I know the D&D community is pretty big here, but how would you as a DM rule this?
Fireball is a fire explosion, less force but more fire, in my mind. Compared to how this is just a splash of liquid fire.
Me thinking to myself I’d say this would have cone fire spread with a high(er) probability of causing burning, but lower upfront* fire damage. The DOT might not be too insignificant, either.
Alchemist's Fire is basically the Molotov Cocktail of 5e, so I'd just use that.
1d4 Fire damage per round unless they take an action to put the fire out seems pretty reasonable to me. Puts it on par with a shortsword at the very least.
Fireball's damage is insane (the designers intentionally made it deal more damage than spells of the same level "because it's an iconic spell"), so I wouldn't really use it as a baseline for balancing anything, personally.
I'd treat it as a thrown flask of oil. If they're not proficient with improvised weapons and roll a natural 1 on the attack, they hit themselves.
Crit fumbles are anti-fun
Depends on the group. Some people love them.
True, some people are casters
How many videos have you seen of guys crit fail throwing a brick through a window and hitting themselves? That shits real life and understandable when you’re terrible at what you’re doing.
Sure, but the question was "how you you as a DM rule this?" Unless you're running a game where the players are all commoners, it's safe to assume there's a less than 1 in 20 chance of hitting yourself with a thrown weapon
Then don't do that part
You should take your own advice, your players who play martials will have a lot more fun if they aren't dealing damage to themselves one in every twenty hits
I know the D&D community is pretty big here, but how would you as a DM rule this?
Fireball is a fire explosion, less force but more fire, in my mind. Compared to how this is just a splash of liquid fire.
Me thinking to myself I’d say this would have cone fire spread with a high(er) probability of causing burning, but lower upfront* fire damage. The DOT might not be too insignificant, either.
Alchemist's Fire is basically the Molotov Cocktail of 5e, so I'd just use that.
1d4 Fire damageper round unless they take an action to put the fire out seems pretty reasonable to me. Puts it on par with a shortsword at the very least.Fireball's damage is insane (the designers intentionally made it deal more damage than spells of the same level "because it's an iconic spell"), so I wouldn't really use it as a baseline for balancing anything, personally.
I'd treat it as a thrown flask of oil. If they're not proficient with improvised weapons and roll a natural 1 on the attack, they hit themselves.
Crit fumbles are anti-fun
Depends on the group. Some people love them.
True, some people are casters
How many videos have you seen of guys crit fail throwing a brick through a window and hitting themselves? That shits real life and understandable when you’re terrible at what you’re doing.
Sure, but the question was "how you you as a DM rule this?" Unless you're running a game where the players are all commoners, it's safe to assume there's a less than 1 in 20 chance of hitting yourself with a thrown weapon
Then don't do that part
You should take your own advice, your players who play martials will have a lot more fun if they aren't dealing damage to themselves one in every twenty hits