D&D 4E How should 4E deal with the power of fire?

Fire is a problematic thing in D&D. It has a tendency to perpetuate itself.
Consider a Fireball. It can start fires. A Frostball cannot do that. Nor a Sonicball, Forceball, Acidball (not likely, at least), or Other-type-ball.

With a simple cantrip, like the cantrip Firefinger from the old 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, my character could theoretically burn up thousands of square miles of land, level cities, kill tens of thousands ... and rack up millions of experience points and gain many kingdoms of treasure (not very likely! ... but theoretically possible.)

- In 1st Edition, failing a saving throw against a fire effect was crippling. Every item you had, now had to save. If one failed, every item you had, had to save again. This chain-reaction stripped my characters of arsenals of items and magic, along with many characters played by others I knew.
And of course, someone on fire could not cast spells. Period. And they could not fight very well (if the DM allowed them to fight at all.) Superheated armor cooked fighters and clerics. Robes got the mages. I mean, it was better to run around naked ... at least then, when you failed your fire save you weren't all but Autokilled.

- In 2nd Edition, DMs tended to mitigate the above, but still fire was a menace. (I mean, who has never experimented with greek fire? It's just such a lovely weapon ... especially when you fall on your backpack, shatter a lot of greek fire vials, and then someone Fireballs you ...)

- In 3rd Edition, the designers compensated for the problem by ruling that clothing and magical items were basically invincible. That is, you get hit with enough heat to melt soft metals instantly (that's a lot of heat) but your fancy nobleman's clothing is unsinged.
Freed of the threat of mass destruction of their items, characters started decorating themselves like Christmas Trees with countless minor magical items of every description and type (and thus, we finally got to the polymorphed dog (or whatever it was) with all those magical items on it ... but the Polymorph debate is for another thread ... the very idea expressed in that picture would have been unthinkable in 1E, due to the threat of fire to carried items.)

So now we have 4th Edition coming in. How to deal with fire, and fire effects?
We have ordinary fire (torches, lanterns, oil, greek fire, catapults, forest fires, volcanoes, even hot water and steam.)
We have magical fire (dragon breath, monster powers, creatures made of fire or otherwise hot, psionic powers.)
We have spell fire (arcane, divine, other.)

But all have something in common: Fire is a self-perpetuating thing. Fire creates heat, and heat enables fire. Once the fire gets big enough, ordinary medieval methods are futile in putting it out. Let the fire get sufficiently big, and even magical means are futile.

How should fire - this powerful and ancient weapon - be handled in 4th Edition?

Heck, if you can tell me how to better handle a pack of PCs armed with oil and tinder in 3.x, I'll gladly listen. I've got a pack of pyros on my hands and sometimes it's enough to make a DM cry.

I believe you. Pyros? LOL. Indeed, when new players discover what fire can do, they often go nuts: 'I put 20 (or even 50) flasks of oil in my backpack!' was heard all too often in my 1E days.
But then, consider what happened when you threw said oil flask. It hit, set the monster on fire, completely disabled the monster (usually, you can't fight when you are a living torch ...) and did the standard 2d6 damage, plus 1d6 the next round.
Of course, said oil was an area effect attack, sorta like a poor man's Fireball. A whole lot of monsters got hit, and got incapacitated.
Then your fighter shot the monsters dead while they burned (if they tried to put out the fire, you simply threw more oil at them.)

If you can do that, why not carry those 20 oil flasks? Better than a Magic Missile any day of the week (yeah, Magic Missile always hits, but oil is an area effect, and you always throw multiple flasks ...)

