The Gaming Den

Well to give the 5e team credit for instituting a bad idea to its full extent creatures that dont deal full damage at their CR tend to have spellcasting levels, or some special ability.

How useful said ability or spellcasting is varies, but you gotta give their bad idea credit.

czernebog wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Finding rules in 5th edition is, as mentioned earlier, very difficult. We set a dude on fire and several people ran through the indices and flipped through the PHB and the DMG and we simply could not find the rules for being on fire. We eventually just used the 3rd edition rules of taking 1d6 per round because at least we could find and remember those.

The enterprising souls behind d20srd.org recently started hosting a catalog of 5e rules. It looks like they are still a work in progress, but if the current site is anything to go by, there are no rules in 5e that mention being "on fire". This can be contrasted with the rules in 3.5, even if they are hidden under environmental hazards instead of status conditions.

The appropriate phrase for 5e might be "catches fire," and the fire elemental monster entry describes what that means if the fire is caused by its special ability (1d10 fire damage until doused by someone taking an action). Barbed devils can also cause things to catch fire, but no actual mechanical consequence is listed.

I think that I may have found the rules for catching on fire. According to the description of Alchemist's Fire, "On a hit, the target takes 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of its turns. A creature can end this damage by using its action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check to extinguish the flames" (PHB, pp. 150-151).

(Joel Hodgson Voice) What do you think Sirs?

Sir Aubergine wrote:

czernebog wrote:the fire elemental monster entry describes what that means if the fire is caused by its special ability (1d10 fire damage until doused by someone taking an action). Barbed devils can also cause things to catch fire, but no actual mechanical consequence is listed.

I think that I may have found the rules for catching on fire. According to the description of Alchemist's Fire, "On a hit, the target takes 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of its turns. A creature can end this damage by using its action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check to extinguish the flames" (PHB, pp. 150-151).

(Joel Hodgson Voice) What do you think Sirs?

I think that there's no reason at all to think that Alchemist's Fire causes generic fire damage any more than the 1d10 from a Fire Elemental (which you quoted). Don't see why one is any more appropriate to sitting in a fireplace than the other.

I think that there's no reason at all to think that Alchemist's Fire causes generic fire damage any more than the 1d10 from a Fire Elemental (which you quoted). Don't see why one is any more appropriate to sitting in a fireplace than the other.

Well the Fire Elemental's ability is incontrovertibly in the realm of magic. As evidence, recall that the Fire Bolt cantrip deals fire damage of the same intensity. My induction is that magical fire is closer to magma/lava in temperature, and so has a higher damage die. Alchemist's fire is ersatz Greek fire, and so the damage is less blistering than the Elemental's ability or the wizard's cantrip.

I understand your incredulity that an al/chemical substance is equivalent to a fireplace. However, if the two are not interchangeable as you say, I would find it strange if the damage from alchemist's fire was weaker than fire created from burning wood / coal.

In any case, I think the entry for Alchemist's fire at least indicates that Mearls and Co think that putting out an a al/chemical fire is not terribly difficult. It follows then, that saving yourself from a more common source of fire would be even easier, and contrariwise, ending a magical fire that has engulfed you would be more difficult.

Okay, but did writing three paragraphs of deductive logic and speculation in order to theorize what the rules-as-intended might be not depress you, just a little bit? And how would you feel if someone got set on fire in-game, and then you had to break from play to fruitlessly check the rules and have this discussion?

In addition to the alchemist fire entry, there is also the 'burned by coals' entry on improvised damage in the dmg. But that's a d10.

-Username17

SlyJohnny wrote:Okay, but did writing three paragraphs of deductive logic and speculation in order to theorize what the rules-as-intended might be not depress you, just a little bit? And how would you feel if someone got set on fire in-game, and then you had to break from play to fruitlessly check the rules and have this discussion?

Frank's original post, which railed against the fact that the 5e books don't have clear and easy to look up rules stands. His frustration that the books don't discuss the old chestnut of setting your enemies on fire also stands. Furthermore, Frank's gaming group made a ruling that was was very close to the Alchemist's fire burning rules, which is also how things were handled in 3.x, so it would appear that Mearls just sneezed onto the old rules and called it a day.

I have not imbibed Mearls' egesta-flavored Koolaid. The fact that the man does this

all day and makes more money then I ever will makes me gnash my teeth. I was simply trying to add to the Den's body of knowledge regarding this most diaphanous installment of D&D. o(^▽^)o

P.S. My group has already had the distinct "pleasure" of having the session grind to a halt while we tried to figure out how casting a spell off of a scroll works.

