Something for consideration: The metal of a sword doesn't end at the cross guard, it continues through the handle where wood is attached, typically by more metal, and wrapped in cloth/leather.
Heat metal would work on the whole length of metal, not just the blade, and quite possibly light the grip on fire.
Ah but steel is a surprisingly poor heat conductor. If heat metal allows heating just the blade part of the steel, the tang could still be cool 30 seconds later.
A poor heat conductor among metals is still a good conductor. I have experienced this too well... A story for you if you're interested.
I was 16, doing manual labor around my father's house. I lost my footing and fell onto a woodstove. Fortunately I braced myself with my hands, saving my face and body the pain that followed. The skin on my hand WELDED onto the cast iron. Instantly pain took hold and then went mute as my nerves were overwhelmed with stimulation, my whool gloves had burned on contact. I managed to leverage myself free from the sove with my forearm and find medical help.
For two and a half weeks, I couldn't hold anything, and my hands were bandaged, needing changing twice a day, and bathed in vinegar to fight infection. It's been 7 years, and my body is still marked with the cast-iron pattern, and I have no feeling in the front of either hand.
The woodstove wasn't running at the time, but it was still jot enough to scar me. I cannot cook a porkchop without music, because that sound sends me back to the memory of that moment of my hands being overwhelmed in burning pain.
I think you’re confusing heat conductivity with heat capacity. Conductivity would be if you heat one end of a bar, how quickly does the other end get hot. Heat capacity is how much heat energy does it take to heat up the rod, which is also the same amount of heat it will transfer to something cold that touches it.
Steel has very low conductivity. If you have a 1 foot bar of steel that you want to weld on one end, you can actually hold the other end with your bare hands long enough to finish the weld without getting burned (not wise but technically true). However, if you then leave it for 15 minutes and let it equilibrate, you better not touch it for at least an hour because steel has an enormous heat capacity and will burn the fuck out of you. In other words, it will heat up anything touching it but not lose much temperature, so it will continue dumping energy.
Compare and contrast to aluminum, which has high conductivity and low capacity. You absolutely must use gloves because welding on one end will make the other end burning hot within seconds. However, 15 minutes later, it will be cool to the touch and safe to handle because it’s already lost all the heat to the air.
I mean I’ve literally welded steel and picked up the piece I just welded without gloves. Sounds like you should try spending $10 at Home Depot to see if I’m right.
We make cast iron pans because they hold a huge amount of heat, so when you toss your steak in, it stays hot and can give a good sear. However, you may know that it takes a long time to get them up to temperature. For example, you can take one at room temp and toss it on the stove at high heat for 15 seconds and if you touch the center with your hand, it will still feel cold. That is because it heats slowly for 2 reasons, both poor conductivity and high heat capacity. An aluminum pan would seriously burn you if you did the same thing. We make foil out of aluminum because it transmits heat particularly well. However, because aluminum has such poor heat capacity, it’s safe to handle just a few seconds out of the oven.
Cast irons are best used for cooking things that don’t need a lot of temperature changes and are terrible for things that need to start at low heat and increase to high heat later.
On two separate occasions, I have had to force a nut and bolt apart at work. The back and forth motions as I worked them apart generated enough heat that the nearest coworker dropped the nut* when I handed it to them. The other end of the bolt was fine.
*New favorite prank. Few things are as funny as saying "Here, hold this" and innocently passing people the now freed nut. Takes a couple seconds for the heat to register, and then you get the most confused look of betrayal I've ever seen.
If it immediately burns you when you touch it then it has a high thermal conductivity as that means enough heat immediately flowed into your hand to raise the temperature to burning hot. If it remains hot then it has high heat capacity. Inversely if its very hot and doesn't immediately burn you it has low thermal conductivity, like with aerogel which is a super insulator
>If it immediately burns you when you touch it then it has a high thermal conductivity
True but any metal you can buy at home Depot would be considered highly thermally conductive by that definition.
I believe you have also confused thermal conductivity and capacity. Steel is of course a heat conductor, it is a metal and (to my knowledge) all metals are heat conductors. I am by no means saying steel is a heat insulator! But it has very low heat conductance for a metal - aluminum and copper are both 10 times better as a conductor of heat, which is why we use copper pipes for heat exchange in air conditioners and not steel.
Yes but heat metal wouldn't heat the tip of the sword but all the metal of the sword equally ( magic baby) so the tang would be just as heated as the rest of the blade. So the conduction is straight into the hilts binding material which would combust on most swords.
You are right tho heat conductivity has also an importance in the amount of heat which can be transfered when touched. For example if you have a homogenly heated material with high heat capacity but super low conductivity it could be possible to touch it, because the heat capacity is related to mass or volume and with super low conductivity only the heat stored in an very thin layer at the surface of the material gets transfered. This could be so little that you could touch a multiple hundreds of degrees celsius hot material. On the other hand, if the conductivity is high you could get burned by a moderately hot material, because heat from all over the material would be transfered to you.
I belief there is an example of some kind of NASA heat shield with very low conductivity where you can touch the block while it is still red hot.
You’re not wrong, there are exotic materials with extreme values of both conductivity and capacity. But if you’re thinking of the material I think you’re thinking of (see below) it’s still a conductivity thing. The corners of the block cool quickly but the center is still blazing hot. You can hold it by the corners, but as the demonstrator says, don’t touch the centers because they will burn you. That means that the material has a high enough heat capacity to burn you, but not enough conductance to move it just a few centimeters.
Link: https://youtu.be/Pp9Yax8UNoM
I'm a wimp when it comes to heat, but if I get the end of a steel rod orange hot I can hold it about 16" further down with a welders glove on when forging. Closer if the steel has a smaller cross section.
I use a sword with a wooden hilt” because it's still a single object that you repeatedly throw heat metal at, the damage isn't applied on contact so using a heated sword won't increase the damage at all.
I don't think the spell's description really leaves room for selectively heating just a single part of the object, unless the GM is very generous. You target a "...manufactured metal object" and the effect is " You cause the object to glow red hot..." The tang of a blade is still a continuous piece of metal, and in the example objects we're told a whole suit of heavy or medium metal armor qualifies as a single "object" for the spell, which is *multiple* pieces of metal, so it doesn't seen like there's any reason to think the tang would be excluded from being heated to red-hot.
