/// Forgotten Gods Spoilers ///

I am dealing with the final chapter of forgotten gods. The final demon. I'm pretty sure they are going to use flamethrowers on him. Does he have any natural defense against that other than high agility or will he be on fire and helpless within about one turn ? Most of the talents and traits don't seem to have anything about being on fire. Is my poor demon prince just going to run around on fire ?

Demon princes should be immune to the effects of being on fire, and Khornate models immune to flame damage as well. Go for style over RAW. If your party is facing a daemon prince, most of them should be burning a fate point unless they roll really well and it rolls really bad. I also advise ignoring the 1 attack per round restriction for singlular, large enemies, or it will die without doing any damage at all.

Just keep in mind that he has the From Beyond talent:

" Some creatures are free from the limitations of normal physiology, having emerged from the impossible realm of the Warp or perhaps using bodies forged from cold metal and circuitry. Their minds are beyond the petty frailties and precarious sanity of a mortal mind. Such a creature is immune to Fear, Pinning, Insanity points, and psychic powers used to cloud, control, or delude its mind."

I would argue that he simply wouldn't feel the concern of being on fire. Just let him auto-pass the WP check for being on fire and then he can choose to extinguish the flames, or simply not care about the damage they are doing.

It also makes him more deadly in close combat. Nothing would be more terrifying than going toe-to-toe with a daemon prince, let alone one that's ON FIRE.

Additionally, I would allow that every time he reclaims an artefact, the arcane energies extinguish the flames around him as he gains back more of his corporeal form.

Go for style over RAW.

This. If your players complain, point out that the fire rules are written for living beings whose one-and-only body is burning; daemons in the Materium have temporary bodies which, if destroyed, return them to their home in the warp- not a situation even remotely comparable to an organic being burning to death. In a similar vein, I've house-ruled that daemons are immune to Fatigue, too, since one of my (DH1) players makes frequent use of Psychic Shriek to put enemies to sleep. Daemons don't sleep!

Personally, I'd stick to the RAW here, as I see no need to make it even tougher for the players. I like enentol's description of the daemon simply not caring for being on fire (because of From Beyond), and how setting it ablaze could even be a bad idea for the players.

I'd have the fire spread to the surroundings and create an environmental hazard, and maybe let the daemon do Grapple attacks which would result in the fire spreading to the player held in this "fiery embrace".

The daemon would still take damage as normal whilst on fire, but it cannot be set on fire more than once (the effect does not stack), and perhaps the daemon could find a way to extinguish itself in a more calm and dignified manner than rolling around on the ground -- for example by reaching up and pulling a few water pipes out whilst grinning madly at the players.

That's how I think I'd approach it, anyways. I would certainly not plan on Fate Burning becoming mandatory to beat an encounter, as I consider this a sort of panic button and a last way out. If the players aren't ready to confront something as dangerous as a daemon prince, I'd not let them, unless they are stupid and really asking for it.

If we are talking regular fire I would also not have the daemon take the willpower tests. Most daemons are nearly or entirely immune to fire damage anyway thanks to daemonic toughness since the damage is only 1d10 (even nurglings have Tb 8). For a pure daemonic entity (one not possessing something but actually manifesting on its own) I'd probably also either have the fire go out on its own after a round or two or not be able to catch them on fire in the first place since, if you think about it, what is even really burning, they are solid manifestations of warp energy. Once the promethium coating is gone there might not be anything else flammable to keep it going.
Although if its holy fire (sanctified ammunition) I would have all the normal effects of fire apply.

The fate burning bit is in reference to the appropriate damage output of something that can impale a Leman Russ on its sword and use it to clobber an infantry line. I'm sorry, but if it can split open a tank, it's going to have a lot of damage dice, and if it hits you, you're probably going to have to burn fate or die. That's simply what happens when you field a daemon prince and actually stat it like one, and your players decide to take it head on.

Which is why you won't see them in my campaigns prior to Ascension level, barring perils and other one in a million cluster****.

