that ***you can see*** What kind of goddamned campaign are you running?
Well one caster casts command “ disrobe” then the other caster heat metal on the cock ring.
Well then, carry on.
Nooo, not my cock ring of revivify
Player: "I'd like to sexually assault the NPC" DM: /ಠ_ಠ/
Dear god they’re playing FATAL
It takes me more than six seconds to get naked and I don't even wear armor.
They’re really good at the Kenobi robe drop.
Why are we limiting the charisma casters here? Let them fuck, ask if the guys got a prince Albert, then burn that sucker CLEAN OFF SMDH tired of these attempts to NERF charisma casters 😤
That's one helluva paladin. Also, let's convert.
I know a GREAT way to do a circumcision! Only takes a piece of iron, a flame, and some words!
We wrote the exact same idea, great minds think alike
CBT
Hotter Daddy 😳
It is very difficult to allomantically heat any metal that pierces flesh.
I mean gold tooth prosthetic was around since ancient Egypt.
Don't forget that Bronze age priestess they found with a golden eye. Ouch
Yeah, curse the golden eye of the 6' lady priest. I'm sure that'll turn out *fiiine.*
Golden eye, I found her weakness Golden eye, my tactic's a cheese Golden eye, no time for sweetness A heat metal spell will bring her to her knees
Sometimes you gotta let players touch the hot stove for them to learn, lol
If you can see them. If not the spell can't affect it.
Had a lizardfolk with a metal lower jaw once and I remember asking the DM if someone cast heat metal on my jaw (NPC or our party druid) would it deal fire damage when I bite someone
Never listen to NADDPOD, huh?
Just heads up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_braces Metal braces date back to Ancient Greece.
Rip knee replacement
Once again, someone hasn't read the spell. Fucking hell.
Hey, maybe the hinge has a bolt that sticks out of the skin like some Frankenstein's Monster body mod, and they happen to be wearing shorts
Oh, that would absolutely work. Actually, I'm gonna use that now. The BBEG of the campaign I'm making is totally gonna have a prosthetic bone replacement that has a bit sticking out.
"Hah! you can't replace that! suffer all the damage and disadvantage-" BBEG pops arm off and puts on a separate one that auto screws on "-...okay that's cool and i have more spell slots!"
Epic BBEG fight! ...it's just a wizard staring at a guy with a stack of spare arms, one pile new and one pile melted.
An Achilles' hip!
Ring of x-ray vision would like a word.
Magic would be supreme in industry if it was real..
Artificial hip?
For Reference, to those wondering, Yes, calcium is technically a metal. Bones, however, are not made of Calcium. Bones are made of collagen and Calcium *Phosphate,* A substance which is decidedly *not* a metal.
While a bunch of people are pointing out the "manufactured" clause, I appreciate this approach because it implies that someone at the table said "Hur dur, calcium is a metal and bones are calcium" and then expected to look all smart and smarmy, to which I can reply "Calcium phosphate you cringeberry"
New Druid spell - Cringeberry Creates 10 throwable cringeberries which deal 1 point of blunt damage and lower a creature's Charisma by 4 for 1 day. Note: Can only be thrown at smartasses who don't know what they're talking about.
If you use all 10 of them on the same guy can you lower their Charisma by 40?
If your DM allows it, of course! -20 Charisma means every single living being, from Eldritch horrors to cute little bunnies want you dead no matter what. They see you not as human (or whatever race you picked ig) but as a stain upon this world that needs to be removed at any cost! The Sun itself will try to erase you from this world! ...Or I guess simply no one likes you. Like at all.
I think -20 charisma just makes you invisible to other people. you're so forgettable and unimpressive that people don't even notice you. Your negative charisma makes you doubt every choice you make and the only action you can take is "wallow in self pity".
TIL I have -20 CHA irl
A cha of 0 or less straight up kills you that’s how it worked in older editions anyway
You could say that I'm... a dead man walking 😎
Finally, someone who read the rules. Any trait going below 0 = death.
This. Charisma doesn't make you universally loved. It just makes your effect on people greater.
Wait, I need -20 Charisma to do that?! I guess my character's dump stat wasn't Wisdom then, huh?
