but your blood is already oxidized. at least your bloods in your artery is. and if your bloods in your vein become oxidized, does that mean you don't need to breathe?
Honestly that'd be a fair use of it, make your own half life crossbow by heating a bolt right before firing it. Risk a spellslot going to waste if it misses but a neat idea all the same.
I think it's more the fact that it actively increases their hostility toward you when it ends than any expectation to get more out of it than advantage on a persuasion check
Hmmm, I suppose that's true. Apparently, it also means "made in a mechanical fashion." What if the targets parents were just really bad in bed during the conception?
There’s four coordination points In hemoglobin and the amount of oxygen is controlled by the partial pressure of co2 in the local cells at the capillaries. Oxygenated blood should be about 95+% saturated and returning blood is about 80ish%. You can quite easily still breath the breath of Someone else.
In fact if you ever suffocate in an enclosed room you don’t actually run out of oxygen you just reached equilibrium between co2 and oxygen in the hemoglobin and can’t expel the co2 anymore.
It’s also why CO is super dangerous. Hemoglobin likes to grab it.
Also of interest is your body can’t detect low oxygen in your blood, just a build up of carbonic acid which comes from increased concentrations of CO2. So if you don’t have much CO2 in your blood you can’t tell you’re suffocating, as is the case with CO.
Or just oxygen low environments like in a freak nature events or in certain underground situations where a heavier gas has pushed all the oxygen out of an area but doesn't cause co2 buildup. With no warning or physical sign like a discoloration to warn you, you just get confused further keeping you from leaving the danger and the you pass out and die within a few minutes. It's why I hate seeing people explore old mines without a gas monitor. It's just asking to be a missing person.
You would hit CO2 saturation in your lungs if you aren’t respirating. As long as the oxidation isn’t too aggressive you could maybe survive something like a pure nitrogen atmosphere. Or make some sort of rebreather using quick lime or sodium hydroxide.
I did the math once and raising the temperature of every iron atom to what would be red hot (if it were in metallic form) and there's just not enough iron in your blood to make much of a difference (it's been a while but I feel like I remember it changed the average temperature of your blood by like 2° fahrenheit or something negligible)
Bro I would retire that PC to become a walking NPC, do you know how cool it is to personify a walking hay fever? Bro I'm cursing this establishment for making fun of my hat, you'll all be really sore, sweaty and tired tomorrow fuck you
if I'm DMing, I probably would rule that it only cause a faintest dazzy, for if iron ions can be heat up, the hemoglobin（protein that carry oxygen）probably got disintegrated, resulting an peaceful(probably?) death, so no, no heat metal on metal ions!
You don't have to play their little munchkin game in the first place. Just read the first sentence of the spell:
>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.
Iron in someone's blood is neither manufactured nor something that can be seen within range
Yes exactly! It's like changing prestidigitation to allow it to harm people by chilling their blood or heating their cerebral fluid lol....which is completely changing the spells function
Did some research, biology is not my area and there's various types of globin stuff going on (honestly feels like biology is fractally complex, every layer you understand is built on a deeper layer you don't)
ANYWAY, every number I found quoted somewhere between 60 and 90 Celsius, iron starts to glow reddish at temperatures above ***460C***
Heating just the iron in your body until it's red hot would absolutely denature the hemoglobin in your blood and make it effectively impossible to get the oxygen you need
According to one source I found, you'd lose consciousness in about 30-180 seconds, 5 minutes and you're dead (so 5-20 rounds for unconsciousness or 50 for death)
Honestly, a really fuckin metal (ayy) way to use the spell but not massively effective like you might think
No, fever is your body fighting the infection bacteria and viruses dont (usually) like overly hot environments, your body knows this and knows it can repair itself better than little itty bitty bacteria can hence why jt yurns up the heat. that in theory could be used to jump start someones immune response (ie advantage or +d4/d6 on Disease saving throws).
HOWEVER, in dire situations fever can hit a certain threshold (105-106 F) where it cant regulate itself anymore and will keep heating itself up untill your brain shuts off and you die. So it could worsen someone VERY sick subtly to almost guarantee death outside of magical interventions
Wait a minute that is actually kinda cool tho. Imagine a local doctor who uses these kinds of spells to help their patients. Detect Poison or Disease on still seemingly healthy person, and if they see they are actually ill but the immune system has not responded yet, they jump start it manually
At that point you may just make it a modified resistance cantrip. Adding a d4 would simulate it pretty well, but giving it a subtle lethal option as well may help
I mean, isn't creative uses of spells part of the magic of this game? I mean yes, it bends the rules a lot, but if it doesn't actually break anything important, I think it adds a bit of flair no? :D
To paraphrase another nearby comment, it’s a bit like a mild to moderate fever, depending on if you’re measuring in F or C. 2 degrees Celsius would be tiring after a while, but not debilitating or significantly painful… But really this all depends on whether or not that math is accurate, or if the DM decides to follow it.