Ahh, I get you.

FrankTrollman wrote:In addition to the alchemist fire entry, there is also the 'burned by coals' entry on improvised damage in the dmg. But that's a d10.

-Username17

[Behind] O, I am slain! A wretched, rash, intruding fool I was, for giving Mearls a scintilla of credit. [Falls and dies]

Sir Aubergine wrote:

I think that there's no reason at all to think that Alchemist's Fire causes generic fire damage any more than the 1d10 from a Fire Elemental (which you quoted). Don't see why one is any more appropriate to sitting in a fireplace than the other.

Well the Fire Elemental's ability is incontrovertibly in the realm of magic. As evidence, recall that the Fire Bolt cantrip deals fire damage of the same intensity. My induction is that magical fire is closer to magma/lava in temperature, and so has a higher damage die. Alchemist's fire is ersatz Greek fire, and so the damage is less blistering than the Elemental's ability or the wizard's cantrip.

I understand your incredulity that an al/chemical substance is equivalent to a fireplace. However, if the two are not interchangeable as you say, I would find it strange if the damage from alchemist's fire was weaker than fire created from burning wood / coal.

In any case, I think the entry for Alchemist's fire at least indicates that Mearls and Co think that putting out an a al/chemical fire is not terribly difficult. It follows then, that saving yourself from a more common source of fire would be even easier, and contrariwise, ending a magical fire that has engulfed you would be more difficult.

Oh, so "being on fire" is no longer what we're talking about, because the things that catch you on fire lend their keywords to your own personal conflagration. Now you're "on magical fire" or "on alchemical fire" or "on normal fire"? If you catch fire because a Fire Elemental hit you, are you extinguished in an AMF? Do you relight once you leave?

In addition, it appears the magical fire is easier to douse - while the Alchemist's Fire takes an action and a DC 10 Dexterity check, the Fire Elemental's flame (which is a d10, by the way) merely lasts "until a creature takes an action to
douse the fire"

Now, sure, you could derive a potential rule from this! I'm not arguing that and never was. I was merely saying there's no reason to think that the Alchemist's Fire rule is the general rule, and the claim that there is no general rule continues to appear true.

FrankTrollman wrote:In addition to the alchemist fire entry, there is also the 'burned by coals' entry on improvised damage in the dmg. But that's a d10.

-Username17

Huh. Yeah, there's no consistency to be had here. Surprising, I know.

Oh, so "being on fire" is no longer what we're talking about, because the things that catch you on fire lend their keywords to your own personal conflagration. Now you're "on magical fire" or "on alchemical fire" or "on normal fire"? If you catch fire because a Fire Elemental hit you, are you extinguished in an AMF? Do you relight once you leave?

What are you on about? I was attempting to rationalize why different sources of fire damage inflict more or less ongoing damage. Your interpretation of what I said is discombobulating.

In addition, it appears the magical fire is easier to douse - while the Alchemist's Fire takes an action and a DC 10 Dexterity check, the Fire Elemental's flame

(which is a d10, by the way)

merely lasts "until a creature takes an action to douse the fire"

That's true enough. I looked through the Monster Manual, and the Magmin has a very similar ability:

Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d6) fire damage. If the target is a creature or a flammable object, it ignites. Until a creature takes an action to douse the fire, the creature takes 3 (1d6) fire damage at the end of each of its turns. (MM, p. 212)

Of course the ongoing fire damage is of a different intensity, why wouldn't it be.

Now, sure, you could derive a potential rule from this! I'm not arguing that and never was.

I was merely saying there's no reason to think that the Alchemist's Fire rule is the general rule, and the claim that there is no general rule continues to appear true.

Your adoption of the de rigueur writing style of the Den is laudable. Your repetition that there is no black letter law for handling creatures being set on fire is noted.

Lastly, I have found some interesting information while looking through the Spells section of the PHB. First, Lightning Bolt (p. 255) is the only example I have found of non-fire damage being able to light objects and materials on fire. Second, the spell Searing Smite says:

[...] the attack deals an extra 1d6 fire damage to the target and causes the target to ignite in flames. At the start of each of its turns until the spell ends, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 1d6 fire damage. On a successful save, the spell ends. If the target or a creature within 5 feet of it uses an action to put out the flames, or if some other effect douses the flames (such as the target being submerged in water), the spell ends. (PHB, p. 274)

This is a third dousing technique that I did not see in the PHB, MM, or DMG. Also, note that in this example, external forces are allowed to extinguish the flames independent of any action taken by the burning creature or its allies.