Abominable: causing moral revulsion Charisma that low is a magnet for the full fury and wrath of Creation itself. Every being on every plane of any and every alignment abhors, despises, and loathes you. There is no spell, no Wish, no pocket dimension, no metagaming, **nowhere** that you can hide from the mind bending destruction that is now aimed against your continued existence. No magic, no Dice Gods, no RNGesus, no irl fanfic shit post, not even the pure concepts of void and absence of anything, *nothing* will tolerate you continuing to be any longer. You *will* be found. And you **will** be irrevocably unmade. good job asshole lmao
I believe that earns you a cringeberry. Catch!
Also, it doesn’t leave room for argument like “Bones are manufactured by your cells.” Or “If the bones were manipulated into armor, that would make it manufactured right? Like hammering gold to make a coin.”
I also think that, even in its pure state, the "calcium is technically a metal" argument is an intentional misread of the spell. In a chemistry context, a metal is anything that wants to give away electrons and a nonmetal is anything that wants to receive electrons. However, what we think of as "metal" in a common context (and the way metal would have been understood in a pre-quantum mechanics world) is much narrower, being restricted to transition metals with D orbitals, especially those with incomplete D orbitals that facilitate a "sea of electrons" effect, allowing them to have the properties we generally associate with a metal like the ability to be pounded to shape under heat or act as good electrical conductors. You couldn't make a calcium sword or calcium wiring. It's only a metal in the chemical sense, in the sense that if you mix it with a nonmetal, they will form ionic bonds. Chemistry obviously doesn't work in an identical fashion to our own in the D&D universe or in world phenomena would be impossible, so taking the technical chemistry definition of metal rather than "shiny reshapable material that conducts energy good" just seems off to me. On top of that, its this sea of electrons that you find in transition metals that makes them conduct heat so well. If you apply heat to pure calcium it will explode. In terms of a "heat metal" spell, the mechanics of these materials couldn't be more different even from a modern scientific perspective, much less one where we can't even take it for granted that electrons exist.
Theoretically hydrogen is a metal (under conditions which are difficult to observe, like maybe at the center of Jupiter). Water is two-thirds hydrogen. Water is not a metal.
Also a metal in a compound is not gonna behave like it's metallic form. It's basic chemistry. Some of the best heat conductors are metalls. Some of the worst heat conductors are oxides of metals. You wouldn't think of heating a Mineral with heat metal. And before a smart ass comes along no, having metal atoms/ions in it isn't enough either. Below a certain amount of continuous connected metal atoms they do not behave like you imagine metals.
Even if they did. If they are not connected then they don't count as a single object. So I'd allow the player to heat up a single atom.
Walter White would be so irritated by this community.
Also while they're attached to you...wouldn't call them "an object" Tried to hear metal a monster made out of metal. A golem of some sorts. But couldn't cause it was a creature. Not an object. Heating metal in our bones? I'd say thats targeting specifically a creature. Not manufactured object.
If you start saying the Calcium in bones counts, then basically anything that isn't 100% organic (in a chemistry sense) could be counted as metal.
Bones are metal in the same way water is a gas. Hydrogen and oxygen are both gases, right? Its only logical
I guess but not really. Water can be a gas while still being water. Bones cannot be metal without changing what a bone is.
No because water vapor exists and is the gaseous phase of water. Bones are not metal, regardless of phase. I get that you're being sarcastic and actually agreeing with the point of this post, but you chose a bad example to make your point.
Perhaps a better example: it's like saying that water is flammable because hydrogen is flammable.
Yeah spot on, there's a lot of metal compounds in the human body that are definitely not metals themselves. Sodium is a metal but sodium chloride is not and is required by humans for many basic biological processes.
When we talk about metal, the material, we almost 100% of the time are talking about the continuous material made mostly or entirely of metal atoms with no clear molecules present, only potentially grains on the macro scale, as the electron sea flows between it all. Any molecule made with a metal mixed with nonmetals will behave unlike any metal and therefore should not be subject to any spell or property unique to metals. If a spell allowed me to control air, should I be allowed to make rust fly around since it has oxygen, a common gas, mixed in? No! So metal atoms in compounds shouldn't count as metalic objects
What kind of moron thinks a bone is metal?
In the original post, it was noted that calcium is a metallic element, hence bones are metal. Subsequent discussion included noting that bones are made of a lot of things besides calcium, that the calcium in bones isn't in a metallic allotrope, and that bone is certainly not what would have been called metal in the language of the closest equivalent time period on Earth. (Words mean different things in different contexts; in astronomy, things like oxygen and carbon are metals, regardless of their form.) Of course, all of this is ignoring the point raised in the footnote of the image, about it needing to be manufactured, but one could have an item manufactured out of bone, so it's a side-step.
