I cast fireball, centered on myself?

[Hiro Quester]

My 17th level bard/sublime chord/heartfire fanner has just acquired the "fire souled" template (modified), which includes the fire subtype. So I'm immune to fire damage, and vulnerable to cold.

This seems very helpful, since we have been dealing with hot places and fiery things a bit lately (lava, fire giants, pyroclastic dragons).

But what are the risks? If I use this to nuke enemies close to me (fireball centered on myself) can I also burn up all my equipment (staves, rods, scrolls, robe)? Does my equipment inherit the fire subtype, so that what I carry and/or wear is also fireproof?

[Hecuba]

Only unattended equipment is affected by fireball: anything you are wearing/using counts as attended and thus is not affected (fire type or not).

[Hiro Quester]

Thanks, Hecuba!

Does that apply to natural effects, too (walking through lava streams, for example)?

[heavyfuel]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure your equipment CAN be affected.

Even if you're immune to fire damage, you still need to roll your reflex save for the fireball. It may seem useless, but a natural 1 on a reflex save means your equipment may also be affected and you'll have to roll another reflex save for each piece of equipment.

[ericgrau]

The above is right, except that only one piece of equipment needs to save. But at your level you can keep resist energy up all day with repeat castings. This spell also wards your equipment. IIRC first the damage is halved because when there's no rule you pick the order effects apply. Then the item saves and possibly halfs the damage again if it rolls high. Then you subtract 30, then you subtract the object's hardness, then it still has some hp. Magic armor and weapons have extra hardness and hp, and they are among the most likely items to be affected.

Here's the rule: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#savingThrow

So keep resist energy (fire) up all day and your equipment should be safe 99.5% of the time. If you do more than 70 damage in an area attack, then you might have trouble in your head slot or cloak 0.5% of the time.

[Hecuba]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure your equipment CAN be affected.

Even if you're immune to fire damage, you still need to roll your reflex save for the fireball. It may seem useless, but a natural 1 on a reflex save means your equipment may also be affected and you'll have to roll another reflex save for each piece of equipment.

You are actually correct, though this only affects 1 item IIRC. And this isn't unique to fireball: anything that has a save will affect an attended item on a natural 1 (presuming the effect is applicable to items).

[Hiro Quester]

Thanks everyone. This is much clearer to me now.

It seems that immunity to fire is also immunity to lava (see heat and lava effects here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm)) That means no saving throw is needed, and all my attended equipment also is protected.

Does that sound right? (I'm going to need to impress or even intimidate a fire giant soon. He owes me a debt. Being unaffected by his lava stream would help there.)

As a bard, I don't have access to resist energy. I might have to add that to the runestaff I planning on making.

Though it might be better to use that for resisting cold, since I take 150% damage from that energy type.

[Kazudo]

Important to note: Even if you're immune to its heat effects, you CAN still drown/suffocate in lava.

[Zweisteine]

It seems that immunity to fire is also immunity to lava (see heat and lava effects here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm)).
Better yet, any resistance to fire is immunity to lava.

[A] resistance to fire serves as... immunity to lava or magma.

And you might be able to intentionally fail saves, which would prevent getting a natural 1. However, I think this isn't actually in the rules, so ask your DM. (It shouldn't be too hard to not dodge a fireball...) Just make sure that an intentional failure effectively counts as rolling a 2, not a one.

Or use a houserule like this one:
Be careful: When you make an attack, you can give up the possibility of an automatic hit on a roll of 20 in exchange for not automatically missing on a 1. This can also be applied to saves, but doesn't fit as well for fluff purposes.