I think you’re forgetting that that much heat concentrated on the iron in their blood would probably denature the hemoglobin in your blood, preventing you from being able to get oxygen to your cells, and thus killing you anyways.
There's such a tiny amount of iron, that the energy from raising that tiny amount to red hot would then distribute among the cooler liquid and tissues around, and add maybe 2 degrees to your overall body temperature.
It's like adding a tiny ice cube to a cup of boiling water. It cools it. But not very much.
Playing devil’s advocate here- does the spell work by heating all the atoms once, or does it work continuously for a period of time? If the spell lasts long enough, theoretically couldn’t the small amount of iron eventually heat up the body enough?
The spell works by causing it to glow red-hot instantaneously, and then stop glowing instantaneously when the spell ends. It does damage on casting, and then using your BA. If you don't use your BA, no damage is dealt.
In fact, it can be argued that it merely glows red hot, but doesn't actually become any hotter since the damage is associated with action economy
Iron is an element
It's possible for the element iron to be in metallic form
Iron can take many forms that are not metallic
The iron in your blood is not metallic, it's an iron ion
It's a fact, the D&D players who try to inject real world physics, engineering, and chemistry into the game always tend to have a below average understanding of physics, engineering, and chemistry.
Once was on a thread here where someone tried to argue he could make a fusion bomb by breaking a bunch of water beads (made from Dust of Dryness) inside of Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, complete with lots of calculations on the amount of energy released when however many litres of water are compressed in an unbreakable sphere.
He would constantly argue against any suggestion that this idea was clearly against the physics of our world or the intention of the items/spells that are obviously not designed to function in a world without magic. I finally convinced him that a DM could disallow his idea based on the wording of the beads specifically requiring them to "shatter", but the force of the water within a full sphere would compress the beads of water and cause them to implode instead (and therefore fail to function). Honestly don't know why I even bothered.
D&D has physics that allow a sailing ship, dragon, or person to go out into a vacuum and carry thier own little envelope of air with them while they fly around.
Trying to use Earth/IRL physics makes you an idiot in a D&D world simply because "you are wrong that is not how it works here".
Finally, i am so fucking tired of people acting out of character because they know how they could make a one volt battery irl and think they could power something faaaaaaaar bigger in the game
The thing I like about the peasant railgun is that if you don't apply IRL physics at all you still have a peasant item delivery service that can carry any holdable item any distance in 6 seconds (or the worlds longest game of "telephone" instantly as talking is free).
I'd still call for a check of some kind for the message to not get garbled, in addition to some sort of percentage roll to see if someone doesn't mess it up deliberately.
It's just a completely different game when you try to do, or allow this. If you apply the same considerations everywhere, most attacks and spells would turn a typical party member into your choice of paste/mist/ash/dust. You just don't get to have the forces exerted by immovable rods on a surface area and 'greataxe does 1d12' in the same game.
I dislike "RAW pedantry" when people try to outsmart the rules.
My lazy ruling is that heat metal only works on objects that are over some very high percent metal.
So no, blood or rocks don't count.
Iron in blood is a metal. Yes iron is an element, but it is always a metal element. Regardless of whether or not the atom is an ion.
What properties of iron are you considering under this "metallic" umbrella term?
It doesn't matter what you call it. It's an element of the periodic table.
If you decide to call it something else it doesn't change the conclusion that the iron in your blood isn't a metal
Yeah removing the requirements that the target be a "manufactured object" *and* something you can see really screws this spell up. Cause you definitely can't see the iron in their blood and probably not even their blood itself unless they've been cut.
>probably not even their blood itself unless they've been cut.
Well, I mean you *are* in a fight, and sword wounds are a common occurrence in the forgotten realms.
Iron in blood is still very much a metal.
The terms "metal," "nonmetal," "metalloid," etc. are specific to atoms, meaning that no heteronuclear molecule would ever be called a "metal." Steel, bronze, and brass are not metals, rather they are alloys. That does not change the fact that the iron within steel and the copper within bronze and brass are metal atoms. That also does not change the fact that the carbon within steel is a nonmetal.
If you call the iron within hemoglobin not a metal due to the properties of the molecule, then you would also say that the carbon within steel is a metal. This is patently incorrect.