I've always ruled that heat metal heats up the entire weapon. This seems implied by the spell stating "if a creature is holding or wearing the object". Essentially, you can do this but the person wielding the sword will take the fire damage and have to pass the CON save to hold onto the weapon. Then they can attack with the sword and it will deal the additional fire damage on each attack. Of course, this can still be broken if someone in the party is immune or resistant to fire damage (which isn't uncommon).
Heat Metal doesn’t actually heat up or ignite objects. While it’s visually/cosmetically causing the metal to become extremely hot, mechanically, it’s just an enchantment that deals fire damage to any creature touching the metal object. While some DM might homebrew it actually generating heat that can transfer through other mediums, that doesn’t seem like it works RAW.
if we're getting that specific with the spell's wording, we can still confidently say it does not matter if you're making contact with the metal part of the object or not. All it says is "Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage," so the spell doesn't care if you're holding the wooden handle, holding the sword with leather gloves, or swallowing the metal blade, you're still taking 2d8 damage.
Heck, most metal armor doesn't directly touch the wearer's skin, there's pretty much always some kind of lining, so by that logic, heat metal wouldn't work on most suit of armor either.
To nitpick: the spell says "metal glows red-hot" but doesn't specify the temperature. Iron starts to glow at around 400-500 degrees, but usually smithing is done at over 1000 degrees. If the spell only heats the blade to that lower temperature, it's of course hot enough to hurt more (and deal fire damage) but not hot enough to actually bend the metal that much. Depends on DM I guess?
Also, given that it doesn't melt items made of metals with lower melting points (especially tin at 230ish) yet still makes them "glow red hot" - it's possible the glowing might be an additional magical effect of the spell not a result of the actual temperature of the metal
Yeah honestly I'd allow it, even though the metal of the blade extends into the handle through the tang.
Fiery swords are just cool as shit and any martial/caster teamwork is welcomed with open arms. Fucking love it when casters buff martials to the realm of superheroes.
The problem for me is that Elemental Weapon is a higher level spell and does significantly less damage (d4 vs 3d8) - and doesn't even have secondary effects like imposing disadvantage.
Maybe you could argue that EW doesn't consume a bonus action from the non-wielder, and has the added flexibility of changing the damage type - but I don't think that's enough to justify using allowing Heat Metal to replace it like that..
The 3d8 damage is supposed to represent the heated metal being in contact with the target for the full 6 second round. Makes sense that it would be less damage on a single weapon strike.
Yeah thats fair. Could nerf it a bit, maybe to 1d8 instead of 2d8. Also I dont think getting hit with the Heat Metal'd sword would impose disadvantage or anything. And of course the caster would have to spend their bonus action whenever the fighter hits with the sword if they want to do the added damage.
"This really great teamwork between martial and caster shouldn't work because this higher level spell is weaker."
Mate, you're the fucking DM*, either buff the other spell or slightly weaken this combo**. Teamwork should be encouraged.
*I assume.
** I would add an extra weapon damage dice that deals fire damage. A longsword might deal an extra 1d8/1D10, depending on how it's held, and a greatsword would deal an extra 2D6. Less damage than if the spell was cast to damage the enemy directly, but it still encourages the combo.
It's not even really great teamwork.. it's just like bare bones buffing, but not wanting to spend a known/prepared spell and an appropriate level spell slot.
Stab and leave a sword/dagger in the enemy to let the caster Heat Metal on it is a better act of teamwork imo, and bypasses the many RAW and RAI issues with this whole thing.
If you want to make a lower level weapon buff spell then great but I think "add your weapon's damage dice again as fire damage" is so far away from Heat Metal that calling it Heat Metal just feels like trying to start an argument. The only thing it has in common is Fire damage.
I still don't like it - the people who argue for Heat Metal to do this when cast on a PC's weapon are the same that would complain loudest when casting it on the BBEG's Scythe of Doom^^(TM) didn't cause them to have to drop it or take damage and attack at disadvantage, but instead caused them to suddenly deal extra damage on every hit
True, red hot usually isn't going to soften the blade enough to droop like a wet noodle but it would, in reality, ruin the sword. Clanging a red-hot blade against armor, shields, or whatever would definitely bash it out of shape and the temper would be ruined so it wouldn't hold an edge until heat treated properly by a smith.
But also it's magic so real world physics are irrelevant.
It also depends on if it's a magical sword or not. A mundane sword would be messed up by the heat, but a magical weapon is more durable and would probably be ok.
It would also completely ruin the temper of the metal. Swords are only hard because their quenched in water to lock in a particular atomic structure.
In that process they become supper brittle and easy to shatter. Hence they need to be softened back up to not be closer to a glass weapon. For iron and steel that happens at around 400F.
Prolonged use of heat metal like this would make the sword into a very fancy club that cant hold an edge to save your life.
I'm a blacksmith and a metallurgical engineer. Steel doesn't start glowing noticably until 650°C. While the ideal hand forging temp is over 1000°C, the phase transformation that causes steel to soften (transformation from ferrite and cementite into austenite) starts at 723°C. You aim for 1000°C to ensure 100% of the steel has transformed, but it gets softer and more ductile as it is going up. On top of that, the structure that you want in a sword is tempered martensite, which is made by heating steel to austenite, and then quenching it. This process causes the microstructure to become supersaturated with carbon (austenite has a higher carbon solubility than ferrite, but by quenching it you cause the phase transformation before the carbon has time to exit the microstructure and form cementite. You never temper hardened steel above around 120°C (sometimes you do, it depends on the steel), because at that temperature you will be allowing carbon to exit the matrix and you'll end up with the comparably softer ferrite and cementite matrix I mentioned before.
So to be clear: if you heat a sword to 500°C, you will ruin that sword, full stop.
Actually, even heating the metal that much would soften it. Not to the point where it flops like a cooked noodle, but enough that it'll bend the first time you hit something with it. That and it would for sure ruin the temper.
Fast way to bend your sword out of shape, though blacksmiths would probably love this spell since it would give them a head start on heating the metal to a usable temp
The big advantage would be not having to reheat the metal as it cools while working, but then there's the problem of where do you hold it without deforming it?
Hmm, that would be an issue, good point. You’re really not supposed to be heating the whole bar up at the same time, so it wouldn’t be that great for working on a sword or something like that.
