How much damage will 4,000 bottles of Alchemist's Fire do?

[Ravengm]

So, another Shrink Item utility.

1.) Craft up some Alchemist's Fire. Like, a ton of it: 4,000 times one dose.
2.) Put it all into a giant scaled replica of a bottle.
3.) Cast Shrink Item.
4.) Repeat this process four or five more times.
5.) Fly over the countryside and carpet bomb the poop out of everyone with your toys of mass destruction.

Also, can you stack castings together? If so, there'd be some awesomeness to be had. For instance, barring monetary costs, getting 4,000 shrunk bottles as described above and shrinking them. So, that'd be 16,000x alchemist's fire in the palm of your hand.

[Cielingcat]

Isn't the rule that doubling it adds a d6? I thought I heard Frank say that somewhere.

[Cynic]

If we follow a method of compaction that's basically squishing it all into one bottle, I just have to wonder what the density would be like?

Is it going to be a plasma-like reaction inside the bottle as the substances are squeezed against each other?

[JonSetanta]

1204314509[/unixtime]]Isn't the rule that doubling it adds a d6? I thought I heard Frank say that somewhere.

I've never heard or read of that. Ever.

But it makes sense, sorta.

4000d6 Fire... guh..

[RandomCasualty]

How I basically play it is that a big barrel of alchemists fire is just a collossal scaled alchemists fire. So you do the sizing rules for weapons and size alchemists fire to collossal or gargantuan, depending on how big it is.

[virgil]

Every doubling of its dimensions doubles the damage, the doubling of the damage being subject to D&D multiplication. The reasoning is that most 'balanced' aspects of the system have an exponentional relation.

A longsword doesn't do twice as much damage when sized for an ogre rather than human, despite it being twice as large in every dimension. To not have it this way leads to breaking the game.

For instance, the Hulking Hurler is broken because the damage of falling objects is a linear relation to weight, and carrying capacity is an exponential ability (every +5 Str doubles carrying capacity). The 4,000 bottles of acid or alchemist's fire somehow doing 4000x damage is a similar principle at work.

[Ice9]

Another way of resolving it is generalizing the relation between being hit with a flask of acid (1d6) and full immersion in acid (10d6), to state that full immersion in something does 10x the damage of being splashed with it.

So however much alchemist's fire you dump on someone, you can't get more than full immersion, which would be 10d6/round.

[Ravengm]

1204446466[/unixtime]]Another way of resolving it is generalizing the relation between being hit with a flask of acid (1d6) and full immersion in acid (10d6), to state that full immersion in something does 10x the damage of being splashed with it.

So however much alchemist's fire you dump on someone, you can't get more than full immersion, which would be 10d6/round.

Makes sense. So, basically you're creating a pool of fire to dip someone in? I'd think that a vat of Alchemist's Fire would be more akin to lava, though, which would cap at 20d6.

Which would be more plausible?

[Username17]

The rules are that every doubling increases the die size by 1. D6 -> d8; D8 -> 2d6, etc.

But the different charts for sizing up weapons don't add up. Like, at all.

Some of them have 2d6 -> 2d8 -> 3d6; and others have it advance 2d6 -> 3d6. As you can well imagine, that kind of disparity adds up right quick when you have have just major creationed up a 4000 pack of Alchy Fire and are now dumping twelve size increases straight off.

-Username17

[Koumei]

The problem really leaps in with d10, 2d4 and that shit, which almost nothing uses, only enough to be irritating and different.

I think the standard is d6 -> d8 -> 2d6 -> 3d6 -> 4d6 -> 6d6 -> 8d6 -> 12d6 -> 16d6 -> 24d6 -> 32d6 -> 48d6 -> 64d6, but don't quote me on it. People often throw this one around on various boards when showing off their "amazing" size-increase damage builds.

[RandomCasualty]

Size increases cap out at colossal though, don't they?

[Koumei]

You'd think that, wouldn't you? It'd make sense, after all.

Apparently, though the actual size caps out, the damage keeps scaling as though the size had increased. Which is just bizarre.

On the WotC CharOp boards and /tg/, people still get hard over "at level 20, I hit as though I'm City Sized/Colossal++++/Mega-Large/Zetta-Awesome and I deal over nine thousand dice of damage." I stopped caring long ago, but whatever.

[RandomCasualty]

1204504210[/unixtime]]

Apparently, though the actual size caps out, the damage keeps scaling as though the size had increased. Which is just bizarre.

Where does it actually say that though?

[JonSetanta]

1204446466[/unixtime]]
So however much alchemist's fire you dump on someone, you can't get more than full immersion, which would be 10d6/round.

Looks like a good resolution. I'll go with this one.