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SR3 Grenades

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WitFondle

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« on: <07-11-12/1727:02> »
My GM is getting on my case about the Grenade rules. I think he wants to put in some custom rule to nerf the existing rules, and therefore take away my character's ability to throw Smoke Grenades (which seems like a silly thing to nerf anyway). All the book says about grenades is:
"Because of their shape and method of delivery, grenades will scatter, bouncing and skittering across the ground. The better the throw or launch, the less the scatter. Resolving a grenade attack is a two-step process. The first step determines where the grenade ends up (and where it will explode) in relation to the target. The second step resolves the effect of the grenade's explosion."

So, the steps to seeing how this happens are:
1: Determine the intended target and make a Success test.
2: Determine the direction of any scatter.
3: Roll 1d6, 2d6, or 3d6 depending on the type of grenade and reduce that number by the number of successes your skill generated.
"If the scatter distance is reduced to 0 or less, the grenade detonated at the target. Otherwise, the grenade detonates at the remaining distance in the direction indicated."

So, the way my GM reads this is that if no successes are generated, the grenade should be able to miss by so much that its effects aren't felt. What I think is that if no successes are generated, it's going to miss by 1-18 meters and that this accurately represents how hard it is to land a grenade at the target. Is there some other way we should be looking at this? Maybe an extra rule in a supplemental book?
But what's the target number to hit him in the eye? No, not my gun. With my whip!

Kesslan

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« Reply #1 on: <07-11-12/1734:57> »
As I understand the grenade rules by default any grenade 'misses'. The number of hits you get specifically reduces the range the grenade misses by until you hit 0. At that point any hits are considered net hits that boost the damage done to the person your throwing the grenade at. After all grenades have a blast radius damage reduction and a base scatter assigned randomly by dice that's entirely independent of how many hits you get. The hits just reduce that scatter by 1 per hit.

Eye Eternal

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« Reply #2 on: <07-11-12/1737:12> »
My problem with grenade rules is that it states, a grenade goes off on the next initiative pass for that character. So if you have wired reflexes your grenade detonates faster too? That makes absolutly 0 sense at all. A grenade won't speed detonation because YOU are moving at "twitchy guy" speeds. The scatter thing I believe is pretty well defined, the time thing however is not. I'd respect if you took actions to "cook" the grenade before tossing it, but I would demand a roll to make sure you didn't overcook and blow yourself up. And that is only thinking some about it, I wouldn't even know how I'd rule that. I am thinking as a houserule I am gonna start saying grenades blow next init turn period.

I also think there should be a "damage by radius" table for grenades where the grenade has a high base damage, and it imparts negatives dependant on how far away it DID explode.
« Last Edit: <07-11-12/1742:02> by Eye Eternal »

WitFondle

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« Reply #3 on: <07-11-12/1751:18> »
So, even if you generate no successes throwing a smoke grenade (which has a 20 meter radius of smoke), you can only ever miss by 1-6 meters at most? Therefore even without a Throwing Weapons skill, you can always cover the combat in smoke?

This is basically how the rules read and to me, this makes sense. Even if you compared it to a real life analogy like throwing a baseball at someone with no skill at it whatsoever. Missing by 18 feet is pretty huge. I don't think that happens often. But I think my GM still wants to nerf this rule by causing no successes to make the grenade do something completely different. So I guess I'm wondering if there's a precedent for this? An errata or an additional rule somewhere? Or maybe even just a better way of explaining the rule to him?

Eye Eternal: There is exactly a rule for that, at least in SR3. On page 119 of the Core Rulebook there's a diagram which explains it. Defensive grenades have their base power level lowered by 1 for every half meter away you are. Offensive grenades lower by 1 power for every full meter you are. They can also reflect off a wall, if they don't have the remaining power high enough to blast through. This makes the power levels stack.

EDIT: In SR3, throwing a grenade in a hallway is an absolute death sentence. You can get as high as 40-something Deadly damage.
« Last Edit: <07-11-12/1753:18> by WitFondle »
But what's the target number to hit him in the eye? No, not my gun. With my whip!

Kesslan

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« Reply #4 on: <07-11-12/1802:53> »
1-6 meters or 2-12 if it's aerodynamic. I think it's 3d6 for grenade launchers that don't have an airburst link? (Didn't check the book, pulling this off the top of my head)

Honestly the point of scatter is to account for all the little random oddities of throwing a generally round object about. Could hit a divot in the ground and bounce around, or bounce of a tree, chair, wall or what have you. At 0 hits on a throw your aim is basically so bad it more or less just winds up where ever, and in what ever direction your grenade is thrown (Which can be right back at you, or even over directly at a team mate). Even if you get say, 4 hits it's entirely possible your throw was so bad (or the environment at the time happened to be against you so much) that you still miss by 2+ meters. If you score sufficient hits to reduce scatter to 0 the grenade now does base damage to the target(s) within 1 meter of the blast . If you score net hits, it's like instead of the grenade landing roughly in front/behind/to the side of the target (Determined by scatter direction) you now have it landing directly at their feet (or hell on their foot if your good enough) so that when it goes off it does even more damage due to proximity and other randomized factors.

The only time a grenade would not work as intended is if you glitched (dud or the like) or worse yet, critically glitches (In the latter case it might blow up in your hand). Of course it also depends on the grenade as smoke grenades don't actually explode the way normal grenades do.