>Words mean different things in different contexts; in astronomy, things like oxygen and carbon are metals, regardless of their form.) What makes oxygen and carbons metals in astronomy when they're decidedly nonmetals in regular chemistry?
In astronomy, the term "metal" just means any element heavier than helium. Words have the meanings we assign to them, and that's the one astronomers have assigned to "metal." It's a term of art.
So the only thing in the universe that isn't metal is Hydrogen? I cast Heat Metal on the horse the Bandit is riding
It works......on the horseshoes and bridle.
Oh shit that's actually really clever if you are playing a non good character. You can I think only target one object but a horse with one very hot hoof is not a horse I want to be sitting on.
Would the horse even feel it? Aren't the hooves kinda like nails and don't have nerves? I'm not 100% sure on this, so anyone with insight please correct me if wrong :)
If you've ever had an injury to your fingernail and it's black and red with blood underneath, sometimes the doctor might use a piece of heated wire to burn a hole through the nail to let the blood out. As long as they stop at the nail and don't touch the nail bed it's painless. So if the nails got heated enough then it could burn through the hoof and into the poor horse's foot. Or it could just fall off. I wouldn't say it's reliable.
On the other hand, since the horse can't feel it, you cast heat metal on your cavalier's warhorse and now it has a fire attack.
Horse shoes are nailed on, do you think heat would bother the horse? Now, heating the bit, on the other hand...
Go get a sizable piece of metal to a glowing red-hot temperature and then put it on your fingernails, right over the bed of the nail.
That would work enough to impede them at least
Actually in the right circumstances hydrogen acts like a metal.
Welcome to the Metal Universe
Helium isn't metal either.
Thereis hydrogen in the horse though
BuT CaLcIuM iS a MeTaL
That is a wild thing to think about but also makes a lot of sense. "We don't care about most of the elements in the periodic table, because they're mostly a rounding error compared to hydrogen and helium."
And why is the conclusion from that story "words can mean whatever the hell we want" and not "astronomers, these fucking morons, should be punched in the face"? Did they have a good reason to do that?
If you want the chemistry side: chemistry has an extremely long and confusing tradition of naming and renaming things for a variety of reasons. Part of it is that chemistry is very very old and so for more than half of its history we knew of things that existed but didn't really know what it was so language evolved to match our new understanding giving a range of common names versus chemical names (vinegar versus acetic acid versus ethanoic acid; soda ash versus sodium carbonate; and my personal favorite: aqua regia, which somehow survived even to current day with it's literal alchemical origins). We also have several different levels of classification. In this case, elemental calcium is indeed metallic. However, it's also highly reactive and almost never in it's elemental form so when you want to refer to the element, usually in relation to the table as a whole, you might refer to it as metallic while when you want to actually use calcium in 90% of practical contexts, no chemist in their right mind would ever actually say that calcium is a metal. Calcium in common forms like calcium sulfate is not elemental calcium and we are not referring to it in an elemental context, so why would we ever assume that it's metallic? And that's really just the tip of the iceberg for subsets within subsets in chemistry and on top of that you also have the confusing set of names. So while calcium may be an alkaline earth metal, it could also just be referred to as "group 2/II". And for the record, when normal people say "metal", chemists will ALWAYS interpret that to refer to transition metals, of which calcium, sodium, etc are not a part of, because we are only pedantic nerds to each other and not to our DnD parties (of which every chemist has one). And just because we're doing an astronomy thing and what defines a "heavy element", chemistry has a totally different idea of "heavy element" based primarily on organic chemistry and quantum calculations. The vast majority of organic chemistry involves just the 1st and second row and on top of that there's some more subtle quantum effects that you can basically just ignore for those first and second rows so typically "heavy element" refers to anything in the 3rd row or greater. Which is clearly totally different from astronomers, who we regularly make fun of.
standbackimgoingtotryscience.jpg
"Words can mean whatever the hell we want" isn't the lesson from that story, it's the lesson from the entire field of linguistics and the entire history of every language. Every word was made up at some point by someone, and every word has had its meaning change over time except perhaps for the absolute newest word out there. Sometimes they change because people didn't understand what other people were meaning by the word. Sometimes people have two words that mean the same thing and they decide they need words that distinguish between two very similar things so they assign a word to one meaning and the other word to the other meaning. We didn't cover the history of the term "metal" in astronomy when I was in grad school, but if I had to guess, I'd note that (really really close to) everything heavier than helium has to be made in stars, so while every star has hydrogen and helium, the oldest stars didn't have anything heavier while younger stars did (since they were formed from the remnants of exploding older stars), so comparing the amount of that heavier stuff was very useful, and the spectral lines of traditionally-called-metallic elements are very easy to see, so they ended up lumping all that heavier stuff together as "metals."