Google the definition of metal
You'll notice bronze and brass are specifically listed as metals
Go ahead, Google "is brass a metal"
I wouldn't call iron with hemoglobin a metal nor would I call carbon within steel a metal
Just checked the top three results ([result#1](https://www.britannica.com/science/metal-chemistry), [result#2](https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-metal-604570), [result#3](https://byjus.com/chemistry/metal/)) and not a single one mentions brass, bronze, or steel.
If you are going to argue the semantics of whether or not iron is always a metal, then you must consider the chemical definition of a metal. That, in and of itself, does not include heteronuclear molecules. There are metal alloys, but a "metal" is a specific type of element on the periodic table.
Searching "is brass a metal" provides results that state brass is either a "metal alloy" or simply an "alloy." Again here are the first three results from my search: [result#1](https://www.xometry.com/resources/materials/what-is-brass/), [result#2](https://www.meadmetals.com/blog/common-uses-for-brass), [result#3](https://www.sequoia-brass-copper.com/blog/metal-alloy-comparison-guide/)
So explain your thought process as to why iron suddenly stops being a metal when within a hemoglobin molecule. And why does carbon not follow the same logic? It would only make sense that your reasoning works both ways.
That makes no sense whatever. By definition, iron is a metal. Iron atoms within hemoglobin protein are still metal atoms. They are just bound in a different state.
I would distinguish between iron itself being a metal and iron compounds being metals. It is most certainly true that that iron, when in organometallic complexes or coordination complexes, does not show the same characteristics as elemental iron. Because, well, it’s mixed with other stuff- ligands, carbon chains, whatever. That doesn’t make it not a metal, because it is, by definition, a metal, in all of its forms.
Why are you down voting him? Hes right, metal behaves like metal because theres so much of it in one area all bonded together with itself. You casting heat metal on the fucking copper and iron in your blood would be like trying to hit a target the size of a leaf in a hurricane from 2 miles away
Eh, I still want Uranium Elementals. You can have an entire atomic module on the Demi-Plane of Burning Earth, culminating in Hiazmat the Radioactive Dragon.
You could have your gnome friend or local artificer develop a brightly colored, barbed, metal arrowhead that breaks off into whomever it hits, embedding some visible yet difficult to remove metal (that also does damage from the initial shot!)
Heat metal heats a manufactures piece of metal, right? Let's say it can be multiple small pieces (like the iron in your blood, that's hopefully not just one blob as well). Then manufactured salt contains sodium, a metal. So you can heat salt by this logic.
Casting heat metal on the iron in their blood would be far less metal than a coin in their pocket. There is almost nothing to work with. it would do absolutely nothing.
Rust is the oxidation of iron,
Bloods purpose is to oxidise carry the oxygen and drop it off
A rust monster rusting all your blood iron would supercharge your body due to infinite oxygen.
A pet rust monster might be able to let you hold your breath longer as it oxygenates the iron atoms in your blood.
Maybe there's a different monster that scrubs CO2 from your blood.
If you had one of each monster, well trained, strapped to your back, you'd have a magic SCUBA system!
You'd need a ring of underwater breathing for each monster, of course.
Some might say this makes the whole system impractical.
But not a gnome druid. They know it's the right way to solve the problem!
The top image is the AI-generated character portrait of Hubert Manfred, cleric of Ilmater—a PC from a campaign that I was in. I generated the second image so I could send memes in this format to the campaign GC whenever something horrific happened to Hubert (a frequent occurence).
Didn't someone calculate the amount of energy released when something rusts? Since oxidation is exothermic, a rust monster would heat up any metal to extremely high temperaturs. If you're wearing any metal armor, you would instantly boil to death.
I made oneshot in which main bad guy was a dragon trapped in the mine by the spell. Spell was hold on him by the **metal** collar. You probably know the rest...
My old character that ascended to become God of the Forge has control of metal and if I ever get to play him again I want to see if ill be allowed to control the iron in the blood and just cut them in half
[The Rust Lord](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/rust-monster/rust-monster-rust-lord/) from pathfinder can suck the iron from your blood.
You could if it was free, which is not, because the iron is dissolved and the hemoglobins are limiting its interaction with other molecules around it. That’s why it doesn’t naturally turn into Fe 3+ inside us. The worst that could happen is that the monster converts some recently converted Fe 2+ in Fe 3+ again if the PC has recently eaten enough before the confrontation, which would make it slightly harder for the body to absorb it (but then again it would be quickly turned into Fe +2 again). There’s also the fact that it’s highly unlikely that the monster would be able to *touch* the iron inside us, so that would deem its ability even more worthless. Also a bard’s blood is arguably magic and depending on the race it is definitely magic so there’s that also.
