That is pretty awesome, because it means that the members of the brotherhood of flame who know about it will be hunting down the PCs in a bid to kill them and become the next Bonfire.
Exactly
This is pretty good, though the attunement thing is odd, in the sense that it’s more a justification for yourself more than anything, because without an in-game explanation the players are still going to be puzzled by his large item list, if they’re made aware of it at all.
It's a contrivance, I agree. The idea came from 3e's (?) chakra system for magic item slots, and chakras are energy centers, and the idea behind The First Flame is that it also confers immunity to exhaustion -- it's the ever-burning inner fire that drives the Bonfire (and the thing that will be passed down to his replacement/killer).
This is fine to me except for the poison thing. He should either have a tester or a magical means of discerning this, should it come up. I only say this because I feel like players trying to poison the big bad is pretty rare, and having a custom ability to shut that down would be a big buzzkill.
Yeah, you're right. He might rely on taste tester slaves or a priest of Kossuth casting
detect poison and disease instead.
I’m not so concerned about the damage, so much as the resistance loss being annoying to me. Especially with how likely this guy is to have AoE (fireball is famous for a reason), it seems like this just punishes players for itemizing or preparing for their foe, if they learn of his theme. If anything, I’d go the opposite way and make his damage increased further, which can add interesting complications if he has mage-minions trying to dispel the PC’s protections.
Well, the campaign is largely about fighting the Brotherhood, so their fire theme is pretty obvious. It's not a big stretch for players to go from "we're fighting lots of flame mages" to "I bet their leader uses fire magic."
One idea for an attack (lifted straight out of WoW, but it was interesting, sue me) was a debuff that ticked down from 10 seconds or so, and then detonated for basically lethal damage to those around the person afflicted. You could use similar ideas here to either force the PCs to split up into unfavorable positions or expend resources to get rid of the magic.
Like
delayed blast fireball you mean? Definitely giving him that spell.
I’ll try and come back and post some more specific attacks, but from a more philosophical design approach, I’d like to point out there’s more ways to relate to fire than just the heat. Smoke, for instance is great for messing with battlefield vision, heatwaves can cause mirages and distortions, and in rare cases an intense enough fire could simply consume all the oxygen in a given space, allowing for suffocation to be a threat.
Totally! Many of these are doable with spells...
For smoke I was thinking
cloudkill.
For heat mirages/distortions I was thinking
mirage arcane and some spells converted from AL-QADIM.
For backdraft-like effects I was thinking
thunderwave.
I think the suffocation bit might be a bit tricky at the table because it would affect the Bonfire and his air-breathing minions too if they're in the same room as the spell (which is likely, unless cast through a glass window or something).
Personality wise I’d think him to be cold, surprisingly. Flame doesn’t exist for long without something to burn, and I’d expect him to take a similar pragmatic stance in regards to the dirty work he and his associates do; they’re a secret society that rules from behind the scenes because they need society at large to act as the kindling.
I was thinking on exactly the same lines. Great minds!
Although, if he doesn’t say “there’s smore where that came from” at least once I’ll be disappointed.
I was reading PotA yesterday and some foes from this book could be mined for interesting powers.
Vanifer, the prophet of Fire: her lair actions are powerful while not beig god-like.
Dryflagon: By puffing on his pipe, Elizar Dryflagon can summon Smoke mephits
Imix: His Heat Wave is an interesting answer to your questions about players with fire resistance. Ignore damage resistance with heat waves, but players without any resistance or immunity also gain Exhaustion. His lair actions are also pretty thematic for someone called the Bonfire.
Alas, I don't own PotA, but based on what you shared...
I've given the Bonfire an
summon elemental minions lair action while in Krak al-Mazhar.
Imix's Heat Wave seems excessively punitive.
Exhaustion is just brutal in 5e. It works for simulating long journeys and environmental hazards, but not so much in a fight where the rules offer no way to mitigate (there's a reason no monsters in the MM were designed to impose exhaustion).
I also have a custom legendary action in mind based on the old Extract water elemental.
Reap the Inner Flame (Legendary Action, cost 2) Like Finger of Death, but with Cold damage instead, and if the creature dies, the Bonfire extract a fire elemental from the corpse.
Totally!
Actually, I'm considering giving him a Legendary Action called
create cinderhaunt which is very similar conceptually. Here is my first draft of his Legendary Actions...
[SECTION]
Legendary Actions
The Bonfire can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The Bonfire regains spent legendary actions at the start of his turn.
Cantrip. The Bonfire casts a cantrip.[/SECTION]
>>Stolen from the lich.
[SECTION]
Create Cinderhaunt. The Bonfire targets a humanoid within 10 feet of him that died from fire damage no longer than 1 minute ago. The target’s spirit rises as a cinderhaunt* (CR 6) in the space of its corpse or in the nearest unoccupied space. The cinderhaunt is under The Bonfire’s control. The Bonfire can have no more than five cinderhaunts under his control at one time.[/SECTION]
>>A quicker improved version of the wraith's Create Specter, with a caveat.
[SECTION]
Fire Feed. The Bonfire touches a fire source, absorbing the flames into himself and extinguishing the fire source. If the fire was an ongoing spell effect, it is dispelled. He regains hit points according to the size of the fire extinguished by spending hit dice: 1d8 for a torch or lantern, 2d8 for a campfire or blazing fireplace, 3d8 for a large bonfire or spell like wall of fire, and 4d8 for a conflagration like a burning building or an incendiary cloud.
Alternately, for every hit die he could spend but does not, he can instead regain a number of spells slots or charges for his staff of the flames equal to the number of hit dice he didn’t expend.[/SECTION]
>>Based on the ability bestowed upon him by the
incandescent eye magic item from DRAGON. Contemplating adding the
red text as well.
[SECTION]
Flame Blade. The Bonfire makes a
flame blade attack.[/SECTION]
>>Consistent with other legendary monsters that can make a simple "weapon" attack as a legendary action, even if 3d6 damage is wimpy in the larger picture.
[SECTION]
Moving Through the Flame. The Bonfire steps into a fire of at least Medium size and emerges from another fire of Medium or greater size within 400 feet. If he would arrive in a place already occupied by an object or a creature, he takes 4d6 force damage and is not teleported.[/SECTION]
>>This works like a conditional
dimension door, and gives PCs a motivation to either extinguish flames or fill the spaces around flames with objects/creatures.