In other words, Fire is a Chain Reaction Weapon. In the above case, 2d6 comes from the fire, and 1d6 in the following round. But all carried items must save, and if one fails all must save again, and an additional 1d6 of fire damage occurs (2d6 maximum, but this can go on indefinitely until everything carried burns up, or the monster dies.) And a burning monster, sets everyone and everything around it on fire, and now that is burning, and the fire spreads, and soon you have a fiery holocaust (if in a forest) or nobody can breathe because all the oxygen burned away (in a dungeon.)
Fireball was such a devastating spell in 1E because it had this effect, and the chaining kept going long after the initial 5d6 damage (or 10d6, or whatever.) Saves were allowed, but inevitably someone or something wouldn't make the saving throw, and the fun began.

Fire could be classified as an Infinity Weapon, in the case of a forest fire or town fire or city fire, if the characters manage to cause such an event.
What is an Infinity Weapon? It is a spell or weapon that can produce an infinite effect. The old version of Reverse Gravity was an Infinity Spell, because there was no limit on how far upward you fell. Teleport is an Infinity Spell, because there is no limit on distance (on the planet) you can travel (and thus, Teleport Fireball, Teleport Monster, and Teleport Undead are Infinity Spells also.) Time Stop was an Infinity Spell, because in it's original version you could do *anything* you wanted to anyone or anything within the area of effect, while the Time Stop lasted (like, cutting someone into 100 pieces with a sword.)

A horse kicked over a lantern, and it burned half of the City of Chicago down.
A character with the 1st level spell Burning Hands might just burn down the city of Greyhawk, Waterdeep, or Palanthus (at least, theoretically.)

Smart characters are going to use fire to it's full effectiveness, taking precautions to prevent it from backlashing against them.
The point is not to prevent the smart tactical use of fire.
The point is: How do we prevent the Pyromaniacs from Burning Down the Campaign Setting and Everything In It, at Low Level? (I mean ... I saw a party of 3rd level characters take out a 20 headed hydra with burning oil ... and that's burning down the campaign at low level, in my book.)

Edena, I've seen you do this before in other "problems" you've cited in the past - the rules don't actually support things you say. Unless I'm mistaken (and I may well be), there aren't rules in this edition of D&D or any previous edition that says that a burning creature is disabled and unable to fight. You can say that you houserule it that way, but by the rules, that doesn't happen. The 20 headed hydra takes some damage from the fire, but he really should be dishing out a helluva lot more, not just writhing helplessly while PC's throw flasks of oil at him. Additionally, there was never a rule that if one item failed a save, everything else had to save again.

Tewligan said:

Edena, I've seen you do this before in other "problems" you've cited in the past - the rules don't actually support things you say. Unless I'm mistaken (and I may well be), there aren't rules in this edition of D&D or any previous edition that says that a burning creature is disabled and unable to fight. You can say that you houserule it that way, but by the rules, that doesn't happen. The 20 headed hydra takes some damage from the fire, but he really should be dishing out a helluva lot more, not just writhing helplessly while PC's throw flasks of oil at him. Additionally, there was never a rule that if one item failed a save, everything else had to save again.

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Hey, I'm not speaking for myself. I never used the oil tactic, nor was I the DM at the sessions that I'm recalling. This was a matter entirely out of my hands, entirely in the hands of other players and DMs.

I saw a 1st level thief take out 6 giant spiders with oil, and not one of them even got a chance to bite at him.
That 3rd level party saturated that hydra with oil, and the DM ruled it helpless.
I saw entire groups of monsters (such as 20 orcs) annihilated before they ever got a chance at intiative.
I saw powerful monsters, like beholders, taken out by simple volleys of burning oil.
And one time, the party became outlaws after they started a fire with their magic, and it became a forest fire that burned several square miles of woodland down (a lot of very angry forest beings went after them too.)

As for my characters, it was other DMs who required my items make those saves. Again and again, my characters lost everything they had (including all their magical items) in fiery conflagrations. Don't blame me ... the various DMs called those attacks. I merely had to watch my characters get fried.
Some DMs ruled that magical items blew up when destroyed. In one of those campaigns, I saw another character take over 100 hit points of damage from the chain reaction of exploding magic, and she died. My character in one such game took 70 points of damage.
And what was almost always the thing that destroyed the magical items? Fire. (Now, DMs nowadays don't have magical items blow up when destroyed ... I hope. But the fire problem remains nevertheless.)

