[jamesfirecat]

Hey guys I need to write up proper reviews for the four SRM CMPS i played at Oirings, but after playing all of them I have a few comments.

The chief one is that most things seem to be mildly less damaging than they used to be (Direct Combat spells got a MAJOR nerf, no more Narrow bursts for firearms, also you can only shoot one person per combat turn whereas in fourth you could do two long/short bursts to hit two different foes without splitting your dice pool) except for grenades, which if anything got more powerful.

Given that it is possible to use contact grenades that explode the round you fire them and require only three hits in an unopposed test to land directly at the enemies feet to blow them apart for 16P -2AP (if you use HE grenades)  not to mention also doing damage to any of his friends who are nearby,.... are grenades just massively more deadly/effective than guns now?  Like how someone with a 15 in automatics/pistols should probably hit give or take the foes dodge but someone with 15 dice in heavy weapons should miss next to never.

Am I misreading the rules in some way?  Is it flat out impossible to have grenades go off the same action/run through the initiative order as they are fired?  What actions can characters take against grenades, especially if someone chooses to use a semiauto grenade launcher which to my and my friends understanding should be easily capable of landing three grenades close to someone which will do something like 30+ P (as each grenade beyond the first adds 8P to the damage value) and should be enough to destroy most vehicles let alone most runners.

Did anyone else playing CMPS find grenades to be rather noticeably more powerful than most other weapons present in 5th edition?

[Critias]

I think you'll find it's a little premature for this sort of thread.  The number of people who have access to the game, much less who have actually played it enough to form informed opinions, is very small.

[Mara]

I think you'll find it's a little premature for this sort of thread.  The number of people who have access to the game, much less who have actually played it enough to form informed opinions, is very small.

See...me? I thought it was a phallus waving thread. You know "See what I got that you don't!"

[Shinobi Killfist]

Or it was just an honest question.

As for the question, don't kow, I don't have the book yet.  I would not be surprised becasuse they have yet to make the roll resisted so why start now?  I have no idea why you can dodge the fireball, but can't dodge a grenade, hell you can dodge bullerts(make self harder to hit) but grenades which there are quite a few real world tactics to minimize damage is impossible to avoid.  I don't remember any edition doing it differently though.  As for 16DV-2 yeah that is brutal, its pretty much instant kill vs everything that isn't a tank. So youd think it would have got caught in playtest and yes you are missing soemthing, but who knows.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

You do dodge grenades if they're targeted at you.  The problem is when they aim at the ground by your feet instead of actually aiming at you, but that reflects reality.  If someone is silly enough to actually try to hit a person with a grenade, more power to them.  I hope their target catches it and tosses it back.

[RHat]

You do dodge grenades if they're targeted at you.  The problem is when they aim at the ground by your feet instead of actually aiming at you

Is that made explicit?  Because "oh shit, grenade" *gets away from it* is gonna work about the same either way.

[Michael Chandra]

A GM should just rule that as "They aim for the ground you were standing at before you started your previous pass", if someone decides to abuse that and the rules are that bad. But I doubt there's not something else there.

[jamesfirecat]

Or it was just an honest question.

As for the question, don't kow, I don't have the book yet.  I would not be surprised becasuse they have yet to make the roll resisted so why start now?  I have no idea why you can dodge the fireball, but can't dodge a grenade, hell you can dodge bullerts(make self harder to hit) but grenades which there are quite a few real world tactics to minimize damage is impossible to avoid.  I don't remember any edition doing it differently though.  As for 16DV-2 yeah that is brutal, its pretty much instant kill vs everything that isn't a tank. So youd think it would have got caught in playtest and yes you are missing soemthing, but who knows.

Armor in general got upgraded so it is not a completely 100% "you will go down" kind of thing actually.  The amount of armor you can wear is no longer tied into your body score so there's no reason that even the mage or the the rigger should not have 15 dice worth of armor (12 for armored jacket 3 for a helmet) plus body to resist that damage with.

However I do think that if it is possible to have grenades go off instantly right after you fire them (and according to my understanding of them contact fuses let you do this and do it without risking someone using the Matrix to make your grenades explode  while they're still on your belt) and there is no sort of dodge roll you can make... well like I said that seems far more lethal than most attacks in SR5.

I would not be surprised if I am/was misreading the rules so I was wondering what other people thought/knew on the subject.

[Prime Mover]

Iirc we've had rules for wirelessly detonating grenades, which in turn allows split second detonation. 

[jamesfirecat]

Okay spent some time talking with some people who have actually bought the book here is what i have found out.

