I'm re-reading my Hammer of the emperor because I'm just about to start in a new group for Only war. I'm running as a priest in valhallan ice warriors and got giddy at the concept of a flame/social focused path.

What struck me is that the Sacred flame talent is rather odd considering that it requires a good craftsmanship-flamer (or better) to be able to function, since I'm fairly sure the weapon fails me on the roll of 9's and thus negating any benefit of righteous fury.

I'm mainly asking is this is the correct interpretation as I'm fairly confident I'll be able to acquire a better flamer eventually, but it does put the talent on hold for quite some time.

Sincerely, Emil

Your reading it wrong.

For starts neither Cleanse and Purify nor Sacred Flame require the flame weapon (neither talent are limited to just flamers) to be of any particular quality. Second you miss/jam/whathaveyou on an Attack Roll of 96-00. Third Righteous Fury is an aspect of Damage and normally only occurs when you roll a 10 on Damage (or 5 if the weapon deal 1d5 damage).

I'm not sure we agree on the basics at all. Spray Quality clearly states that jamming occurs on a roll of 9 on the damage dice Core Rules p.173 as it does not require a BS roll to hit.

Furthermore Sacred flame HotE p.103 has as its only function to cause righteous fury on the same dice-roll of 9.

if your case is that the talent is only used for weapons with flame that at the same time are not spray weapons I'm in agreement, but frankly, if you're asking me to run with a signaling pistol, artillery or a lance as a ministorum priest I'm afraid we're not playing in the same thematic settings.

The whole point of good craftsmanship, in case you were wondering is to remove the possibility of jamming, as spray weapons do not suffer those if the quality is better then normal.

I do appreciate the response, but please, read the sections in question instead of paraphrasing general rules from memory.

You're right, for the righteous flame ability to work as intended you do need a good quality flame weapon. I'd like that talent to exist in Deathwatch, my Salamander is made for having it.

Ah I did forget about Spray, for the most part as written the talent has more use for non-Imperial flame weapons, though there are several ways to get the Flame quality on other non-spray weapons (Inferno Shells for example) .

hmm Cant seem anything about Spray weapons being capable of Righteous Fury (as obviously noted I dont tend to use flamers or other spray weapons very often) it would indeed seem that by R.A.W. it is indeed useless for Flamers and other spray weapons. Of course some rules are hidden away in strange places so I could be wrong on that.

Now I may be off saying this but I figure that what they Intended it to do was apply Righteous Fury for secondary damage caused by Flame Weapons (the 1d10, no Armour, per round thing) in which case they bloatched it. Considering DH2 its likely errata on this will take a while before it comes around.

Now unless someone knows where it says that Spray Weapons can, in fact, make Righteous Fury I would make the 'suggested errata' of be that:

Cleanse and Purify always catches it foes on fire unless a jam is rolled.

and Sacred Flame treats the fire damage caused by setting someone on fire to apply Righteous Fury on a roll of 9 or 10.

Honestly Spray weapons are the Red-headed grots of the system.

At the risk of missing something obvious, I don't see where there is a difficulty in flamers doing Righteous Fury. P.250 says "When rolling damage after a successful attack, if any damage dice rolled 10, Righteous Fury". I paraphrased, but the attack DOES hit, and you don't even have to roll for that; they have roll against it with Agility. Thus, if they get hit, a 10 does RF, as normal, while a 9 ruins it, as the fuel mixes wrong.

Cleanse and Purify, in fact, says "when the character inflicts RF on an attack with a Flame weapon", so they seem to believe that flamers do Righteous Fury, already.

As for needing a Good quality or better flamer, yeah, I think that would seem likely; the talent doesn't really sound like it should be making your flamers unjammable, so you'd need a better than average weapon to do this, a weapon that such a dedicated character should likely be able to get. At Rare or Scarce, and figuring that a boost in Quality bumps the Avail up one, to VR or Rare (depends on Hand Flamer or reg Flamer), it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to acquire one, especially if one person in the group is keyed to getting logistics done. The Priest, by the way is good for that, especiaally if they can weasel Int or Know into their Aptitudes, for ease of Commerce. Otherwise, see if the other "get-it guy" on the Squad might be willing to.

The easy, though kludgey, solution would be to say that if you have this talent, your flame weapons jam on an 8 instead of a 9.

Yeah, that could work pretty easily. One number is as good as, and as likely to roll as another.