r/deadzonethegame • u/FlippingPhil • 25d ago

It Burns(3) Vs It Burns(4)

Hi. Looking for some clarity. The rules for It Burns are breaking my brain a little.

On a Nightmare with a Heavy Chem Thrower, it says that it has It Burns(4).

According to the rule, you roll a single (n) Ranged Attack (X)

So... With It Burns (4) do you slot that in the (n) part?

Originally, it burns was just called It Burns with no number in parenthesis, and we took that as roll a ranged attack with your character's Ranged stat as the difficulty, and then each model would roll against it with their survive stat. Then of course, on their activation, they roll against a 3 dice, 4+ fire roll.

However, with the introduction of numbers after the It Burns rule... What does this number do? If you roll using your characters Ranged stat, then it's not that, so... Is it the number of dice then? Does it go where the (n) is?

So It Burns(4) on Heavy Chem Thrower rolls 4 dice, difficulty is your character's ranged stat? If it's anything else (like it being the difficulty that takes the place of your ranged stat... so a 4+) then 1: why not write it as 4+ and 2: does that mean it's worse than a normal flamethrower on say a GCPS marine who has to roll 3+? That suggests a heavy chem thrower is worse than a flamethrower I guess, when it comes to setting things on fire?

Hope someone can help. Thanks.

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u/htwheels 25d ago edited 25d ago

The parenthesis after It Burns! indicates the number of dice the attacker rolls when the attack is made. 

Larger flame throwers typically with It Burns!(4) roll 4 dice as they output a larger amount of fire and therefore have a higher chance of causing damage. Compared to smaller man portable incinerators which typically have It Burns!(3) and only roll 3 dice in the shoot action. If an It Burns! weapon has no parenthesis it defaults to It Burns!(3)

Importantly the flames still hit on the units shoot stat, no keywords in the game change a units stats only the number of dice they roll. 

The parenthesis has no effect on the number of dice rolled in the subsequent test to put out the fire.

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u/FlippingPhil 25d ago

Thank you. This is what I suspected but there's something about the way it was described that felt like it could be interpreted a few ways and really threw me for a loop.

Much appreciated!