Heh. Pyromania. It's going to happen in the game, especially with newbies.
Newbies never seem to consider the danger and problems of fire. Only the results of a successful hit. They never consider what will happen to their characters if all that greek fire detonates while they are carrying it (I saw a Bag of Holding destroyed in this way ...)

The problem? Fire is too powerful, in the context of low level adventurers, for the amount of damage it does, versus the damage low level characters can inflict with weapons and spells.
The answer? I don't know. But 3rd Edition fireproofed everything, and it didn't seem realistic (the lacy gown is untouched by the Fireball ...) In 1st Edition, fire could destroy all your items, and when that happened it was a major bummer (goodbye, 5 or 6 hardwon major magical items, from one Fireball? LOL ...)

I just hope they come up with a resolution to satisfy, in 4th Edition.

So far, in all the years I've played, the only GOOD addressing of this problem occurred, IMHO, when WOTC reduced the length of the Combat Round from 1 minute to 6 seconds.
Now, the length of time needed to ready burning oil did not change, but said orc didn't stand there for 30 or 45 seconds waiting for his initiative to come up, while oil got thrown at him. He could now, in 3E, charge right up and strike with his sword at the guy fumbling with the flint and tinder!

One of the things I really liked about the change to 3.0.

Sounds more like DMs mishandling things than a general rules problem.

Edena_of_Neith said:

With a simple cantrip, like the cantrip Firefinger from the old 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, my character could theoretically burn up thousands of square miles of land, level cities, kill tens of thousands ... and rack up millions of experience points and gain many kingdoms of treasure (not very likely! ... but theoretically possible.)

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Assuming your DM is nice enough to give out ExP for incidental kills like that...I'm not.

- In 1st Edition, failing a saving throw against a fire effect was crippling. Every item you had, now had to save. If one failed, every item you had, had to save again. This chain-reaction stripped my characters of arsenals of items and magic, along with many characters played by others I knew.

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As far as I'm concerned this is exactly how it *should* work. If you're going to carry around lots of magic, the price you pay is being at risk of meltdown every time you fail an area-damage save...not just against fire. (and magic should sometimes go *boom* when items break and the magic is released) This is one where 3e dropped the ball.

And of course, someone on fire could not cast spells. Period. And they could not fight very well (if the DM allowed them to fight at all.)

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This makes no sense. If you can fight while getting damaged by your opponent's axe, you can fight just as well while getting damaged by a fire. Taking damage while spellcasting, however, has always been a rather bad idea.....

Lanefan

I like fire as it is in 3e just fine, where magical fire effects like fireball don't cause actual fires, and the risk to items is low. I view items as part of the tactical choices made by the player, and I've no interest as a DM in disrupting those choices, just as I have no interest in interfering with the feat or class selections.

Edena_of_Neith said:

In 1st Edition, failing a saving throw against a fire effect was crippling. Every item you had, now had to save. If one failed, every item you had, had to save again. This chain-reaction stripped my characters of arsenals of items and magic, along with many characters played by others I knew.
And of course, someone on fire could not cast spells. Period. And they could not fight very well (if the DM allowed them to fight at all.) Superheated armor cooked fighters and clerics. Robes got the mages. I mean, it was better to run around naked ... at least then, when you failed your fire save you weren't all but Autokilled.

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This wasn't 1e by the book, you know.

If you failed a save vs most things, your items had to save too (and there was a distinguishing between normal fire and magic fire, IIRC).

But there is nothing about saving again if any item failed its save.

Nor was there anything specifically about setting people on fire.

Superheated armour ONLY came about through specific spells like Heat Metal and didn't occur in any other circumstances.

You're dramatically overstating the point here (although I concede that you may have been playing a game with house rules that made all this happen).

Cheers