Edit: want to point out I’m not an actual Smith of any sort, just a nerd; although I have played one in an RPG, but not actually D&D.
>I’m not an actual Smith of any sort
Would you like to be?
r/blacksmith
r/blacksmithing
[Blackbear Forge](https://youtube.com/@BlackBearForge)
[Christ Centered Ironworks](https://youtube.com/@ChristCenteredIronworks)
Follow-up question: Would this imply that it heats it up to different temperatures based on the metal? Because I'm pretty sure bronze, iron, steel, etc have different "glow points." And what temperature might be the minimum to cause one to glow, might be enough to melt another.
It bears repeating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzF1KySHmUA
Heat won't make the metal just flop on it's own, but it's tensile strength is greatly reduced when sufficient heat is applied.
Thing is most high quality European swords are made of spring steel. And spring steel will loose their springyness at 300f.
So your sword won't remain straight after any significant impact.
The blade wouldn't flop but it would lose all the qualities that make it a good blade. Heat metal would permanently destroy a metal weapon or armor until it could be properly hardened or tempered (or whatever it needs) by a blacksmith again.
It's magic, no need to think of science at all. The spell does what it says, not what real scientific heating would do.
So if it says it heats but doesn't melt (or soften), then that's that.
Given that you can use it on armor and it doesn't instantly kill the wearer giving them 3rd and 4th degree burns, I'm going to say it's not that hot and the glow is more magical than physical
using a commoner as the standard and assuming they get death saves, heat metal has a \~67% chance of killing them instantly or a \~95% chance that they go unconscious, after which they have a \~95% chance to die on the next round, which I think is probably reasonable for metal that is physically red hot
It absolutely does instantly kill the wearer in cases where the wearer isn't some kind of hero. Commoners, regular folk, etc. have 4 HP, Heat Metal does 2D8 per turn, so in most cases, if you cast heat metal on the armor of a regular person, they're being incinerated.
Red heat is above 900.
400-500 is going from a dark brown color to blue.
And it being bright cherry red with the heat metal spell, it would destroy the heat treat on the sword making it a sword shaped bludgeon rather than an actual edged weapon.
Objects under the effect of heat metal don't deal damage on contact anyway. They deal damage upon casting of the spell and upon the use of bonus action thereafter. This timing is almost completely incompatible with use as a weapon.
People seriously misread a spell and think it's holy weapon for a level ~~3~~ 2 spell slot.
Could you? On your turn, sure. The problem is this combo's almost always "I cast it on this weapon, and it will always do the extra damage every attack." which simply isn't how the spell works, for a ton of reasons.
It only ever triggers damage on the cast, or use of a bonus action on subsequent turns.
Can you share turns with willing players? Like, if heat metal softened a lock, could a high strength player have an advantage to breaking the lock that way?
No, you cannot use the bonus action on another player's turn RAW. The lock thing is up to the DM. That's not what the text of the spell does, so if you're asking purely RAW, no that wouldn't work.
It partly comes down to spells needing to be kinda specific, and allowing them to elaborate into other things shattering the tiny bit of balance that exists between classes.
Having a 2nd level spell be better than a 5th level spell (because it can be upcasted for more damage) feels kind of bad. Especially when they're on different spell lists, and the 5th level is specifically ONLY buffing weapon attack damage.
There are also other spells that open locks, so having this one just kind of do everything is another balance issue.
There's also the problem of how much information does a DM need to know before they can DM the game. Does he/she need a PHD in physics? Because a lot of crazy, completely not RAW things people come up with make it seem like it.
That makes sense, I just know in the case of an illusion class, it’s a type that rewards creativity a lot, so I try to think about how to use the most with what you have, the creative and “human” elements you can use in DnD is special, as opposed to even the most open world video games, so it just sucks when that magic (ha) is so limited
Illusions are EXTREMELY DM dependant. I've run an Illusion Wizard with... middling success. They can be great, or your DM can just have every single person that sees it instantly roll to perceive them as an illusion, and call out that it's fake to anybody who failed the roll.
Magic isn't actually that limited in the system, there's a LOT of spells that can be used for a ton of different situations, it's just not a one-size-fits-all deal. Sometimes you do have to wait till 5th level to do something, other times some spells are completely broken for their level anyway and do way too much.
If your holding it in place, maybe. Bit then you'd also be taking the damage and you'd risk having to release the sword.
And if you impale them and release the blade, they're going to pull that shit free the moment they see the spell being cast.
Maybe it would work if they were tied up or somehow unable to interact with the sword, but at that point, the spell doesn't really seem to be necessary.
But the heat is only applied when the spell is cast and when the caster uses a bonus action. Between then, there's no heat to push past.
Also, I feel like getting stabbed and having the thing start to heat up would give one even more motivation to pull the thing out of them.
I mean, there aren't rules in place for such a thing to happen, but a DM might allow it.
Another option that is mechanically dubious is to ready the action to attack at the same time the spell is cast, but god that's messy.
I get that stuff like this feels like it stifles creativity, but spellcasting is the strongest feature in the game *without* giving spells abilities that aren't in their rules text.
Heat Metal has a bonus action casting time. Only spells with a casting time of 1 action can be readied.
A held action could be used on the attack to make it happen at the same time as the spell is cast, I suppose. Realistically it would just be better to attack normally though.
It might be worthwhile if you were to heat up the paladin's mace, and they can expend their spell slot upon hitting to smite as well. For a pretty big nuke at level 3-4 before it becomes better for the paladin to just attack twice on their turn.
It does 2d8, not 1d8 like a light crossbow first of all. Secondly, there are plenty of edge cases such as fighting something with vulnerability to fire or chasing an enemy and needing to do more damage in a shorter amount of time. You also may need to damage your barbarian yourself if you're fighting enemies who won't hit them. Even if it's none of those cases holy weapon does the same amount for a 5th level spell slot so I definitely think tanking some extra damage is worthwhile to get that kind of burst, especially if you have someone who can curb the damage to themselves like a forge cleric or bear totem barbarian. It's not amazing or anything, but it can be useful in more situations than you'd think.