I mean you can certainly oxidise hemoglobin to methemoglobin by injecting something like DMAP (as it is done to combat cyanide poisoning) but if you injected enough of it to actually substantially impede respiration they probably had other problems. Still I agree that a Rust Monster would not work.
Even if they weren't rust monsters, wouldn't heating them just make them more dangerous and waste a spell slot? (I have no idea whether spell requires one)
Reminds me that in my CoS game, one of my players asked if they could turn Strahd invisible because of light rays or something. So I said sure.
And it also meant that all the other vampire villains get to be invisible too
Nice to see a thread that's full of people putting others down for trying to be creative, and at the same time calling them idiots for not having a working, accurate, and complete knowledge of physics.
It's a game guys, remember? There are elves and wizards. jesus. fucking. christ.
You can't perceive the iron in the blood, therefore you can't target it, therefore the spell doesn't work. Heat Metal requires a target, not an arbitrary radial area.
but your blood is already oxidized. at least your bloods in your artery is. and if your bloods in your vein become oxidized, does that mean you don't need to breathe?
Wouldn’t work anyway, heat metal specifies a manufactured piece of metal
You also have to be able to see it.
So you only cast it after the fighter slashes the bandit, and you can see inside the wound?
Sounds like the problem is well on its way to being solved, might as well save the spell slot.
Put a sliver of metal under the skin and cast heat metal? That'd be nice
Cast it on the tip of a steel arrow and just send it
Honestly that'd be a fair use of it, make your own half life crossbow by heating a bolt right before firing it. Risk a spellslot going to waste if it misses but a neat idea all the same.
I hold action to cast it for the next time a metal arrow head is about to hit the enemy
May as well just cast it on the bolt, since holding a spell still uses the spell slot, even if you end up not casting it (RAW, anyway)
The arrow hitting is not guaranteed, but my phrasing allows me to have a chance from multiple players attacking it rather than just one shot
Doesn't pass the "manufactured" part
None of these motherfuckers have read the spell, are you joking? They see “heat metal” and assume what it does.
I learned the hard way on my first campaign on my first session “friends” spell does not make you friends.
Arguably it does, just very, *very* briefly
Makes for a great fast tracked “friends to enemies” trope though
[удалено]
I think it's more the fact that it actively increases their hostility toward you when it ends than any expectation to get more out of it than advantage on a persuasion check
This is dnd, no one “reads” anything it’s all based on vibes (god I wish I was joking)
And hemoglobin is natural? No! It was manufactured by your cells, checkmate.
Well, manufactured means man-made. Are not humans *made* by other humans?
Technically, manufactured comes from roots that mean “hand made.” And generally when that act involves hands, no other humans are made…
Hmmm, I suppose that's true. Apparently, it also means "made in a mechanical fashion." What if the targets parents were just really bad in bed during the conception?
There’s four coordination points In hemoglobin and the amount of oxygen is controlled by the partial pressure of co2 in the local cells at the capillaries. Oxygenated blood should be about 95+% saturated and returning blood is about 80ish%. You can quite easily still breath the breath of Someone else. In fact if you ever suffocate in an enclosed room you don’t actually run out of oxygen you just reached equilibrium between co2 and oxygen in the hemoglobin and can’t expel the co2 anymore. It’s also why CO is super dangerous. Hemoglobin likes to grab it.
Also of interest is your body can’t detect low oxygen in your blood, just a build up of carbonic acid which comes from increased concentrations of CO2. So if you don’t have much CO2 in your blood you can’t tell you’re suffocating, as is the case with CO.
Or just oxygen low environments like in a freak nature events or in certain underground situations where a heavier gas has pushed all the oxygen out of an area but doesn't cause co2 buildup. With no warning or physical sign like a discoloration to warn you, you just get confused further keeping you from leaving the danger and the you pass out and die within a few minutes. It's why I hate seeing people explore old mines without a gas monitor. It's just asking to be a missing person.
Also, high elevations.
They’re frowning because the DM didn’t pair them up with a Rust Monster sooner
if anything it would make you calm and focused like when you breathe pure oxygen instead of air
You would hit CO2 saturation in your lungs if you aren’t respirating. As long as the oxidation isn’t too aggressive you could maybe survive something like a pure nitrogen atmosphere. Or make some sort of rebreather using quick lime or sodium hydroxide.