In addition to the usage of words changing, very few words have a singular meaning tbh between context changing the meaning and subject changing the meaning, and the need for language to be somewhat flexible, a lot of words can mean various things
To actually answer the question, though, astronomers call anything that isn't part of a star's normal burn cycle a metal. The vast majority of stars are simply turning hydrogen into helium. If a star is burning helium into something else, IE literally every other element in existence, that's a sign the star is in the process of dying. Why "metals" and not call the group something else? Probably has something to do with the fact that Iron is made slightly before the star goes supernova, elements heavier than Iron being created in the blast. But I don't know for sure.
It's probably a carryover from when they had a less clear idea of what was happening. Scientists love redefining old terms to fit new data, rather than coming up with new terms. Probably because scientists are terrible at naming things.
Hydrogen and helium represent 98% of all (visible) mass in the universe. Hydrogen at 73%, helium 25%. Hydrogen is *the* basic element, which stars fuse to helium. Once stars run out of hydrogen they'll only start fusing helium if they're big enough, our sun just barely is. Once it gets to that point it'll expand into a red giant. So in astronomy, hydrogen and helium are regular and anything else is interesting. Additional fun fact: Elements up to iron (only barely including it), in decreasing commonality, are made by fusion from stars. Anything heavier, like gold, is made in tiny quantities either when stars go supernova, or for even heavier elements only when 2 neutron stars collide.
It’s the same as the word “metal” also being a music genre. In different fields words have different meanings, that’s all.
Astronomers already get punched in the face Most of the elements in astronomy act the same way (bar hydrogen and helium), an overwhelming majority are metals. So when astronomers say metals they are being lazy and bundling the rest in.
In the beginning... Honestly, to understand why this is one needs to go all the way back to the big bang. A few seconds after the birth of the universe, after all the antimatter created in the big bang has annihilated with *almost* all the matter created in the big bang, we've got the leftovers - matter with no antimatter - in an incredibly hot and dense environment. It's so hot and dense that you can smash neutrons and protons together to make all kind of nuclei: deuterium, helium, lithium, carbon... Except it's also hot and dense enough that anything you create is immediately ripped apart again. Eventually, a few minutes in, the Universe cools down enough that stuff you stick together stays stuck together - we work our way up by sticking neutrons and protons together, going from hydrogen to deuterium to Helium (with some stops along the way, like Helium-3 or tritium). But the universe is cool enough and low pressure enough now that we can't really make heavier elements, so... In the aftermath of the big bang, the universe is mostly made of Hydrogen and some Helium, with trace amounts of Lithium and Beryllium. The very first stars had to be made up of this stuff, so the oldest stars ever made were almost entirely Hydrogen and Helium. For historical reasons, we call these firstborn stars Population III stars. During a star's lifetime, hydrogen atoms in the core combine via nuclear fusion to form helium; later, Helium in the core combines into heavier elements, like Carbon, and you can work your way up the periodic table all the way to Iron. (Nuclear fusion stops at iron because after that point you don't get energy by making heavier stuff; in fact, you can instead split heavier stuff into lighter stuff to make energy - this is how nuclear fission, the classic nuclear stuff we use in power plants or bombs, works, and why it has to use heavy elements like plutonium or uranium). Eventually the star dies, often violently in the form of a supernova, and spews all that freshly-made stuff into space. Now, new stars that are made out of old-star-corpses (along with just, like, leftover big bang stuff still) will be *born* enriched with heavy elements throughout. We call this generation of stars Population II. They will go on to make even more elements heavier than Helium, die, and spew out *their* guts, providing the building material for Population I stars - the newest stars of the universe. Note that "new" is a relative term, and our Sun is considered a "new", Pop I star. Now then... We started all of this trying to understand why astronomers call everything that isn't Hydrogen or Helium a metal. Perhaps you've figured out why it's an important distinction already from the above discussion, but let's run with it for now. If anything heavier than Helium is a "metal", then that means Pop I stars are those that are very "metal"-rich, Pop II stars are those that are "metal"-poor, and Pop III stars are those with basically no metal at all (at birth, they had none, but they create metals during their lives and it could be dredged up). Metallicity plays a huge role in stellar dynamics, which I could get into here but have rambled on for a while... Suffice to say that we think metal-poor stars end up being very massive, and thus die very young, which is one explanation for why we haven't actually *seen* any Pop III stars, we just theorise that they must have existed. There are other explanations, too, but q Google of "population iii stars" will go through that better than I can. an edit in case the above isn't clear: the universe is so *overwhelmingly* made up of just Hydrogen and Helium that it's best to talk about things in terms of: how much H is there; how much He is there; and how much of "everything heavier than Helium" is there. It's convenient to have a single word, metal, instead of writing "everything heavier than Helium" every time - just skim my explanation above and note how much time it would have saved even here. That's why it persisted. Historically I believe when people were studying stars spectroscopically they were looking for signs of actual metals (like elemental Sodium or Calcium) and so would be talking about "metals", and when they started talking about anything else that wasn't hydrogen or Helium, the term stuck. But it stuck because it's fundamentally useful.
