Paul Farquhar
Legend
Mission for the PCs: rescue celebrity diarist's buried cheese.
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D&D General Great London Fire of 1666 and using it in your game
- Thread starter Enevhar Aldarion
- Start date
My personal take on a D&D analog for London’s Great Fire would at least start off with an incursion of some kind of creatures from the Elemental Plane of Fire. It wouldn’t need to be Efreeti, a large fire elemental or three would be sufficient to get the party started. And if enough smaller ones intent on mischief making got through as well, they could easily be a challenge to track them all down.
And inevitably, there will be those among the city’s denizens willing and able to make things worse, either for personal gain or feeding their particular insanity.
And inevitably, there will be those among the city’s denizens willing and able to make things worse, either for personal gain or feeding their particular insanity.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Only if the PCs or others who happen to have helpful magic are happen to be around. . . a fire could have spread before those with the ability to fight it effectively would even know.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
I was referring specifically to the Great Fire of London. Which lasted the best part of five days. Before it was over, EVERYONE knew.
humble minion
Legend
Short of the really big guns like Wish or a successful Divine Intervention roll, I'm not sure there's a easy way to magically control a big out of control wildfire with D&D 5e magic. I mean, there's some tools you can use and a D&D city on fire would be in much better shape than 1666 London, but it's not going to be easy or nice.
Control weather can't make it rain on a hot day, it can only cause rain if the weather is already overcast. Under the general 'multiple castings of the same effect don't stack' rule, this means that it doesn't matter how many Control Weather casters there are, if it's a hot clear day the rain ain't going to come until it's good and ready.
Control flame is a great spell for controlling or extinguishing a small fire, but once the fire gets big it's of less and less use. First of all, it's only a cantrip, but how many spellcasters know it? I suspect most of them have learned Guidance or Toll the Dead or whatever instead - it's not particularly popular. But also, its range is only 60 ft and speaking as someone who's done bushfire training in Australia, if you're within 60ft line of sight of a genuine firestorm , aside from not being able to see due to the smoke, you're probably already dead from radiant heat. (In D&D world, to model this I'd certainly apply fire damage to people in proximity to fire even if they're not actually in it - and darkvision won't help you see through smoke, and you'd need some sort of protection from suffocation/choking too) Besides, Control Flame only extinguishes a 5ft cube, and it doesn't prevent immediate re-ignition, which will certainly happen if that 5ft cube is surrounded by intense fire.
Control Water can be handy for protecting a small (100ft square) area, but it only lasts 10 minutes per casting and it does that by flooding the whole place, which is often just as destructive. And the bits of the area above the waterline are going to burn quite happily when blown embers etc start spotfires or when flames spread from roof to roof or tree to tree. And how many 9th level casters do you have handy to cast it? You'd need 144 castings to imperfectly protect a 100ft square area around the clock. That's not a solution that saves the city.
The rain option of Create water is the most useful option by a long way, and is first level so more people can cast it, and in a drought/heatwave there's a fair chance that even NPCs will have it prepared, but unless you can get to the fire when it's still small, the 30 ft range is going to get you killed. Great for stopping small fires getting big, not great for stopping big fires, completely ineffective against the bits of the fire that are inside a building and so shielded from the rain, and unless you use high-level slots, the effect size means you'd need multiple castings to extinguish multistorey buildings or even tall trees. And again, it won't stop re-ignition, and even at first level, you're going to run out of spell slots eventually.
Unless I'm missing something obvious? As far as I know, there's no 5e equivalent to the old Quench spell (and who ever memorised that one anyway?)
Control weather can't make it rain on a hot day, it can only cause rain if the weather is already overcast. Under the general 'multiple castings of the same effect don't stack' rule, this means that it doesn't matter how many Control Weather casters there are, if it's a hot clear day the rain ain't going to come until it's good and ready.
Control flame is a great spell for controlling or extinguishing a small fire, but once the fire gets big it's of less and less use. First of all, it's only a cantrip, but how many spellcasters know it? I suspect most of them have learned Guidance or Toll the Dead or whatever instead - it's not particularly popular. But also, its range is only 60 ft and speaking as someone who's done bushfire training in Australia, if you're within 60ft line of sight of a genuine firestorm , aside from not being able to see due to the smoke, you're probably already dead from radiant heat. (In D&D world, to model this I'd certainly apply fire damage to people in proximity to fire even if they're not actually in it - and darkvision won't help you see through smoke, and you'd need some sort of protection from suffocation/choking too) Besides, Control Flame only extinguishes a 5ft cube, and it doesn't prevent immediate re-ignition, which will certainly happen if that 5ft cube is surrounded by intense fire.
Control Water can be handy for protecting a small (100ft square) area, but it only lasts 10 minutes per casting and it does that by flooding the whole place, which is often just as destructive. And the bits of the area above the waterline are going to burn quite happily when blown embers etc start spotfires or when flames spread from roof to roof or tree to tree. And how many 9th level casters do you have handy to cast it? You'd need 144 castings to imperfectly protect a 100ft square area around the clock. That's not a solution that saves the city.
The rain option of Create water is the most useful option by a long way, and is first level so more people can cast it, and in a drought/heatwave there's a fair chance that even NPCs will have it prepared, but unless you can get to the fire when it's still small, the 30 ft range is going to get you killed. Great for stopping small fires getting big, not great for stopping big fires, completely ineffective against the bits of the fire that are inside a building and so shielded from the rain, and unless you use high-level slots, the effect size means you'd need multiple castings to extinguish multistorey buildings or even tall trees. And again, it won't stop re-ignition, and even at first level, you're going to run out of spell slots eventually.
Unless I'm missing something obvious? As far as I know, there's no 5e equivalent to the old Quench spell (and who ever memorised that one anyway?)
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jgsugden
Legend
A fire that takes a home or a block? Sure. But something that would otherwise rage for several days would be beaten back within a little over 8 hours.
GuyBoy
Hero
Elric of Melnibone was a good one for playing Elemental Lords against each other.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
You've got PCs who start fires accidentally? My mob never start them accidentally.
I'm surprised there haven't been more Great Fires of Greyhawk/Waterdeep/Sharn adventures given "burn it down" seems to be a phase every DnD player goes through. Myself oh-so-much included. ;-)
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Hell no.
This was one of the few occasions I wasn't the DM. I started the fire, and it was definitely an accident, officer.
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