Dodging and Area of Effects, is this right? Options

[Zhure]

New to SR, had a series of related questions:

From page 151:
"Attacker Using
Area Attack Weapon
Dodging explosions is not as easy as it seems in the movies.
Apply a –2 modifier when trying to defend against weapons
like grenades, rockets, or missiles with a blast effect."

I take this to mean:

- The target(s) in a blast area roll an opposed Reaction + Dodge vs the Agility + Throwing Weapons of the attacker but only if they are directly targeted by the grenade.

- If the number of net hits is reduced to zero or less the target(s) take no damage. Effectively the target was missed by the grenade.

- Even though the paragraph specifies 'dodging explosions' it is intended to mean a regular Reaction test or a Reaction + Dodge is the target happens to be dodging, since the general section is talking about defending vs. attacks.

Also, on page 145:
"Determine Scatter
To determine the grenade’s final location, first choose
the intended target. Make a standard ranged attack test using
the attacker’s Agility + appropriate combat skill (Throwing
Weapons or Heavy Weapons), opposed by the target. If targeting
a location, treat this as a Success Test instead. Apply standard
ranged attack dice pool modifiers."

Doing a little math and looking at the table on 145 it seems like there's almost never a circumstance when a grenade user would ever fire at a person, but instead would target a location.

Assuming the above is all correct - why does the dodging explosions rule even exist? Am I missing something here?

Thanks,
Z

[Dashifen]

I've always used the dodging explosives rule, as you put it, for targeting locations. Thus, a person standing next to the area in which a grenade explodes has a -2 to dodge away from the explosion. In fact, I used to use a house rule that made the penalty to "dodge" any area-of-effect attack (e.g., grenades, fireballs, etc.) greater if you were closer to ground zero and reducing lineally as you moved away. This became too much math for my brain, though ;) Plus, since I don't use miniatures or a map and prefer to sketch my scenes on notebook paper, there was no really fair way to determine where one person was with respect to the blast at any given time.

The only time I've ever seen a person dodge an explosive was when I had a character actively try to hit an NPC with a launched grenade. The NPC dodge the grenade and, then, subsequently had to dodge the grenade's explosive effect. I'm glad I rolled the dodge, too, because I wasn't sure how I was going to resolve damage for being hit in the chest with a grenade. Probably would have just had it explode and put the target at ground zero without a dodge (ouch).

[Dread Polack]

This is something I've wondered about a bit too. Since damage taken from explosions seems to be dependent more on your proximity to the explosion, rather than your ability to evade (like with projectiles), how do you dodge an area-effect?

In my other favorite RPG, explosion attacks are targetted on a location, rather than an object or character. Missing the location (which is usually a really easy hit to make), means it's off target (like scatter rules in SR). Damage is reduced by distance, and the characters in the area resist that damage.

There's a defensive action called "dive for cover" which is designed specifically for that purpose. It involves aborting your next action, making a dexterity roll, and moving away from the explosion. You are automatically prone after the action, which is appopriate (and usually additionally useful). Being farther away from the explosion means resisting less damage, and moving far enough away means taking no damage.

I've toyed with using this for SR. I'd consider this a "full dodge" variant, and have the target make a Reaction + Dodge roll, moving a distance away for each hit (2 meters?), and ending up prone. If you want to dive behind cover, you might have to make an additional hit or two beyond the distance hits.

How does this sound?

Dread Polack

[RunnerPaul]

In SR4, once your successes have reduced scatter to 0 meters from your intended target, they start upping the damage the grenade does.

First off, as a GM, I only apply that damage increase to the unfortunate character who was the intended target. Just because you had an exceptionally good throw, doesn't mean that the grenade magically has more explosive packed inside it. The extra successes mean the difference between a grenade that landed at 0m to you at your feet, 0m to you and level with your chest when it goes off, and 0m to you, detonating as it kisses your cheek. Anyone else in the blast radius measures their distance to the 0m point, and reduces accordingly, from the base damage of the grenade. Someone standing two meters away doesn't care if it landed in your feet or it landed in your face, it's the same blast to them.

Anyway, I allow the intended target to use dodging to reduce any extra damage back down to the base damage of the grenade, but no further. Makes grenades a bit harsh, but everyone at my table likes them like that.

[Dashifen]

[Jaid]

just to mention, in the OP it is indicated that you would get reaction + dodge against the grenade. this is only true in 2 situations:

1) you are using a full dodge (the more likely of the two)
2) they are using the grenade as a melee weapon (hey, it could happen).

otherwise, you only get reaction, generally speaking (and of course, any bonus dice from such things as adept powers, spells, etc that help you dodge).

[ethinos]

To me the rules seem to indicate that you are primarily dodging the area of effect of the explosion, not necessarily the actual projectile.

This immediately applies to missiles and rockets themselves. Since grenades explode on the next round, who's in the final area of effect could be different then when the actual grenade rolled to a stop.

Anyone in the area of effect should roll Reaction -2 (plus dodge if they are on full defense).

[RunnerPaul]

[ethinos]

Shows how often I use grenades, huh? Still, that gives an opportunity for folks to either leave or accidently enter the blast zone. I still stand by the rest of my post though.

[Dashifen]

[RunnerPaul]

The section on Timed Items and Initiative on p.135 says "next pass" and then goes on to say that if there are no more combat turns, then it goes off as the GM sees fit.

Which is a minor WTF!? in and of itself. It's not like combat turns are a finite resource. Even if all the opponents have been defeated this combat turn, if you still have a grenade that was tossed in the very last IP of that turn, you just run one more turn to resolve the effects of the grenade in the first IP of the new turn.

[ShadowDragon]

I've always thought the grenade rules were half assed.

In my games, we use a hex battlemat. Grenades have the whole scatter thing just like the book, but characters aim for hexes and not other characters. Then a character can either run out of the way on their turn and hope the grenade isn't air burst, or immediately go into full defence where the number of hits equals the number of hexes they tumble away from the grenade (landing prone). It's not a contested roll like bullets or melee.