Eldritch Blast vs Huge Heaps Of Trash

[Malimar]

Okay, so there's a colossal heap of trash, a sort of garbage dump. (Mixed food and laboratory refuse, mostly, so: rotting flesh, broken lab equipment, rusting metal, toxic chemicals, and more rotting flesh.)

The trash heap has been leaching horrible chemicals into a nearby river, poisoning the countryside, so the PCs want to destroy it.

The party warlock intends to hit the trash with eldritch blast until it's gone or something else happens. (The warlock is level 3. He also has baleful utterance.)

Part of the question is: What does eldritch blast actually do? Its damage is untyped, so I don't picture it burning like fire damage and I don't picture it dissolve things like acid damage or shattering things like sonic damage or zapping things like electricity damage. I have described it as "ablating" chunks of oozes, but I don't know if even that is an accurate word.

But the main question is: what happens when the warlock eldritch blasts the trash? I'm having a hard time picturing it. Does he just break the trash into smaller and smaller particles, until it's just a slurry or a powder? Does he evaporate the trash into a gas? Does the trash just go away, because eldritch science scoffs at conservation of energy?

[Kane0]

Whenever i use a regular EB i describe it as kind of like a force effect that fizzles rather than collides.

I imagine using EB on a pule of trash would throw a lot of it everywhere and 'disintegrate' a small portion.

Edit: i'd say Baleful Utterance would be a safer bet. Wipe away small amounts from existence at a time.

[nedz]

He trashes the trash, now eldritch blast only does half damage to objects so he only half trashes it or conversely he doesn't half trash the trash.

Other than that, nothing much.

Well it's probably moved around a bit, and a bit more broken up, but that's it.

[Lord Haart]

By rules, he can destroy the heap if he deals enough damage to it, and he has pretty enough time to do it. So yep, he destroys the trash.

Now how you fluff it is a valid question. The best answer, in my opinion? Ask the player! It's his character, after all. I've played a warlock whose eldritch blast was a small lightning-only-closer-to-pure-energy-than-to-mere-electricity, it's very easy to imagine that it is fire of mystical/hellish kind that therefore gives a jack about "normal" immunity, or a mental attack, or a Disintegration-lite, or a beautiful, battlefield-encompassing bullet pattern that on succesfull hit, misses with 99.8% of its bullets but the hundred that hits deals all the damage (and if he misses the touch AC, well, the enemy dodged all the bullets, yay), or as a purifying holy blast, or perhaps an infusion of sheer time that makes flesh die, people age, metal rust and stones turn to dust… You get the idea. And of course, the default "red-magenta lazors" image is always there to fall back on, although it doesn't answer your question as such.

Ask the player, and then if you need to make a fluff-based ruling, stick with his answer for that particular character.

[Captnq]

Well...

When you do 100 HP of damage to someone, you are left with a corpse. If you do 1000 hp to the corpse, what happens?

By the rules, nothing. You need acid or fire to "destroy" a corpse. Straight up hp of damage just reduces the body to a more liquified state.

When you damage a wall, you are left with rubble. If you keep pouring on the HP, the rubble just becomes sand, eventually.

If you just do HP damage to the garbage, it will eventually become "liquified" You will increase disorder until it's homogenized. Then it will seek it's level and flow away. None of the garbage is "disintegrated" as in "gone completely." It's all still there, it's just mushy.

You need to pour on the acid or fire. Now, if he can do that type of energy damage with his eldrich blast, then it should work.

[Lord Haart]

Well...

When you do 100 HP of damage to someone, you are left with a corpse. If you do 1000 hp to the corpse, what happens?

By the rules, nothing. You need acid or fire to "destroy" a corpse. Straight up hp of damage just reduces the body to a more liquified state.

I believe you are confused. What you are describing is possibly what happens by the real world logic, but by the rules? By the rules corpse is an object, you do damage to the object, object is broken and ceases to exist, Minecraft-style. Physics? Law of conservation of matter? Catgirls? Never heard of THAT garbage.

And if i remember correctly, fire is one of the worst (but still better than cold) energy types to attack objects with.

[3WhiteFox3]

I believe you are confused. What you are describing is possibly what happens by the real world logic, but by the rules? By the rules corpse is an object, you do damage to the object, object is broken and ceases to exist, Minecraft-style. Physics? Law of conservation of matter? Catgirls? Never heard of THAT garbage.

