A discussion about the balance and appropriateness for grenades has been derailing the upcoming releases thread. I do think it's not only a valid topic for discussion but also an interesting one. I'm making this thread to continue it without being off-topic for discussions about upcoming releases.
To sum up some issues:
1) Grenades/rockets do a ton more damage than other weapons.
2) There's no defense test.
Not discussed, but I'd throw another issue onto the heap: the rules for setting bombs are rather murky and prone to being "grokked" differently by different readers.
To kick us off, here's the leaving off point for the discussion:
"Explosives in Shadowrun are horribly OP." Um, explosives IRL are horribly OP. We use those things to blow up the sides of mountains!
Sure. I concede that in real life explosives kill you. Now let's get back to game discussion.
If you were playing shadowrun 6 with a PC, and died to one grenade toss with no defense test, would you consider that either fun or balanced? If yes, why?
Also if yes, do you consider that the same in other tabletop RPGs you play? Take DnD for example. If there was a weapon anyone could pick up, that gave you a +10 untyped bonus to hit, and killed you if you were anything other than an 18 Con barbarian, would you still feel the same?
I have to assume by your lack of response that you largely agree it's not fun or balanced. I get it, stating otherwise would be an losing hill to try to die on.
To be clear, I am don't say these things to be an ass or tear down your work man. My goal is only to highlight and draw relentless attention to the things that hold this game back from being the best version of itself it can be.
I'm not the one being addressed there, but I'll respond to it.
I don't know if lowering DVs is really the answer, even though that is at first blush an attractive idea. First of all, what should the new DV be? 75% current values? 50%? Potential problem with 75% is you're not really changing the calculus any. 12P instead of 16P will indeed lower how high the bar is to optimize for damage soaking to reliably not be knocked unconscious in one shot, but it's STILL gonna reliably one-shot most victims. And two coming in are basically still guaranteed elimination anyway. 50% DV then? Now you're on par with guns and optimized melee, which on one hand might make sense, but on the other grenades have drawbacks that guns and physad kicks don't. Not to mention there's the potential problem of suspension of disbelief where you sit on a grenade and are incapable of being killed by the blast. A gun or physad kick starting at 8P at least can be staged up by net hits and POTENTIALLY eliminate an entire CM. You have to literally be 0 body for a grenade to knock you out at 8P.
Edit: Also the example of the Anti-Vehicular rocket/missile... its damage value AS IS can't even knock out most fragging civilian vehicles, which is already ridiculous for an ostensible anti-tank weapon even before DV nerfing...My gut tells me that 75% would be a viable number, but only IF defense vs grenades "worked". And of course if defenses worked, then you wouldn't need to nerf DVs anyway.
Contrary to Lormyr's view, I embrace the absence of a dodge test. I LIKE the idea of the existence of a rock to the scissors of a ridiculous dodge pool. Yes, whether one SHOULD exist given that Area Indirect Combat spells now allow dodge tests is a different topic, but academically I like the concept. I think the better way to address broken defenses vs grenade attacks is to fix why the extant mechanics are broken: 1) the minor actions you use to do so are limited to once per turn and 2) GTFO'ing has to be done before you see scatter rather than getting to do it after.
Since we have explosive weapons now across 4 books (No Future, CRB6, Firing Squad, Krime Katalog) I think it's pretty fair to say the window of opportunity to nerf raw DVs has closed. If it hasn't, it becomes harder and harder to fit that idea in as more and more books would require updated stats being issued. No, I rather prefer fixing the ways your minor actions fail to give you reasonable chances of success to defend against grenade blasts.
PS: I also like pegging blast survival to expenditure of minor actions because it makes it THAT much more of a risky proposition to cash in 4 minors for a 2nd major.