Are there guidelines for how I might design a burning mansion as a dungeon?

[MonkeySage]

Big bad has murdered two wealthy bankers and their entire family, aside from 2 of the 3 children, and set fire to their house. The bankers' children are still trapped inside the burning building at the time the player arrives. I can get a floor plan well enough, but I never the less see difficulty running this mansion. The player will likely want to save the children on learning they're still in there in there, since the character already has a precedent of risking life to save kids.

Given that the player is a level 1 sorcerer, I don't want it to be too challenging, but I want it to feel risky...

Also, wondering how experience should be earned from this, since it's minimal on the combat.

The kids are humans, a 6 year old boy and his 1 year old sister. Upon rescue, they have a home- their family was in good favor with the local Lord.

[Agent 451]

Have you ever played any of the Exile/Avernum CRPG games by Spiderweb Software? What you want sounds exactly like the quickfire encounters in those games to me.
(http://www.honestgamers.com/images/games/13/E/13765/13.jpg)
One way that you could do this would be to have the entire encounter be a combat or semi-combat phase. Each turn your characters can move their max movement, however they see fit. Once the players move, the fire spreads (you could make this whatever amount you want, 30' to be in sync with players, higher to be more threatening, etc.). The goal is to outrun the fire by escaping the building.

If you want to make it tougher or give the players more choices, have rooms that they can explore, but have the fire relentlessly spreading. This way they have to make tough choices in what they want to explore/steal/salvage, as the threat of the the fire catching them increases the longer they dally about.

[danzibr]

I agree with the entire-thing-be-an-encounter thing.

I would also suggest throwing in Fort saves or something, due to smoke and/or heat. I would also also suggest not having it spread at 30' per round. That's reaaaaaally fast. Presumably the heroes are going to go into the house, locate the kids, then get back out. Fire spreading at 30' sounds way too fast (how big is this mansion, anyway? Where are the kids? Etc.).

[PaucaTerrorem]

What I'm going to suggest might take a bit of planning but here we go.

Once every d2 - d4 rounds the fire takes another d2 - d4 rooms. I would use splash weapon rules here. The d2 - d4 spread depends on the size of the mansion and should grow to bigger die as it spreads.

Sorry have to help close the bar. Might get back in an edit lster.

[Theomniadept]

I actually did this in a campaign I ran - the party just happened upon a mansion that had all the security and people slaughtered by Erinyes (fallen angels).

You know what happened? The Gunslinger (this was Pathfinder and I was stupid enough to allow guns) used Disable Device to open the safe. The sorcerer revealed that because of a trait he had he maxed out his Forgery skill, which was a class skill.

They asked where the deed to the mansion was.

Where would you keep your most important documents?

[MonkeySage]

Well, since there really isn't as much call for bankers in this time frame, the mansion isn't huge, probably 2 story, with at most 14 rooms as well as the bank portion. I'm thinking a [ shaped building.

[KillingAScarab]

I suppose this depends upon how simulationist you want to make this, but smoke is actually going to be the biggest danger. Check out the Environment rules for a forest fire (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/wilderness#TOC-Forest-Fire) and you'll notice you're not only dealing with concealment, but coughing and choking can make you waste time and take non-lethal damage, neither of which you want when you're exposed to fire damage just from breathing hot air. The alternative is holding your breath and suffocation (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/environmental-rules#TOC-Suffocation) is a scarily effective way to kill a PC. If the fire in the house is as hot as a forest fire, then a PC would still be taking non-lethal damage even when holding their breath.

Final Fantasy VI had a sequence which involved the party attempting to save a child from a burning house, but it was a magical fire. You would actually battle the monsters personifying the flames (which were Bomb (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Bomb_%28Creature%29) palette swaps for some reason...). If you wanted to make the fire magical in nature, you could justify all sorts of alterations to the way fire behaves, such as burning without making smoke. The reason the fire in FF6 was magical was because the building on fire had certain magic items in it; perhaps the bankers had a magic item which alters the fire?

Then again, I don't know that your building would be mostly wood. For all I know, your bankers are dwarves and this is a building with a lot of stone or metal.

[Cruiser1]

The official Eberron adventure "Eyes of the Lich Queen" has in Part 2 an encounter that takes place in a burning mansion. The mansion is large, about 200 feet across. The PC's are seeking a wizard's journal, and have to brave the mansion to get it. There are enemy NPC's to fight along the way, and hazards from the smoke (DC 15 Fort or stunned while choking) and fire (1d6 damage per round).

[Surpriser]

The 3.5 DMG II has some (rather limited) rules for Burning Buildings. Especially the Hazards section and the section on carrying unconscious NPCs have some good ideas.

Apart from that:
- Set a timelimit. If the children are not found within X rounds, the fire engulfs the room they are hiding in. Optional: Allow a Knowledge/Listen/Search check to get a clue on which rooms to search first.

- For each room, determine if it is still intact, burning or fully ablaze. Rooms in the last category have a chance (say 1 in 1d4) to spread the fire to a neighbouring room each round. Burning rooms switch to ablaze in 1d4 rounds. Adjust these numbers to suit the size of your mansion. You could also set specific events (the floor of the hallway collapses 5 rounds after the PCs enter the building) or allow the PCs to influence the spread of the fire (opening/closing doors, dousing furniture with water)
Burning rooms: 1d6 fire damage each minute (or 50% chance for 1 point of damage each round). Might contain obstacles (burning furniture) that necessitate a Ref save to avoid catching on fire.
Blazing rooms: 1d6 fire damage each round, can contain hazard as per DMGII. Ref save to avoid catching on fire each round.
Any room with a direct connection to a fire contains smoke. For rooms that are still intact, you might want to lower the DC of the Fort save or reduce the effect (Failed save means nauseated or fatigued)

- Enforce meaningful choices. Do you balance over what remains of the floor, risking a fall or do you take the long way around, risking a delay and more rooms that might contain hazards? Will you fight your way through the blazing room to the open doorway or hack away at the door that was blocked by falling debris?

- If you feel that this is still too easy, you could also introduce some combat in between. Some fire elementals might appear or the assassins could still be in the house (maybe trapped by their own fire).