Fire Damage...again

[Thunderfingerz]

Sorry but I'm still so confused about fire and burn damge. I tried finding answers here however if there are allready threads covering this please let me know.

So my questions:

1. Fire Damage, Scaling and distractions
In Making things burn it says that spending a turn in fire causes 1d-1 burn damage. However if I take 3 or more basic damage i'm partially burning which would mean that I will take 1d-4 burn damage the next turn and get -2 DX. So question is does that stack if I stay in the fire or does the higher damage count if i stay in the fire the next turn? Also why is being partially on fire more distracting than standing in a fire?

2. Hit Location, catching Fire and DR
So if yout hit someone with at least 3 points of BASIC burn damage (meaning before DR) they start to burn. However my dm argued that in order to do so i need to hit a body part that is covered in a material that is burnable. F.E. hitting someone in breastplate on the torso would have no effect since the steel won't catch fire. Is there some ruling on this? I mean of course if somebody is fully covered in armor with no cape or coat or something like that over the armor that will catch fire i see the point. However what about someone wearing a breastplate but that has no armor or just clothing on their limbs? Are all burn attacks large area injury? Again gms call is of course final just wondering if there is some ruling that I missed.

3. Heat
Can somevody explain to me if there is an effect of exposure to the heat of a fire that is combat relevant (meaning FP damage)? The description of heat in the campaign book mostly refers to weather and then leaves some cryptic hints of the temperature required to burn skin as well as some weird formulas about temperature tolerance that I dont get (especually as someone using the metric system)

[whswhs]

What do you mean by "they start to burn"? GURPS has flammability classes. Human flesh is the least flammable that will actually burn at all. The damage required is negligible, 1, 3, 10, and 30; human flesh needs 30 to start burning

If you're referring to clothing catching fire, it usually takes less, but it does depend on what you're wearing. Leather garments would take longer to catch fire than more cloth.

[Thunderfingerz]

Sorry it says on B 434 that "A single hit that inflicts at least 3 points of basic burning damage ignites part of the victim’s clothing.". On B 433 however clothing is listed as resistant meaning it takes 10 points to ignite.

[Thunderfingerz]

And no. Leather and cloth are in the same category.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Thunderfingerz

Sorry it says on B 434 that "A single hit that inflicts at least 3 points of basic burning damage ignites part of the victim’s clothing.". On B 433 however clothing is listed as resistant meaning it takes 10 points to ignite.

Reading further on B434, it's noted that 10 points of damage causes all of the target's clothing to catch fire; this implies that, at least for clothing, a lower category of burning damage is sufficient to cause a small flame (note the 3 point-ignition flame deals only 1d-4 burn each second, while the 10 point-ignition deals 1d-1 burn each second).

Damage from being on fire and being in a fire probably shouldn't stack. Granted, once you catch on fire you are going to burn more quickly, but applying damage from both is probably overstating this to a large degree. As for distractions, being in a fire without catching fire is generally short-term enough that the lack of a penalty isn't too egregious. Running through a fire to attack someone should be doable, with the only penalties being from shock unless you stay on fire after exiting. If you stand around in a fire, so long as the fire can injure you, having the DX penalty apply even if you aren't actually on fire may be appropriate.

As for the size of the attack, a normal burning attack is roughly assumed to affect the entire hit location, just like a corrosion attack does. If you hit the torso from the front, and the character doesn't have anything flammable over the front of the armor (which is unlikely outside of sealed armor), nothing catches fire, even if the character's arms are unarmored and covered in frilly lace just begging to be set alight. If you want to set their sleeve alight, attack their arm. Note there are roughly 3 "sizes" of burning attacks. Tight beam is what you see from most energy weapons (like lasers), and it only hits a rather small area and doesn't start fires as readily. Normal is what you see from a torch used as a weapon, or from fireball spells and the like. Area is what you see from burning structures (or campfires), incendiary grenades, exploding fireball spells, etc. With area burning damage, your entire body needs to be covered in non-flammable materials to avoid catching flame.

As for Heat, you need some sort of natural DR to get to this point (otherwise, you're cooking, and FP loss is the least of your concerns), but if you (assuming human normal comfort range) are exposed to temperatures of 420 F or hotter, you last for 3xDR seconds, then have to make an HT roll every second or lose 1 FP. See B434. The way you calculate this temperature is as follows - find the width of your comfort range (for humans, this is 35 F - 90 F, a range of 55 F). Multiply this by 6 (6x55=330) and add to your maximum comfortable temperature (in this case, 90 - 90+330=420 F) to get the temperature beyond which these FP rolls come into play. In metric, the range works out to 1.67 C - 32 C; rounding this to something like 0 C - 30 C probably works. That's a range of 30, so you start running into combat-relevant heat exhaustion issues at 210 C and hotter (but you start cooking at around 70 C, so best have some natural DR).