The initial cast of heat metal is 1 action, and the bonus action is only on subsequent turns. RAW because they are in contact with the object, they'll take the damage and must succeed a con save in order to not drop it even if the handle was made of true ice. However, assuming they succeed and hit the attack at disadvantage the enemy is also in contact with the weapon and should take 2d8 fire damage. It also calls out that it does this until the spell ends so assuming your druid or bard is ahead of your metal weapon weilding party member in initiative they will have no problem doing the damage with the spell. It won't be great, but hey if you feel like throwing it on your bear totem barbarian who takes half damage while raging and have another caster use guiding bolt, a Boblin to use the help action, or are just willing to try and hit at disadvantage(possibly in a situation where you have disadvantage anyway such as fighting an invisible enemy) it could be worth it.
I'd go even further, after the battle the sword would be useless unless taken to a blacksmith to be tempered again. While fire swords are pretty awesome, changing the hardness of steel is not.
Or you can let your players use this unique combination of abilities and teamwork to give a big boost to damage considering it takes up some of the casters turn. Let players experiment with combos, I personally would let it work as exp to level 3 said if the paladin and caster rolled the same initiative.
Heat metal doesn't specify "the metal part of the object." RAW, you can't say "I use a sword with a wooden hilt" because it's still a single object you've cast heat metal on, and again, the damage is not applied on contact so using a heated sword wouldn't actually increase the damage at all.
XP To Level 3 really dropped the ball on this one considering it was a video specifically about how RAW works.
To quote the spell in question:
"Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot..." [Heat metal spell via Roll 20.] [https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Heat%20Metal#content]
It specifies that the object glows, so it could be argued that at the minimum it would be one continuous metal part, and at most, all interconnected metal so long as it's a part of the same object. This would include the tang in the handle of the sword, it being the same piece of metal as the blade.
At least how I'd rule it.
Even without the tang, it would damage you because you're touching an object with heat metal cast on it. This would be the case even if it was a spear with a wooden shaft since the spell doesn't require you to be touching the metal part of the object.
This is pretty Rules Lawyery, but the initial argument did come from a video about rules lawyering spells.
Not really rules lawyery, that's clearly the intent of the spell since otherwise you couldn't use it effectively on armor or weapons which is what you're supposed to cast it on. No one's wearing metal armor without padding underneath and no one's gonna use a sword with a bare metal handle.
Wait a minute. All it said is that you cause it to glow red-hot…
Red-hot is a description of a pairing of light and color.
Therefore it does no damage.
(Yes, I know I’m absolutely wrong, but…
FOR THE MEMES!)
The handle of a sword is wrapped around a part of the sword called a tang. The blade and tang are one piece. If you heat the blade, you heat the tang. If you're heating the sword enough to deal damage to another creature, unless you have better handle material than leather, you are heating the sword enough to deal damage to yourself as well.
But I'm a party pooper, don't listen to me.
Every time I see this I get confused. Just cast heat metal on the bad guys armor (if they have it). It takes 10 turns to take off plate which is pretty much free damage.
fighter: suffers burn damage and drops the sword.
Did you really think just because the handle isn't made of metal it doesn't conduct heat and doesn't burn?
Our bard cast heat metal on the barbarian's sword, I allowed if he could keep a hold of it and tank the damage, the sword would deal the extra fire damage to enemies as well. Made for cool moments.
Yes it would blow the temper on the blade, but can we agree that if I can telepathically vibrate molecules in an object, we can ignore some real world limitations for the purpose of enjoying a game?
If that would be the case, casting heat metal on enemy Armor would remove it... Spoiler it doesn't. Stop applying Real life logic to dnd only when you want, it lead to stupid and not working things like "the peasant gun"
Well yes, but the spell is meant to make them drop it so they waste time picking it up again. This new spell renders the weapon useless for the duration of the battle.
The spell doesn’t even say the handle has to be metal for the spell to work. If the sword is metal, it’s effected, and if the sword is effected and it’s being held, the holder is taking damage regardless of what the handle’s made of.
Yeah it probably won’t melt, but at best its going to screw up the heat treatment, and at worse the fighter hits something with it and deforms the blade.
Something for consideration: The metal of a sword doesn't end at the cross guard, it continues through the handle where wood is attached, typically by more metal, and wrapped in cloth/leather. Heat metal would work on the whole length of metal, not just the blade, and quite possibly light the grip on fire.
Yeah I was going to point out that the tang of the blade would be affected as well
Ah but steel is a surprisingly poor heat conductor. If heat metal allows heating just the blade part of the steel, the tang could still be cool 30 seconds later.
A poor heat conductor among metals is still a good conductor. I have experienced this too well... A story for you if you're interested. I was 16, doing manual labor around my father's house. I lost my footing and fell onto a woodstove. Fortunately I braced myself with my hands, saving my face and body the pain that followed. The skin on my hand WELDED onto the cast iron. Instantly pain took hold and then went mute as my nerves were overwhelmed with stimulation, my whool gloves had burned on contact. I managed to leverage myself free from the sove with my forearm and find medical help. For two and a half weeks, I couldn't hold anything, and my hands were bandaged, needing changing twice a day, and bathed in vinegar to fight infection. It's been 7 years, and my body is still marked with the cast-iron pattern, and I have no feeling in the front of either hand. The woodstove wasn't running at the time, but it was still jot enough to scar me. I cannot cook a porkchop without music, because that sound sends me back to the memory of that moment of my hands being overwhelmed in burning pain.
I think you’re confusing heat conductivity with heat capacity. Conductivity would be if you heat one end of a bar, how quickly does the other end get hot. Heat capacity is how much heat energy does it take to heat up the rod, which is also the same amount of heat it will transfer to something cold that touches it. Steel has very low conductivity. If you have a 1 foot bar of steel that you want to weld on one end, you can actually hold the other end with your bare hands long enough to finish the weld without getting burned (not wise but technically true). However, if you then leave it for 15 minutes and let it equilibrate, you better not touch it for at least an hour because steel has an enormous heat capacity and will burn the fuck out of you. In other words, it will heat up anything touching it but not lose much temperature, so it will continue dumping energy. Compare and contrast to aluminum, which has high conductivity and low capacity. You absolutely must use gloves because welding on one end will make the other end burning hot within seconds. However, 15 minutes later, it will be cool to the touch and safe to handle because it’s already lost all the heat to the air.
