New status ailment: On Fire

[Fubar Obfusco]

When struck by a fiery magical attack or a flaming explosion, creatures can catch on fire. (Some are more combustible than others -- a creature which resists fire will never catch on fire.) Being on fire causes damage every turn, akin to poisoning, but is rather easier to fix: just stop and put the fire out!

When you are on fire, running just fans the flames. Resting in the same square, however, represents taking a turn to bat out the flame -- or "stop, drop, and roll" if you like. Thus, moving when you're on fire has a 10% chance of increasing the fire level, while resting has a 50% chance of decreasing it. There's one exception: Moving into a water square will extinguish the blaze immediately.

Other ways to put out a fire include walking into a cloud of ice, cold, or water; or being struck by an attack based on one of these.

Any being foolish enough to try to walk in lava without some special equipment is almost assured of catching on fire. Best to avail yourself of some means of freezing-over the lava before you go where angels fear to tread ....


Being on fire is generally bad for your equipment. Burnable light clothing, like cloaks and robes, tend to take damage or be destroyed if they are not themselves resistant to flame. It is rather less likely, but possible, that fire on your person will smolder your scrolls and torches in your backpack. Those carrying potions of detonations are advised to be extra-careful around sources of flame.

There is only one advantage to being on fire: creatures stupid enough to attack a burning person in melee are likely to suffer damage, or (with a small chance) catch on fire themselves.


Certain magical effects exist which are capable of setting creatures on fire, rather than doing overt magical fire damage. These include the low-level Fire spell Ignite, as well as wands of ignition. Another item, the scroll of extinguishing, puts out all fires in the vicinity, while its unfortunate counterpart the scroll of combustion sets the reader aflame. More mundanely, thrown flasks of lamp oil can catch creatures on fire without magic.

Ignite (Fire 3) Catches the targeted creature on fire, causing damage every turn. Has no effect on creatures which naturally resist fire. This spell does no immediate damage -- all it does is start the fire.
At spell level 12, has a ball effect in radius 1.
At spell level 22, has a ball effect in radius 2.
At spell level 32, sets all creatures in view on fire.


(This is mostly a "realism" suggestion: with all the flame that is thrown around in ToME, it is curious indeed that nobody catches on fire!)

[Tachyon]

Great idea Fubar, a few more suggestions:

1) Plasma will cause even fire-resistant creatures to catch on fire. (It won't if they're double-resistant from natural resist and a spell, though.)

2) Hellfire will never cause anything to catch on fire. Same goes for holy fire.

3) Meteors (the GF_ flag, not PROJECT_METEORS) will have a chance, probably something like 50%, of igniting anything in a radius-1 area around a space hit by the meteor attack. If flammable terrain (eg grass, trees - dirt can burn, but with more difficulty and less powerful flames) is on an "ignited" space, the terrain will be changed to FEAT_FIRE; any creatures that are ignited will catch on fire (duh).

4) FEAT_FIRE has a 50% chance of igniting any none-fire-resistant critter that walks on it. Creatures susceptible to fire have a 75% chance of being ignited. Only creatures resistant or immune to fire will walk on fire squares.

5) Fire will not create lava, it will create fire squares on flammable terrain. Only GF_METEORS and GF_PLASMA will be able to create lava; only GF_METEORS will be able to create lava in large quantities, or create deep lava.

6) Lava squares have a 80% chance of igniting adjacent flammable terrain squares.

7) Fire squares have a 80% chance per turn of spreading to adjacent flammable terrain.

[Fubar Obfusco]

1) Plasma will cause even fire-resistant creatures to catch on fire. (It won't if they're double-resistant from natural resist and a spell, though.)

I'm not sure. It would be interesting to have a flag on monsters which indicated what sort of stuff they were made of -- and have variable effects based on that. For instance, a monster made of metal cannot be caught on fire by a fire attack, but can by a plasma attack. A creature made of rock doesn't catch on fire, but takes extra damage from meteor. And so forth ... just be careful when you encounter a Diesel Hound. (Anyone who's played Jeff Vogel's Geneforge will recognize the properties of an Unstable Roamer ...)

Fire is confusing at the moment because we have fire, plasma, meteor, holy fire, and hell fire ... all of which act like fire in some ways but not others. (For instance, IIRC they can all create lava squares and burn trees.) And then on the other end we have water, ice, and cold. Huh? :)

What I was trying to represent by the status condition on fire is that the monster is getting burned by ordinary, mundane fire on its clothes, equipment, or person -- as opposed to just being targeted by a magical attack that is fire-based. (There is an old tabletop RPG argument over whether a fireball spell should be treated as magically creating an amount of mundane flaming material, or as creating a special sort of magical fire which is different from mundane fire.)

Resistance to the magical element of fire should indeed keep anything from being set on fire by a fire attack ... the magical fire is resisted magically. But indeed it shouldn't grant resistance to being set on fire by a plasma attack. However, some things should -- such as wraith form; a noncorporeal being can't be on fire any more than it can be bleeding.

2) Hellfire will never cause anything to catch on fire. Same goes for holy fire.

I'm not sure here. Insofar as hell fire and holy fire can (IIRC) burn trees and create lava, they are certainly enough like normal fire that they can set a person ablaze.

6) Lava squares have a 80% chance of igniting adjacent flammable terrain squares.

7) Fire squares have a 80% chance per turn of spreading to adjacent flammable terrain.

I don't think I like rapidly spreading fire terrain -- there would be no more forests! I'd rather there be some sort of limit on it, as in the Conflagration spell I proposed somewhere.