Of course after looking at the three main 5e books, a common phrase (and countless slight variations) that comes up is, "The fire ignites objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren’t being worn or carried" (PHB, 220).As expected, I could find no explanation of dousing or otherwise interacting with burning objects and terrain.

Of course after looking at the three main 5e books, a common phrase (and countless slight variations) that comes up is, "The fire ignites objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren’t being worn or carried" (PHB, 220).As expected, I could find no explanation of dousing or otherwise interacting with burning objects and terrain.

Obviously, that's a DC 10 Dexterity check, where on a 1 the water instead acts like fuel and you burn large swathes of the area and/or yourself. A 20 is you dousing all fires in a 1 km radius

Sir Aubergine wrote:

me wrote:

you wrote:Well the Fire Elemental's ability is incontrovertibly in the realm of magic. As evidence, recall that the Fire Bolt cantrip deals fire damage of the same intensity. My induction is that magical fire is closer to magma/lava in temperature, and so has a higher damage die. Alchemist's fire is ersatz Greek fire, and so the damage is less blistering than the Elemental's ability or the wizard's cantrip.

Oh, so "being on fire" is no longer what we're talking about, because the things that catch you on fire lend their keywords to your own personal conflagration. Now you're "on magical fire" or "on alchemical fire" or "on normal fire"? If you catch fire because a Fire Elemental hit you, are you extinguished in an AMF? Do you relight once you leave?

What are you on about? I was attempting to rationalize why different sources of fire damage inflict more or less ongoing damage. Your interpretation of what I said is discombobulating.

Perhaps I missed something, but I had thought we were discussing the general rules for being on fire - that is, when the character is taking continued damage because their clothing/skin/etc is continuing to burn after a fiery attack ignited them. Your idea that such fire would do different damage based on origin indicates that there's more to it than simply igniting the character, so then instead of being "this person is burning" we have "this person has fire of [whatever] origin clinging to them". For the fire elementals's fire to do more continuing damage, it has to continue to be magical. Thus the AMF comment, and so on.

I do think that we largely agree, though, on the matter of this game and its rules, and that this is tangential. It's just that there's little else to say about a game with minimal rules, so we're just arguing feasibility of implied houserules.

Sir Aubergine wrote: Frank's original post, which railed against the fact that the 5e books don't have clear and easy to look up rules stands. His frustration that the books don't discuss the old chestnut of setting your enemies on fire also stands. Furthermore, Frank's gaming group made a ruling that was was very close to the Alchemist's fire burning rules, which is also how things were handled in 3.x, so it would appear that Mearls just sneezed onto the old rules and called it a day.

P.S. My group has already had the distinct "pleasure" of having the session grind to a halt while we tried to figure out how casting a spell off of a scroll works.

That the rules don't include a specific provision for lighting people on fire without the aid of accelerant or magic isn't a deficit, people don't tend to burn like paper. If Frank's DM MTP'd up a special rule to let them light people on fire, I don't see why it's the books fault for not anticipating his house rule.

For christ's sake, he expected that the medicine skill recovered hit points? It's not like Heal did that in 3.5 and he KNOWS that system. Did he just not realize you recover all your hit points after a night's rest? He thought Backgrounds forced you to pick your Circle Spells (well I WAS born and raised in Waterdeep, but I became a druid in a little marsh just outside the city limits)? If someone made these arguments about 3.5 with that poor a grasp of the rules you'd laugh them off the board.

Vaegrim wrote:For christ's sake, he expected that the medicine skill recovered hit points? It's not like Heal did that in 3.5 and he KNOWS that system. Did he just not realize you recover all your hit points after a night's rest? He thought Backgrounds forced you to pick your Circle Spells (well I WAS born and raised in Waterdeep, but I became a druid in a little marsh just outside the city limits)? If someone made these arguments about 3.5 with that poor a grasp of the rules you'd laugh them off the board.

If you think that's bad, you should see Frank try to talk about 1E AD&D.

Vaegrim wrote:If someone made these arguments about 3.5 with that poor a grasp of the rules you'd laugh them off the board.

Poor grasp of rules hardly weakens the argument that the rules are unclear and hard to find.

