Dodging grenades Options

[James McMurray]

Eidelon: by movement I meant actually moving from your square (i.e making a marked change in distance between yourself and the grenade). Sorry I didn't clarify, I assumed it would be obvious.

[Thanee]

[Kremlin KOA]

how do you dodge a grenade, you kick it before it goes off, sending it meteers away

[Thanee]

These are the grenade house rules I'm currently considering:

Grenade's are always targeted at a location (Success Test). Grenade scatter (p. 145) is reduced by 1 meter per hit for standard grenades or 2 meters per hit for aerodynamic grenades and grenade launchers. Additional hits have no effect.

All Grenade Damage Codes (p. 146) are increased by +2 DV.

Bye
Thanee

[Big D]

[Thanee]

[Shrike30]

If my recollection of the wording is correct, scatter is reduced by net hits. Since scatter is determined quite randomly and it's rare that a character's *exact* position and heading is nailed down at any given moment (where is he, exactly, in his 8 meter move during this particular tick of initiative pass 2?) I don't have a problem with the concept of a player's movement affecting how close he is to the grenade. Since the shooter is trying to track the target and possibly get an airburst link at the same time, putting some effort into being harder to hit is fine by me. If the target has more hits than the attacker, the grenade doesn't reduce at all, and scatters where it may.

The net hits rolled by the target can also be used (as per normal ranged combat) to reduce DV. This could represent the target turning away from the blast, hunching so that a larger portion of his profile is covered in armor, or doing any number of things to try and survive a close-range explosion. I've seen combat footage of a launched 30mm grenade detonating about two feet away from a prone, armored soldier as he rolled away... he looked stunned and beaten up, but between his body armor and the low exposure profile, he managed to avoid heavy-duty penetrating injuries, and had resumed rolling behind better cover when the camera panned away.

This is not to indicate that your shadowrunners should be surviving near-point-blank grenade blasts with regularity, just to point out that it happens sometimes. Grenades in SR4 are sickeningly powerful enough without making them harder to resist :P

[fool]

yeah but if you don't know that someone is going to shoot that grenade at you you don't get the chance to dodge.
I'd also say that all dodging involves some movement, but it doesn't actually move you. Ie. you stay in the same square on the battle board (assuming you use one.)

[dcpirahna]

[Shrike30]

[James McMurray]

Because when someone points a gun at you the tendency is to duck, possibly causing them to miss. When someone tosses a grenade at you, duckign is a much less viable option.

So basically what everyone is saying is that there are no clear cut rules for didging grenades? That's what I figured but I was really hoping I'd missed something. Oh well, chalk it up to another issue for the FAQ. :(

[Shrike30]

Ducking is a perfectly viable option for dealing with grenades. Let's say you're wearing a helmet and an armored jacket when someone launches a grenade at you... if you can spin away from it and crouch, hunkering down your head, the vast majority of the surface facing the grenade is armored, and the bits that aren't (backs of your calves and your feet mostly) are not what most people would consider vital locations. Still hurt like hell to eat shrapnel there, but ducking just added a lot more protection and made you a much smaller cross-section of that sphere of expanding shrapnel. Hell, if nothing else, you could get your arms in front of your face and maybe stop a fragment with your forearm instead of your forebrain.

Besides, thrown grenades are much slower than bullets, so they're easier to dodge. Launched grenades, well, they're slower than bullets *and* there's some yahoo pointing a very high-caliber gun at you, so I fail to see the difference.

[Thanee]

[James McMurray]

Yes, the rules themselves don't say what your hits on a dodge test affect. Different people have given some good answers, but unless I missed something (which is entirely possible) nobody has laid out the procedure for grenade dodging as it's given in the rules, because it isn't actually given in the rules.

[Thanee]

Of course, it's really simple. The defense test opposes the attack test, if the grenade is targeted at a person. The only difference to a regular ranged attack is, that you cannot completely dodge the attack, the best you can achieve is, that scatter gets not reduced at all.

Here's the quote from the first page again:

[James McMurray]

Right, so if I'm targetting the ground/air by them, is there any dodging allowed? If not, there's really no reason to target a person other than just trying to be cool.

[Thanee]

As said above, that's not specifically explained, but I assume, that you cannot simply target the ground next to them, if you want to attack a person. Basically you do not choose whether you want to attack a person or a location, it's automatically derived out of the context of your action.

In any case, it's perfectly clear what dodging does then... nothing. :D
When targeting a location you make a Success Test, not an Opposed Test.

Bye
Thanee

[James McMurray]

You can't target the ground if someone is standing on it? What if you want to target the ground in the middle of a group?

[Shrike30]

Or how about if there's a sniper in a window... you aren't really aiming at *him*, you're just trying to land the grenade in the room he's in. Would that still be a shot at the person? Things like this are one of the reasons I'd allow reaction and dodge checks on grenades, even if they aren't aimed at a person... there's too much grey area where people can argue otherwise, and most players are more than happy when you point out "look, this works for PCs too, keep that in mind the next time I launch a grenade at you."

(for shots like the window example, we used to flip the scatter diagram vertically. Rather than falling 2 meters "short", for example, the grenade might go off a meter below the windowsill)

[Doubtman]

My experience with grenades is luckly what I pick up from movies. But most of what I see seems like a good idea to me.

a. Jump for cover when you see one coming your way.

As stated above, they are relative slow moving projectiles, so I think there should be a chance for NPC's and Characters to do so.

b. If you throw a grenade you try to hit as many people as you can, take out somebody in one shot, or somebody that's behind cover (like the sniper in the window).

In some cases that means that you try to throw the grenade in an unoccupied spot.

As GM I would like to see this reflected in my game, so some opposing test would be in order here, if the victim(s) is/are aware of it. (because yelling "GRENADE" might actually save your buddies)

So anybody that is aware of the incoming grenade should be able to get a chance to dodge (in some cases this could mean, giving up your cover)
Determine the location and the distance to the victims involved, every succes on a dodge roll made beyond the hits of the attacker would mean you dodge further away from the blast zone.

Doubtman

[fool]

now just to make this just a little more twisted..
what if it's a surprise situation, you go next to last and shoot it at the one guy who went slower than you (presumably the mage,) who is standing in the middle of all his friends (guess the guys behind him didn't really need counterspelling.)
Since you can't act on the other guys, are they then not effected?

[Protagonist]

[Doubtman]

That's why we state the actions (of NPC and Characters) in reverse order. Then faster characters can react to slower characters.

In your example, the guys that went before you, could have seen you on the verge of throwing a grenade and should have jumped away. The mage on the other hand is toast.

[Big D]

O.K., if a defender's hits negate the attacker's hits, but net hits don't actually do anything--the grenade lands where rolled without modification from the attacker's hit roll--then I don't have as much a problem with that. I would argue that the GM should reduce or disallow defense if the defender is not actively moving. Somebody crouching behind cover may still get to defend against bullets, but they're rather exposed to airbursts.

However, I still have a problem with anything beyond 1v1... who gets to roll, etc.

[Thanee]