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[Kagus]

My high-seas party has made their way to the Elemental Plane of Fire - for all of them, this is the first time they've felt dry air in 50 years, if not their whole life.

Any recommendations of silly fire things to encounter?

A fire barge; an enchanted vessel that rides atop the crests of dancing flames like a ship would sail the waves.

Even in the literal Elemental Plane of Fire, they still cannot escape boat.


If you really wanna get silly, I hear Efreet Eye for the Mortal Guy is on for a new season.

[Tack]

My high-seas party has made their way to the Elemental Plane of Fire - for all of them, this is the first time they've felt dry air in 50 years, if not their whole life.

Any recommendations of silly fire things to encounter?

Random boil-overs causing the ground to become lava, shift around for a few rounds, and then re-solidify?
I’ve got stormlight archives in my head, something like fireflies being a cute little critter you don’t think about and they’re actually multiplanar abominations which only show that specific part of them in the material plane.
-which makes a mating dance suddenly very confusing.

Also, hi all. I play D&D and pathfinder. I also make terrain

[delphonso]

There's already been heavy foreshadowing that they'll find a submarine on legs somewhere in this plane. Excellent idea it's riding on/in flames too.

Love the idea of shuffling terrain! We've got two tanks and two glass cannons, so that'll certainly //heat things up//

[Loud Whispers]

Also, hi all. I play D&D and pathfinder. I also make terrain

Greetings greetings

My high-seas party has made their way to the Elemental Plane of Fire - for all of them, this is the first time they've felt dry air in 50 years, if not their whole life.

Any recommendations of silly fire things to encounter?

The salamancer (pyromancer who is a lizard wizard about the size of your palm)
Bar that only serves flaming shots
Legal team searching for prometheus to cut down on copyright infringement
Incense sellers & BBQ joints
Spontaneously combusting eucalyptus tree seller trying to convince others to bring the tree's seeds into other planes
The remains of a gunpowder manufactory
Dried fruit/meat seller

[Rolan7]

That bit of Tattoine lore where a glass of unaltered water is the most prestigious drink.

In fact, maybe the locals have to harvest water from a local cactus-like creature... which is more like a cactaur, mobile and very dangerous for a simple "plant".  Perhaps it has developed some natural cleric spell-like-abilities which is how it accumulates its water, and also drops Obscuring Mist while fleeing.  If cornered it uses its spines.

This could be a natural exception like how the air plane has floating islands and the earth plane has breathable caves, but I like to think it's the machination of a deity who has an interest in the local civilization.  To what end, though?

[Kagus]

...huh.

Okay, how would y'all consider the interaction between Life Transference (take 4d8 damage, one creature of your choice gains healing worth double the damage you take) and a Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance (when are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead)?


Half-Orc Healer (HOH) has 1/33 hitpoints (so can't be killed outright from casting the spell), casts Life Transference (LT) on Party Member (PM).

Scenario 1:
HOH rolls 18 on the dice, takes 18 damage reducing them to "-17/33", whereupon they use Relentless Endurance (RE) to remain with 1 HP. PM receives 36 healing.

Scenario 2:
HOH rolls 18 on the dice, but can only take 1 HP damage due to only having 1 left, reducing them to 0/33. They use RE to return to 1 HP. PM receives 2 healing.

Scenario 3: HOH rolls 18, but damage taken can only be the difference between hitpoints before and hitpoints after a given effect. Since HOH uses RE to "instead drop to 1 hitpoint", they have 1HP both before and after casting, so damage taken is 0. PM receives 0 healing.


Or would you take some other ruling entirely?

Personally, I feel like the combination is such a curious little interaction on a sub-optimal build with a heavy resource cost for a not-overwhelming result, so I'd be tempted to lean towards Scenario 1 just to have it pay off a little. But I'm not really sure what the RAW actually says on the matter.


And that doesn't even get into the question of whether Life domain's "When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that restores hit points to a creature other than you, you regain hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level" feature gives you healing before taking the damage or after... Or possibly even during, providing a de facto reduction of the damage despite not being able to say that it's reducing the damage, because the damage "can't be reduced in any way".

[delphonso]

I'd give them Scenario 1. As you pointed out, it's a heap of resources for a cool, cinematic moment in a fight.

[Sirus]

More fire plane ideas:

Extremely spicy peppers that deal damage when consumed (CON save reduces) but allow the consumer to breathe fire as an attack. Probably not much use in the Plane of Fire but the peppers can be brought back to the party's normal world.
A settlement of friendly fire elementals set up as a tourist attraction: gambling, trading, taverns with performances, all that stuff.
A very miserable white dragon who will do just about anything for a ticket off the plane.
The remnants of an old crusade who thought they were marching into the Infernal planes but took the wrong portal. As they were expecting fire and brimstone anyway, they've been marching around for years smashing up everything they can find.

[Rolan7]

...huh.

Okay, how would y'all consider the interaction between Life Transference (take 4d8 damage, one creature of your choice gains healing worth double the damage you take) and a Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance (when are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead)?

