Apr 5

Apr 5 Burning Building - Encounter Location

Fighting in a burning building is exhilarating. Not only is there a fire, but there is lots of fire, and you have a whole party of characters trying to not only fight the fire, but whatever challenge is also in the burning building that is important enough for them to go in there and risk their lives, their sweet haircuts, and the lives of any NPC unfortunate enough to get dragged in there with them. If you really want to turn up the heat on your next encounter involving a burning building, you can use as many of the rules below as you want to heighten the drama and make your party feel like they are fighting through a burning building.

Burning Building

Fire can be more than just a piece of set dressing but have an impact on a combat encounter, social encounter, or search-and-rescue encounter. Fire jumps about sporadic, licking out at creature and material alike, scorching and blackening it. The following rules are used to help run encounters inside of a burning building and include a focus on how fire might move about within a building, why adventurers might choose to run into a burning building, as well as what might spawn within fire itself.

The Fire

Point of Origin

This ruleset assumes that the building has been burning for at least a few minutes and that the fire has gotten a chance to spread throughout the building. If the fire is just beginning, you can reduce how much of it is present or restrict it to a single room.

There should be a number of origin points for the fire in each room, based on the number of player characters. Each point of origin should be placed randomly across the room, and each point of origin takes up an amount of space based on the size of the room, per the chart below. Fire takes up its full space, but creatures can move in and out of the fire or stand within it. When a creature starts their turn or enters the fire the first time on their turn, they must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, they take their tier’s damage (see below), or half as much damage on a success.

Size of the Room | Size of each Point of Origin
up to 25 x 25 | Medium-sized
up to 35 x 35 | Large-sized
up to 45 x 45 | Huge-sized
up to 55 x 55 | Gargantuan-sized

Spreading Fire

At initiative count 20, the fire has the chance to spread. You must roll a d8 to determine which direction the fire travels, with 1 being North, 2 North-East, 3 East, 4 South-East, 5 South, 6 South-West, 7 West, and 8 North-West. If you roll a direction, and the fire would be incapable of moving in that direction, the fire doesn’t grow this turn. The fire gains a number of 5-foot squares based on its original point of origin size, minimum of 1. You can choose which squares those are, but they must be in the general direction that the fire is growing. Refer to the chart below.

Point of Origin Size | Spreading Fire
Medium | 1 square
Large | 2 squares
Huge | 3 squares
Gargantuan | 4 squares

Fire Damage

When a creature starts their turn within fire, or first enters the fire on their turn, they must attempt a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, taking damage based on their tier on a failed save, or half as much on a successful save. The damage from the fire increases based on the level of the players, as well as how dangerous the situation is, based on the GM’s discretion. Refer to the chart below.

Party Level or Danger Level | Fire Damage
Level 1, Minimal Danger | 2 (1d4) fire
Level 2-4, Some Danger | 3 (1d6) fire
Level 5-9, Moderate Danger | 5 (2d4) fire
Level 10-14, Serious Danger | 7 (2d6) fire
Level 15-19, Major Danger | 10 (3d6) fire
Level 20+, Extreme Danger | 17 (5d6) fire

Water

Fire can be extinguished before it has burned itself out by using water to disperse it. As an action, a creature can dump a gallon of water on a 5-foot square occupied by fire within 5 feet of them. This douses the fire, extinguishing it. Fire can still occupy this square in the future if it moves in this direction. A 5-foot radius plume of smoke immediately forms, centered on the fire extinguished. All creatures and objects within this plume are heavily obscured.

The Smoke

There is more to fire than just heat and flames, it also produces a lot of smoke that is dangerous to breathe.

Visibility

At the start of every round, the GM randomly determines the visibility within the room by rolling a 1d4 and then multiplying the result by 5 feet. Any creatures or objects within this area are lightly obscured by the smoke, while all other creatures and objects outside this ranger are heavily obscured by the smoke. The smoke is dispersed for 1d4 rounds if a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) blows through it.

Poisonous Fumes

When a creature starts their turn in the smoke, or enters it for the first time on their turn, they must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes poison damage based on the party’s level or the danger level of the fire, see the chart above for Fire damage. In addition, a creature begins coughing and is suffocating, exhausting all of its air.

