Running through fire

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Tactical Shooting pages 21 and 34 have rules relating to voluntarily exposing yourself to fire, staying functional under fire, and the possibility of coming out mentally the worse for wear.

All in relation to gunfire rather than actual flame of course, but it might be something to look at.

That sounds like a really good idea. I'll definitely look into those rules!

[Anthony]

The problem with DR against fire is that DR is really the wrong model for large area fire. Flame at any reasonable temperature won't penetrate metal plates, and will take quite a while to get through leather or densely quilted cloth. Instead, what it will do is cook you through the armor. Armor will protect against pinpoint sources of heat (contact with embers, etc) because it spreads the heat out, the padding under armor will have insulating effect (metal itself is nearly useless other than being non-flammable), and against sudden flashes of heat it will slow things down, but for any extended period of moving through fire it's pretty useless.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The problem with DR against fire is that DR is really the wrong model for large area fire. Flame at any reasonable temperature won't penetrate metal plates, and will take quite a while to get through leather or densely quilted cloth. Instead, what it will do is cook you through the armor. Armor will protect against pinpoint sources of heat (contact with embers, etc) because it spreads the heat out, the padding under armor will have insulating effect (metal itself is nearly useless other than being non-flammable), and against sudden flashes of heat it will slow things down, but for any extended period of moving through fire it's pretty useless.

The Intense Heat rules that oneofmanynameless poiinted out (Campaigns p.434) address that. Imperfectly - they're limited to what's effectively rapid heat exhaustion rather than the possibility of actually burning inside the armor. But that's still quite deadly if you hang around for long without proper heat protection.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The Intense Heat rules that oneofmanynameless poiinted out (Campaigns p.434) address that. Imperfectly - they're limited to what's effectively rapid heat exhaustion rather than the possibility of actually burning inside the armor. But that's still quite deadly if you hang around for long without proper heat protection.

It's far too slow. A decent first approximation is to treat metal armor as DR 1 vs fire hexes, or DR 0 if not padded.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's far too slow. A decent first approximation is to treat metal armor as DR 1 vs fire hexes, or DR 0 if not padded.

Hmm... just based on how long it takes a cast iron pan to heat up over a decently sized camp fire enough to cook (let alone burn upon contact) a freshly caught/cleaned fish (which can be cooked at 145 degrees F, where land animals including poultry and human don't start burning until 165 degrees F), I'd have to assume your model has metal armor heating up way too fast. But the fire I'm using as an example might be too small and the metal too thick relative to a person standing in a bonfire wearing plate mail.

That said, I might suggest treating metal armor as ablative or semi-ablative against heat based burning attacks?

EDIT: Alternatively we could apply the Catching Fire rules even if the target is wearing metal armor, letting the armor protect against fire normally but also "ignite" for the damage and problems listed in catching fire with the description that it's "heated up enough to burn it's wearer" instead of literally catching fire. Thus a knight with full body 6 dr plate armor standing in an "ordinary fire" will have a 50% chance per second of his armor heating up enough to start burning him for 1d-4 burn per second (and a distraction Penalty) unless he does something to to cool it off. And even running through fire has a 1 in 6 chance of partially lighting you on fire for damage over time and a distraction penalty. All of this is unless you've insulated your metal armor, or doused yourself in water, but you could apply rules for those protections ablating.

Combining those with the toxic atmosphere rules and the rules for willingly exposing yourself to gunfire or remaining cool under fire, etc, from tactical shooting and fire would probably be appropriately terrifying.