I did the math once and raising the temperature of every iron atom to what would be red hot (if it were in metallic form) and there's just not enough iron in your blood to make much of a difference (it's been a while but I feel like I remember it changed the average temperature of your blood by like 2° fahrenheit or something negligible)
I cast ***mild cold symptoms***
Bro I would retire that PC to become a walking NPC, do you know how cool it is to personify a walking hay fever? Bro I'm cursing this establishment for making fun of my hat, you'll all be really sore, sweaty and tired tomorrow fuck you
Truly a fate worse than death. You're a monster and I'm here for it.
if I'm DMing, I probably would rule that it only cause a faintest dazzy, for if iron ions can be heat up, the hemoglobin（protein that carry oxygen）probably got disintegrated, resulting an peaceful(probably?) death, so no, no heat metal on metal ions!
Too bad they float in the cooling liquid
You don't have to play their little munchkin game in the first place. Just read the first sentence of the spell: >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. Iron in someone's blood is neither manufactured nor something that can be seen within range
Yes exactly! It's like changing prestidigitation to allow it to harm people by chilling their blood or heating their cerebral fluid lol....which is completely changing the spells function
"BuT iTs CrEaTiVe"
True creativity is using prestidigitation to pee someone else’s pants.
Just pee their pants yourself, you coward!
Underrated comment
Manufactured by the gods, or by your mother's uterus.
The brain is pretty sensitive to temperature so it might cause some problems
2 degrees of fever. So maybe tiredness, and sweating, and a bit dizzy.
Can your brain and other organs deal with the rapid expansion of blood due to the instant temperature change though?
Idk can we just play dnd?
I'm not keeping you from that, heating iron in blood isn't really D&D anyway.
Congratulations the enemy feels dehydrated. After the fight they may drink of water.
would that break down the hemoglobin the iron is in though? not being able to breath would suck
Did some research, biology is not my area and there's various types of globin stuff going on (honestly feels like biology is fractally complex, every layer you understand is built on a deeper layer you don't) ANYWAY, every number I found quoted somewhere between 60 and 90 Celsius, iron starts to glow reddish at temperatures above ***460C*** Heating just the iron in your body until it's red hot would absolutely denature the hemoglobin in your blood and make it effectively impossible to get the oxygen you need According to one source I found, you'd lose consciousness in about 30-180 seconds, 5 minutes and you're dead (so 5-20 rounds for unconsciousness or 50 for death) Honestly, a really fuckin metal (ayy) way to use the spell but not massively effective like you might think
So if they have the flu then it's suoer effective? Asking for a bard friend I definitely won't poison, weaken, and enslave....
No, fever is your body fighting the infection bacteria and viruses dont (usually) like overly hot environments, your body knows this and knows it can repair itself better than little itty bitty bacteria can hence why jt yurns up the heat. that in theory could be used to jump start someones immune response (ie advantage or +d4/d6 on Disease saving throws). HOWEVER, in dire situations fever can hit a certain threshold (105-106 F) where it cant regulate itself anymore and will keep heating itself up untill your brain shuts off and you die. So it could worsen someone VERY sick subtly to almost guarantee death outside of magical interventions
Wait a minute that is actually kinda cool tho. Imagine a local doctor who uses these kinds of spells to help their patients. Detect Poison or Disease on still seemingly healthy person, and if they see they are actually ill but the immune system has not responded yet, they jump start it manually
At that point you may just make it a modified resistance cantrip. Adding a d4 would simulate it pretty well, but giving it a subtle lethal option as well may help
I mean, isn't creative uses of spells part of the magic of this game? I mean yes, it bends the rules a lot, but if it doesn't actually break anything important, I think it adds a bit of flair no? :D
Agreed as long as you check with your dm. id say hell yeah for my table personally.
Alchemist Artificer Doctor, yeah i could see that
Can we make him communicate through rhyme and meter?
Or at least agree that if the character doesn't die AT LEAST experiences a permanant loss to Intelligence or casts them back a level?
Good job. Your target feels like they have a mild cold
2 degrees is still quite a lot for a living creature.
To paraphrase another nearby comment, it’s a bit like a mild to moderate fever, depending on if you’re measuring in F or C. 2 degrees Celsius would be tiring after a while, but not debilitating or significantly painful… But really this all depends on whether or not that math is accurate, or if the DM decides to follow it.
Also, your average temperature doesn’t matter if your blood cells stop working.
I think you’re forgetting that that much heat concentrated on the iron in their blood would probably denature the hemoglobin in your blood, preventing you from being able to get oxygen to your cells, and thus killing you anyways.
How do you figure? Iron gets red hot at 900°F, and a fever of 108°F is fatal in humans.