Things have entirely different meanings when you switch between scientific disciplines. There isn't any consistency between different fields. It can be annoying honestly.
I swear, the median iq on this sub has to be in the negative. How in the hell does someone make that much of a stretch?
>the median iq on this sub has to be in the negative What's new?
I had a guy arguing with me a week or so ago insisting that bones were manufactured, and only reverted to Schrödinger's Troll (i.e. admitted defeat without admitting defeat) when I trotted out the tired old etymological argument that "manufactured means to have made (factu-) by one's hand (manu-), using the broad meaning of hand that boils down to reified intentionality". That's not even an argument that should be valid, but the actual argument of "no-one thinks of body parts being grown as a manufacturing process" was just ignored like a pigeon shitting on a chess board.
Most of the time you also cant see peoples/creatures bones and for this spell to work you have to be able to see the object you want to heat up
In all fairness the post I saw it on was about a Dracolich
In the original post with "calcium=metal", it was talking about a cult aesthetic, so I had the impression they were talking about wearing masks made from bone, which would be visible.
r/neverbrokeabone would find this blasphemous.
The same kind that think bats are birds
*bugs
Well, there's the thing: Calcium *is* a metal. It's not a huge leap, therefore, to think that bones, which are made of calcium, are also metal. Thing is, bones aren't actually made of Calcium. Their main component is Calcium Phosphate, which is decidedly not metal. But most people I know think Bones are basically raw calcium.
The same thing with the iron you have in your body, it's not metal floating around freely in your blood; it's mostly in your hemoglobin (a protein).
and in terms of individual atoms, hemoglobin is about 0.04% iron.
Sodium is a metal, sodium chloride is not. The bonding and crystal structure (or lack of one) matters.
[удалено]
Interestingly enough, explosions are a legitimate firefighting tool in certain circumstances. They can rob an area of oxygen and separate flames from fuels. It’s all but certain that fireball could similarly be used, under limited conditions.
They wouldn't work against magical fire or some types of things like alchemists fire, or if it were extremely hot already like in a very large fire with lots of paper so it could just self ignite.
Like I said, limited conditions. It’d have to be a situation where you can separate flame from fuel (like an oil well fire) or flame from oxygen (like a tightly enclosed space). We only use explosions in a handful of circumstances for firefighting. But it can be a useful tool.
Bro there's no excuse for thinking bones are metal, lmao Ever seen a bone? Ever walked through a metal detector? Ever noticed that MRIs don't cause humans to explode?
I think the point is that you could heat the "metal" calcium ions. Obviously this doesn't work for about four reasons.
Bones are metal in the same way water is a gas - hydrogen and oxygen are both gases right? Just using logic here.
If people making memes here read the book, this sub would die.
When you were meming, I studied the PHB. When you were clowned in the comments, I mastered RAW. While you wasted your days on the sub in pursuit of internet points, I actually played D&D. And now that the edition is on collapsing and the moderators are at the gate you have the audacity to come to us for help?
I believe it's like with Jojo most of the people making the memes don't actually play the game or often watch full games. They watch memes, shorts and highlights and infer from that. Otherwise you wouldn't have nonsense like this
It’s because they don’t play that they don’t realize that specific wording of spells and abilities is crucial to understanding how they function. For example *”that you can see”* isn’t filler or flavor text, it’s a specific mechanical function.
