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[SR6] House Rules

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Finstersang:
Love it, lots of good stuff in there. And by god is it necessary, the current rules are just so clunky and wonky. Iīve been ruminating on the same issue for a while now as well. I think thereīs another grave issue besides complexity that could be adressed by Grenade Houserules: AR/DR. Thereīs a lot of weirdness in that system anyways, but when it comes to Grenades, this is where truly everything falls apart:


* Somehow, either the Strength-based Throwing AR or the Launcherīs AR (~ the "Precision" of the thing) is compared to the Armor-based DR...
* ... which then still does almost nothing besides granting 1 (one) Edge...
* ... or denying 1 Edge to the Attacker. Speaking of which: The GM somehow also has to figure out which target has the highest DR for the comparison ???
* ...And note that this all is supposed to happen before the actual attack and scatter rolls, so you donīt even know who will actually end up in the effective range of the grenade. And it might actually not even go off right away in many cases, because delayed explosions are still a thing.
* Also, what about Grenades with non-explosive Payloads?
* (Also, AOE combat spells work completely differently? This is not a thing Iīm going to touch on here, but I think its worth pointing out as well  ::))
Iīm fine with the way AR/DR works now in single-attack cases, but itīs clear that the whole concept needs to be completely flipped on its head for Grenade Resolution. The DR should have a clear and impactful interaction with the actual Explosion, and the AR should reflect the "precision" of the Attack. Meanwhile, Edge maybe needs to take a bit of back seat in there. Also, thereīs a lot of other small things to adress here, like HE Grenades being strictly worse than Frag. So please allow me to pick up on your suggestions and modify them a bit  8)

Thresholds:
A little bit of cautious criticism: If you want to stick with "thrown or launched object will scatter by 1 meter per missed threshold hit", scatter becomes a bit too reliable, even with these relatively high thresholds. Even on a completely botched roll, it will never be more than just those 11 Meters on extreme Ranges. However, for my own modification, Iīd stick with roughly the same Thresholds you suggest. Maybe MINUS 1 or 2, since the penalty for missing the Threshould is more serious as well. The Wild Die isnīt needed for this solution to work. It could be used to further reflect the chaotic nature of these attacks, but I think the next part does this well enough  ;)

Scatter is 1W6 Meters per missed point of the Threshold. This is obviously a lot more unpredictable - However, you then also subtract the remaining AR from the rolled scatter, thus reflecting the "precision" of the weapon (Note that this also better fits stuff like the +2 AR of guided missiles). Regarding the direction of the scatter: As you probably also noticed, the scatter diagramm isnīt distributed evenly anymore. Instead itīs highly biased to "overshoot" the target instead of going too short. This may be fitting for close and near ranges, but for higher ranges, it makes sense to flip the diagramm on its head, especially for thrown grenades.

Armor, DR and Edge for the Defender: Now with AR covered, what about the Defense Rating? As I said above, it makes no sense to actually compare the DR to the AR in these cases, especially if the explosion doesnīt go off right away or if the grenade scatters so much that the victim isnīt even in reach anymore. Instead, I suggest the following: When the Grenade goes off (and if itīs an actual damage-dealing grenade  ::)), all victims in range simply compare their DR to the remaining Damage Score theyīd face for that range. If they have a higher value (no "+4" in this case), they get 1 Edge to be used for the the Damage Resistance Test only. Furthermore, against Frag Grenades (and Frag Rockets/Missiles), the victims also roll their Full Defense Value (i.e. Body + Armor) instead of just Body. This balances out the higher damage/kill radius of Frag explosives and helps distinguishing them from HE Grenades. They are still very scary against soft targets even with that houserule ;) (Note: At my tables, this is actually part of a broader houserule that aims to bring back the "Flechette" Damage type from 4th and 5th Edition)

Edge for the Attacker: ... Honestly, isnīt the devastation of well-placed explosive enough to reflect an Advantage for the attacking side?  ;) The goal here is to decouple AR and DR in the case of Grenade Attacks, and the AR has a lot more impact if its used to determine scatter anyways. So: No Edge for the Attacker, at least not from AR/DR. However, the GM should feel encouraged to grant situational Edge for clever placement of grenades and/or high attack rolls.

Avoid Incoming/Prone Status: Great idea to simplify the Avoid Incoming roll! I donīt mind keeping Athletics in there, but I just have no clue how the Dodge Penalty even made it in the Core Rules again when so many other more meaningfull modifiers have been scrapped. Seriously, what does it even reflect? Anyways: Avoid Incoming also mentions the Prone Status, and in your houserule it seems to be not mandatory anymore after 2 Meters. No objection to that modification, but what always irked me that the Prone status does nothing against grenades in on itself. In reality, dropping prone is arguably the most important thing if you want to survive a grenade blast. I suggest the following addition to the Status description on p. 53: "As long as you are not in Ground Zero range, being Prone also reduces the Damage Code of explosions by 2." (Edit: Apparently, this also an effect of the Hit the Dirt action, but itīs not mentioned straight away in the description of the action, and itīs unclear if and how it can be combined with Avoid Incoming ??? Anyways, sticking the -2 Explosion Damage to the Prone status seems like a good way to clean things up... )

Airburst Link: Simply reduces the Threshold for the Attack Test by 1. No effect on Hit the dirt or other defensive options. With an additional Minor Action and a DNI, Characters can use the same effect for thrown Grenades, as long as they are wireless-active (a totally great idea that will never backfire :P).

Last, but not least: For some reason, the description of Avoid Incoming explicitly tells us to let the Defender chose the direction before the scatter direction is rolled. To me, this is just the worst kind of randomness, because it will lead to a situation where a bad roll with higher scatter + a good Avoid Incoming roll ultimately goes against the defenders because they just so happened to run in the wrong direction. Not exactly fun to lose a character to that kind of bad luck IMO :P As long as the victim has a good view of the actual attack happening, they should be able to make out where the point of impact will be - and choose to run after scatter has been determined.

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