As far as regular daemons go (thank you, reading comprehension, for making me screw up so royally!) , it varies. I tend to play them as named entities. It is never just "a" bloodletter, it is Wrzlbrmpft Oichkatzlschwoif, Mangler of Throats. The statlines vary, how they approach things is dependant on which aspects of their god they represent. One might be a cunning tactician, for example, while the other just wants to kill, crush and destroy, and a third is simply going to ignore anyone that doesn't fit his narrow view of 'worthy opponent', unless pressed. One might be immune to fire entirely, another might allow itself to be "damaged" by a warrior who shows enough zeal to impress that aspect of the god. Dito on any other chaos god, really. I do not stick to FFG's rules in this case, but each Daemon has its own subset that it follows, which add a dimension beyond brute force if the players care to find it.

'course, holy bolter shells and holy prometheum always work, too. That's a given, but mundane weaponry can fritz out unless it's somehow protected. Especially with more powerful daemons or larger summonings, which in turn twist reality and let the realm of their respective god seep into the materium. That sort of narrative quality lets me have a lot of fun with my players and also serves as a story-based justification of fear ratings, insanity points and potential corruption. Meaning, what they do and how they interact with what's their earns them points more than a failed check.

This automatically making willpower tests seems like it might be a way out for me.

The problem isn't the damage. The problem to me is the idea of the demon spending entire turns trying to extinguish a fire on himself instead of just running around on fire.

Yeah, I ran Desolation of the Dead, which has a big bad daemon at the end, and I handled the Flame quality by it ignoring being set on fire.

What I was uncertain of is how daemons handle fatigue. Each round a target is on fire, it suffers one level of fatigue. Nothing that I read said daemons don't suffer fatigue. Therefore this seems to mean that once their Agility stat becomes fatigued (relatively easy for followers of Nurgle), then their prospect of putting out the fire without GM fiat diminish significantly.

This automatically making willpower tests seems like it might be a way out for me.

The problem isn't the damage. The problem to me is the idea of the demon spending entire turns trying to extinguish a fire on himself instead of just running around on fire.

I mostly brought up the damage to point out the absurdity that the daemon would be concerned or bothered at all by the fire, potentially to the point of not acting, since most daemons are tough enough to be immune to the damage entirely.

Yeah, I ran Desolation of the Dead, which has a big bad daemon at the end, and I handled the Flame quality by it ignoring being set on fire.

What I was uncertain of is how daemons handle fatigue. Each round a target is on fire, it suffers one level of fatigue. Nothing that I read said daemons don't suffer fatigue. Therefore this seems to mean that once their Agility stat becomes fatigued (relatively easy for followers of Nurgle), then their prospect of putting out the fire without GM fiat diminish significantly.

If something can't even be damaged by the fire I think the fatigue should be ignored as well. It does seem like daemons should be immune to fatigue. Hard to imagine a daemon passing out from exhaustion. Dying from fatigue seems fine as it could be viewed as being a similar effect as warp instability, but falling unconscious seems wrong.

I suppose it could be argued that to exist in realspace, a daemon has to take a physical form, which in turn means it becomes vulnerable to various laws of this realm of mortals. It is also interesting that for creatures that could potentially take any form at all, they have a notable penchant for "choosing" fairly established aspects of mortal bodies: they have eyes even though they would not need to see, they have mouths even though they would not have to eat, and so on. If this is a result of the subconscious mortal influence on the Warp, in that these daemons look the way they do because this is what the living beings all over the galaxy came up with in their psychically active brains, then this may well extend to other aspects of corporeal bodies, up to and including muscles that can suffer Fatigue.

(it gets even funnier once you start to consider that stuff like banishments and exorcism only work because people believe they do -- after all, what else would be the explanation?)

As to whether or not a daemon could pass out from exhaustion ... I actually like the interpretation of Warp instability, but I could also consider it possible that this would be a way to imprison a daemon.

I would not let the daemon actually "black out", however -- just the physical form becoming strained to the point where it can no longer support its range. The daemon would still watch, listen, even talk, it would just have difficulty moving.