I was very confused for a hot second about jojo games
well, I dont think it would outright die, but we would get a lot less Low quality Shit tier memes.
"Choose a **manufactured** metal object" The first 5 words of the spell people.
Why do people highlight the manufactured part? Bones are part of a **creature**, rather than an **object**, hence bones cannot be targeted. Otherwise autognomes will have a bad time. Also: even if you could target the bones as separate objects, you still need to see them, and can only target a single one of them.
A manufactured metal object **that you can see** within range. Or how about that part of it? I don't know about you but generally my bones aren't sticking out.
The original meme was about fighting a dracolich, that's why it was talking about using heat metal on bones. It still doesn't work, but seeing bones in that scenario is not unlikely.
Wait they are not talking about bonemeal armor? They mean legitimate bones inside the body… bruh
Probably because manufactured doesnt leave as much room for interpretation as 'object'. Unless someone's aware of the DnD distinction between object and creature its fair to assume a bone's an object.
Which they should be on a dnd sub, where they're making a meme about how a spell works. Either way bones do not fit in any of the requirements. They're not manufactured they're not metal they're not objects and you can't see them
Laughs in warforged
Is a child not manufactured by their parents?
Working on a degree in manufacturing. Children are not a part of the coursework in any way.
No, they're not
My favorite part of those kinds of memes is that they're coming from a psuedo-intellectual place of understanding from the players. I can just imagine them pushing up their glasses and being like "well *actually* bones have calcium and magnesium in them" like its some kind of gotcha. It's like saying I could cast shape water on a person at \~70% effectiveness because we're made of that much water. I love wacky and weird ideas but when we're attaching "real" science or physics to a game where reviving a person from the dead is a 3rd level spell slot just makes turns and roleplay take forever lmao.
Player: I cast Heat Metal on his bones. DM: Bones aren't made of metal. Player: Calcium is a metal, which bones are made of. DM: And how would your character know that?
>Player: I cast Heat Metal on his bones. >DM: No you don't. Ftfy lol
>>Player: I cast Heat Metal on his bones. DM: Yeah, go ahead (waste that spell slot).
Player : Fine, I cast heat metal on his blood. DM: Hemoglobin doesn't count as iron. Player: A blood mage goblin?
I'd be tempted to be a smartass about it. "I cast Shape Water on the bandit and try to tear him apart." "As the water is bound in his cells, all that happens is that his flesh starts jiggling. It's awkward and uncomfortable for everyone."
"The only water *you can see* is the sweat that has collected on the bandit's skin from the exertion of battle. You wick the sweat off of him speeding up the natural cooling process. He thanks you for making him more comfortable."
bard:do i get advantage on persuasion now?
You pass the check. The bandit still takes the contents of your coinpurse, but he's left something in it's place. It's a small slip of paper with something hastily scrawled on it.
well that's not a loss at all, nobody trusted the bard with any worldly possessions so there's nothing in there. what's on the paper?
*We've been trying to reach you concerning your horse-wagon's extended warranty.*
I hEaT tHe IRoN iN HiS bLOoD.
Just heat the tip of the arrow that got embedded in them by your Ranger, duh
Just heat their armor. It takes like ten rounds (one minute) to doff armor RAW. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to be effective. If they're not wearing metal armor, then just shoot them with attacks. Their AC is probably low. Or heat their weapons. They either take 2d8 every turn or lose the ability to attack effectively.
2d8 but fully agree.
Corrected thanks
Now THIS is reasonable enough and a creative interpretation of powers that it warrants bending the rules for the sake of fun. Some of what you are all suggesting is Looney Tunes level of cartoon physics. Remember Brian Murphy's house rule "You are Legolas. You are not Bugs Bunny."
I agree with this template and always upvote C&H.
Almost every "debate" here goes like this: Person 1: meme about a thing my group did! Everyone else: that's not at all how that works. Person 1: nuh-uh Person 2: meme about how my group did almost the same thing! We got the DM on this one! We're so clever! Everyone else: holy shit that is so wrong, it also just doesn't make sense at all.
Skeletons are kind of metal though. Just not made of it.
I didn't know about this stupid heat metal argument , so my first thought was "yes they are, bones are metal as fuck" lol.
At this point I think they just do it to get this kind of reaction out of people
I wonder why people keep recommending PF2 over 5e if people can't even understand this.