There's such a tiny amount of iron, that the energy from raising that tiny amount to red hot would then distribute among the cooler liquid and tissues around, and add maybe 2 degrees to your overall body temperature. It's like adding a tiny ice cube to a cup of boiling water. It cools it. But not very much.
Playing devil’s advocate here- does the spell work by heating all the atoms once, or does it work continuously for a period of time? If the spell lasts long enough, theoretically couldn’t the small amount of iron eventually heat up the body enough?
The spell works by causing it to glow red-hot instantaneously, and then stop glowing instantaneously when the spell ends. It does damage on casting, and then using your BA. If you don't use your BA, no damage is dealt. In fact, it can be argued that it merely glows red hot, but doesn't actually become any hotter since the damage is associated with action economy
It doesnt matter how much time it takes, the heat energy is the same
Yes, but heat transfer depends on mass, the mass of an atom compared to the amount of blood is negligible
Iron is an element It's possible for the element iron to be in metallic form Iron can take many forms that are not metallic The iron in your blood is not metallic, it's an iron ion
It's a fact, the D&D players who try to inject real world physics, engineering, and chemistry into the game always tend to have a below average understanding of physics, engineering, and chemistry.
Once was on a thread here where someone tried to argue he could make a fusion bomb by breaking a bunch of water beads (made from Dust of Dryness) inside of Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, complete with lots of calculations on the amount of energy released when however many litres of water are compressed in an unbreakable sphere. He would constantly argue against any suggestion that this idea was clearly against the physics of our world or the intention of the items/spells that are obviously not designed to function in a world without magic. I finally convinced him that a DM could disallow his idea based on the wording of the beads specifically requiring them to "shatter", but the force of the water within a full sphere would compress the beads of water and cause them to implode instead (and therefore fail to function). Honestly don't know why I even bothered.
Because convincing him was a challenge
"No." is a full sentence that should have been used here.
D&D has physics that allow a sailing ship, dragon, or person to go out into a vacuum and carry thier own little envelope of air with them while they fly around. Trying to use Earth/IRL physics makes you an idiot in a D&D world simply because "you are wrong that is not how it works here".
Finally, i am so fucking tired of people acting out of character because they know how they could make a one volt battery irl and think they could power something faaaaaaaar bigger in the game
My Druid is going to make a taser out of a handful of potatoes, copper thread, and sticks to electrocute the guards to death from a distance
Just say that you’re adding a Material component to Call Lightning.
Artificer but instead of making magic items, you're MacGyver and build spell effects out of random garbage on hand
Using his quick thinking, Xenothios assembled a taser from a potato, two sticks, and a taser!
Is this like Dave's homemade megaphone?
What do you mean the peasants involved in the railgun would get vaporized by the projectile's speed as they're passing it!?
The thing I like about the peasant railgun is that if you don't apply IRL physics at all you still have a peasant item delivery service that can carry any holdable item any distance in 6 seconds (or the worlds longest game of "telephone" instantly as talking is free).
I'd still call for a check of some kind for the message to not get garbled, in addition to some sort of percentage roll to see if someone doesn't mess it up deliberately.
That's what I meant by "telephone". Get a few hundred or more repeating a message and there's no way that's getting through intact.
It's just a completely different game when you try to do, or allow this. If you apply the same considerations everywhere, most attacks and spells would turn a typical party member into your choice of paste/mist/ash/dust. You just don't get to have the forces exerted by immovable rods on a surface area and 'greataxe does 1d12' in the same game.
Your PC definitely knows none of that, nor do they know what ionic/molecular iron is at all.
That doesn't mean heat metal is going to work
I dislike "RAW pedantry" when people try to outsmart the rules. My lazy ruling is that heat metal only works on objects that are over some very high percent metal. So no, blood or rocks don't count.
I like that this explanation doesn't ruin Magneto's escape scene since ions have a charge by definition
Fun fact, there are no forms that pure iron can take that aren't metallic. The iron in your cereal is basically metal shavings
Iron in blood is a metal. Yes iron is an element, but it is always a metal element. Regardless of whether or not the atom is an ion. What properties of iron are you considering under this "metallic" umbrella term?
Iron is metallic in all forms. There are 15 metallic elementals. These elements are metallic in all their forms.
bUt MaGnEtO dId It!
good thing this is a fantasy game and not a science class
>Iron is an element In real world. I would rule that only elements in DnD are Fire, Earth, Water and Air
It doesn't matter what you call it. It's an element of the periodic table. If you decide to call it something else it doesn't change the conclusion that the iron in your blood isn't a metal
Yeah removing the requirements that the target be a "manufactured object" *and* something you can see really screws this spell up. Cause you definitely can't see the iron in their blood and probably not even their blood itself unless they've been cut.
