Disco inferno!

[Agent Oracle]

Other things that the players can run into dashing madly through the forest:

-Breir patches: Lots of plants use big, nasty thorns to protect their centers. Even wearing armor it's impossible to run through these places without getting scratched up. hp-loss-a-palooza

-Sudden terrain variances: Every once in a while, you'll come to a completely unexpected feature of the ground in a forest... things like sinkholes, Erosion, even the occasional dead tree that's fallen will cause the path to be drasticly altered. Nothing says "we're screwed!" quite like a huge tree that collapsed just ahead of you...

-Glacial Remnants: If the forest is in a one-time glacial valley, or a glacier has ever covered the land that is now a forest (the last ice age perhaps?) there could be the occasional "obscenely large boulder" which is there for no reason...

 

[The Shaman]

One terrain feature that can make a wildfire encounter really hairy is a canyon.

Canyons are referred to as chimneys by wildland firefighters - wind moves up canyon during the day and down canyon at night, and where the wind goes, so does the fire, assuming adequate fuel.

A fire on one side of a canyon can pre-heat the fuel on the other side - if a wind shift (such as a passing cold front) turns the fire toward the pre-heated slope, or if flaming embers start a new fire on the pre-heated slope (called spotting) across the canyon, both sides of the canyon can erupt in flame. The most extreme example of this is called a blowup, creating a situation in which hundreds of acres can burn in a matter of minutes. The fire front at the South Canyon Fire in 1994 moved up the canyon at an estimated 18 mph, trapping twelve firefighters.

Notice that the 18 mph figure is about the same rate of fire spread as described in the SRD, which actually highlights the problem with the SRD value: a blowup is the one of the most extreme fire behaviors that wildland fires produce, resulting from a very specific combination of fuel, weather, and topography.

Another effect of fires already mentioned is the impact on wildlife, but remember that domestic animals will be affected as well - horses may become skittish, requiring Handle Animal checks to maintain control. A failed skill check could result in the animal refusing to move except away from the fire, or the mount could attempt to flee, carrying along the hapless rider (who must make Ride checks at a penalty to avoid being tossed).

 

[The Shaman]

One more thought, and then I'll stop blabbering on... :\

In my homebrew D&D setting cosmology, I did away with the elemental planes and made elementals spirits instead. A large fire like a wildfire would cause a fire elemental to manifest - a druid or shaman might attempt to control the elemental to limit the destruction the fire spirit could cause, if possible.

Goblinoid shamans would start fires during battles, to funnel their enemies toward or away from some objective, and with the hope of causing a fire elemental to appear and add to the devastation. The adventurers found themselves involved in a pitched battle between a goblinoid army and a company of human borderers protecting a frontier village - the adventurers were dismayed when their upwind flank erupted into a fast moving grass fire that broke the borderers' ranks and caused a fire elemental to appear on the battlefield...

 

[LordMelquiades]

Elementals

That's cool. I'm using Eberron, and the same idea would work--intense forest fires creating temporary manifest zones to Fernia. Sweet...

 

[The Shaman]

That's cool. I'm using Eberron, and the same idea would work--intense forest fires creating temporary manifest zones to Fernia. Sweet...

Again, I'm glad this was helpful to you.

Come back and tell us what happens to the adventurers, 'kay?

 

[Meloncov]

Another thing no one has mentioned yet; in the absense of wind, forest fires will generally move uphill.

 

[The Shaman]

Another thing no one has mentioned yet; in the absense of wind, forest fires will generally move uphill.

From post #3...

What is the terrain? A fire will move faster upslope than down.

 

[LordMelquiades]

Come back and tell us what happens to the adventurers, 'kay?

I think what I will do is give the druid a an easy Knowledge (Nature) check to determine that this is Very Bad. Then, I'll have it take a few rounds for the fire to get underway, so they can formulate a plan (as if), or attempt to douse the flames (the current suggestion is, er, fog cloud), etc.

After that I'll make the rate of progression variable: initially 2-5 rounds to progress five feet, and maybe faster after that. I shall arbitrarily decide that the rate of spread is greater to either side of them, giving them concern about being trapped.

The more I think about this, the more it sounds like a sort of chase scene, with the PCs being 'chased' by the fire. So maybe I should develop a table of possible encounters/happenings, rolling each round. These could include:
1. progress normally
2. find a clearing (increasing the party's movement rate)
3. a fleeing--but tough--beastie
4. an area of coniferous trees (increasing the burn rate)
5. a stream or river
6. briar patches
7. a choice between uphill and downhill (let's see if the druid remembers to ask for a Knowledge (Nature) roll..)
8. huge fallen trees etc that force the party to detour (possibly pushing them into the faster-burning flank of the fire)
9. a canyon (causing a blowup)
10. a small cave (where the party can hide but which would be filled with smoke etc--so something of a death-trap)
11. a game trail etc (increasing the party's movement rate)

Anything else do you think? My basic approach is that if the party concentrates on getting the heck out of there immediately, they'll probably make it. If they stuff around, try to be cute, or don't take it seriously, then there's a chance of death.

BTW, I mistakenly told them last session that as they were bashing a path through the woods most of the time, they were moving at 1/4 speed. I think I'll stick with that.

 

[Aaron L]

Wow, when I saw this I thought someone was going to post the midi of the song like Eric did way back when on his site.

 

[LordMelquiades]

How it all went down

Well, thanks to all--and especially the Shaman--for your help.

Firstly, desipte my description of how the fireball had a 20 foot spread, and that that entire area was beginning to catch fire, the party tried to put the fire out. First, a fog cloud--bzzzt frick! Second, a PC's cloak--yeah right! Third, a succession of Summon nature's ally spells bringing forth small water elementals. I thought this was quite a good idea, but they were only small, with 11 hit points, so I decided that their drench ability was only effective in their 5 foot square. Plus, the caster doesn't speak aquan, and there were no enemies around, so they just tried to escape.

One of the PCs levitated to the canopy, so I got to describe the fire beginning to crown, and spread quicker across the canopy, plus the varying rates of spread.

After all this, the party figured they'd better get out. Oddly (to me), they choose not to head northwards (the shortest route out of the forest), but south (deeper in). I had created a small table of happenings, and got the druid to roll a few Knowledge (Nature) checks then roll randomly on my table. They did quite well out of this, not encountering anything too tricky. I could have arbitrarily chucked some tricky stuff at them, but as they were (a) spooked, (b) feeling guilty, and (c) getting out, I thought that there was no need to be too punitive. Fortunately they realised that their actions in starting this fire were going to end their chances with talking peacefully to the locals.

So, they got out. One PC took some damage from the heat, but that was all. In a sense it was a little anti-climactic, but in terms of the campaign, it worked really well. If nothing else, all the contributions here helped my sound quite authoritative as I banged on about crowning, chimneys, chains etc.

I reckon the fire burns for a few days before a mid-summer thunderstorm brings it to an end. I'll be vague about the damage, but suffice to say a diameter of many miles is burned-out.

Man that treant is going to be pissed...

Melq