Usually when faced with a poisonous vapour you can not avoid it by holding your breath, on the other hand the poisons in a smoke of a burning building are pretty tame compared stuff designed to take out high level characters (a commoner would have a good chance of survival).
Maybe a DC10 con save or take 1d4 poison damage and be poisoned, but for a lot of level 17s that is an auto success.
Given the short and long term effects of smoke inhalation, I'd propose the following mechanic for my players:
Fire Smoke Damage
In a burning building or similar large conflagration, a creature must make a Constitution saving throw at the start of each of their turns, taking 1d6 fire damage and 1d4 poison damage on a failed save, or half damage on a success. A creature that does not need to breathe is immune to the poison damage from this effect. A creature that needs to breathe can hold their breath for a number of minutes equal to their Constitution Modifier (minimum of 30 seconds) to avoid the poison damage from this effect, but cannot do so again unless they spend at least 1 round in an area free from smoke. A creature that breathes in the burning building suffers 1 level of exhaustion for every minute spent breathing inside the building. A DM may waive the fire damage in situations where smoke, but not flame, is present (such as the upper floors of a building where a lower floor is burning)
That looks really good! About the only things I see that might be missing are that when being inside a burning building, the burning ash can blind you or the smoke at least heavily obscures your vision
Burning buildings have all kinds of deadly hazards and that's why firemen are heroes of the modern age. Things fall out of the ceiling. You can get trapped under rubble. You trip over things. People inside are in a Frightened state and they do all kinds of stupid things trying to get away. Opening doors risks blowback and explosion and while the fire may not do any damage to you if you're immune, it still inflicts the Prone condition. Upper floors can collapse underneath you. Other people may come in to help rescue a loved one, get overwhelmed by the smoke or the heat, and you can only carry so many people out at a time.
There have been people who died trying to save a beloved family pet. A fireman who pulls a baby out of a burning building gets treaded like a true hero deserves. I'm not a fireman, nor do I know any, but I don't know of anyone who might be more deserving of the title "hero" and even at level 17 it doesn't take a building more than a couple of stories tall to make for a challenging encounter. Just imagine what a Dragon could do to a village, town, or even a city.
As someone who has studied to be a firefighter and has 5+ years in the service I think my $0.02 might be worth something?
Smoke is simply unburnt fuel. Yup that's essentially all you're seeing when you see smoke in varying colours and only perfectly burnt fuel won't produce smoke. So one could theoretically ask you is your character immune to those particulate? Or perhaps you could ask yourself if my character inhales these particulates will my lungs still be able to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide? Or even, is the super heated air in this building or near this fire enough to burn me from the inside? Is my immunity to fire (heat damage) only skin deep? Is smoke any less dangerous outside than inside? (hint its not if you breath in smoke outside or inside its still dangerous)
So lastly, if we all agreed with me that smoke is unburnt fuel, which is essentially particulate in the air then I ask you one last question. If someone took a jug of water and dumped it on you would it be fair to say that you would be undamaged by that? Shall we call that a low level damage immunity to light water damage? Now if we took that same jug of water and started pouring it down your throat until it starts filling your lungs would you still be immune to the effects even though you wouldn't be able to breath?
How your dm brought it up might have been a surprise or perhaps completely new as you had maybe been in smoke and never had any ill effects. Personally though, smoke kills before heat will in many or even most real world situations. I'd give your dm a thumbs up for creativity and keeping your game challenging even at end game levels. At the very least as a player you've done what you could and talked to your dm about it. Roll with the punches and enjoy your high level kick ass cleric.
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Usually when faced with a poisonous vapour you can not avoid it by holding your breath, on the other hand the poisons in a smoke of a burning building are pretty tame compared stuff designed to take out high level characters (a commoner would have a good chance of survival).
Maybe a DC10 con save or take 1d4 poison damage and be poisoned, but for a lot of level 17s that is an auto success.
Given the short and long term effects of smoke inhalation, I'd propose the following mechanic for my players:
Fire Smoke Damage
In a burning building or similar large conflagration, a creature must make a Constitution saving throw at the start of each of their turns, taking 1d6 fire damage and 1d4 poison damage on a failed save, or half damage on a success. A creature that does not need to breathe is immune to the poison damage from this effect. A creature that needs to breathe can hold their breath for a number of minutes equal to their Constitution Modifier (minimum of 30 seconds) to avoid the poison damage from this effect, but cannot do so again unless they spend at least 1 round in an area free from smoke. A creature that breathes in the burning building suffers 1 level of exhaustion for every minute spent breathing inside the building. A DM may waive the fire damage in situations where smoke, but not flame, is present (such as the upper floors of a building where a lower floor is burning)
Thoughts?
That looks really good! About the only things I see that might be missing are that when being inside a burning building, the burning ash can blind you or the smoke at least heavily obscures your vision
Burning buildings have all kinds of deadly hazards and that's why firemen are heroes of the modern age. Things fall out of the ceiling. You can get trapped under rubble. You trip over things. People inside are in a Frightened state and they do all kinds of stupid things trying to get away. Opening doors risks blowback and explosion and while the fire may not do any damage to you if you're immune, it still inflicts the Prone condition. Upper floors can collapse underneath you. Other people may come in to help rescue a loved one, get overwhelmed by the smoke or the heat, and you can only carry so many people out at a time.
There have been people who died trying to save a beloved family pet. A fireman who pulls a baby out of a burning building gets treaded like a true hero deserves. I'm not a fireman, nor do I know any, but I don't know of anyone who might be more deserving of the title "hero" and even at level 17 it doesn't take a building more than a couple of stories tall to make for a challenging encounter. Just imagine what a Dragon could do to a village, town, or even a city.
Hats off to the Firemen everywhere.
<Insert clever signature here>
Should have made you do CON saves vs poisoned condition leading to exhaustion.
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As someone who has studied to be a firefighter and has 5+ years in the service I think my $0.02 might be worth something?
Smoke is simply unburnt fuel. Yup that's essentially all you're seeing when you see smoke in varying colours and only perfectly burnt fuel won't produce smoke. So one could theoretically ask you is your character immune to those particulate? Or perhaps you could ask yourself if my character inhales these particulates will my lungs still be able to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide? Or even, is the super heated air in this building or near this fire enough to burn me from the inside? Is my immunity to fire (heat damage) only skin deep? Is smoke any less dangerous outside than inside? (hint its not if you breath in smoke outside or inside its still dangerous)
So lastly, if we all agreed with me that smoke is unburnt fuel, which is essentially particulate in the air then I ask you one last question. If someone took a jug of water and dumped it on you would it be fair to say that you would be undamaged by that? Shall we call that a low level damage immunity to light water damage? Now if we took that same jug of water and started pouring it down your throat until it starts filling your lungs would you still be immune to the effects even though you wouldn't be able to breath?
How your dm brought it up might have been a surprise or perhaps completely new as you had maybe been in smoke and never had any ill effects. Personally though, smoke kills before heat will in many or even most real world situations. I'd give your dm a thumbs up for creativity and keeping your game challenging even at end game levels. At the very least as a player you've done what you could and talked to your dm about it. Roll with the punches and enjoy your high level kick ass cleric.