Oof, I might have to be a sourpuss about this.  Putting aside RAW and rule of cool, I feel like it breaks "my immersions" unnecessarily.  How can someone donate their vital energy when they have none to spare?

I could see it going either way, but I'd rather it not be a reliable mechanic.  I'd sorta want it to have consequences.  The details would need to be negotiated with the player though.

Like, 5th editions rules for hitting 0 hit points are conducive to conserving player characters (in a good way), but anything that highlights the ridiculousness of the edge cases bothers me.  I see the bonus-action Healing Word (IIRC) in a similar way.  The game is designed around abusing it, and I absolutely did as a player, yet it's kinda... gross.  To me.

[Egan_BW]

RAW I'd have to go #2 or #3 because 5e definitely does not have negative hitpoints. If you take more damage than you have HP, you go to 0.

However, fudging shit to make the players be cool badasses who do awesome shit is a proud tradition, so feel free to give them awesome heals. Consider saying that it results in some kinda degeneration over time though, both for balance and because... it sounds pretty bad flavor wise.

Characters do have life force to spare besides HP, of course. It's called death checks, hit dice, exhaustion, and even spell slots. Getting to do the big life transfer and stay standing at the cost of a death check might actually be kinda interesting.

[Loud Whispers]

Scenario #2 is legally the one that would play out if you go by the book. No negative HP so you don't take any more damage than 1, so it gives 2 hp, since life transference is based on the damage taken and not the damage rolled. If we're by an in-universe thing, then death saving throws represent losing what's left of your life essence. So giving HP based on the damage rolled should be fine; half-orcs have a lot of life to give. Just be mindful that DnD characters are already nigh impossible to kill as is, and this would add yet more tools to make chars unkillable

[scriver]

The Half-Orc's ability happens at 0 hp, so even if 5e did have negative hit points it wouldn't be mechanically legal. Sorry Kagus

[Kagus]

The thing is, while 5e doesn't have negative hitpoints in the sense of previous editions, it does still track damage beyond "reduced to 0", for the sake of calculating instant death.

[...] For example, a cleric with a maximum of 12 hit points currently has 6 hit points. If she takes 18 damage from an attack, she is reduced to 0 hit points, but 12 damage remains. Because the remaining damage equals her hit point maximum, the cleric dies.

The wording here is a bit confusing. It does say that she "takes 18 damage", but then once she's been reduced to 0 it says that "12 damage remains". I don't believe there's an official definition anywhere clarifying whether damage "taken" is "amount of damage to be applied to hit points", or "hit points - (damage)".

There's also the matter of "Taking damage while you have 0 hit points", which results in death saves. The wording still states that you're "Taking damage", despite not having any hit points to damage anymore. I guess you're just taking "0" damage? Which is... Fine, but sounds weird. And again, "If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death". This doesn't specifically say "Damage taken", so it seems like it's just referring to the number in a vacuum.


Actually, hang on... There is kind of a definition of damage taken, right on the page before. "When a creature takes damage, that damage is subtracted from its hit points". Which... Doesn't clear things up a great deal, as that could potentially be read as either sequential or simultaneous.

Additionally, there's... ugh... A tweet from Crawford stating that (in the context of barbarians and rage) "Taking 0 damage is the same as taking no damage."

By that logic, if you're at 0 hit points, even though you have no more hit points to damage, damage "taken" still retains its numerical value. Otherwise you could never trigger death saves from damage while downed.

[scriver]

But even if negative hit points exist, the half-orc doesn't get any. Because when they hit 0 hp, they bounce back up to 1.

[Persus13]

Scenario 1 sounds like the most fun scenario for everyone involved and its a super niche interaction that uses up resources including leaving the party healer a sneeze away from going down and having used their 1/day not yet unconscious ability. "The half-orc's body noticeably withers as their life energy leaves them to flow into their ailing ally. Gritting their teeth in immense pain, our half-orc hero wills themself to stay conscious to protect their ally, knowing that one more hit will knock them out of the fight."

I think there's rules logic to support it given that the half-orc is taking the damage, they just don't have the hit points to reduce by the amount they take. Relentless Endurance is an ability you choose to use and checks if you're just flat out dead first (which you could do with Life Transference, its a niche situation but we're already in one), so I see it as you take the damage, but before the consequences kick in, Relentless Endurance is used if it applies. I wouldn't begrudge anyone who ruled differently from me though, Situation 1 is just the result that makes the most sense to me rulewise and makes the most interesting story.

Concentration and Relentless Endurance is a similar situation. If a half-orc gets hit with a 25 damage fireball while at 1 HP and concentrating on spell, and they choose to use Relentless Endurance, would you rule that they have to make a Concentration check? If yes, would it be DC 10 or DC 12? I'd definitely rule yes at DC 12 for the same reason I chose situation 1. But if you pick situation 3 in the above scenario and you don't rule no on concentration you're being inconsistent.