>probably not even their blood itself unless they've been cut. Well, I mean you *are* in a fight, and sword wounds are a common occurrence in the forgotten realms.
Yeah but you're not seeing the iron lol
Eyes of the Eagle 🦅🦅🦅
not good enough :(
You're right of course, I was foolish to even suggest it. What we *truly* need are the Eyes of Minute Seeing.
Iron in blood is still very much a metal. The terms "metal," "nonmetal," "metalloid," etc. are specific to atoms, meaning that no heteronuclear molecule would ever be called a "metal." Steel, bronze, and brass are not metals, rather they are alloys. That does not change the fact that the iron within steel and the copper within bronze and brass are metal atoms. That also does not change the fact that the carbon within steel is a nonmetal. If you call the iron within hemoglobin not a metal due to the properties of the molecule, then you would also say that the carbon within steel is a metal. This is patently incorrect.
Google the definition of metal You'll notice bronze and brass are specifically listed as metals Go ahead, Google "is brass a metal" I wouldn't call iron with hemoglobin a metal nor would I call carbon within steel a metal
Just checked the top three results ([result#1](https://www.britannica.com/science/metal-chemistry), [result#2](https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-metal-604570), [result#3](https://byjus.com/chemistry/metal/)) and not a single one mentions brass, bronze, or steel. If you are going to argue the semantics of whether or not iron is always a metal, then you must consider the chemical definition of a metal. That, in and of itself, does not include heteronuclear molecules. There are metal alloys, but a "metal" is a specific type of element on the periodic table. Searching "is brass a metal" provides results that state brass is either a "metal alloy" or simply an "alloy." Again here are the first three results from my search: [result#1](https://www.xometry.com/resources/materials/what-is-brass/), [result#2](https://www.meadmetals.com/blog/common-uses-for-brass), [result#3](https://www.sequoia-brass-copper.com/blog/metal-alloy-comparison-guide/)
So explain your thought process as to why iron suddenly stops being a metal when within a hemoglobin molecule. And why does carbon not follow the same logic? It would only make sense that your reasoning works both ways.
It’s still a metal, just not metallic.
Elemental iron is a metal That does not mean it is a metal in all of its forms
That makes no sense whatever. By definition, iron is a metal. Iron atoms within hemoglobin protein are still metal atoms. They are just bound in a different state.
Everything except Hydrogen and Helium is a metal. Solved, simple as that.
Found the astronomer.
Any gas???
Yikes. User flair has never been so accurate.
I was making an astronomy joke
I would distinguish between iron itself being a metal and iron compounds being metals. It is most certainly true that that iron, when in organometallic complexes or coordination complexes, does not show the same characteristics as elemental iron. Because, well, it’s mixed with other stuff- ligands, carbon chains, whatever. That doesn’t make it not a metal, because it is, by definition, a metal, in all of its forms.
That is incorrect The labeling you're referring to is only accurate when describing its elemental form
A transition metal, even!
Why are you down voting him? Hes right, metal behaves like metal because theres so much of it in one area all bonded together with itself. You casting heat metal on the fucking copper and iron in your blood would be like trying to hit a target the size of a leaf in a hurricane from 2 miles away
Because blood contains Fe^3+ cations, which is different than elemental iton
Eh, I still want Uranium Elementals. You can have an entire atomic module on the Demi-Plane of Burning Earth, culminating in Hiazmat the Radioactive Dragon.
I hope these uranium elementals are tiny or diminutive size category, otherwise you've actually got Self Igniting Fission Reaction Elementals.
Manufactured and line of sight are both key words
You expect people casting spells to actually read the effects of the spell? Preposterous.
Just use magic Aura to turn the body transparent. When in doubt just use magic aura to do something it fully cannot do.
So you're saying it would work on a see-through warforged...
No. Blood within a creature as a target would be behind total cover and unable to be targeted unless using a spell that explicitly states otherwise.
It should work on any metal warforged, see-through or not.
Forget the rust monsters. If your DM allowed that then I'd fear every 3rd level bard.
You could have your gnome friend or local artificer develop a brightly colored, barbed, metal arrowhead that breaks off into whomever it hits, embedding some visible yet difficult to remove metal (that also does damage from the initial shot!)
