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D&D Ideas — Fire

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is fire, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of fire in Fire for Effect two monsters, tactically minded and ruthless in combat, work together to create a dangerous fighting force made even more perilous in a confined setting where collateral damage is a very real concern. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Fire gets used a lot in 5E D&D but I feel like there are some even more interesting ways one might go about thinking about and using fire in a game. Here are some naturally occurring sources of fire in the real world: lightning (the most common), meteor strikes, spontaneous combustion of dry fuel sources (like saw dust and leaves) and coal seam fires.

I’m going to throw out some ways fire might affect your 5E D&D game.

Coal seam fires are interesting because they can burn for thousands of years. These are just places with large deposits of coal that can ignite. Imagine some place like that in your 5E D&D world. What kind creatures would live there? Do fires burning that long gain a connection to the Elemental Plane of Fire? What if characters need to go there to retrieve an object or even some of the coal?

Adventurers needing to deal fire could be terrifying. Think about an encounter with a dragon or chimera taking place in grasslands or a wooded area. The great wyrm begins breathing gouts of flame, scorching the characters but also igniting the surrounding area. With fire comes reduced visibility (the area becomes heavily obscured), extreme heat from the fire (Dungeon Master’s Guide chapter 5) and suffocation hazards (Player’s Handbook chapter 8).

A dragon’s breath weapon would be hot enough to melt stone and metal. This means two things to me. First off red dragons would be loathe to use it in their own hoard chamber. Second the ground on which the characters stand would basically become magma. Lava takes 10-15 minutes to cool so areas hit by a dragon’s breath weapon would be there for the duration of most combats.

How about running a combat during a meteor shower? Every round you roll randomly to see if and where a meteor strikes. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything suggests using the fireball or meteor swarm spells to simulate natural hazards. Meteor swarm would definitely be extreme. Even fireball might be brutal. Melf’s minute meteors does 2d6 fire damage within 5 feet of the impact spot with a successful Dexterity saving throw for half. I think this would be a great substitution for the other two spells with the added caveat where the meteor strikes become difficult terrain.

What about an alchemist shop specializing in alchemist fire? A fight breaks out inside and on missed attack rolls there is a chance a vial of alchemist’s fire breaks and explodes. This could cause a chain reaction. Also it might give all the would combatants something to think about before brawling. Area of effect spells are definitely going to be a no-no here.

When battles break out that cause fires to ignite make note where those fires are and maybe have it spread from round to round. How does this begin to affect visibility? Are the characters in danger of taking damage? Can combatants be moved into the fire? Will fire cut off parts of the battlefield? These could be things to spice up a combat.

From Ted’s Head

Fire is my element of choice. It represents so much to me. Fire evokes warmth to me as I spent a lot of time in my youth in scouts cooking over a fire. I spent time gathered around a fire telling stories and enjoying time with those for whom I cared. I have gone camping with friends and family alike and always a campfire is made. Fire shares a strong connection to adventurers. While I cannot say I have gone exploring dangerous caverns and fought monsters I certainly know about resting in front of a fire after a long walk at the end of a day. I did a stint of backpacking in my day.

In 5E D&D when we think fire I doubt most people think of the campfire. I surmise most immediately think of the destructive power of fire. Next to magic missile I daresay fireball is the most popular spell. How many monsters and adventurers alike have died from this glorious spell? But it goes further than raw flame. Fire creates a scent in the air even without the burnt monsters. Magical fire itself should have a scent left behind letting those who come after know fire happened here.

Fire in both of those is an element of change. Unlike the other three elements fire needs something else to exist. Earth, air and water can exist without any issues but fire generally destroys its fuel source, like both wood and air in a campfire for example. If you were to remove either of those components the fire would go out. But as such it changes things around it. As fire burns would into ash it leaves behind nutrients to allow for stronger growth. This element of change is also represented in the flickering flame. Fire cooks meat making it safe for consumption, changing it once again. This change is caused by a transfer of energy. Energy is what fire is all about.

Anything dealing with fire should be in the same realm of thought. Does a character with fiery attributes pace or tap their foot in waiting? Is standing still an issue? Fire is also volatile so it is possible they are quick to anger and might be hard to calm down. On the opposite side of things they could adjust well to change. They might not be locked into a line of thinking. Chaos or chaotic ways of doing things might be ok with them.

