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[Ihtomyt]

I was fighting a forgotten beast in adventure mode, and it breathed fire, which resulted in the fireball hitting my character. Somehow I survived, throwing off the burning clothing, and killing the beast. However, I had a shield, and it was readied in my hand. I had read that dragon fire would be blocked by a shield, but is a fireball from a forgotten beast not blocked? Is it only manually blocked? There was no flammable stuff beneath me, and I've power leveled blocking to legendary +5, so I'm not sure if I am missing something.

[duckman]

Fireballs are projectiles. They roll the same dice as arrows, so you just got unlucky.

[Ihtomyt]

Thanks for that! Makes sense now.

[peasant cretin]

I was fighting a forgotten beast in adventure mode, and it breathed fire, which resulted in the fireball hitting my character. Somehow I survived, throwing off the burning clothing, and killing the beast. However, I had a shield, and it was readied in my hand. I had read that dragon fire would be blocked by a shield, but is a fireball from a forgotten beast not blocked? Is it only manually blocked? There was no flammable stuff beneath me, and I've power leveled blocking to legendary +5, so I'm not sure if I am missing something.

All projectile and fire attacks (dragon or regular) can only be auto-defended, meaning the AI does it for you. You can't opt to manually defend, as you would a strike (natural attack like bite/claw or weapon).

So, back in 2016 when Toady made a change to dragonfire vs regular fire, a bunch of people were trying to figure out how to work it. I forget whether it was Bumber, George_Chickens, Max™ or Rumrusher, but one of them mentioned that if you were to manually defend, using your sole shield to block an attack this round, the following round it would not be in the menu as an auto-defense option.

This was why people who had just blocked a dragon claw attack and had a high enough shield user (well over lvl 6 vs a dragon/FB/titan's lvl 6 archer skill) still got fried. So the conventional wisdom for single shield users changed to just trust in your auto-block vs claw/bite and shield block would remain available in the following round should the dragon breathe on you.

If you had a legendary +5 shield user skill, and were suffering no negative status effects (stun -50% to skill/nauseous -??%/drowsy -??/hungry -??) a bad roll-to-block is improbable. You either used your sole shield the previous round or this other thing happened:

Fire works in 3D.

The shield only blocks fire to the front. Fire still engulfs you and can burn your top, your sides/back and underneath and it does so working through your layers, exterior-most to innermost.

Usually a character's exterior layer on top is a hood, the sides/back is cloak and mittens, and beneath would be boots.

With an FB, you're on a non-flammable floor, so unlikely to have boot fire. Will also guess you weren't at a chokepoint like a corridor, otherwise the shield should have plugged it up, directionally.

The two options available then are: 1. hobo up, because you need to remove and toss fiery clothes or 2. get wet.

Submerging and getting drenched only works versus titans since you probbaly have close access to a waterway and this wont tick count expire, as it would when searching for an FB.

In a fortress or mountainhall, your best bet once you see fiery FB is to:
(d)rop water onto tile.
(s) to lie down.
(I)nteract to refill your container.
(d)rop water onto tile again.
Move off of tile. Move back onto tile.
(e)/(i) to check for *water covering*.

Now go fite FB.