Arcaia said:

That can easily be fixed by rolling once for damage and applying the result to all in range. Since more targets-> higher chance to jam doesn't make any sense, it is what I go with.

@ElohiemMilitant

This was still my greatest issue. Using your example, An eldar in a confined hallway will probably escape even if his AG isn't high enough to get out of the range using Dodge.

Yep, that would be because he's a fricking eldar, an inhumanly (one might also say: Unnaturally) agile creature. Flamers generally work about the same way as fire-hoses, spraying a stream of burning liquid somewhere. They make it quite easy to hit stuff, but not automatic.

@Arcaia

See BilateralRope. Since having the number of potential jams dependant on the number of enemies present sounds rather stupid (what do you do if you don't actually hit anyone because they all made their Agi tests? No possibility for jams?), presumably you roll damage once. I'd even go so far and say that with heavy 2D10 flamers, you'd declare only one die your 'jam die' and ignore 9s on the second die, but that's just me. As for the rest, I find flamers to be well-balanced as they are: Very good in semi-close quarters, essential in certain situations (like enemies in heavy cover), useless in others - but noone precludes you from using a backup-weapon in the latter case.

Hmm, I dunno I find Flamers to be pretty weak at the higher levels. Sure, it's good for damaging groups of goons, but apart from heavy cover I find that automatic fire does a better job and more damage.

And I even assumed the AG test replaces the Dodge test... erranously it would seem. Also the weird fact that Fire bombs often outdamages flamers, need no special talent to use, and are much more easily concealed. The flamer is simply not worth it's size, conspicousity, lack of ammo and range and unimpressive damage. Against lightly armored goons it is a killer - although they are likely to survive the initial blast (halving their wounds), the burning effect effectively takes them out of combat.

Enemies such as Daemons, Slaught, Chaos Marines and even Orks can simply laugh off the damage from being burned (1d10 vs TB 8?), and Eldar can easily evade it.

So if you just want a flame effect a Heavy Bolter with Inferno shells does the job much better in my experience

Cifer said:

How much more confined should does the eldar have to be before he's hit automatically? A Airduct? A pipe? Bound and Gagged? or does he just always evade because "He's a fricking eldar?"

This games is suppose to be brutally realistic (of course after suspending disbelief for the future sci-fi setting) apart from the typos or murky wording. Being an Eldar isn't a get out of jail free card. (I torched a whole squads of those little bastards with my immolator tank in TT =P)

I'm simply suggesting rules that when you're in the AOE of a Flamer and you don't have the AG bonus to get out you're hit reguardless. And I'm still waiting for real feedback . I assume your saying that it's (the original rule) either fine as it is or, that the Initial AG test shouldn't be dependent on Ag Bonus to escape?

How much more confined should does the eldar have to be before he's hit automatically? A Airduct? A pipe? Bound and Gagged? or does he just always evade because "He's a fricking eldar?"

I'd say he should be confined to about the same level you wouldn't roll to hit with any other weapon either. Would you roll BS to hit with an autogun when pouring lead into that airduct? If so, roll agi for the flamer. If not, then don't. There's an awful tendency for players to say "but this has to work without any chance of failure, because..." when the same sentence from the gm would be considered unfair and a prelude to railroading.

This games is suppose to be brutally realistic(of course after suspending disbelief for the future sci-fi setting) apart from the typos or murky wording. Being an Eldar isn't a get out of jail free card.

Because nothing says realistic like being able to dodge bullets, but not flame.
By the way: Being an Eldar isn't a get out of jail free card indeed. Even with Unnatural Agility and a 50 base stat (which would likely be Exarch levels), he's still got less than 50% chances of evading a Cleanse&Purify flame without using up his reaction. If you want to torch him that badly, use teamwork - have a friend shoot him and use up that reaction, then flame him.

I'm simply suggesting rules that when you're in the AOE of a Flamer and you don't have the AG bonus to get out you're hit reguardless. And I'm still waiting for real feedback . I assume your saying that it's (the original rule) either fine as it is or, that the Initial AG test shouldn't be dependent on Ag Bonus to escape?