Vaegrim wrote:That the rules don't include a specific provision for lighting people on fire without the aid of accelerant

Firstly, I'd just like to point out that Frank gave absolutely no details about how they set someone on fire; you just sort of arbitrarily invented your own situation and then started ranting about how the players couldn't have done that anyway so "fuck you it's not 5E's fault." You're clearly kind of a douche. For clarity's sake, the typical adventurer is carrying accelerant (liquid accelerant, even) and many enemies spend every waking moment covered from neck to toe in flammables. They're called 'clothes.' Modern synthetic fibers tend to melt instead of catch fire, but oldschool linen burns just fine. But ultimately it doesn't matter. The DM said someone caught fire. People burning is a common enough situation at the table that as a designer you should absolutely expect the DM to need rules for it. It's not exactly what you'd call an edge case, and the lack of a general rule is quite noticeable, in that a bunch of people notice it, and then go online and ask about it; try googling various phrasings of this question.

Vaegrim wrote:For christ's sake, he expected that the medicine skill recovered hit points? It's not like Heal did that in 3.5 and he KNOWS that system.

2E (with splats) (nevermind, PHB), 3E, and 4E all had some variety of heal skill whose usage could improve the party's hitpoint recovery. In 2E and 3E, it doubled your natural recovery rate. In 4E, you could trigger people's second winds for them. Those are all fairly suboptimal, but in every case the skill did something with respect to hitpoint recovery. It is not even remotely weird to walk into 5E expecting the medicine skill to influence hitpoint recovery - however minimally - because that is what that skill has done literally since it was created back in... 1989? The 3E heal skill could also be used to treat poisons and diseases, which replaces the saving throw result with your skill check (which is almost certainly higher). Neither requires any significant amount of time (considering you're doing them out of combat) or resources, and are mildly useful because preparing treat poison and cure disease is not a thing you ever really want to do if you can avoid it.

Yes, 5E's medicine is noticeably weaker than 3E's heal - which is impressive, because 3E's heal sucked donkey balls and was a terrible skill. 3E's heal gave you some very small extra party-wide hitpoint recovery, and also let you minimize the harm from any poisons or diseases you encountered. It did something. 5E's medicine lets you stabilize people (which you can do for free with a piece of starting equipment that doesn't require proficiency) and diagnose illnesses except you don't care because you can't actually do anything about them and the spells that actually will fix them will fix them even if you don't know what they are. It does nothing.

Vaegrim wrote:He thought Backgrounds forced you to pick your Circle Spells (well I WAS born and raised in Waterdeep, but I became a druid in a little marsh just outside the city limits)?

I'm just going to clarify what Frank and Vaegrim are talking about here.

At level 2, druids choose between two archetypes; the Circle of the Land or the Circle of the Moon. If you choose Circle of the Land, then at level 3 you get access to a bonus spell list based on the type of terrain in which you became a druid. So if you aren't planning this shit out in advance, then at chargen you'll make your character and decide some basic background information, and then at level 2 you'll choose an archetype, and then at level 3 the archetype you chose will make a callback to random background information from chargen. Vaegrim is cool with that on the basis that if you want "swamp" you can always retcon the needed details into existence; I'm sure there's a spot of wet muck somewhere around wherever-the-hell-you're-from. I can't say it's a big deal, but yes, it's kind of dumb. You can tell it's kind of dumb, because the advice from the person defending it is "just find a way around it, who cares." It'd work better as an arbitrary choice because of course it would, which is exactly why you're suggesting making it an arbitrary choice.

Really, though, you want underdark, because it has a bunch of save-or-dies and greater invisibility, and the rest are kind of shit. So all Circle of the Land druids have their initiation in a very deep and conveniently located hole. Or they fall in a pit somewhere, hit their head on the way down, and have an epiphany about how great nature is. But that's neither here nor there.

Ok, not to be that guy, but isn't this all stuff we knew and expected going into 5e?

I don't know what anyone was expecting when the playtest packets literally said "the DM can define the DC AFTER the PC makes a roll".

The formatting is inexcusable, but I'm a proponent of the "hiding from the customer" theory that got advanced in the 5e PHB review thread.

About skills, 1e with splats - the wilderness and dungeoneers survival guides brought in skills (direct precursors to the 2e versions), and the BECMI sets brought them in eventually. So earlier than 1989.

Really, the only edition that lacked them was OD&D.