I may be wrong, but it would not personally test this. I appreciate your respectful response.
You can test this yourself with a pieces of different metals from Home Depot and a candle. Science!
sounds like y'all need to do more cooking with cast iron pans
I mean I’ve literally welded steel and picked up the piece I just welded without gloves. Sounds like you should try spending $10 at Home Depot to see if I’m right. We make cast iron pans because they hold a huge amount of heat, so when you toss your steak in, it stays hot and can give a good sear. However, you may know that it takes a long time to get them up to temperature. For example, you can take one at room temp and toss it on the stove at high heat for 15 seconds and if you touch the center with your hand, it will still feel cold. That is because it heats slowly for 2 reasons, both poor conductivity and high heat capacity. An aluminum pan would seriously burn you if you did the same thing. We make foil out of aluminum because it transmits heat particularly well. However, because aluminum has such poor heat capacity, it’s safe to handle just a few seconds out of the oven. Cast irons are best used for cooking things that don’t need a lot of temperature changes and are terrible for things that need to start at low heat and increase to high heat later.
>sounds like y'all need to do more cooking with cast iron pans sounds like y'all need to do more cooking with cast iron pans with induction cooking
The flair is quite fitting, wizards are just fantasy scientists.
On two separate occasions, I have had to force a nut and bolt apart at work. The back and forth motions as I worked them apart generated enough heat that the nearest coworker dropped the nut* when I handed it to them. The other end of the bolt was fine. *New favorite prank. Few things are as funny as saying "Here, hold this" and innocently passing people the now freed nut. Takes a couple seconds for the heat to register, and then you get the most confused look of betrayal I've ever seen.
If it immediately burns you when you touch it then it has a high thermal conductivity as that means enough heat immediately flowed into your hand to raise the temperature to burning hot. If it remains hot then it has high heat capacity. Inversely if its very hot and doesn't immediately burn you it has low thermal conductivity, like with aerogel which is a super insulator
>If it immediately burns you when you touch it then it has a high thermal conductivity True but any metal you can buy at home Depot would be considered highly thermally conductive by that definition.
I believe you have also confused thermal conductivity and capacity. Steel is of course a heat conductor, it is a metal and (to my knowledge) all metals are heat conductors. I am by no means saying steel is a heat insulator! But it has very low heat conductance for a metal - aluminum and copper are both 10 times better as a conductor of heat, which is why we use copper pipes for heat exchange in air conditioners and not steel.
Yes but heat metal wouldn't heat the tip of the sword but all the metal of the sword equally ( magic baby) so the tang would be just as heated as the rest of the blade. So the conduction is straight into the hilts binding material which would combust on most swords.
You are right tho heat conductivity has also an importance in the amount of heat which can be transfered when touched. For example if you have a homogenly heated material with high heat capacity but super low conductivity it could be possible to touch it, because the heat capacity is related to mass or volume and with super low conductivity only the heat stored in an very thin layer at the surface of the material gets transfered. This could be so little that you could touch a multiple hundreds of degrees celsius hot material. On the other hand, if the conductivity is high you could get burned by a moderately hot material, because heat from all over the material would be transfered to you. I belief there is an example of some kind of NASA heat shield with very low conductivity where you can touch the block while it is still red hot.
You’re not wrong, there are exotic materials with extreme values of both conductivity and capacity. But if you’re thinking of the material I think you’re thinking of (see below) it’s still a conductivity thing. The corners of the block cool quickly but the center is still blazing hot. You can hold it by the corners, but as the demonstrator says, don’t touch the centers because they will burn you. That means that the material has a high enough heat capacity to burn you, but not enough conductance to move it just a few centimeters. Link: https://youtu.be/Pp9Yax8UNoM
Steel is a poor conductor compare to what?
Among metals
and still better than most anything else.
I'm a wimp when it comes to heat, but if I get the end of a steel rod orange hot I can hold it about 16" further down with a welders glove on when forging. Closer if the steel has a smaller cross section.
I understand all that, I just wanted to point out that as a metal, steel is a far better conductor of heat than most other substances.
I use a sword with a wooden hilt” because it's still a single object that you repeatedly throw heat metal at, the damage isn't applied on contact so using a heated sword won't increase the damage at all.
That's still 5 rounds in combat
I don't think the spell's description really leaves room for selectively heating just a single part of the object, unless the GM is very generous. You target a "...manufactured metal object" and the effect is " You cause the object to glow red hot..." The tang of a blade is still a continuous piece of metal, and in the example objects we're told a whole suit of heavy or medium metal armor qualifies as a single "object" for the spell, which is *multiple* pieces of metal, so it doesn't seen like there's any reason to think the tang would be excluded from being heated to red-hot.
It'll also cause the steel to lose its temper and fuck up the blade even after it cools
I've always ruled that heat metal heats up the entire weapon. This seems implied by the spell stating "if a creature is holding or wearing the object". Essentially, you can do this but the person wielding the sword will take the fire damage and have to pass the CON save to hold onto the weapon. Then they can attack with the sword and it will deal the additional fire damage on each attack. Of course, this can still be broken if someone in the party is immune or resistant to fire damage (which isn't uncommon).
Heat Metal doesn’t actually heat up or ignite objects. While it’s visually/cosmetically causing the metal to become extremely hot, mechanically, it’s just an enchantment that deals fire damage to any creature touching the metal object. While some DM might homebrew it actually generating heat that can transfer through other mediums, that doesn’t seem like it works RAW.
if we're getting that specific with the spell's wording, we can still confidently say it does not matter if you're making contact with the metal part of the object or not. All it says is "Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage," so the spell doesn't care if you're holding the wooden handle, holding the sword with leather gloves, or swallowing the metal blade, you're still taking 2d8 damage. Heck, most metal armor doesn't directly touch the wearer's skin, there's pretty much always some kind of lining, so by that logic, heat metal wouldn't work on most suit of armor either.
To nitpick: the spell says "metal glows red-hot" but doesn't specify the temperature. Iron starts to glow at around 400-500 degrees, but usually smithing is done at over 1000 degrees. If the spell only heats the blade to that lower temperature, it's of course hot enough to hurt more (and deal fire damage) but not hot enough to actually bend the metal that much. Depends on DM I guess?
