Hey'

During my last game one of the PCs were set on fire by an Inferno Shell. Now this psyker had very good willpower and thus had not much chance of panicking for being on fire, instead he stood and cast Regenerate.

Now fire does 1d10 damage and 1 fatigue per round until it is put out. The damage ignores armor, but I couldn't find anything about it ignoring Toughness Bonus (as I believe it did in WHFRP). The first few round I rolled fairly low on the d10, meaning with TB 4 he could ignore the damage completely. Even when I rolled higher, his Regeneration compensated well enough, and it also removed any fastige instantly as he got it.

Now this is of course Magic and not natural, but even so it seems the main threat from being set afire is the actual fatigue, and the chance to become panicked. The damage is very low and even for a normal person there is 30% chance to take no damage at all each round.

It becomes even crazyier for enemies with high TB - Daemons is one thing, but even orks will be virtually immune to being on fire.

Would it break the game to not allow creatures to get TB against the damage from burning? I'm not talking about damage from flamers here (although that woud be interesting since their damage is fairly low already), just the one from being set on fire, which is capped at 1d10.

Another option would be to have damage from being set on fire escalate over several turns -for instance +1 damage every round after the first.

And lastly, does continuous damage occurr at a specific time in a round? How does it work with continous healing?

Ehh, not allowing the TB benefit would make some things like Fire Bombs all the more incredibly potent since they are so incredibly cheap to cart around. I would say at most either make it 1d5 unsoakable or 1d10 half TB soak. You open up more damage, but less likelyhood of the fire effect chewing through every NPC and PC instantly.

The main threat that I tend to view it is the loops that a character has to go through to act normally once they are on fire. If they catch fire they have to take a WP test to ignore it, than a -20AGI test to put it out. The AGI test is optional, but I require the WP test every round that the character doesn't actively try to put themselves out - being on fire isn't something that you just grit your teeth about and move on, its a relatively big deal. For high TB enemies I view it as you may see in a more cinematic event - the big bad/big bad mooks striding through the flames carelessly because they are just that damned badass. Which actually does fit things like Daemons and Orks. It will most likely inspire a bit of terror in the players as well when someone they are fighting doesn't pay any heed to flames that would quickly destroy the PC's. Though along that line I don't impose WP tests for characters that are flat out immune to the damage of Fire, since, well, it cant even hurt them so why would they care.

The thing you want to worry about is taking care that flamers don't become a Fire and Forget style weapon where the acolytes can just group together the enemy, than the flamer carrying PC sprays them all at the same time, and they quickly are reduced to ash as a result of the flame effect.

I'd rather fire damage, and the tests required of the character on fire, be based on the source (and by association, the tenacity) of the fire and heat. Regular flames really aught not be THAT difficult to put out, and the sort of mad running around and adrenaline-fueled actions most would mindlessly do in panic really aught to HELP put that fire out. It shouldn't take an average of a minute for your average human to put out a normal fire on his person. .

Not all fire are normal fires, however. Chemical fires and warp fires should, perhaps, do a bit more damage... and be as difficult to get off as science fantasy chemistry allows. That's where I see the -20 agility test and flailing being useless as rational - when getting the fire off takes a bit more than rolling on the ground or otherwise smothering it.

Don't get me wrong - being on fire should be painful, difficult to deal with, and have no guarantee of survival... but the current rules conflating all sources and magnitudes of flaming personhood together don't quite catch the feel fire should have, at least to me.

Rakiel said:

Fire Bombs are already slightly overpowered because of their penetration and low cost, but regular flamers is hardly any better than guns.

And yeah the WP test is fine - you need a very strong-willed person to repeatedly make those test (50-60 WP, Resistance: Fear and Unshakeable Faith does the trick), but the part that bugs me is that the damage from burning can be ignored by mere mortals, and that it does not escalate and increase in magnitude.

Orks striding through flames works, but orks being set on fire by a flamer and not being affected by it does not fit the canon, after all even Space Marines use flamers against orks.

As for your example, that's how flamers work pretty much. And "lining up the enemy" is not that easy unless they are civillians. Even so, many advances enemies have a pretty good chance of avoiding the fire altogetherer, in addition to the test to not be set on fire. Being set on fire by such a weapon pretty much spells death for anyone, be it in RL or in computer games...

Creatures immune to fire damage should of course ignore it, but I'm not sure a creature such as the Slaught would despite their unnatural toughness. After all they shrug off effects of bullets because they're made of lots of tiny worms, but burning napalm should be very effective against such a creature.

@Unusual Suspect: I agree ideally being set on fire would vary between the sources, but then again this is DH and rules are generally abstracted and simplified - we can't have 20 different ways of burning to death.