Lots of ways to tackle this, though. I'm not even sure which one I'd really pick. I think I'd make up my mind on the spot, depending on the daemon and/or the situation at hand.

I suppose it could be argued that to exist in realspace, a daemon has to take a physical form, which in turn means it becomes vulnerable to various laws of this realm of mortals. It is also interesting that for creatures that could potentially take any form at all, they have a notable penchant for "choosing" fairly established aspects of mortal bodies: they have eyes even though they would not need to see, they have mouths even though they would not have to eat, and so on. If this is a result of the subconscious mortal influence on the Warp, in that these daemons look the way they do because this is what the living beings all over the galaxy came up with in their psychically active brains, then this may well extend to other aspects of corporeal bodies, up to and including muscles that can suffer Fatigue.

(it gets even funnier once you start to consider that stuff like banishments and exorcism only work because people believe they do -- after all, what else would be the explanation?)

Problem with this argument is that even some chaos mutants aren't bound by all the laws of the realm of mortals. For example, the mutation that replaces your blood with vermin, and spawn constantly change physical form. If things affected by the warp can ignore or rewrite biological laws why would things made of the warp have a problem. Reality breaks when in the presence of daemons. Not all daemons take forms that make any sense, horrors in the 1st ed book are described as ""rolling, twisting, twitching masses of iridescent flesh and fire" why would something with that description be hurt by fire or be able to be fatigued in the same way as mortals.

I think the trick is if you want a daemon to suffer from something like fatigue or blood loss you should come up with a clever description for it. Maybe the daemonette is suffering the effects of fatigue because its getting too into the feelings of pain .

Rather than bleeding blood when its arm is cut off by a holy weapon maybe the horror bleeds fire or pure light, maybe the plague bearer bleeds raw sewage or bloat flies.

Well, perhaps the vermin serve the same purpose as blood, and maybe Chaos Spawns still have to maintain an organism of sorts in spite of constantly changing their shape -- like oversized amoeba if you will.

Don't get me wrong: of course the Warp overrided/rewrites the laws of the physical realm, it's just that I think the specific way it does so is in turn influenced by realspace, because the Warp itself has no imagination. It simply is a "force of nature" that reacts to the thoughts and emotions that are being poured into it. A bit like the pink slime from Ghostbusters II.

Either way, we agree on making the approach dependent on the specific daemon!

It's the demon prince from the end of forgotten gods. I'm just concerned the players will flame it once or twice and completely invalidate it due to a poor agility test making it a sitting duck that spends the whole battle trying to put itself out and being continually reignited. There are a lot of rule conflicts when you are dealing with 'flame' combined with 'from beyond' and 'machine'. It seems like 'stuff of nightmares' would give him protection from these weapons, but it doesn't have it I certainly like the idea of fire being a cleansing force in the universe, but at the same time dislike its ability to completely lock down both mechanical and demonic enemies in a way that I don't feel is in keeping with the spirit of the 40k 'verse.

'Concussive' and 'shocking' also causes significant problems, as I am never sure if demons are immune to being stunned by such weapons. The shockbow for example looks like the greatest demon hunting weapon of all time just because it has both concussive and shock.

Well, at least stuns won't work if the daemon has the Stuff of Nightmares trait. From how it is worded, it seems that lesser daemons are indeed intended to get stunned, but at least it won't apply to "boss mobs".

It is also notable that Stuff of Nightmares mentions an "immunity to most environmental hazards", although the RAW does not specify what is meant by that.

In fairness, a daemon probably has a rather good chance of passing the Willpower test required to simply ignore being set on fire -- but I can still see how it could get anti-climatic due to a whole series of bad rolls. Of course, it's the same with player characters suffering from bad dice, so ...

It seems the game may suffer a little from convoluted, interlaced rules making it needlessly difficult to stay on top of things (like how Daemonic is a trait, that gives you another trait, that gives you another trait ...), but sadly such things are to be expected in complex, rules-heavy systems.