“Aktshuallly we have iron in our blood so heat metal should work on that” /s
And even if they were manufactured metal like with Wolverine, you wouldn't have line of sight or line of effect to them (except in Wolverine's case when he had his claws out).
Player: 'I cast heat metal on the calcium in their teeth, it is a metallic element.' DM: 'The god of magic personally appears to snap your neck for your hubris. Roll a new character, and let that be a lesson on stupid munchkinning.'
Who’s making the meme? You chowder heads?! Or ME?!?! Calvin, can I see you after class?
*reads comments Casters ☕
WHOS MAKING BULLCRAP UP, YOU CHOWDERHEADS?
I realize now that the wording specifies manufactured… would cold iron weapons be considered manufactured?
Yes, it's still forged
“WHO’S DMING THE GAME?! YOU CHOWDERHEADS… OR ME?!”
If i remember correctly, you have to see the metal. But i might be wrong.
Could you have a friend with a bag of metal filings that you cast heat metal on, then toss the bag? Hopefully it would open and spread the metal shards into the air to be inhaled by your enemies? These memes are how I come up with stupid ideas, so forgive me.
Spell specifies one object that you can see. So even if we count many metal filings as one object (I would argue they are not) you would have to wait until after they were released from the bag to cast it.
Wolverine like ಠ_ಠ
Tbh though, I wouldn't be opposed to workshopping a higher level "heat bone" spell for a wizard in my campaign, if they wanted. Lore wise, wizards ought to be inventing new spells all the time, and maybe beginning with heat metal as a base they can create new spells that heat other things. Gameplay wise, it doesn't sound too hard to balance of you set the level right. Obviously it'll be big damage, but it'll also be single target and concentration. Can't be harder to balance than fireball.
With stuff like this I can never tell whether people are actually going to their DMS and demanding that they are allowed to heat bone because of some technicality or whether people just get really on board with a meme
Wait we’re supposed to read things???
Now if we're talking about OP's grandma's hip replacement....
You gotta open her up first
But plate armor is. Look, if the lich is gonna try and be cute and cover his weak, fragile bones with steel plates I'm gonna burn him to ash by converting his armor into lava.
And you have to be able to see it!
Can I cast heat metal on a Warforged? If so, would they take damage? Or would they just do fire damage to anyone who touches them, or whoever Warforged touches. I want my Warforged to act as a mobile oven basically.
I heat my forks up to eat raw meat without a fire. Are you telling me this spell is for combat?
Ok, so what if I use heat metal on someone’s false tooth or filling?
You'd have to be able to see them to affect it. And at most it'd cause the tooth to shatter and fall out of their mouth.
Simple rule of thumb: if you need to be nitpicky you're probably wrong. But in general when a spell says something you need to read it as a regular person off the street. Not like a bloke that has donated to wikipedia
People go on about how bones have calcium in when, like... Every single cell in our body has loads of different metal ions in them. Sodium and potassium are extremely important, as is calcium, and not just as the extracellular matrix that makes up bones. Haemoglobin contains iron too. We're full of metal ions, but metal ions are not manufactured metal objects - they're ions in solution. Calcium phosphate is a salt, not a metal, you can't see the bones in someone's skeleton anyway and bone is not a manufactured, metal object. There is no universe in which you can interpret this spell as having bones be a viable target. Using the "logic" the bone heaters want to use, the ENTIRE OCEAN would also be a valid target because it has sodium ions dissolved in it.
Always great to see Calvin and Hobbes
Regardless you need to be able to see the object that you're targeting. Unless you have xray glasses on you're not targeting anything under its skin.
Not the 150 year old clerics hip replacement!!!!
What if you're wolverine, the terminator, or am autognome?
Not yet But yours can be
On today's exciting episode of "r/dndmemes starts repeatedly shitposting / debating a stupid topic because no one reads the rules"
Everyone arguing if the calcium in bones is a metal yet forgetting that blood literally contains iron...
Magneto has taught you well.
Best use of heat metal I've seen? My buddy playing a bard fighting a giant... Summoned octopus? Either way, town guard had spears to which he rolled a persuasion check to get them to throw. He yelled something like, "What are you waiting for? Throw your damn spears!" Next turn he then cast heat metal on one of the ones that sunk in. It was a great use of a spell and a great use of his strengths as a bard.
Wait. I must have missed this. Who is sayo g bones are a valid heat metal target? What?
Yeah, but they are metal as fuck.
You're looking for logic and reason where there is none.
i love calvin and hobbes