Practical application of Ironguard

[Darkweave31]

So Ironguard from the spell compendium is a pretty awesome spell at first glance, immune to all magical and mundane metal attacks? Awesome! But then you realize that the spell also says that you can pass through metal, which leads to many questions...

Can you pick up or wear metal objects such as an amulet or a sword while under its effects?

When you attempt to pass through a wall of iron, can your clothing pass through it as well?

Will you fall through the metal floor you're trying to walk on?

Does the spell act differently on attended and unattended objects?

I feel like that last question is the most important to answer since it is kind of the root problem for the others.

[Mnemnosyne]

Unless otherwise stated, spell effects targeting a person also affect their equipment (I'm pretty sure this is stated somewhere, but I can't remember where the general rule is); someone immune to fire through a spell effect won't have their clothing burned off, etc. Therefore:

You can pick up and manipulate any metal objects you had on you when the spell was cast, but if you put them down and try to pick them up again, you just pass through them.

Your clothing and gear will pass through metal objects along with you, unless you have picked up something since having the spell cast on you; those objects won't be able to pass through the wall of iron.

And yes, you pass through any metal floors. Although that's something there may be exceptions to depending on the DM: most effects that allow you to pass through solid matter also seem to have an inherent assumption of gravity continuing to pull you down, but still being able to walk and move around, and not being pulled to the center of the planet, so some DM's may be inclined to make a 'floor exception' for all spells that allow you to go through solid matter. On the other hand, since planets are not made of pure metal, you're not going to sink to the center of the planet by casting ironguard, so perhaps the DM will not be inclined to make a floor exception.

[Darkweave31]

That sounds reasonable. It's also pretty consistent with ghostform.

[jedipotter]

So Ironguard from the spell compendium is a pretty awesome spell at first glance, immune to all magical and mundane metal attacks? Awesome! But then you realize that the spell also says that you can pass through metal, which leads to many questions...


The answers depend on how you want to play the game:

Easy Fun
Everything always works out best for the character. Iron weapons pass right through the character (and all clothing and equipment), but the character can hold an iron weapon. The character can carry all the iron things that they want, and still ignore other iron objects. The character can pass through an iron door(and even the wooden frame work), but can walk on an iron floor. An arrow with an iron arrow head passes through the character(and clothing and equipment), and the wooden shaft, oddly, passes through the character too... You could even ''want too'' treat an iron floor as solid and then ''want to'' fall right through it (as a free action, of course, as the spell does not say otherwise...and what the hay, wanting to pass through iron gives you free use Tome of Battle maneuver)

Hard Fun
Everything is hard. All metal equipment the character has falls off, they can't hold or touch metal items and they can't walk across a metal bridge. The equipment of the character is not effected by the spell, so an attack with a metal weapon can damage or destroy the character's items. And an arrow with a metal arrowhead would still hurt as the wooden shaft hit the character.

Easy fun is the 3E, 4E and 5E style. Hard fun is 1E and 2E. Take your pick.