If you are looking to add a bit of fire to character take at look at its nature and see how the above applies and how they might be more alive with those flames.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Maybe it’s from rewatching Game of Thrones recently. Maybe I’m just old school or maybe it’s due to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons but for whatever reason I keep circling back around to dragons when I think about fire in the context of 5E D&D. (I already talked about the Lord of Light at length in the live chat with Nerdarchist Ted.)

I’ve never been one to shy away from dragons in my D&D games. Encountering dragons more often and at lower levels only takes away from the power and majesty of dragons if you let it. To keep the focus on fire consider how impactful the iconic red dragon can be and how much strife they can cause with their fire breath.

For starters any red dragon from wyrmling to ancient causes rocky fissures to form portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire within one mile of their lair, which allow creatures of fire to enter the world and dwell in the nearby area. In their lairs things get even hotter with magma eruptions and volcanic gas clouds.

Wyrmling. For tier one adventurers could there be a more epic antagonist to tackle for their first big transition in gameplay? Rocky fissures forming in the lands around a frontier starting town sounds pretty dangerous. Mephits and magmin cause havoc and bring great risk to the folk building their lives out here on the fringes of civilization. Something as simple as an abandoned mine makes a fine lair for a red dragon just starting out in the world. A lowly wyrmling like this may spend most of their time in their lair so adventurers can spend some quality time just trying to figure out what’s causing these portals. Imagine the players’ surprise when they reach the end of the abandoned mine and come face to face with a red dragon! And wouldn’t you know it, just enough adventuresome excitement putting out fires, tracking down the forgotten mine and dealing with the red dragon wyrmling within to catapult characters onto tier two.

Young Red Dragon. Things heat up when red dragons age a little. Now they’ve got claw attacks to go with their bite and their fire breath weapon leaps forward significantly in damage. Legit fire elementals and salamanders can squeeze through the portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire near this red dragon’s lair. Mephits and magmin might cause mischief straying into deadly danger for nearby people but salamanders go well out of their way to set things ablaze mostly just to watch it burn and destroy things. Now adventurers got a real problem on their hands. A brash young red dragon isn’t going to hide in their lair like the wyrmling. This is a dragon on the rise! Making itself known feeds its ego and its hoard. Perhaps this dragon decides to lair much closer to civilization and now a large population is threatened by its presence. At the very least the portals of fire, fire creatures and occasional reminder of the dragon’s own fire power presents a powerful threat for tier two heroes to overcome before moving on up in the world.

Adult Red Dragon. This dragon finally comes into its own as a Legendary creature with all this entails plus a Frightful Presence. This dragon has no need to prove it’s the apex creature in the region. It knows and so does everything else. If nobody ever dealt with younger dragons this is the result. They can topple nations and cause widespread fear. At this point a red dragon may fashion its lair in plain sight of conquered people. The regional effects its presence creates might overlap directly into population centers and fire may have become a normal part of life there. (Until adventurers show up and do what they do.) A dragon of this magnitude might be served by an efreeti who acts as an emissary. Imagine a red dragon who leans into their fire nature and seeks to cultivate the portals in their realm to recreate the City of Brass right on top of a mortal city. Toppling a regime like this certainly earns an adventurer their way to the highest tier of adventuring.

Ancient Red Dragon. At this point a red dragon is like fire incarnate. The fiery threat for top tier heroes can’t make it too easy by making a lair close to a city or anything convenient. Instead this campaign ender calls an island volcano home. But red dragons are notoriously curious about events in the wider world so it’ll be through their agents the heroes learn about the danger. Perhaps in order to properly slay a red dragon of this magnitude heroes must travel to the Elemental Plane of Fire itself to end the creature’s reign of fire and blood similar to how fiends and other extraplanar entities cannot be killed except on their home plane. At any rate a dragon is never truly satisfied with their hoard and after centuries of growing in power and cunning an ancient red dragon is gonna cause a hell of a lot more destruction by fire than the wyrmling who confronted fledgling adventurers. Cleansing the entire world in fire to prove their authority to command all who live sounds like exactly the kind of epic confrontation (and conflagration!) called for by a tier four campaign!

*Featured image — A rampaging fire giant with a team of hobgoblins set about destroying a town and heroes caught in the middle find a way to stop them along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. [Art by Kim Van Deun]

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