So, to recap, RAW apparently leaves people two options here, depending on interpretation:

Have the daemon roll Willpower as normal to ignore the fire and continue attacking. The issue here becomes Fatigue, as setting the daemon on fire essentially starts a death timer where it will rack up significant "debuffs" to its abilities, and ultimately pass out, though the Warp Instability trait will have the daemon dissolve and return to the Immaterium nigh-instantly rather than lying around dozing.

or

Simply treat fire as covered by the "environmental hazards" of the Stuff of Nightmares trait. The downside to this solution would be that flame weapons would not even deal any damage anymore at all, which kind of sucks as I very much agree with fog1234 regarding the "cleansing force" bit.

As such, a GM can of course also always just houserule stuff like this. Which gets me back to the earlier suggestion of allowing flame weapons to deal damage, but ignore the Fatigue and the need for Willpower tests to act whilst on fire. For truly cinematic combat encounters with the great enemy from beyond.

It's the demon prince from the end of forgotten gods. I'm just concerned the players will flame it once or twice and completely invalidate it due to a poor agility test making it a sitting duck that spends the whole battle trying to put itself out and being continually reignited. There are a lot of rule conflicts when you are dealing with 'flame' combined with 'from beyond' and 'machine'. It seems like 'stuff of nightmares' would give him protection from these weapons, but it doesn't have it I certainly like the idea of fire being a cleansing force in the universe, but at the same time dislike its ability to completely lock down both mechanical and demonic enemies in a way that I don't feel is in keeping with the spirit of the 40k 'verse.

'Concussive' and 'shocking' also causes significant problems, as I am never sure if demons are immune to being stunned by such weapons. The shockbow for example looks like the greatest demon hunting weapon of all time just because it has both concussive and shock.

Having looked at the daemon prince's stats now:

Without mighty shot or sanctified ammo a flamer can't even hurt it let alone the flame quality damage. Based on that I think its perfectly reasonable as GM to say the flames wash over it ineffectively while it laughs at their feeble attempt to burn it. Its stupid for a character to take willpower tests and fatigue from burning when the initial burst of flame and the ensuing fire are incapable of harming it.

Even if you do have it follow all the rules normally it has solid agility and an even better dodge chance plus it has pretty high willpower to pass the test and be able to act however it wants and since it can practically kill PCs in one hit it can just murder the flame guys first. Don't forget that since it has fear 4 and baleful presence its very possible the party could be crippled by the initial fear tests. If the entire party flubs the very difficult fear test it could be just as anticlimactic in the other direction so it may be fine to have the enemy capable of that same kind of bad luck streak.

Don't forget that if any of the party end up in combat with a burning daemon prince they have to test to avoid catching fire as well and will have the baleful presence penalty to their willpower test if caught by it.

Also worth noting that failing the willpower test from burning doesn't force you to try to put it out, it causes the character to do nothing but freak out. You can only try to put it out if you pass the willpower test or you can just let yourself burn and do whatever else you want. With its high stats it would take awhile before the fatigue would have any significant effect and since it gets an extra half action every turn it could in theory try to put itself out and still fire a molten beam at someone.

Have it fly out of range of the flamers and blast them with molten beam or puppet master one flamer character to shoot at the rest of the party. Have it position itself in places where it would be difficult for the flamer characters to fire without hitting allies.

Shockbow? Not sure what you're talking about.

Most shock and concussive weapons are melee weapons so at least against the prince aren't great with its toughness in the 70s, ability to fly, high melee damage and powerful psychic powers. Remember that a shocking weapon has to actually deal a wound before a test is required although concussive could still be a problem. Power mauls are quite scary for having both and solid damage.

Your NPCs, especially master level ones, shouldn't be stupid. If they see weapons capable of stunning them or lighting them on fire they should use strategy to deal with it intelligently.

Its stupid for a character to take willpower tests and fatigue from burning when the initial burst of flame and the ensuing fire are incapable of harming it.

Come to think of it, this sounds like it should apply to any and all characters subjected to Flame attacks.

Though characters without the Jaded talent should probably take some Insanity from the experience.

I think we'll just have to wait for an FAQ

Well, this has been in the books since DH1 ... I won't hold my breath.