Also most times the rules are used is when Flame weapons are used - which are always chemical fires. And it does take 2 consecutive rounds of contact with normal wood fires in order to become burning, so the chances are such fires will be hardly lethal at all unless you're trapped in a burning building. In which case anyone would die, usually by aspyxiation rather than heat and burning.

Astartes Flamer fires do 1d10+4 so there is precedent for different magnitudes of fires. Size of the fire might also have an impact on damage.

Alex

That was my point, actually. Fire Bombs are already incredibly overpowered for their cost due to an extremely high PEN combined with a blast radius, no skill required, and the Flame special rule. Now imagine if you impose a -20AGI on the test to not catch fire due to Fire Bombs. That just breaks it all the further because it becomes rather hard for most things to pass the AGI test, let alone groups which is what it would be most likely used for.

Yes, thats the idea of them in real life. No, this isn't real life, the relative ease that you can avoid getting set on fire by promethium (or put it out) is conductive to that, similarly how its not "You are set on fire. You die". What I am against is the idea that once you hit the enemy with one flamer blast its guaranteed to be over no matter who they are, which is what is being advocated if people start sliding it up to things like absolutely no soak allowed for it. When things have obnoxiously high TB they should, by rights, be able to largely shrug it off. Its a thematic thing. When you set them on fire and go trundling off because between the WP requirement and an unsoakable damage source they will simply burn to death in a round or two, it raises hackles for me.

Hi Friend,

to answer your actual question ( "What do you think about making damage from being on fire ignoring TB?" ) I would say anything like that would become a real problem later. There are those critters and daemons who are simply build around a high or unnatural Toughness. You would need to make further houserules regarding the Daemonic trait, Unnatural Toughness (that of beasts, that of Daemons, that from Faith Powers)... i think this tinkering would call for tons of tinkering in the future.

How to solve your preceived problem :
I would simply suggest to change the damage from [1d10(E); ignoring armour] to 1d10+3(E); tearing; ignoring armour. This should do it just nicely. Your regular guy (TB:3) will have to worry about damage from being set on fire but "more Toughness" is still "moar betta!" . You regular Ork will still be not to impressed from burning..but then again, they are Orks. Aren´t they?

Talking about your example:
You forgot one thing. Your psyker would have been suffocating. Fire eats up oxygen. As far as I have been told, the main problem with the "flaming man" stunt in a stunt show is not to protect yourself against the fire (we have quiet good materials today) and perhaps not even the heat but the fact that one can just hold his breath for so a certain amount of time. The natural panic is a problem, too (of course).

My two cents

I'd advise to take a look at your problem again:

Against a normal (TB 3) individual, fire inflicts 2.8 points of damage per round. Average individuals have about 10 wounds, death occurs at Critical 9. A round has 5 seconds.

That means death occurs after being on fire for about 34 seconds. A TB of 4 lengthens this time to 45 seconds.

Is that really not enough damage?

I'm confused...

rules under getting set on fired (page 210) make it pretty clear you take the following each round:

• 1d10 damage (ignores armor, allows toughness)
• 1 level of fatigue

the ONLY way of getting put ouf of fire...

1. Make a Willpower test you cant even start putting yourself out until you can make a will power test.
2. Agility check at -20 , may be helped by friends or water etc...

**it should be noted, you already have 1 level of fatigue. so its really WP -10, and AGI -30**

getting set on fire is almost guaranteed fatal to EVERYONE but high level psyker with regenerate.

Anyway you can cheese your way out of this auto death rule is fine with me. Anyone who complains about flamers not doing enough is completely missing the death spell that is being caught on fire.

As stated already, flame grenades might as well be called auto-kill grenades, because that is what they do.

Let us take a moment to laugh at the Guardsman in Power armor, with an assault cannon, facing 2 gangers spread out, armed with 5 throne fire bombs. pen 6 on your ar 8, 8.5 damage against your tb 4 + 2 ar (remaining) == your a human torch... your a guardsman, so you probably spent a good portion of your xp on getting your wp to 40. leaving your agility in the 30 range... your lucky and make your willpower test, letting you finish killing the gangers in 2 rounds. now you burn to death, because you have a less than 10% chance per round of putting out hte fire...

Lets not get whiny and say why is there a single guardsman in a hive with 2 gangers... because the bottom line is there will ALWAYS be more gangers than PCs (your guardsman and company), or other guardsman. and there will ALWAYS be PLENTIFUL 5throne firebombs that even your gangers can afford!

Franky I think this rule is way too extreme. you cant even stop and roll... you have to stop screaming first, and then pray you can put yourself out in 3-4 rounds... GLUCK WITH THAT!

being caught on fire, SHOULD allow for armor (think about the guard in power armor... what exactly is on fire ? his ceramite armor?), and secondly it SHOULD go out, if it doesnt damage you in a round (IE IT HAS NOTHING LEFT TO BURN)

linearblade said:

A rank 1 Imperial Psyker with the minor psychic power Endure Flames ( DotDG page 27) would be completely immune to fire damage whilst sustaining this power. Oh, and the effect extends to the Psyker's clothing and equipment.

