Tolen Mar
First Post
I'm DMing a game, and I want to make this encounter possible for them, but not too easy.
Suppose we're in a land of practically nil magic items. You cant go down to the corner market and ask them for a +3 Flame Tongue.
Now, we're going to be fighting a Troll. We also have a bucket of pitch we can dip our blades in before the fight starts. The idea being we coat our blades in pitch, and light them off the torches when the time comes.
A) How much extra (fire) damage should that do?
and
B) How long (in hits) should the flaming pitch be effective?
As far as A goes, you could say that you just treat the damage done as fire damage. However, that seems a bit excessive to me, leading to killing that troll entirely too easily. Another option is to add either 1 point of fire damage or 1d4 points of fire damage.
For B, I think it will depend on the answer to A. If you treat the damage dealt as fire damage, then one hit is best I think. In this case, its like poison, one hit - one flame attack. If you add a smaller amount of fire damage, then you can justify a longer duration.
I just did a dry run before coming here to ask this. I decided that the pitch would be effective for three hits, and that the weapon did fire damage until the pitch wore off. They slaughtered the troll, hardly taking any damage themselves. I want to make it so that they end up having to use their torch to finish the thing off. I just dont know where the balance is. Any ideas?
Suppose we're in a land of practically nil magic items. You cant go down to the corner market and ask them for a +3 Flame Tongue.
Now, we're going to be fighting a Troll. We also have a bucket of pitch we can dip our blades in before the fight starts. The idea being we coat our blades in pitch, and light them off the torches when the time comes.
A) How much extra (fire) damage should that do?
and
B) How long (in hits) should the flaming pitch be effective?
As far as A goes, you could say that you just treat the damage done as fire damage. However, that seems a bit excessive to me, leading to killing that troll entirely too easily. Another option is to add either 1 point of fire damage or 1d4 points of fire damage.
For B, I think it will depend on the answer to A. If you treat the damage dealt as fire damage, then one hit is best I think. In this case, its like poison, one hit - one flame attack. If you add a smaller amount of fire damage, then you can justify a longer duration.
I just did a dry run before coming here to ask this. I decided that the pitch would be effective for three hits, and that the weapon did fire damage until the pitch wore off. They slaughtered the troll, hardly taking any damage themselves. I want to make it so that they end up having to use their torch to finish the thing off. I just dont know where the balance is. Any ideas?