I'm honestly a bit baffled at this point. Where is the problem with changing a daemon to fit what you think a daemon should do?

Its stupid for a character to take willpower tests and fatigue from burning when the initial burst of flame and the ensuing fire are incapable of harming it.

Come to think of it, this sounds like it should apply to any and all characters subjected to Flame attacks.

Though characters without the Jaded talent should probably take some Insanity from the experience.

I probably should mention that the FAQ clarified that fire can cause righteous fury so technically fire can always do at least 1 wound but I still think its reasonable for a GM to have certain enemies ignore aspects of the flame rule when it feels appropriate and if their is a concern about the fight becoming anti-climactic. Also despite that FAQ, I would say that if you play it that low level NPCs can't cause righteous fury then fire and toxic damage probably shouldn't either.

It seems fitting for things like giant combat servitors, monstrous xenos, powerful daemons etc. to run through walls of flame undeterred.

I would also warn against overdoing it though as the players with the flame weapons might start to get annoyed if none of their enemies ever seem to care about fire.

Another solution if you're having problems with players locking down a big bad and therefore making the fight too easy is, if its appropriate, have some lesser enemies show up to help their master and require the party to split their fire up. Some lesser daemons or cultists etc.

I think we'll just have to wait for an FAQ

Its not really something that requires a FAQ. It seems to be perfectly clear how it works. There is no actual rules issue.

We just don't like it in every situation, but luckily GM's have the power to make adjustments to the NPCs to make them fit what they want/need

I'm honestly a bit baffled at this point. Where is the problem with changing a daemon to fit what you think a daemon should do?

That's pretty much what I've been saying. I've just been offering up specific ideas for how to change the daemon and/or the flame rule.

I was looking for the correct interpretation of the rules, then I will houserule from there. I am really not a big fan of using house rules because those lead to insular group-think, especially with new players joining an established group, wherein the results of a prior games results might lead them to make a bad decision in a current game by no fault of their own. We should all make an effort to understand and use RAW consistently, if possible.

This group helped me figure out flame weapons when the party was using them as basically an instant win button.

I needed help this figuring out how 'demonic' and 'from beyond' RAW was effected by the rules for flamers. I now have a pretty grasp on some unclear rules and thus I make progress and can house rule from there.

Thanks everyone!

I was looking for the correct interpretation of the rules, then I will houserule from there. I am really not a big fan of using house rules because those lead to insular group-think, especially with new players joining an established group, wherein the results of a prior games results might lead them to make a bad decision in a current game by no fault of their own. We should all make an effort to understand and use RAW consistently, if possible.

This group helped me figure out flame weapons when the party was using them as basically an instant win button.

I needed help this figuring out how 'demonic' and 'from beyond' RAW was effected by the rules for flamers. I now have a pretty grasp on some unclear rules and thus I make progress and can house rule from there.

Thanks everyone!

Understandable. Too many house rules can start to get confusing and can be a slippery slope.

If you're not wanting to house rule, I offered notes and suggestions in one of my previous posts (#16 in this thread) for having your NPCs deal with stuff like this.

Here are some more tips for dealing with flamers in general: Have your NPCs spread out when they see flamers and grenades, keep track of where the PCs are so if one fires you'll know if another PC is potentially in the way, have enemies target the super dangerous flamer PCs, have the flamers cause environmental damage and start secondary fires that could endanger the party, if enough stuff is on fire start applying smoke penalties to the characters, occasionally throw swift or stealthy enemies at the group who can close the distance and get in amongst them to cause more friendly fire issues or that can engage the flamers in melee, have enemies back away to try to keep out of range, use suppressing fire and overwatch to control PC movement.

Also, its not a house rule to give one of you adversaries immunity or partial immunity to a particular effect. Crafting adversaries appropriate to your campaign is part of being the GM and can include modifying already existing adversaries.

Don't worry I'm aware of what my powers include. They've already bbq'd one of their squad and thrown grenades at already crit wounded enemies who their comrades are in combat with, so friendly casualties won't stop them. It's more that I don't want a demon prince spending its entire turn trying to extinguish himself.