[Thunderfingerz]

So about stacks again:
Did I understand that correct that you would rule that its allway 1d-1 burn for beeing in fire but if you continue to do so and would catch fire you would only add in the -2 to DX?

And how about hit locations and stacks of beeing partially on fire. If I attack multiple Hit locations and all of them take at least 3 points of basic burn damage is that still only one time 1d-4 burn allthough there are multiple areas are on fire?

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Thunderfingerz

my dm argued that in order to do so i need to hit a body part that is covered in a material that is burnable. F.E. hitting someone in breastplate on the torso would have no effect since the steel won't catch fire.

If 3 damage got past the steel breastplate to injure the person underneath, then their arming doublet or gambeson is probably scorched and on the verge of igniting. If they have a tabard, then it has caught fire. Also remember that most shields are wood with only metal bits. And the rare metal ones are usually painted with lacquers. Annoying fighter blocking all your friend's attacks? Set his shield on fire.

[Thunderfingerz]

Originally Posted by Varyon;2307831

Damage from being on fire and being in a fire probably shouldn't stack. Granted, once you catch on fire you [i

are[/i] going to burn more quickly, but applying damage from both is probably overstating this to a large degree. As for distractions, being in a fire without catching fire is generally short-term enough that the lack of a penalty isn't too egregious. Running through a fire to attack someone should be doable, with the only penalties being from shock unless you stay on fire after exiting. If you stand around in a fire, so long as the fire can injure you, having the DX penalty apply even if you aren't actually on fire may be appropriate.

So you mean that you would rule that you would ignore the 1d-4 for beeing partially in fire and instead you would apply 1d-1 for standing in fire and you would also apply the -2 to DX for distraction. However in B. 434 it says that the -2 DX only triggers if it can even hurt the victim sos tanding in fire yould trigger that condition much more easily (since normally the 1d-4 allows everybody with a DR of 2 or higher to ignore the distraction)

If 3 damage got past the steel breastplate to injure the person underneath, then their arming doublet or gambeson is probably scorched and on the verge of igniting.
Yesterday 02:22 AM

Well it actually isn't. Again on B 434 it specifically says that "Clothing that is wet or worn under armor is allmost impossible to ignite, and won't stay lit". While it is not said specifically i would assume that this puts clothing under armor in the category of "Highly resistant" meaning it would take 30 points of damage to go past the Armor to ignite it.


Also is there a psychological effect of fire or does anyone use houserules for this? Because I woul think running through fire is certainly doable however most people would prefer not to. It seems strange to me that there is no Will-Check required to enter a fire or burning area. To me it also would make sense for somebody being partially on fire to make a Will-Role to ignore it, failure means you have to spend your turn to put out the fire, even if the damage is not high enough to do damage through the armor. Because not doing so would mean to go against any instinct or natural reaction towards fire and while this is certainly doable it should not be easy. It just does not feel right to me that anybody could just ignore a burning piece of cloth on their body, because it is currently not hurting them. Any Badass with a high enough WILL sure but not even having to roll for that just does not make sense to me. Or would you guys argue that this would be OP?

[Anders]

This will lead to people fighting naked against enemies who can use fireballs. Either naked or covered in plate.

[Thunderfingerz]

Sorry for spamming but there are also other questions that popped up:

What DR do I have to apply when parts of my clothing are burning? I'm guessing the normal DR since, this hardly counts as large area injury. This would also mean that something like a buff Coat with it's DR 2 allows someone to completly ignore being on fire since 1d-4 results in a max. of 2 damage, and since the DR 2 protects against that the -2 DX Debuff from distraction does not trigger. Is that even flammable since technically it's leather which would only ignite after 10 points of damage?

And does all of that even matter? Since being partly on fire seem to only really have any sort of effect against people not wearing any armor since the 1d-4 wouln't do any damage and therefore no debuff applies.

And also in what category does fur or hair fall when it comes to flammability? Since the rules for catching fire technically only apply to cloth (and even here the rules are inconsistend since it says 3 points are enough to ignite parts of it while "Making things burn" declares cloth to be resistant i.e. it would take 10 points of damage to set it on fire).


God, the rules for fire are just really really bad from a gameplay perspective. On the one hand they go in ultra detail how much damage stuff might take before burning while only giving one example how that might be combat relevant (the cloth example mentioned in the previous paragraph) and even that contradicts itself. On top the 1d-4 being partly on fire only applies in so little cases as to be mostly meaningless (unless you go ahead and burn villagers for fun or something) and while even Kromm told me in the other Thread I opened about this topic that fire magic is more of a psychological thing to scare people off and use area denial there is no rule or mechanic for that...

Guess homebrewing it is, because those rules for fire might be super realistic but are a logistical nightmare with little to no benefit.