I was wondering about one thing, but meaby you will give me a proper answers.

Ceramite plating - Provides an additional 3 armour points of protection against attacks with the Flame or Melta qualities and other heat-based attacks.

"Heat-based attacks". What does it mean? Is it gives also the protect from any "energetic" attack weapons such as plasma gun or lasgun? Or just from any kind of weapon with Specials - Flame and Melta? As we knows, the thermal energy is the same as heat energy, but physics is physics and core rules are core rules. So...what do you think?

If it protects from Melta, I don't see how it doesn't protect from Energy, Makes no sense.

Honestly im not very sure, first lets consider this:

"E (Energy): Using electromagnetic energies, photon blasts, or even arcane power fields, these weapons burn and scar with horrible effect."

Im not sure if you can say that a laser is a "heat" based damage, i mean i does "burn" you, but extreme cold does too. UV light can damage your sking but not because it is heat based, its because it damage your DNA. But i honestly would say yes, but i would need more information about lasers to confirmate it.

Don't try to consolidate physics and core rules, that road leads to insanity and corruption.

I would say it helps against the heat of a plasma shot, but as most of the damage is probably caused by all the electrons being ripped off a target's atoms, an extra 1 AP at most.

Thank you guys for your responds. I thought so that heat and thermal energy are not the same but i needed to be certain about this

@htsmithium, If plasma is destroying DNA of a target and causing much pain from heat than why not from the lasgun too or from hot shot lasgun?

"A Lasgun's beam also cauterizes the wounds it inflicts due to the immense heat given off by the shot." - Warhammer 40k wikia

As we knows from the core rulebook, The lasgun have 0 penetration but it gives +2 after using overheated (not Special) and hot shot have 4 penetration if i am correct? Anyway if you are suggesting +1 extra AP from the energy weapon as plasma, than meaby lets give this rule also to the hot-shot weapons, lasgun/pistol overheated (3rd option of power pack) and hellgun/hellpistol?

It obviously doesn't protect against all Energy damage, otherwise the rule would state as much instead of calling out the specific special rules, Flame and Melta. "Heat-based" attacks, for me, would not include plasma or laser weaponry, but would include the likes of any weapon that has some kind of bonus damage from being hot or on fire (e.g. a red hot poker, welding torch or other such improvised weapons) or environmental hazards like a furnace spitting out hot embers.

The listed weapons that Ceramite is supposed to protect against have the Flame or Melta quality. I think it's safe to assume that the "other heat-based attacks" clause is not intended to include other (listed) weapons (including psychic powers) that might be heat-based, such as plasma, but rather be a catch-all for the GM to include things that aren't in the book.

Sorry for the confusion, when i said by the electrons being ripped of of an atom, I meant from the massive difference in the positively charged plasma vs most matter ( this is amusing that 40K plasma is like what we call plasma today and has all of it's electrons striped off, and that I'm not completely wrong about that fact as well) ...as to why it doesn't affect laser weapons...i don't know, probably as a reason to put in the reflective coating?

maybe it is due to plasma and laser weapons inflicting some of there damage via kinetic energy not just thermal and in the real world ceramic tiles are fairly fragile? But as others have said, trying to mix real world physics and 40k " science" just leads to a migraine.

Don't try to consolidate physics and core rules, that road leads to insanity and corruption.

The issue isn't that the rule doesn't comply with physics. The issue is the rule states "and other heat-based attacks". Obviously, there is no common-sense guideline for determining what is a "heat-based attack" when Energy is inexplicably excluded from that category.

It may as well say "Protects from Fire and Melta, and whatever else, I don't know, just make crap up".

Don't try to consolidate physics and core rules, that road leads to insanity and corruption.

The issue isn't that the rule doesn't comply with physics. The issue is the rule states "and other heat-based attacks". Obviously, there is no common-sense guideline for determining what is a "heat-based attack" when Energy is inexplicably excluded from that category.

It may as well say "Protects from Fire and Melta, and whatever else, I don't know, just make crap up".

I agree, I don't think the rule makes much sense. Melta is supposedly a lot hotter than plasma for it to have such a high penetration value and being called the tank buster. The rule would make sense to include plasma rather than melta - or perhaps just work against flamers only.

I guess the ceramic armor is inspired by the heat protection put on space shuttles to protect them when entering into the atmosphere again. However, the temperatures at a controlled reentry is no more than 2000 degrees kelvin. Plasma needs to be a lot hotter for the atoms to turn into ions (a defining property of plasma).

But who knows... in the 40K universe melta might be such a specific substance that the inventors of ceramic armor figured out a way to defend against it.

Finally, lasers is such a broad term that it could basically be anything. Judging by its low penetration value in dark heresy it is perhaps the best candidate for weapon that the ceramic armor would work against.

It may as well say "Protects from Fire and Melta, and whatever else, I don't know, just make crap up".

If you can't see the major difference between "and other heat-based attack" and "and whatever else, I don't know, just make crap up", I don,t know what to tell you.

The rule is fairly clear; the first part is for in-game weapon mechanics, the second is for any other thing the GM considers pertinent in given situations.

the second is for any other thing the GM considers pertinent in given situations.

No.

There is a difference between "make your own crap" and

"Here is an upgrade that can have narrative effects that we count on you to use"

It obviously doesn't protect against all Energy damage, otherwise the rule would state as much instead of calling out the specific special rules, Flame and Melta. "Heat-based" attacks, for me, would not include plasma or laser weaponry, but would include the likes of any weapon that has some kind of bonus damage from being hot or on fire (e.g. a red hot poker, welding torch or other such improvised weapons) or environmental hazards like a furnace spitting out hot embers.

Yet what sort of Energy damage is not heat-based? Why would it protect against meltas and hot pokers, but not something in-between (lasers)?

To me it just sounds like bad wording -- though I cannot entirely dismiss the possibility that the writer was actually aware of this and it's just an attempt to worm around this protective quality being applied to a whole range of weapons that includes one of the most common guns in the Imperium. But if this is the true meaning, the description should have at least taken ownership of this silliness and clarified it to prevent this sort of confusion.

But for what it's worth, in Games Workshop's Inquisitor game (pretty much Dark Heresy's predecessor, including the use of the exact same names for various Talents) it says this:

I suppose if we have to technobabble our way out of this inconsistency, we could point to las damage being reliant more on thermal shock (pinpoint flash-heating resulting in explosive expansion, almost like a kinetic attack) rather than lasting application of wide area thermal damage. Still doesn't make a lot of sense if you analyse too closely, but it may just be enough to get it out of your head.

I'd interpret the rule as meaning "Yo, you're entitled to that protection against anything with type "Flame" or "Melta", and the GM can permit you to have protection against stuff that uses heat without having the whole table accuse him of favouritism"

Though that information from Inquisitor is very useful as a basis for a "canonical" house rule, so thx for digging it up, Lynata!

BTW - it is a great question Burnmaster!

I'd say, this is split up in the rule and the narrative aspect.
Rule wise it protects against Flame and Melta weapons only.
But narrative wise it protects against other forms of heat aswell.

I.e. if the GM thinks of a weapon and it shoots heat beams, some psycer throws some sort of pyromancie at you, or you have to deal with actuall fire.


At least that's how I'd deal with it

Ruleswise, my group has only counted ceramite as good against flame, melta, or volkite, all of which are explicitly heat-based. Nope to lasers, plasma, ion, electricity...

Of course, all this is ignoring the fact that an extra 3 points of armour against a melta attack is completely worthless. Melta's base AP is just too high. Even if it's on carapace, the average meltagun has enough AP to bypass all the armour even at long range.

Cheers,

- V.