Regeneration is not the savior everyone makes it out to be for things. There are effects and such which cannot be regenerated, such as Holocaust .

-=Brother Praetus=-

Then you have the major power "Douse Flames". Within its area of effect, flames do not burn. If something was on fire, it goes out. Flamers still spray their fuel, but it doesn't burn, making flamers rather useless.

When I was running a biomancer I used one of my psy rating advances just to get it. It was worth it.

Brother Praetus said:

alright, so basically any old psyker is immune to burning up? but pretty much everyone else is still toast. ok sounds like a normal psyker situation to me then

Bilateralrope said:

interesting... but I dont know if dumping a whole discipline for pyromancy it is worth it. I only say this because there are more effective damage dealing powers than pyro, and aside from that, it has a limited use I think.

Hmm well sounds like you'll have different experiences than I have... hmm.

I just thought it was silly to have Slaught, orks etc. on fire and have them laugh it off, not even bothering to try to put it out. I can understand it with Daemons etc. especially if you think of the classical burning devil (it's easy to let Daemonic trait apply to fire damage or even make them immune, but not being harmed by flames for just being "tough" is kinda silly. And I believe creatures like Slaught would be nigh-indestructible with bullets but vulnerable to area attacks like Flame.

Fire bombs is a chapter by itself so I'm not gonna go there. For some reason my team doesen't use them and I only use them when appropriate (professional soldiers use frags instead despite being weaker), but I totally understand those that house rule the penetration away. 1d10+3 is ok though.

And I understand how normal characters without Unshakeable faith etc. will easily panic when set on fire, and thus be in a tight spot. The Fatigue is especially bad, and without Regenerate will you rather quickly.

Also I thought that the penalty for the agility test to put yourself out did not "stack" with fatigue penalty as that is... horrendous.

Maybe I'll just let it be then. Despite the low risk to the psyker the chance of being set on fire was something else he had to worry about and practically required Regeneration by itself. And Inferno bolt shells are almost the same price as normal ones so why not.

Also I appriciate the irony that psykers, being persons many want to burn at the stake, have so many ways of becoming virtually immune to fire

However I would NOT let 1d10 damage be a cap for when burning at a stake -since the fuel below is what makes the fire big, not just the psyker's clothes, skin and hair.

linearblade said:

Your forgetting some parts.

Since they are tossing fire bombs, first the gangers must make a BS test to actually land the Fire Bombs where they want, and than assuming they get within the required 2m radius of the Guardsman, he may make a Dodge test to leap out of the way of the explosion and remain entirely unharmed, and *than* if he fails that he can make a flat AGI test to avoid burning in the first place. So its not like they automatically hit him and he's on fire.

Largely the AGI-20 test comes down to GM fiat, they can always include enviromental details like "there is a vat full of stagnant water 30m to the left" for players that will automatically douse it, or anything of the sort. The AGI-20 assumes they are already blazing and have no assistance what so ever. But yeah, largely, the Flame rule is why Flame weapons are obnoxiously powerful, because they become dangerous as hell when people are set alight. Especially since keep in mind that you can always use Suppressive Fire on something that is Flaming, making it *impossible* to ever go out, as the tests require Full Action, and Suppressive Fire reduces their turns to Half Actions.

Just make being on fire do a minimum of 1 point of damage. Now it can kill ogryns. Problem solved.

linearblade said:

I didn't dump an entire discipline. I had all 10 of the biomancy powers in the core rulebook and douse flames as my major powers, the rest of the pyromancy powers didn't interest me.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Yeah well it just breaks the general system that damage is supposed to be soakable (even if there is no realistic way of being so).

Still it kinda works, although I will not enforce it against people with special fire-resistant armor, Space Marine Power Armor, Daemons and other creatures naturally resistant to fire.

Friend of the Dork said:

What about saying that if the character has enough soak that the fire can not harm him when a ten is rolled, then the character simply can't be set alight ?

Bilateralrope said:

That would make ogryns (TB 5) unburnable, which is silly. (The ogryn stats are silly in general in my opinion.)

EDIT: how about making being on fire ignore the added TB for Unnatural Toughness? Then it can kill ogryns, but normal humans won't keel over instantly.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Not sure where these stats are located, but yeah they sound pretty broken already. TB 10 is better than what most Daemons have... and they can be harmed by force and sanctified weapons anyway.

MInimum 1 damage works for Ogryns, although I could rule that a natural 10 allows for Fury when burning.

Friend of the Dork said:

I'm going off the one in Disciples of the Dark Gods, which has a 52 Toughness, Unnatural Toughness x2, and 30 (!) Wounds.