Time Grenades give a delay and will not explode till next round so there is a chance to throw them back or let the person leap/run out of the blast radius.

Motion/Impact Sensor: Requires you to actually make an opposed to hit roll with them being at minus 2 to dodge, but if they do dodge it then the grenade rolls full scatter than explodes.  This is fairly reasonable because it is an opposed test, but it also sort of begs the question "what if I shoot at the ground"  because while I can imagine a runner dodging a grenade in flight, if you target the ground he is standing on, then it does not matter how good they are at matrix dodging around the grenade, it will still land at their feet, stop moving and go boom for 16P -2Ap.   Maybe we're just not supposed to/flat out not allowed to do that which makes sense in the crunch but is sort of silly in the fluff.

Wireless Grenades: If you are willing to risk having them be hacked these babies are the "three hits to the general area, no dodge, you can soak 16P-2AP and your friends 14P -1AP" babies that are so dangerous especially if you use say a semi-auto grenade launcher to fire them since 4th editions grenade stacking rules from WAR are now part of the core books rules for 5th.

I'm doing more research into this issue (and how easy it is to protect/hack someone's grenades) and just wanted to admit that I was incorrect about a few things and hopefully this at least helps paint a somewhat clearer picture of the relative strengths and weaknesses of grenades in 5th edition.

[Crunch]

Motion/Impact Sensor: Requires you to actually make an opposed to hit roll with them being at minus 2 to dodge, but if they do dodge it then the grenade rolls full scatter than explodes.  This is fairly reasonable because it is an opposed test, but it also sort of begs the question "what if I shoot at the ground"  because while I can imagine a runner dodging a grenade in flight, if you target the ground he is standing on, then it does not matter how good they are at matrix dodging around the grenade, it will still land at their feet, stop moving and go boom for 16P -2Ap.   Maybe we're just not supposed to/flat out not allowed to do that which makes sense in the crunch but is sort of silly in the fluff.

Not if you think of it as relative motion. There's no reason that the runner should be expected to stand still on top of the grenade rather than diving for cover. I might roll scatter for the runner rather than the grenade though.

Wireless Grenades: If you are willing to risk having them be hacked these babies are the "three hits to the general area, no dodge, you can soak 16P-2AP and your friends 14P -1AP" babies that are so dangerous especially if you use say a semi-auto grenade launcher to fire them since 4th editions grenade stacking rules from WAR are now part of the core books rules for 5th.

I'd be very leary of these, since there's nothing stopping someone from hacking them while they're still in your belt/clip. Again I might allow an interrupt action to dive for cover (probably a variant of either the intercept or hit the dirt action) and then scatter the runners.

[jamesfirecat]

Motion/Impact Sensor: Requires you to actually make an opposed to hit roll with them being at minus 2 to dodge, but if they do dodge it then the grenade rolls full scatter than explodes.  This is fairly reasonable because it is an opposed test, but it also sort of begs the question "what if I shoot at the ground"  because while I can imagine a runner dodging a grenade in flight, if you target the ground he is standing on, then it does not matter how good they are at matrix dodging around the grenade, it will still land at their feet, stop moving and go boom for 16P -2Ap.   Maybe we're just not supposed to/flat out not allowed to do that which makes sense in the crunch but is sort of silly in the fluff.

Not if you think of it as relative motion. There's no reason that the runner should be expected to stand still on top of the grenade rather than diving for cover. I might roll scatter for the runner rather than the grenade though.

Wireless Grenades: If you are willing to risk having them be hacked these babies are the "three hits to the general area, no dodge, you can soak 16P-2AP and your friends 14P -1AP" babies that are so dangerous especially if you use say a semi-auto grenade launcher to fire them since 4th editions grenade stacking rules from WAR are now part of the core books rules for 5th.

I'd be very leary of these, since there's nothing stopping someone from hacking them while they're still in your belt/clip. Again I might allow an interrupt action to dive for cover (probably a variant of either the intercept or hit the dirt action) and then scatter the runners.

That's what we're trying to figure out, how easy is it to hack the grenades while they are on your belt in the crunch (or can you even can you have the wireless option turned off 95% of the time and then take 20 seconds to turn their wireless on before you go into combat for example?) at the moment.

Also as for the "interrupt action to dive for cover" my counter point would be "A:  "I am simply looking at rules as written."  And B:If your action has already cost your opponent his action, and possibly some of his friends actions because it is an AOE attack, then you good sir are already winning this fight even without doing any damage, simply based on the action economy." 
 

