ofcourse this makes characters with a flame weapon and cleanse and purify somewhat hefty but it directly relies on your enemies... fighting against eldar who are likely to be very agile it won't be the weapon of choice onless your WS is dumped beyond reason but it is not like getting a shooting roll of 120 if you have unnatural aim + PB +WS of 60... you can not push your flame weapon skill except for cleanse and purify (as far as I know)

I'll have to *meh* this one. A Dire Avenger Exarch has a 52 agility (*2 Unnatural). When playing without the IH rule for Unnatural attributes reducing test difficulty, that gives him a chance of 32% for not being hit by a flamer, compared to his 72% chance of not being hit by anything else (in addition to the chance of not being hit in the first place). For anything of un-eldar-ish dexterity, the numbers only get worse.

A shooting attack for 120% sounds rather... improbable for consistent results, considering it requires an enemy that lets you get into Point Blank without closing into melee outright and a psyker power.

And by the way: Shooting is governed by BS, not WS.

All in all, this makes flamers a lot more powerful. Probably among the most powerful weapons for semi-short ranges, considering they hit more reliably than most, don't need two rolls to deal damage, have no chance of really bad mishaps, can set an enemy ablaze,...

I'll have to *meh* this one. A Dire Avenger Exarch has a 52 agility (*2 Unnatural). When playing without the IH rule for Unnatural attributes reducing test difficulty, that gives him a chance of 32% for not being hit by a flamer, compared to his 72% chance of not being hit by anything else (in addition to the chance of not being hit in the first place). For anything of un-eldar-ish dexterity, the numbers only get worse.

The rule in IH only says to reduce the difficulty of skill tests based of that characteristic so it wont help against a flamers characteristic test. That's a 82% chance of not getting hit by an attack from a non flame weapon vs. a 32% chance of not getting hit with a flamer.

Also, flamers do area damage like grenades (cone of this and that many degrees extending out this and that many metres) but still by this rule allow someone without sufficient AG bonus to clear the area with dodge to not get hit.

It's almost like someone has a grudge against characters who have spent a lot of XP on getting to dodge attacks.

Honn said:

Also and, more importantly 'does not use up a reaction.'

lol @ Sirion's background

Please also read the rules on page 193 regarding dodging area attacks.

The reason I started this if because my group says that you don't get to dodge a flamer if you get hit. I'm perfectly fine with houserules and stuff, if it makes sense, but I just want to know if i'm right raw-wise because they're stating I'm not.

@Deynomeas

Well... that's pretty much clarified now - it doesn't get more official than the developer.

That's not what I asked... I asked purely raw in the book, do you get to dodge a flamer? People in my group say i'm crazy for reading it that way. So I only need to know if there are others out there that read it the same way as me. Just to confirm I'm not some loon who wants to read the rules the way he wants them to work. Mkay?

Your not a loon, its very easy to read it that way. The fact that you can dodge blasts at least indicates that you should be able to dodge a flame weapon as well. The only thing RAW saying that you can't dodge a flamer is the exact wording on page 128 where it states that you take damage if you fail your agi-roll, not that you are hit. Still, I'd call that poor wording more than anything else.

If we ignore the developer, I would say that the RAW supports that you can dodge it, alhough its not exactly crystal clear.

It does say that you are hit. Or to be more precise "struck by flames" and "take damage normally". Normally, after confirming that the target is indeed hit you'd normally have the option of spending a reaction to negate the hit. So yeah, not a loon.

Graspar said:

Agreed. Not a loon.

In fact, our last GM before I took over ruled that you could, in fact, dodge a flame attack ... even after failing the initial Ag roll.

Well, I would do it the other way round: If you're going to dodge, you do so BEFORE the flame hits you.

You can't very well stand there and get covered with flames, realize it burns (failed your Ag test) and THEN decide to Dodge. Same thing with Grenades, you do not wait to see if they go off before you dive to the side.

Darth Smeg said:

I think you might be confusing in-world chronological events with the chronology of rules... or what the mentioned Agl roll is for. The debated Agl roll is the one to see if the character actually gets hit with the stream of flame, not the Agl roll to see if they catch fire after taking damage from a weapon with the flame trait. If dodging is worked into flamers, having to dodge before the initial agl test to see if you get hit would be like having to dodge before a gunman rolls his BS to hit you (after all, if you wait until the bullet hits you before dodging, it's too late) or before a swordsmen rolls their WS (if you wait until the sword hits you to dodge it, it's too late). ;-)

I think what Smeg means is that you risk your reaction roll before you make your Agl test. That way you have to really think if you want to possibly waste a dodge reaction on a flamer when there are a few other baddies with autoguns that you might wish to dodge instead.

@Yui

Um... why? Why should dodging flamers and grenades (which you dodge before they hit you) be different from dodging gunfire and swordstrikes (which you dodge before they hit you)?

Good point, Graver, and well made.

On the one hand, I see that the Ag roll just "replaces" the BS roll for the shooter, but on the other hand I find it strange that you should have 2 separate, consecutive Agility-based rolls to achieve the same effect.

It also seems strange to me that if 2 people standing next to each other in the same corridor, and that corridor is suddenly filled with flames, one person can end up rolling on the floor on fire, while the other is completely unscathed just because he was more agile.

I am thinking these rules are a little clunky, and that a house ruling of sorts may be in order. Have any of you changed how this works in your games? What happens if you simply the first Ag-roll, stating Flamers always hit, period. You may dodge as per blast weapons, and/or test Ag to avoid catching on fire as per the RAW. Does this unbalance the use of flamers?

Darth Smeg said:

While my internal balance-meter is quivering in trepidation at this, I actually like this idea. Either make the flamer hit all the time and allow a Dodge roll to avoid, as per blast effects (followed by a Ag roll to avoid catching fire, if failed), or make the wielder of the flamer roll BS to hit the target square(s).

In my mind, flamers were already unbalanced, as the user didn't have to roll to hit, and the victim(s) couldn't dodge ... at least by some interpretations.

Not to mention a completely different set of rules for a single class of weapons just seems, well, what you said ... clunky.