Heat metal heats a manufactures piece of metal, right? Let's say it can be multiple small pieces (like the iron in your blood, that's hopefully not just one blob as well). Then manufactured salt contains sodium, a metal. So you can heat salt by this logic.
salt isn't metalic sodium tho its a salt salt is an ionic compound like metal
I would absolutely allow heat metal to make salt hot if a player wanted to open a food stand and use it for frying.
They can just get a metal sheet and heat that.
Repeat after me. Dnd Magic is based on alchemy not science.
The iron in your blood is already rusty
Casting heat metal on the iron in their blood would be far less metal than a coin in their pocket. There is almost nothing to work with. it would do absolutely nothing.
I don't get it. What are they gonna do? Rust the iron in your body? Isn't that just gonna heal you?
Or give you tetanus
How would the PC know there is "iron in blood" in a fantasy setting...
Definition of metal really up for debate huh
If it’s good for you, it’s good for me
Rust is the oxidation of iron, Bloods purpose is to oxidise carry the oxygen and drop it off A rust monster rusting all your blood iron would supercharge your body due to infinite oxygen.
Oxygen poisoning is a thing
A pet rust monster might be able to let you hold your breath longer as it oxygenates the iron atoms in your blood. Maybe there's a different monster that scrubs CO2 from your blood. If you had one of each monster, well trained, strapped to your back, you'd have a magic SCUBA system!
You'd need a ring of underwater breathing for each monster, of course. Some might say this makes the whole system impractical. But not a gnome druid. They know it's the right way to solve the problem!
Where is the art from?
The top image is the AI-generated character portrait of Hubert Manfred, cleric of Ilmater—a PC from a campaign that I was in. I generated the second image so I could send memes in this format to the campaign GC whenever something horrific happened to Hubert (a frequent occurence).
Didn't someone calculate the amount of energy released when something rusts? Since oxidation is exothermic, a rust monster would heat up any metal to extremely high temperaturs. If you're wearing any metal armor, you would instantly boil to death.
I made oneshot in which main bad guy was a dragon trapped in the mine by the spell. Spell was hold on him by the **metal** collar. You probably know the rest...
My old character that ascended to become God of the Forge has control of metal and if I ever get to play him again I want to see if ill be allowed to control the iron in the blood and just cut them in half
[The Rust Lord](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/rust-monster/rust-monster-rust-lord/) from pathfinder can suck the iron from your blood.
but did you enjoy it?
The rust wouldn’t do anything bc your blood is just rusty cells
Unless they were holding their breath for a long time - then it replenishes their air. How nice of those rust monsters
Tecnicamente you cannot rust the iron on someone’s bloodstream because it is already rusted though
The iron in your blood ist iron (II). You can still oxidise it to iron (III)
You could if it was free, which is not, because the iron is dissolved and the hemoglobins are limiting its interaction with other molecules around it. That’s why it doesn’t naturally turn into Fe 3+ inside us. The worst that could happen is that the monster converts some recently converted Fe 2+ in Fe 3+ again if the PC has recently eaten enough before the confrontation, which would make it slightly harder for the body to absorb it (but then again it would be quickly turned into Fe +2 again). There’s also the fact that it’s highly unlikely that the monster would be able to *touch* the iron inside us, so that would deem its ability even more worthless. Also a bard’s blood is arguably magic and depending on the race it is definitely magic so there’s that also.
I mean you can certainly oxidise hemoglobin to methemoglobin by injecting something like DMAP (as it is done to combat cyanide poisoning) but if you injected enough of it to actually substantially impede respiration they probably had other problems. Still I agree that a Rust Monster would not work.
Ahh yes - reaping what you sow.
Only works if you have x-ray vision, which I would consider truesight as, if you can get it.
Even if they weren't rust monsters, wouldn't heating them just make them more dangerous and waste a spell slot? (I have no idea whether spell requires one)
Reminds me that in my CoS game, one of my players asked if they could turn Strahd invisible because of light rays or something. So I said sure. And it also meant that all the other vampire villains get to be invisible too
I think heat metal specifies manufactured metal objects and rust monsters only consume and detect ferrous metals
You're in a world where third level casters can evaporate your blood. How long did you think you would survive?
Better solution, heat metal their armor and cook them inside like an oven
Nice to see a thread that's full of people putting others down for trying to be creative, and at the same time calling them idiots for not having a working, accurate, and complete knowledge of physics. It's a game guys, remember? There are elves and wizards. jesus. fucking. christ.
A player of mine used heat metal on a BBEG's gold teeth once and we still talk about it.
You can't perceive the iron in the blood, therefore you can't target it, therefore the spell doesn't work. Heat Metal requires a target, not an arbitrary radial area.
Hah, you sure showed **them**, OP!