Yup, you pretty much got that. In my opinion, the only thing the flamer does and should do is replace that BS test with an Agility test - it's good enough that way, especially considering the combat-ending nature of being on fire for most enemies.

Where did you get the impression that DH is supposed to be brutally realistic? Brutal yes, gritty yes, but realistic? No. In fact among the combat rules it is written about the abstract nature of DH combat. Being able to dodge bullets is pretty much a neat mechanic for balance, to enable the heroes and villains a little better chance to avoid attacks that could kill them. Wounds are even worse... in RL we don't have a buffer where damage has no effect on you. And don't get me started on Toughness and the "naked dwarf syndrome."

So no, if you think DH is realistic then you might wanna learn a bit more about RL.

I think that you can use dodge but only if you can move far enough in meters from the flames what depends on AG bonus. If your move ( AG bonus) doesn't allow you to get far enough from flames you should just use AG to negate hit. If you are fast enough you can try and dodge flames (if your AG bonus in meters allows you to move far enough to avoid falmes)

I don't see how the Flamer rules negate the Dodge Skill at all. The Flamers function in a particular way (targets roll Ag Tests rather than shooting rolling BS Test). This is separate from the rules that dictate how the Dodge Skill works.

Yeah, it means that high Ag targets will be very hard to hit... but so what? That's their benefit. And if they're in a small enough enclosed area they won't be able to Dodge the flame anyway.

BYE

Sure but if they have anough place to move away from flames they should have such a chance. If they are in a small hall they can't dodge. Simple.

I've always thought that flamers and such ought to ignore armor like they do cover (the only exception would be fully sealed power armor). And up the damage a bit. But that's just me. Maybe, +2 or +3 across the board to flame weapons.

Ignoring armour is a good point, especially when dealing with weapons that aren't technically flamers, but use the same rules. Like the stingray DH:IH p 161. A microwave weapon which if it ignores cover should be more than capable of cooking you inside your suit of armour.

What do you guys think since it can't set a target on fire should it be allowed to ignore armour or have a higher pen?

The damage from flame weapons already ignores armour once somebody is set on fire, i.e. the flames had a chance to expand over the target's body instead of just washing over parts of him in a blaze of heat.

That said, I always thought it should depend more on what the target wears. A feral worlder's fur jacket? Won't provide much protection and is likely to be set on fire as well. A modern carapace chest plate, on the other hand? You'd still get your arms and legs burnt, but the chest should remain untouched as the flames won't crawl below the carapace that fast, meaning the wearer should receive less damage. Power armour should confer even more protection - the wearer could still get cooked due to the heat, but the burning substance would not be able to set fire to his body per se, only to the armour.

Makes me think of a potential houserule:

• Primitive armour and AP1-3: no protection, full Fatigue penalties
• AP4-6: negates 2 pts of damage, Fatigue when damage roll was 6+
• AP7+: negates 4 pts of damage, Fatigue when damage roll was 9+

This would take a bit of the deadliness out of being set on fire. Then, up the raw damage by a few points - makes flame weapons hurt naked people more whilst still going a bit easier on fully armoured Spess Mehreens and stuff.

All depending on how you want flamers to work in your game, of course.

The flamer already is very weak in Deathwatch. If it had less chance to ignite modern armour it would be totaly useless.

Umbranus said:

Its weak becasue characters can have a 10 Toughness bonus and thats not really all that inconceivable for a starting character. In fact 3 of 6 characters had it starting out in my first group. In DH its quite lethal to be set on fire since you are looking at a 3 or 4 toughness bonus with a 5 being quite high for most. Though I know a certain tech priest with a 7 TB.

We found that the flamers strange ability to fill a hallway with liquid burning death from floor to ceiling and still be able to NOT hit the people in that corridor kind of strange and purpose-defeating for the flamer.

So, in the games I GM the players and I have decided to buff the flamer a tiny bit.

Flamers simply hit the target if in range, no rolls required.

