Fire
Fire is one of the most common elemental forces you will encounter as you explore the Dungeon. Both players and monsters can take advantage of fire through spells or specially branded weapons, though some monsters also possess innate fire abilities.
Dithmenos, the god of shadows, disapproves the use of fire.
Fire Damage
Fire damage can only be reduced by a character's fire resistance (rF+) intrinsic. This is a relatively easy resistance type to acquire, and gaining even a single rank in it cuts damage received by half. With the maximum 3 ranks, you can almost ignore fire damage entirely.
Fire damage can also shorten the duration of (or melt outright) Ozocubu's Armour, Condensation Shield, or the Demonspawn icemail mutation.
Powerful fire damage attacks against bushes and trees may light them on fire, burning them down over time and causing them to deal fire damage to random adjacent spaces. This can create a chain reaction, burning down multiple trees or bushes, but usually burns out before spreading too far.
Hellfire inflicts all the same side effects as fire, but is nearly impossible to protect against and is a threat to even high-level characters. See its own article for more details.
Fire Sources
It is relatively easy for characters to gain access to sources of fire damage. Almost any character type can benefit from common flaming-branded weapons, which deal additional fire damage on top of their normal physical damage. Ranged weapon-users can instead use flame missiles; these do 100% of their normal damage as fire damage.
Zapping a wand of fire or wand of flame allows almost any character to inflict fire damage at range, softening up threats from a distance or killing them outright. Some rods and other evocable items also have fire damage options available, usually with greater damage potential but at a greater cost.
The Fire Magic school is also available to fire elementalists or any character with Spellcasting capabilities and an appropriate book. This school is devoted almost entirely to dealing damage, mostly through direct damage, but with a few subtle spells as well.
Fire Resistance
The fire resistance intrinsic significantly reduces the fire damage a defender takes when attacked, as shown on the chart below:
| Resistance Level | Damage Taken (Player) | Damage Taken (Monster) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50% | 50% |
| 2 | 33% | 20% |
| 3 | 20% | 0% |
You can acquire fire resistance from a number of sources:
- Being a red draconian: rF+
- Heat Resistance mutation: rF+/rank
- The third rank of the Molten Scales mutation: rF+
- Fire dragon hide and fire dragon armour: rF++
- Gold dragon hide and gold dragon armour: rF+
- Armour of fire resistance: rF+
- Staff of fire: rF+
- Ring of protection from fire or ring of fire: rF+
- Tiamat's dragonskin cloak (50% chance per attack of rF+)
- Randarts: rF+ or rF++
- Potion of resistance
- Dragon Form: rF++
- MONSTERS ONLY: Hellfire resistance renders the monster immune to fire damage
Fire Vulnerability
Fire vulnerability causes you to take 150% normal damage from fire attacks, but is thankfully less common. You can acquire it by:
- Being a mummy
- Wearing an ice dragon hide, ice dragon armour, or ring of ice
- Ice Form
Having multiple levels of fire vulnerability does not cause greater damage; it simply makes it more difficult to acquire fire resistance.
History
Prior to 0.15, taking fire damage would also occasionally destroy scrolls in your inventory.