[Tsuzua]

High Explosive grenades do 16P -2AP damage and Frag grenades do 18P +5 AP. To put that in perspective, an Ares Predator V does 8P -1AP, Ares Alpha 11P -2, an Ares Desert Strike does 13P -4AP, and a Panther XXL does 17P -6AP. High Explosive Rockets/Missiles do 21P -2AP. Worn armor is uncapped (though you can only get the benefits of 1) and only +armor items has an encumbrance cap. Therefore it might be reasonable for most people to have 15 armor (12 Armor Jacket + 3 Helmet).

When you attack there's three detonation nodes (SR5O* 181-183). There's a bit of difference between thrown and launched grenades/missiles, but they are minor like scatter and minimum distance. The first is built in timer. To do this, you take a simple action and make a Skill + Agility [Physical] threshold 3 test. If you make the test, you land the grenade where you want. If you fail, it scatters in a manner similar to SR4 expect it's a 2d6 roll for direction. Once it lands, it explodes next combat turn at your Initiative Score -10.

Motion sensor means you set the grenades to explode on impact. This uses the standard attack rules. The target suffers a -2 Targeted by an Area-Affect Attack penalty to his defense test. If you succeed, you hit dead on. I don't know if net hits add to damage in this case. If you fail, you roll scatter as if you had 0 hits. Either way, it explodes instantly. The big question is what happens if you don't shoot a person directly, but the ground, a chair, or whatever. Even if you have to shoot 1m to the left of the "real" target, that's only -1DV damage. There's also no innate "dive for cover" rules against Area Effect attacks in SR5O where you can try to get further away.

The last is wireless link. This works like built-in timer grenades but instead you can explode them with a Change Wireless Device Mode action. If you have DNI to the grenades, this is a free action. If you don't have DNI to the grenades you need a wireless connection, it's a simple action and scatter isn't reduced by hits if you miss. I will admit I don't know if this is reasonable thing to do or a suicide plan since I'm still digesting the Matrix chapter.

Do note, that the grenade/explosive stacking rules from War! are Core now. This does mean you can use a SA grenade launcher (like the MGL-12) to fire a Semi-Auto Burst as a complex action which fires 3 grenades and gives the defender a -2 penalty to Defense. Technically this only works with motion sensor grenades since attacking with the others is a simple action.

*-Shadowrun 5th Edition Origins Edition

[Crunch]

That's what we're trying to figure out, how easy is it to hack the grenades while they are on your belt in the crunch (or can you even can you have the wireless option turned off 95% of the time and then take 20 seconds to turn their wireless on before you go into combat for example?) at the moment.

Also as for the "interrupt action to dive for cover" my counter point would be "A:  "I am simply looking at rules as written."  And B:If your action has already cost your opponent his action, and possibly some of his friends actions because it is an AOE attack, then you good sir are already winning this fight even without doing any damage, simply based on the action economy."

But RAW doesn't seem to have rules for targeting a spot on the ground with an impact grenade. "Targeting a spot on the ground" to hit someone is a product of the abstraction inherent in the rules. It doesn't make sense if you think of a real combat where people are constantly in motion. Essentially trying to hit someone with the grenade is the same action as throwing it at their feet, and should be resisted the same way. If you choose to allow an abuse of the abstraction by throwing the grenade at someone but not really at them... well its your game.

[jamesfirecat]

That's what we're trying to figure out, how easy is it to hack the grenades while they are on your belt in the crunch (or can you even can you have the wireless option turned off 95% of the time and then take 20 seconds to turn their wireless on before you go into combat for example?) at the moment.

Also as for the "interrupt action to dive for cover" my counter point would be "A:  "I am simply looking at rules as written."  And B:If your action has already cost your opponent his action, and possibly some of his friends actions because it is an AOE attack, then you good sir are already winning this fight even without doing any damage, simply based on the action economy."

But RAW doesn't seem to have rules for targeting a spot on the ground with an impact grenade. "Targeting a spot on the ground" to hit someone is a product of the abstraction inherent in the rules. It doesn't make sense if you think of a real combat where people are constantly in motion. Essentially trying to hit someone with the grenade is the same action as throwing it at their feet, and should be resisted the same way. If you choose to allow an abuse of the abstraction by throwing the grenade at someone but not really at them... well its your game.

A completely valid counter point.

That's why I feel that motion sensor grenades are much more fair now than originally than when I first read them.

I am at the moment chiefly concerned that wireless grenades are the only ones that are problematic since they let someone who should be only moderately effective at combat like a rigger/decker (and if anyone could keep their grenades from getting hacked it would be that person) roll a respectable but not outstanding 12 or 13 dice, and if they can get three hits on those dice, deliver an attack that can not be dodged and does about as much damage as the team's mage without having to worry about drain.