Acid Splash: Get Out of Jail Free?

[Noumenon]

Can a wizard with infinite cantrip Acid Splash use it to slowly melt through the bars of his cell, 1d3 hit points at a time? Heck, can he go through the stone floor and then start creating a tunnel? Or do you rule that hardness applies to the damage?

 

[Walking Dad]

Acid does no longer ignore hardness in Pathfinder...

 

[Dingo333]

While in game terms it does not seem possible, we all know that a guy with a spoon will eventually dig a tunnel. Since Acid would logically be more effective then a spoon I would have to say yeah, the wizard could do it, the question is time and if the guards notice a hole appearing

 

[Tovec]

It is 1d3 points of acid damage. The acid disappears after a round anyway. I think I would allow the hardness of objects when trying to determine how well it works. I wouldn't say it is any more effective at eating through bars or the floor than a sword with the acid type dealing 1d6 (instead of flaming/frost).

Ultimately anyone trying to imprison a mage had better be careful about it, more than taking away his spell component pouch. They had better keep him unconscious and/or have another caster capable of casting detect magic and dispel magic in order to counter the caster. I mean forget escaping by tunneling that wizard can simply throw acid splashes in the face of the level 2 warrior guard when given meals.

 

[KiloGex]

One thing to consider as well is that a guard would eventually check on the prisoners, at that time noticing that the mage is attempting to slowly melt down his cage. Being able to melt through one spot on an iron bar would take at least 30 seconds, so we're looking at a minute before he's able to free one bar. Make that 3 minutes before he's able to create a decent enough slot to squeeze through and he definitely going to get himself some attention before getting out.

 

[Mad Hamish]

You reckon that there is anywhere that checks up on every prisoner every 3 minutes?

 

[KiloGex]

You reckon that there is anywhere that checks up on every prisoner every 3 minutes?

I do reckon that in a large prison setting there will be several guards wandering the premise constantly. At any point the prisoners will be in view of a guard once a minute. In a smaller jail, every cell should be visible to the guard on duty. At that point, it's up to the prisoner to wait for the precise moment when he's taking a leak, grabbing some nap time, or throwing down bones for silver pieces.

 

[Evenglare]

If a wizard is going to be captured the people will probably know what they are capable of and have an antimagic cell, or some such thing. At the very least his hands shackled and gagged. Acid splash I believe requires verbal and somatic components . This topic is worthless in my opinion.

Also , i'm going to do a preemptive retort on metamagic feats such as still spell and silent spell as it would raise the level of the spell therefore infinite casting of it would not be allowed.

 

[Noumenon]

I do think it's interesting that Pathfinder removed the text about acid, but it's still not totally clear.

The actual situation was not a prison, it was a room with iron bars on the window that was locked and set on fire. But in general I don't think a spell that reads "Casting time: 1 hour. Open any iron, wooden, or stone door, wall, or safe" is 0th level or one that's good for the game (you need to be able to keep the party on the map somehow).

 

[prosfilaes]

The actual situation was not a prison, it was a room with iron bars on the window that was locked and set on fire. But in general I don't think a spell that reads "Casting time: 1 hour. Open any iron, wooden, or stone door, wall, or safe" is 0th level or one that's good for the game (you need to be able to keep the party on the map somehow).

If you don't ignore the hardness, they're in the exact same boat as everyone else, who have unlimited unarmed strikes doing 1d3 points of bludgeoning damage a turn, except for unarmed strikes get to add the Strength modifier.