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

[Edena_of_Neith]

A *Limited Fire* Scenario, if that's what the players wanted, would involve minimal item damage, little or no chance of fire spreading, no dealing with the complexities of smoke, and magical items would be totally immune to fire, normal or magical.
In the Limited Scenario, we would assume the buildings in town were wet, and didn't catch. Trees might scorch, but the brush is wet and so scorching is all that happens. In a dungeon, there is no effect on visibility or breathing.
Damage from fire is a set amount, a simple action puts it out, and that covers it. Armor doesn't heat up, no extra damage occurs from greek fire or other sources, and the bookkeeping is as simple as possible.

 

[rkanodia]

Uh... excuse me? Is this a serious question? Why can't a frostball start fires? Are you actually asking that, or is this some kind of subtle sarcasm or something?

I just want to let the record note that I knew this thread was going to follow some very weird paths before I even clicked on it for the first time.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This is obviously not the way that things will work in 4e, but Spycraft 2.0 had an interesting take on fire. Specifically, fire did "stress damage" as well as normal damage - and if you were a low wisdom type you might end up panicking with stress as a result of being on fire even though you had plenty of hit points.

Within that context it sounded pretty neat.

My one hope for 'energy types' in 4e is that they have a degree of consistency so that all fire has the same basic kind of side-effect, all frost has the same basic kind of side-effect, all thunder etc, etc.

Cheers

 

[Belphanior]

My one hope for 'energy types' in 4e is that they have a degree of consistency so that all fire has the same basic kind of side-effect, all frost has the same basic kind of side-effect, all thunder etc, etc.

My hope too. Similar to how the Orb spells and psionics work in 3e. Cold to slow, lightning to daze, acid to have a lingering effect a la Melf's, sonic to deafen (weak but resistances are less common), and fire to just plain brutalize. Or something like that.

 

[rkanodia]

My hope too. Similar to how the Orb spells and psionics work in 3e. Cold to slow, lightning to daze, acid to have a lingering effect a la Melf's, sonic to deafen (weak but resistances are less common), and fire to just plain brutalize. Or something like that.

If the damage types from DDM are an indicator, sonic might be getting merged into 'thunder', and I would posit that knockdowns might become a common side effect of 'thunder'.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

These sound like really cool ideas.