Pig Hollow Ablaze - GM SCREEN ADVENTURES SPOILERS

[hemulaformis]

I am a first time GM (in any system) running my first campaign and was hoping to get some opinions on how to handle the following situation.

Running "Defending Apple Lane", the party successfully fended off the Tusk Rider assault on the Tin Inn, losing one PC in the process, but at least one Tusk Rider escaped and the remaining PCs decided to pursue. Squinch warned them of Redeye.

When the party reached the Tusk Rider camp, I rolled that Redeye was not present, even though Tusk Riders were. The Odaylan hunter decided to lay some snares and the party climbed trees, ambushing the Tusk Riders and firing upon them with bows. One Tusk Rider was caught in a snare and ultimately went down, but I had the other two fetch some axes before long to proceed to chop them out of the trees. Due to the commotion, I decided to roll for Redeye again, and he now appeared.

Before long the party were surrounded, with Redeye and the remaining Tusk Riders awaiting them at the base of the trees. Perhaps figuring they were essentially done for, the Ernaldan cast Ignite on Redeye and succeeded on the POW vs POW roll. In retaliation, the burning Redeye knocked the tree down, and the PCs suffered some fall damage. I then rolled for Redeye/the Tusk Riders to stop Redeye's fur smoldering,  but they all missed the rolls, so I decided to offer the PCs the opportunity to make a DEX roll to collect themselves and flee in the commotion (the tree did fall "away" from Redeye, after all). They regrouped a somewhat safe distance away to heal and determine how to proceed next.

There is now a small fire burning in Pig Hollow. I rolled for a random encounter and the party wound up encountering three Black Spear warriors who had been on patrol and noticed the smoke. The Black Spear thane determined that with the smoke rising, he must ride into Pig Hollow and eliminate all threats (Tusk Riders, Redeye, fire) but didn't give the PCs much choice when it came to deciding whether or not to assist.

My primary question therefore is has anyone run a battle in a burning environment? Some initial thoughts I had would be to have the party make CON rolls every round to simulate being able to overcome the effect of the smoke on the battlefield and to randomly roll for falling tree limbs, having the party make Dodge rolls to avoid being hit.

A secondary question would be how to go about extinguishing the fire. I'd prefer the players to develop a solution, but I'd like to have one prepared as a backstop (it seems easy enough to have an NPC come and cast Rain, but when I wrote up the three Black Spear NPCs, I didn't give any of them Rain, and I don't know if it's appropriate to do so now knowing the circumstances?) If the players don't solve it themselves, whoever does put out the fire will surely be looking for something from the party, especially because they immediately confessed what had happened to the Black Spear thane.

Any thoughts would be kindly appreciated.

[David Scott]

18 minutes ago, hemulaformis said:

I am a first time GM (in any system) running my first campaign

Great! Welcome aboard.

18 minutes ago, hemulaformis said:

My primary question therefore is has anyone run a battle in a burning environment? Some initial thoughts I had would be to have the party make CON rolls every round to simulate being able to overcome the effect of the smoke on the battlefield and to randomly roll for falling tree limbs, having the party make Dodge rolls to avoid being hit.

Alway remember that anything extra will stow down combat. Personally, I'd just subtract 10-20% from any rolls to simulate any issues with the fire. Usually you'd use the asphyxiation rules for smoke, in this case I would suggest just rolling con times five and if they fail con times four (ignoring the asphyxiation rounds). Have a look at the rules on page 156. Each fail does 1 HP damage, cumulative for smoke inhalation. What ever you do, keep it simple.

18 minutes ago, hemulaformis said:

A secondary question would be how to go about extinguishing the fire. I'd prefer the players to develop a solution, but I'd like to have one prepared as a backstop (it seems easy enough to have an NPC come and cast Rain, but when I wrote up the three Black Spear NPCs, I didn't give any of them Rain, and I don't know if it's appropriate to do so now knowing the circumstances?) If the players don't solve it themselves, whoever does put out the fire will surely be looking for something from the party, especially because they immediately confessed what had happened to the Black Spear thane.

Just add Rain to your NPCs you are in charge, 

[rsanford]

Hemulaformis you show an amazing combination of system mastery and GM smarts and you haven’t ever been a GM before? Wow I’m impressed.  I’m with David, I would apply a 20% penalty to rolls assuming it’s a good sized fire. I would also roll con for smoke inhalation damage.

[hemulaformis]

@rsanford@David ScottThank you both for the suggestions (and the undeserved compliment). I hadn't thought of a general penalty to rolls which makes great sense.

[Ludo Bagman]

About extinguishing the fire: An adventure in the Starter Set has a burning house.

Spoiler

Spells useful against the fire were Rain, Extinguish (1 point damage to the "hit points" of the fire per point of the spell), and summoned air and water elementals (that cause as much damage as their hit points but their body gets destroyed in the process). I would also add darkness and earth elementals.

Note that there are other useful spells such as Lodril's spell Suppress Oakfed.

[hemulaformis]

@Ludo BagmanThanks for those suggestions, Ludo.