As for the results of 5e- it depends, Captain. If the playtest had actually been an iterative process, it could have been a bit deeper. Instead they kept scrapping and redoing the same basic systems and classes. To the point that the bard bears no resemblance to anything in the playtest material, as Mearls wrote it up from whole cloth right before the publishing deadline- and says so in the horrid playtest with his rapper fighter with the steel top hat, MC Killzalot. And why, as usual for this group, monsters and CR are a horrid mess of failed math that gets worse as they go up in level (though there are a lot of early outliers as well).

CapnTthePirateG wrote:I'm a proponent of the "hiding from the customer" theory that got advanced in the 5e PHB review thread.

You should hide your router from yourself then, to save us the trouble of having to see your idiocy.

You're right, actually - the wilderness survival guide has a heal proficiency, and it's basically the exact same thing as the heal proficiency in the 2e PHB. So heal has been for recovering hitpoints faster since a 1986 first edition AD&D splat.

Voss wrote: As for the results of 5e- it depends, Captain. If the playtest had actually been an iterative process, it could have been a bit deeper. Instead they kept scrapping and redoing the same basic systems and classes. To the point that the bard bears no resemblance to anything in the playtest material, as Mearls wrote it up from whole cloth right before the publishing deadline- and says so in the horrid playtest with his rapper fighter with the steel top hat, MC Killzalot. And why, as usual for this group, monsters and CR are a horrid mess of failed math that gets worse as they go up in level (though there are a lot of early outliers as well).

I don't think anyone on this board trusted them to do an iterative process or anything right really once Mearls was put in charge. Sure, if they'd had an iterative process with a strong base design we could have had something, but I'm pretty sure the process was something like

"Pathfinder is pretty successful" -> "They had an open playtest" -> "We should have one of those"

Literally half the classes and the archetype system are adapted from Pathfinder, but that's a whole different rant.

The real problem is that if you have an interesting or innovative game idea, you are a lot better off grabbing some friends and/or a game engine and making your own videogame rather than doing any actual design work for tabletop roleplaying games.

DSMatticus wrote: Firstly, I'd just like to point out that Frank gave absolutely no details about how they set someone on fire; you just sort of arbitrarily invented your own situation and then started ranting about how the players couldn't have done that anyway so "fuck you it's not 5E's fault." You're clearly kind of a douche. For clarity's sake, the typical adventurer is carrying accelerant (liquid accelerant, even) and many enemies spend every waking moment covered from neck to toe in flammables. They're called 'clothes.' Modern synthetic fibers tend to melt instead of catch fire, but oldschool linen burns just fine. But ultimately it doesn't matter. The DM said someone caught fire. People burning is a common enough situation at the table that as a designer you should absolutely expect the DM to need rules for it. It's not exactly what you'd call an edge case, and the lack of a general rule is quite noticeable, in that a bunch of people notice it, and then go online and ask about it; try googling various phrasings of this question.

If you douse someone in oil or alchemist's fire, the oil and alchemist's fire rules layout how that effects fire damage. If you cast a spell to light a creature on fire, the spell explains how to track the damage and how (if at all) it can be put out. If you arbitrarily make up some OTHER way, then you'll have to also arbitrarily make up the damage code. It's not that the "on fire condition" rules are hard to find, it's that there IS no general on fire rules. There are also no general hypothermia rules, wound infection rules, concussion rules and a host of OTHER things the developers declined to put a general rule in for. I can appreciate that someone coming fresh from Vampire would be annoyed to discover there was no general rule on the effects of blood loss in d&d, but that doesn't mean d&d is badly written for lacking such a rule.

Don't think I'm arguing that the books are well organized. They ARE a clusterfuck! The reason I mostly stayed out of the Den threads on 5e is BECAUSE I agree with the prevailing sentiments about the lack of professionalism, Mearls' hackery and the gaping absence of useful material. It just happens to not be the case for literally every aspect of the rules. There are skills which don't actually have any mechanics whatsoever, Medicine isn't one of them.

Vaegrim wrote:There are skills which don't actually have any mechanics whatsoever, Medicine isn't one of them.

Uh, yes it totally is. Also, all the other skills. Like 100% of them.

Vaegrim, as has been noted you are factually wrong about the heal proficiency, which has healed hit points in other editions for thirty years. Literally. Thirty years. You are just fucking wrong. It should surprise noone that you are also wrong about fire damage. There are in fact lots of ways to make fires right out of the PHB that don't have associated damage codes. I think starting fires and then not saying how much damage would be inflicted by exposure to those fires happens more than a dozen times in the PHB spell list alone.

-Username17