In the standard rules, non-impact/air-timed grenades explode in the next combat phase. This could mean a bunch of people act before the thing explodes. Does anyone have rules to decrease the time it sits there idle, by means of "cooking off" the grenade?

Cooking it off would entail sitting and holding the grenade for a certain amount of time. Possibly if someone were to give up a turn between arming the grenade and actually deploying it, then it would go off almost instantly.

Maybe a delayed action of sorts?

Simple to arm, delaaaay, simple to fling?

And if they get hit between those two...

An ordinary grenade has a fuse delay of between approximately 3 and 10 seconds. If you want the grenade to explode almost immediately, you either have to hold it for a while, or make the fuse shorter.

If I recall, SR grenades had end user definable electronic timers? Anyway, doesn't really require rules, assuming you don't follow the canon rules that make grenades explode on the user's next action.

I actually have rules to simulate less-than-perfect timing because I got sick of people cooking grenades until the exact phase on which they go off with seemingly godlike timing abilities.

The character can delay his action and attempt throw it during whichever phase he likes. I roll a "timing scatter" of 1d6/2, rounded down, and another die to randomly determine positive or negative. The result modifies the phase on which the character actually throws the grenade. Successes on a Quickness (4) test reduce this "scatter" by one per success. Retinal clocks, timing-related edges, etc. provide TN bonuses on this test.


This has resulted in people being a little more conservative with their cooking by chucking it a couple phases early just in case.

Mmm, AA.

People try to airburst, end up handfragging.

Mmmmm, handfrag....

Thank the gods for the grenade launcher with the Ares Alpha.


L;

The airburst grenades do the trick, however:

A nasty player with Demolitions and Electronics B/R could wire the SR grenade to a coded detonator so he could actually detonate the things when he wants them to fire off.

I say this only because SR grenades are noted as having electronic timers and motion sensor capabilities -- if I remember the BBB description correctly.

For that matter, small pieces of C-4 or even C-12 with a detonator...

-Siege

Or a fleet of MCT-N Roto-drone's, each with 149.9kg of C-12 and a detonator...

My group only uses Eireann-Tir Prospero's (or something with similar stats), though, each with 9.9kg of C-12 and a detonator assembly.

Hell, take a frisbee and line the inside with c-12 and bb pellets.

-Siege

You can set grenades to explode on impact, p.282 SR3. We play that by default, grenades are set on normal 3 second detonation, and to change them to anything else is a Simple action.

backgammon.. then grenades dont go off until the same phase next initiative roll?? Since combat rounds are 3 seconds long...

I've standardized handgrenade fuzes to 3 seconds, too. I just don't see 1 second handgrenades becoming the world wide standard any time soon... You wouldn't even be able to throw them very far, because they'd explode in mid-air. Flashbangs are different, they are 2 seconds in my games.

If the players want to, they can cook them. No character has ever tried cooking them to less than 1 second yet. If they did, I'd be sure to do some kind of (rather difficult) check for whether they just blew their arm off.

Well, in theory yes, you should wait until a full combat turn went by, but I can't remember the last time we used grenades. Not really an issue for us. I was just pointing out that you can set grenades to go off on impact.

it's my personal opinion that anything which may or may not blow up in your hand really should have rules of some sort.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be rules; I'm saying that it's unnecessary to write a new set of rules to govern something that should essentially be emergent and straightforward: the grenade goes off after a certain amount of time; SR grenades have ostensibly progressed to the point where the fuses do not vary significantly on the battlefield, and thus cooking is a more reliable and potent tactic; just hold onto the damn thing and toss it when you like. There's no need to add even more cumbersome rules to Shadowrun's already glacial combat pace.

Oi...

Now I here I was thinking they were the standard 3-5. Oh well.

A friend of mine raised a valid point, incidentally: with combat centering around cyber and the speed of the average fighter increasing substantially in the next 60 years, it's not entirely out of the question to expect 2 second fuses as standard on grenades, and while I personally would only expect these to show up with special ops and HTR types, it is worth considering. For the average infantryman, however, 3-5 is likely not going to change.

Unless they just use impact. I'd rather use impact than timed grenades.

In many cases, yes. But they damn well better have some way of determining how far they've flown, or the mage with the Physical Barrier is going to have a good laugh.

Yes, well the same thing would happen with timer grenades. It would bounce off, land at your feet, and go off.

But at 2 seconds, you still have a good chance of hiding. If it immediately goes off 1-3 meters in front of you, your depth in the faeces is significantly greater.

Yes, well....Mages are bastards.

Plus impact doesn't let you leave a friendly "do not enter the room under threat of EXPLODE" reminder in a hallway while you run like fuck.

Yeah, true. Each grenade type has its uses in various situations. They'd probably have troops carry a couple of each.

Is there a rule on how simple it is to change between the different forms of detonation? Ie can it be done as a Free Action? Simple Action? No action at all?

If it takes an action, 3 seconds would still probably be the "factory standard" for all hand grenade detonators.

As I recall, the grenades are modifiable by the end user. I think I remember somewhere in the rulebooks stating that it was a complex action to change the timer from its default positiong, and if not, I think it's a sane houserule.

If you play a completely Canon Game ™ (yeah ... right) then you don't even need to houserule grenade cooking. Grenades automatically go off on either 1) the next combat phase of the thrower or 2) combat phase 1 of the last initiative pass of this combat turn. So literally it doesn't matter when you throw it (delayed action), it explodes on your next combat phase / the last combat phase of this turn. If you get actions on phase 14 and you want to cook it off, don't throw it until phase 5 of the next pass. It'll go off on 4 and everyone will be happy. Those rules as stated in canon are unrealistic and very abstract, but I tend to like the abstract nature of the combat rules for simplicity's sake, and I think that's what I'll continue to use, myself.

I take that to mean normal grenades explode on the next pass by default, but may be be altered for impact or 2-2 timed. I also allow players to specify detonation type at the time of purchase for no additional cost.