A creature automatically succeeds on this check if they hold their breath or are crawling along the ground. If a creature was holding its breath, and then attempts to speak, like to give commands or to cast a spell, it begins to suffocate unless it chooses to breathe, in which case it must attempt the Constitution saving throw.

Collapse

A wooden building is likely to collapse once it has been sufficiently engulfed in flames and the flames have had a chance to weaken the structure. A typical structure is normally engulfed in flames in 1d6 minutes and begins to collapse after 1d6 x 10 minutes. For larger buildings, they add additional d6s to the number of minutes it takes for it to be engulfed and for it to collapse. See the chart below for suggestions.

Size of Structure | Engulfed | Collapse
Small house, tiny house | 1d6 minutes| 1d6 x 10 minutes
Small shop, tiny tavern | 2d6 minutes | 2d6 x 10 minutes
Medium shop, small tavern | 3d6 minutes | 3d6 x 10 minutes
Medium tavern, large house | 4d6 minutes | 4d6 x 10 minutes
Large tavern, barracks, temple | 5d6 minutes | 5d6 x 10 minutes

If creatures are within a structure when it is engulfed in flames, the fire damage dice increase in size by one step, from d4 to d6 or from d6 to d8. In addition, every square and space within the structure is on fire.

If creatures are within a structure when it collapses, they must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, they take the fire’s damage and then take that damage again as bludgeoning damage. In addition, they are grappled (escape DC 15). While grappled, they are restrained. At the start of every turn that they are stuck within the burning, collapsed structure, they must attempt the Dexterity saving throw, taking the damage again. On a successful save, a creature takes half damage.

A creature can attempt to dig itself out by using an action and succeeding on a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check. On a successful check, they clear an amount of 5-foot squares of rubble equal to their Strength modifier. This cleared space allows them to move, but it quickly collapses again by the end of their next turn.

Summoned Dangers

There are more dangers to fire than simply the smoke and fire, as especially large flames can momentarily create a bridge to the plane of fire or the plane of smoke. These creatures typically delight in creating bigger fires and help spread the fire faster, making it so that a building may collapse sooner or providing a new hazard for your party to face while they are attempting to rescue others within the blaze. You can roll on the chart below to randomly determine an appropriate monster that might be summoned. You can then refer to the appropriate column for how many spawn based on the level of the party.

d8 | Monster | Lv1-4 | Lv5-9 | Lv10-14 | Lv15-20+
1 | Magma Mephit | x1d4 | x2d4 | x2d6 | x2d8
2 | Fire Elemental | x1 | x1 | x1d4 | x2d4
3 | Giant Fire Beetles | x1d6 | x2d6 | x3d8 | x4d8
4 | Azer | x1 | x1d4 | x2d6 | x3d6
5 | Efreeti | - | x1 | x1 | x1d4
6 | Magmin | x1d4 | x2d4 | x2d6 | x2d8
7 | Salamander | x1 | x1 | x1d4 | x2d4
8 | Hell Hound | x1 | x1d4 | x1d8 | x2d8

Reasons to Run In

There are a variety of reasons why adventurers might run into a burning building. The following are ideas that you can choose from, expanding as you see fit for your campaign and table.

There are people, or pets, trapped in the building thanks to a burning beam falling down and trapping them in a central room.
The party has been tracking down a criminal who has been setting buildings on fire in the city. The arsonist is attempting to burn the building down from within, and so the building is yet to be engulfed in flames, allowing the party the chance to stamp out the flames and catch the arsonist before they are finished.
A fire elemental is running amok through the city, lighting buildings on fire. It wishes to make a large enough fire to open a link to the plane of fire and bring more allies to the material plane.
The party’s headquarters has caught on fire and any important items, like deeds or potions, will be destroyed in the inferno. Once the party extinguishes the flames, or waits for their building to collapse, they can investigate it and find out a rival faction purposefully set the fire.
The building they were sleeping in was hit by lightning during a massive thunderstorm, causing the building to catch fire. Now they must escape their burning surroundings and make it outside.
The city is under siege by an army and they must rescue their allies from their burning building after it was hit by a burning rock from a siege engine.
The party was told the surest way of creating a portal to the plane of fire was to create a large enough fire.

If you would like a printer-friendly PDF of this article, or any of our tools and other homebrew, consider supporting us on Patreon!