There is no RAW that states the corpses are objects. They are never defined as anything. Even if they did they have no defined statistics that tell us when they would be destroyed.

[XmonkTad]

I would say that this situation should be handled a completely different way. Instead of having him waste time doing this, say that after a while of blasting at it he ticks off some ooze that was living there.

[Malimar]

So what I'm reading is: my confusion is justified.


Now how you fluff it is a valid question. The best answer, in my opinion? Ask the player! It's his character, after all. I've played a warlock whose eldritch blast was a small lightning-only-closer-to-pure-energy-than-to-mere-electricity, it's very easy to imagine that it is fire of mystical/hellish kind that therefore gives a jack about "normal" immunity, or a mental attack, or a Disintegration-lite, or a beautiful, battlefield-encompassing bullet pattern that on succesfull hit, misses with 99.8% of its bullets but the hundred that hits deals all the damage (and if he misses the touch AC, well, the enemy dodged all the bullets, yay), or as a purifying holy blast, or perhaps an infusion of sheer time that makes flesh die, people age, metal rust and stones turn to dust… You get the idea. And of course, the default "red-magenta lazors" image is always there to fall back on, although it doesn't answer your question as such.

Ask the player, and then if you need to make a fluff-based ruling, stick with his answer for that particular character.

This is a good idea and I don't know why it didn't occur to me.


I would say that this situation should be handled a completely different way. Instead of having him waste time doing this, say that after a while of blasting at it he ticks off some ooze that was living there.

Well, they already killed the otyugh that was living there. But yes, there's always the possibility that the folks who created the trash heap will come along in the middle of the process, or he might hit a canister of some toxic gas, or I might consult Dungeonscape's list of what can happen when you do combat in an alchemical laboratory. It's not going to be an entirely risk-free process.

But if they successfully deal with all the risks, I'm inclined to let the PCs accomplish the objective, if the rules support it.

[Just to Browse]

When you deal damage to an object, you break it down. Like how you splinter a piece of wood or shatter glass. Shooting eldritch blast or using baleful utterance would cause the trash heap to break down into smaller parts, which are probably more likely to get into the river and toxify the world.

You need an invocation of cleaning. Or an invocation of community service.

[nedz]

Yep, but given that he's level 3, his damage is 2d6, halved for objects and then he still has to get through the hardness: well he might break some of the smaller less hard bits up, but it's not going to make too much difference. Eldritch Blast does not disintegrate things, it just does damage.

[GlorinSteampike]

I believe you are confused. What you are describing is possibly what happens by the real world logic, but by the rules? By the rules corpse is an object, you do damage to the object, object is broken and ceases to exist, Minecraft-style. Physics? Law of conservation of matter? Catgirls? Never heard of THAT garbage.

And if i remember correctly, fire is one of the worst (but still better than cold) energy types to attack objects with.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not...

[Scow2]

There is no RAW that states the corpses are objects. They are never defined as anything. Even if they did they have no defined statistics that tell us when they would be destroyed.Actually, they do. They're objects because they're not creatures, yet exist in the gameworld. The fleshy bits have HP based on the thickness of the body, and the bone has hardness, and HP based on the thickness.

[TuggyNE]

Actually, they do. They're objects because they're not creatures, yet exist in the gameworld. The fleshy bits have HP based on the thickness of the body, and the bone has hardness, and HP based on the thickness.

The skin also has hardness, much like leather/hide. Probably 1 instead of 2, but the point remains.

[Chronos]

I've also seen it argued that a corpse is not an object, but rather a creature with the "dead" condition.

[Kane0]

I've also seen it argued that a corpse is not an object, but rather a creature with the "dead" condition.
Iron! Heart! Surge!

Ahem, anyway.


But if they successfully deal with all the risks, I'm inclined to let the PCs accomplish the objective, if the rules support it.
By all means, it seems legit. A combination of Eldritch Blast and Baleful Utterance should be able to destroy any heap of trash, given enough time.

[Devronq]

I see one issue you stated that some of the things are poisonous and really no matter how much you break down poison its still poisonous. Are the PCs planning on dealing with that aspect?
I think after they break every thing down maybe they should clean up the debry and cast remove poison on the ground or something just a thought .