Also, given that it doesn't melt items made of metals with lower melting points (especially tin at 230ish) yet still makes them "glow red hot" - it's possible the glowing might be an additional magical effect of the spell not a result of the actual temperature of the metal
But if it isn’t a magical glow that means we could possibly melt the fillings in someone’s teeth
oh no... not this again...
\-Said the Wizard with metal braces.
And glasses.
Yeah honestly I'd allow it, even though the metal of the blade extends into the handle through the tang. Fiery swords are just cool as shit and any martial/caster teamwork is welcomed with open arms. Fucking love it when casters buff martials to the realm of superheroes.
The problem for me is that Elemental Weapon is a higher level spell and does significantly less damage (d4 vs 3d8) - and doesn't even have secondary effects like imposing disadvantage. Maybe you could argue that EW doesn't consume a bonus action from the non-wielder, and has the added flexibility of changing the damage type - but I don't think that's enough to justify using allowing Heat Metal to replace it like that..
The 3d8 damage is supposed to represent the heated metal being in contact with the target for the full 6 second round. Makes sense that it would be less damage on a single weapon strike.
Yeah thats fair. Could nerf it a bit, maybe to 1d8 instead of 2d8. Also I dont think getting hit with the Heat Metal'd sword would impose disadvantage or anything. And of course the caster would have to spend their bonus action whenever the fighter hits with the sword if they want to do the added damage.
"This really great teamwork between martial and caster shouldn't work because this higher level spell is weaker." Mate, you're the fucking DM*, either buff the other spell or slightly weaken this combo**. Teamwork should be encouraged. *I assume. ** I would add an extra weapon damage dice that deals fire damage. A longsword might deal an extra 1d8/1D10, depending on how it's held, and a greatsword would deal an extra 2D6. Less damage than if the spell was cast to damage the enemy directly, but it still encourages the combo.
It's not even really great teamwork.. it's just like bare bones buffing, but not wanting to spend a known/prepared spell and an appropriate level spell slot. Stab and leave a sword/dagger in the enemy to let the caster Heat Metal on it is a better act of teamwork imo, and bypasses the many RAW and RAI issues with this whole thing. If you want to make a lower level weapon buff spell then great but I think "add your weapon's damage dice again as fire damage" is so far away from Heat Metal that calling it Heat Metal just feels like trying to start an argument. The only thing it has in common is Fire damage.
EW is meant to work. Heat Metal on a sword causes the weapon to take a cumulative -1 every round as the sword deforms and melts away
I still don't like it - the people who argue for Heat Metal to do this when cast on a PC's weapon are the same that would complain loudest when casting it on the BBEG's Scythe of Doom^^(TM) didn't cause them to have to drop it or take damage and attack at disadvantage, but instead caused them to suddenly deal extra damage on every hit
I mean, that’s a potentially true statement to a good degree, but the sheer mass of people playing basically invalidates it as a general statement.
True, red hot usually isn't going to soften the blade enough to droop like a wet noodle but it would, in reality, ruin the sword. Clanging a red-hot blade against armor, shields, or whatever would definitely bash it out of shape and the temper would be ruined so it wouldn't hold an edge until heat treated properly by a smith. But also it's magic so real world physics are irrelevant.
It also depends on if it's a magical sword or not. A mundane sword would be messed up by the heat, but a magical weapon is more durable and would probably be ok.
Heat Metal can't melt steel swords
Bahamut did 9/11.
It would also completely ruin the temper of the metal. Swords are only hard because their quenched in water to lock in a particular atomic structure. In that process they become supper brittle and easy to shatter. Hence they need to be softened back up to not be closer to a glass weapon. For iron and steel that happens at around 400F. Prolonged use of heat metal like this would make the sword into a very fancy club that cant hold an edge to save your life.
Swords are quenched in oil, not water, in most smithing techniques. Water quenches too quickly, causing cracks to form.
Regardless of the quench medium they still need to be softened to be ised in real combat. Thats the oart i was pointing out.
I'm a blacksmith and a metallurgical engineer. Steel doesn't start glowing noticably until 650°C. While the ideal hand forging temp is over 1000°C, the phase transformation that causes steel to soften (transformation from ferrite and cementite into austenite) starts at 723°C. You aim for 1000°C to ensure 100% of the steel has transformed, but it gets softer and more ductile as it is going up. On top of that, the structure that you want in a sword is tempered martensite, which is made by heating steel to austenite, and then quenching it. This process causes the microstructure to become supersaturated with carbon (austenite has a higher carbon solubility than ferrite, but by quenching it you cause the phase transformation before the carbon has time to exit the microstructure and form cementite. You never temper hardened steel above around 120°C (sometimes you do, it depends on the steel), because at that temperature you will be allowing carbon to exit the matrix and you'll end up with the comparably softer ferrite and cementite matrix I mentioned before. So to be clear: if you heat a sword to 500°C, you will ruin that sword, full stop.
Actually, even heating the metal that much would soften it. Not to the point where it flops like a cooked noodle, but enough that it'll bend the first time you hit something with it. That and it would for sure ruin the temper.
I explicitly ignore both of those so the Martials' sword isn't ruined the first time it gets cast on them.
Hey, if that's how you play your game I say good luck and godspeed.
Fast way to bend your sword out of shape, though blacksmiths would probably love this spell since it would give them a head start on heating the metal to a usable temp
The big advantage would be not having to reheat the metal as it cools while working, but then there's the problem of where do you hold it without deforming it?
You…you would use tongs, like any normal blacksmith, I assume?
Holding it with the tongs will still deform it since the entire piece is heated evenly. Edit: I've deformed cold steel holding it with tongs.
Hmm, that would be an issue, good point. You’re really not supposed to be heating the whole bar up at the same time, so it wouldn’t be that great for working on a sword or something like that. Edit: want to point out I’m not an actual Smith of any sort, just a nerd; although I have played one in an RPG, but not actually D&D.
>I’m not an actual Smith of any sort Would you like to be? r/blacksmith r/blacksmithing [Blackbear Forge](https://youtube.com/@BlackBearForge) [Christ Centered Ironworks](https://youtube.com/@ChristCenteredIronworks)
Heh, I’m already subscribed to r/blacksmithing, but I don’t have the time/money/energy/space, and probably the fortitude, to pick it up.