Flamers jam on a dmg roll of 1 instead of 9 (only the first dmg-die can jam the flamer, in case of multiple targets) . RF is confirmed by a straight BS-check.

Targets may dodge if possible and have enough AB to get out of the cone of fire.

Targets roll agi to avoid being set on fire.

Talents like cleanse and purify penalize the enemies attempt to dodge.

This has worked out very well and Flamers in enclosed spaces are now to be feared.

Just thought I would share.

How on earth do flamers need a buff? They're already absurd and don't even require you do invest in BS to be so. The fact that they set you on fire no matter what armour you are wearing or how though you are combined with the difficulty of putting yourself out and the fact that the ongoing fatigue from being on fire ignores both thoughness & armour means a single shot from a hand flamer (or an incendiary round from the crappiest little stub-pistol ) can take down a hive tyrant or an astartes in terminator armour unless they succeed their agility check to drop-and-roll.

Flamers RAW are basically the complete opposite of what you'd expect them to be. They're amazing to the point of absurdity against super-though and heavy armoured but slow opponents and a bit crummy vs. fast and lightly armoured ones unless they're out of reactions for dodge.

Personally I'd remove the fatigue loss from being on fire completely on turns it doesn't do enough damage to overcome your TB, put a limit on the duration for being on fire (RAW, stationary objects or creatures with agility<20 hit by a flame weapon are on fire FOREVER unless someone puts them out), and let those on fire apply the armour bonus against the ongoing damage if the attack that set them on fire didn't cause at least 1 wound.

How does righteous fury work on flame weapons?

H.B.M.C. said:

Absolutely.

The chance to hit with a flamer are about 70 % (for every shooter) against an average Ag 30 target, instead of 30 % (for an average shooter) when using a "normal" ranged weapon against any target. Both have a chance to Dodge, though in regard to the flamer only if the target can move enough (i.e. out of the area of effect) with their AG-bonus in meters. Two advantages speaking for the flamer. The limited range is a drawback but sort of nullified for the advantage of hitting multiple opponents. A further advantage is its usefulness against hordes of enemies, if you use Horde rules from DW.

Still, it is a weapon for low BS characters and the Cleanse and Purify talent is almost mandatory if you want to make use of flamer as your main weapon. Furthermore, it is a weapon for special circumstance like fighting in close confines like bunkers, building and vehicles, where a successfull Dodge won't help you if you cannot move out of the area of effect. It is not the best weapon for fighting in the open or when fighting extremely agile opponents like Dark Eldar or whatever.

All rather fitting and from its direction even sort of realistic.

Right, in DH the flamer is a very powerful weapon. Your BS will be rather low and so will be the Ag and doge of your targets.
My Melee guardsman often used a Chainsword in one and a flame Pistol in the other hand. Devastating.

In DW I played a guy with a heavy flamer as signature weapon. And it was dead weight most of the time.
Everyone has higher traits, so your BS will be higher and the Ag and dodge of your enemies is higher.
On top of that frag grenades are enough for some kinds of hordes.
That combined with the inability to use anything but a flame pistol once lockt in melee it just wasn't worth it.

So in summary: In DH flamers are great, in DW they are not. Flame Pistols rock, because they can be used in melee, all other flamers need to be close to melee but mustn't be in melee to be effective. That's tricky.

Do flamers get bonuses from range, as in point blank -30 to enemies agility/dodge test or something?

As far as I know RAW is no. The only modifiers to thé ag test are +20 if the one using the flamer doen't have the weapon training and -20 for cleans and purify.

As a HR I say yes, some modifiers that would normally count on BS are instead applied on the Ag Test.

What I'm myself unsure about how to handle is: What if someone uses two flame pistols?
Is it just two attacks one after the other?

Umbranus said:

I would think so, although it has a drawback that those that are left on fire with the first one don't get double fire onto themselves.

If you lay down overlapping cones of fire, a simple dodge will move you out of the area of effect of both of them.

It they dont overlap, but lay side by side, it becomes much harder to dodge out of range, but you'll only be hit by one.