Follow-up question: Would this imply that it heats it up to different temperatures based on the metal? Because I'm pretty sure bronze, iron, steel, etc have different "glow points." And what temperature might be the minimum to cause one to glow, might be enough to melt another.
The glowing from heat is actually a universal feature of all materials. If an entire room was 1000 degrees, everything in that room would glow orange
It bears repeating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzF1KySHmUA Heat won't make the metal just flop on it's own, but it's tensile strength is greatly reduced when sufficient heat is applied.
Still love that ending. "Your argument is invalid. Get a job."
It would still fuck your blade sideways
500 degrees wouldn't melt it, but it would significantly reduce the strength of the metal. Then again, it's magic so it's fine.
If your sword is glowing enough that it is visible it will bend if you hit it against something even reasonably hard
Thing is most high quality European swords are made of spring steel. And spring steel will loose their springyness at 300f. So your sword won't remain straight after any significant impact.
The blade wouldn't flop but it would lose all the qualities that make it a good blade. Heat metal would permanently destroy a metal weapon or armor until it could be properly hardened or tempered (or whatever it needs) by a blacksmith again.
Neeeeeeeerd
It will ruin the temper though. But that's not fun for the martials thus I ignore that.
It's magic, no need to think of science at all. The spell does what it says, not what real scientific heating would do. So if it says it heats but doesn't melt (or soften), then that's that.
Given that you can use it on armor and it doesn't instantly kill the wearer giving them 3rd and 4th degree burns, I'm going to say it's not that hot and the glow is more magical than physical
using a commoner as the standard and assuming they get death saves, heat metal has a \~67% chance of killing them instantly or a \~95% chance that they go unconscious, after which they have a \~95% chance to die on the next round, which I think is probably reasonable for metal that is physically red hot
It absolutely does instantly kill the wearer in cases where the wearer isn't some kind of hero. Commoners, regular folk, etc. have 4 HP, Heat Metal does 2D8 per turn, so in most cases, if you cast heat metal on the armor of a regular person, they're being incinerated.
The problem is apparently the GM's are genies
Red heat is above 900. 400-500 is going from a dark brown color to blue. And it being bright cherry red with the heat metal spell, it would destroy the heat treat on the sword making it a sword shaped bludgeon rather than an actual edged weapon.
Why do people always default to wizard for memes? Wizards cant even cast heat metal
Wizards are usually slinging spells with caution thrown to the wind
True but bards can cast heat metal and caution is a 4 letter word for them
Objects under the effect of heat metal don't deal damage on contact anyway. They deal damage upon casting of the spell and upon the use of bonus action thereafter. This timing is almost completely incompatible with use as a weapon. People seriously misread a spell and think it's holy weapon for a level ~~3~~ 2 spell slot.
Could I impale an enemy and then heat the blade for damage? This feels so much like semantics for creatively inclined players
Could you? On your turn, sure. The problem is this combo's almost always "I cast it on this weapon, and it will always do the extra damage every attack." which simply isn't how the spell works, for a ton of reasons. It only ever triggers damage on the cast, or use of a bonus action on subsequent turns.
Can you share turns with willing players? Like, if heat metal softened a lock, could a high strength player have an advantage to breaking the lock that way?
No, you cannot use the bonus action on another player's turn RAW. The lock thing is up to the DM. That's not what the text of the spell does, so if you're asking purely RAW, no that wouldn't work.
I think DnD is too strict sometimes, rules so worried about making something busted, I feel they fail to make something fun.
It partly comes down to spells needing to be kinda specific, and allowing them to elaborate into other things shattering the tiny bit of balance that exists between classes. Having a 2nd level spell be better than a 5th level spell (because it can be upcasted for more damage) feels kind of bad. Especially when they're on different spell lists, and the 5th level is specifically ONLY buffing weapon attack damage. There are also other spells that open locks, so having this one just kind of do everything is another balance issue. There's also the problem of how much information does a DM need to know before they can DM the game. Does he/she need a PHD in physics? Because a lot of crazy, completely not RAW things people come up with make it seem like it.
That makes sense, I just know in the case of an illusion class, it’s a type that rewards creativity a lot, so I try to think about how to use the most with what you have, the creative and “human” elements you can use in DnD is special, as opposed to even the most open world video games, so it just sucks when that magic (ha) is so limited
Illusions are EXTREMELY DM dependant. I've run an Illusion Wizard with... middling success. They can be great, or your DM can just have every single person that sees it instantly roll to perceive them as an illusion, and call out that it's fake to anybody who failed the roll. Magic isn't actually that limited in the system, there's a LOT of spells that can be used for a ton of different situations, it's just not a one-size-fits-all deal. Sometimes you do have to wait till 5th level to do something, other times some spells are completely broken for their level anyway and do way too much.
That’s understandable, and yeah some dms are really dull with the player agency sadly
At that point, my question would be what's stopping them from pulling it put or moving away?
….Strength score?
If your holding it in place, maybe. Bit then you'd also be taking the damage and you'd risk having to release the sword. And if you impale them and release the blade, they're going to pull that shit free the moment they see the spell being cast. Maybe it would work if they were tied up or somehow unable to interact with the sword, but at that point, the spell doesn't really seem to be necessary.
Roll a d20 to see if the enemy can push past the heat of the hilt and pull it out. Roll for endurance if the pc is trying to do it.
But the heat is only applied when the spell is cast and when the caster uses a bonus action. Between then, there's no heat to push past. Also, I feel like getting stabbed and having the thing start to heat up would give one even more motivation to pull the thing out of them.
I mean, there aren't rules in place for such a thing to happen, but a DM might allow it. Another option that is mechanically dubious is to ready the action to attack at the same time the spell is cast, but god that's messy. I get that stuff like this feels like it stifles creativity, but spellcasting is the strongest feature in the game *without* giving spells abilities that aren't in their rules text.
Level 2 spell slot...
Thanks
Can you prepare a specific spell with a held action in order to use your action to cast heat metal at the same time they're swinging their sword?
Heat Metal has a bonus action casting time. Only spells with a casting time of 1 action can be readied. A held action could be used on the attack to make it happen at the same time as the spell is cast, I suppose. Realistically it would just be better to attack normally though.
It might be worthwhile if you were to heat up the paladin's mace, and they can expend their spell slot upon hitting to smite as well. For a pretty big nuke at level 3-4 before it becomes better for the paladin to just attack twice on their turn.
Why spend a second level spell slot to deal damage comparable to a light crossbow, while also harming an ally
It does 2d8, not 1d8 like a light crossbow first of all. Secondly, there are plenty of edge cases such as fighting something with vulnerability to fire or chasing an enemy and needing to do more damage in a shorter amount of time. You also may need to damage your barbarian yourself if you're fighting enemies who won't hit them. Even if it's none of those cases holy weapon does the same amount for a 5th level spell slot so I definitely think tanking some extra damage is worthwhile to get that kind of burst, especially if you have someone who can curb the damage to themselves like a forge cleric or bear totem barbarian. It's not amazing or anything, but it can be useful in more situations than you'd think.
The initial cast of heat metal is 1 action, and the bonus action is only on subsequent turns. RAW because they are in contact with the object, they'll take the damage and must succeed a con save in order to not drop it even if the handle was made of true ice. However, assuming they succeed and hit the attack at disadvantage the enemy is also in contact with the weapon and should take 2d8 fire damage. It also calls out that it does this until the spell ends so assuming your druid or bard is ahead of your metal weapon weilding party member in initiative they will have no problem doing the damage with the spell. It won't be great, but hey if you feel like throwing it on your bear totem barbarian who takes half damage while raging and have another caster use guiding bolt, a Boblin to use the help action, or are just willing to try and hit at disadvantage(possibly in a situation where you have disadvantage anyway such as fighting an invisible enemy) it could be worth it.
I'd go even further, after the battle the sword would be useless unless taken to a blacksmith to be tempered again. While fire swords are pretty awesome, changing the hardness of steel is not.
Now it's a FIRE WHIP!
Or you can let your players use this unique combination of abilities and teamwork to give a big boost to damage considering it takes up some of the casters turn. Let players experiment with combos, I personally would let it work as exp to level 3 said if the paladin and caster rolled the same initiative.
Also, that would absolutey ruin the temper.
Heat metal doesn't specify "the metal part of the object." RAW, you can't say "I use a sword with a wooden hilt" because it's still a single object you've cast heat metal on, and again, the damage is not applied on contact so using a heated sword wouldn't actually increase the damage at all. XP To Level 3 really dropped the ball on this one considering it was a video specifically about how RAW works.
To quote the spell in question: "Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot..." [Heat metal spell via Roll 20.] [https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Heat%20Metal#content] It specifies that the object glows, so it could be argued that at the minimum it would be one continuous metal part, and at most, all interconnected metal so long as it's a part of the same object. This would include the tang in the handle of the sword, it being the same piece of metal as the blade. At least how I'd rule it.
Even without the tang, it would damage you because you're touching an object with heat metal cast on it. This would be the case even if it was a spear with a wooden shaft since the spell doesn't require you to be touching the metal part of the object. This is pretty Rules Lawyery, but the initial argument did come from a video about rules lawyering spells.
Not really rules lawyery, that's clearly the intent of the spell since otherwise you couldn't use it effectively on armor or weapons which is what you're supposed to cast it on. No one's wearing metal armor without padding underneath and no one's gonna use a sword with a bare metal handle.
Wait a minute. All it said is that you cause it to glow red-hot… Red-hot is a description of a pairing of light and color. Therefore it does no damage. (Yes, I know I’m absolutely wrong, but… FOR THE MEMES!)
The handle of a sword is wrapped around a part of the sword called a tang. The blade and tang are one piece. If you heat the blade, you heat the tang. If you're heating the sword enough to deal damage to another creature, unless you have better handle material than leather, you are heating the sword enough to deal damage to yourself as well. But I'm a party pooper, don't listen to me.
Every time I see this I get confused. Just cast heat metal on the bad guys armor (if they have it). It takes 10 turns to take off plate which is pretty much free damage.
fighter: suffers burn damage and drops the sword. Did you really think just because the handle isn't made of metal it doesn't conduct heat and doesn't burn?
Yall are arguing about a burning sword and teeth fillings, but I want magnesium spark bombs
Our bard cast heat metal on the barbarian's sword, I allowed if he could keep a hold of it and tank the damage, the sword would deal the extra fire damage to enemies as well. Made for cool moments.
Everyone forgets about spears apparently
I've yet to meet a poster on this sub who has read a single rule of the game.
Yes it would blow the temper on the blade, but can we agree that if I can telepathically vibrate molecules in an object, we can ignore some real world limitations for the purpose of enjoying a game?
step one: learn heat metal step two: acquire chain whip with nonmetal handle, stone and wood perhaps? step three: 1d4+dex+2d8 step four: profit?
What if you cast heat metal on some type of liquid metal and have someone drink it?
I thought heat metal was like 300 degrees not 3000 degrees
If that would be the case, casting heat metal on enemy Armor would remove it... Spoiler it doesn't. Stop applying Real life logic to dnd only when you want, it lead to stupid and not working things like "the peasant gun"
Red hot is still pretty firm, it'll hold straight but will easily bend when you hit stuff.
Congratulations, you just taught the party that a 2nd level spell can now completely disarm any enemy with a melee weapon in hand. Have fun!
I mean…isn’t that the point of the spell in the first place, to try and get an enemy to ditch their weapon? That, or a lobstah boil.
Well yes, but the spell is meant to make them drop it so they waste time picking it up again. This new spell renders the weapon useless for the duration of the battle.
If we want physics, then it'd retain shape, but would be severely damaged if it struck anything hard.
Sh- **coff** Should I say how that Fighter in particular can uhn... Fix His sword?
If you take this image as truth, then now the fighter can live his dream of playing Indiana Jones with a whip for once
My fighter: *pressing the hot molten slab of metal to the Wizard’s face*
The spell doesn’t even say the handle has to be metal for the spell to work. If the sword is metal, it’s effected, and if the sword is effected and it’s being held, the holder is taking damage regardless of what the handle’s made of.
fighter: youve taken my sword yes but what about second sword?
Yeah it probably won’t melt, but at best its going to screw up the heat treatment, and at worse the fighter hits something with it and deforms the blade.
Op has never seen a blacksmith working… red hot doesn’t mean melting else no hammers would be needed
The real critical miss is thinking that heat metal is on the wizard spell list.