Whoops!!! It was offensive. 10s.


Thanos

LOL. Diesel wins.

Dead. Dead. Dead.


Thanos

That leaves one alive.

Best post ever. I think I have a new sig.

Incidentally, I agree.

Making a GM decision that everyone in the SUV died is simple and effective, and I would rule that way if the battle had already gone on long enough to satisfy the players lust for combat AND the outcome of the battle was not in doubt. However, for the sake of discussion, I'll run through my calculations, which I would certainly use if the PCs were the ones in the SUV.

Since the shooter just "managed" to make the shot with the grenade launcher, I'll assume by this you mean he had just 1 success in shooting through the narrow opening of the shattered front window. OK, the grenade bounces around inside the vehicle and you determine it comes to rest between the driver and front passenger.

First timing. If the grenade was launched on anything but the last Initiative Pass of the Combat Turn, one or more of the guys in the SUV may have an action to toss it out before it explodes, and all 4 guys will definitely have a movement available. SR3 p. 118 Timing Grenades.

If the grenade was launched on the last Initiative Pass, and all 4 took their action / movement already on that last Pass, and none took a Delayed Action, then none can toss it out or move.

Blast in a Confined Space (SR3 p. 119) is only used if the barriers (vehicle walls in this case) hold up against the blast. Depending upon the condition of the car, which I know already has a destroyed windshield, the "chunky salsa" effect might not be invoked. If the walls don't hold, the car doors fly off with the blast.

For the sake of discussion, I'll assume the car has sturdy armor and sturdy hinges and latches on the door so the blast rebounds from the sides but blows out the front windshield and rear window. Lets calculate power for the guy in the left front seat. I'll assume the car interior is 2m wide and the distance from the guy on the left to the left wall and back is 1m, and from the guy on the left to the right wall and back is 3m. Power 10 (primary blast) + 9 (left side 1st bounce) + 8 (right side 1st bounce) + 7 (left side 2nd) + 6 (right side 2nd) + 5 (left side 3rd) + 4 (right side 3rd) + 3 (left side 4th) + 2 (right side 4th) + 1 (left side 5th) = 55.

With these assumptions, its power is 55 for front left seat and 55 for front right seat. I'll wave my magic GM wand and say that the power levels for the rear seat, due to different bounce angles, is 48. I'll glare around the table and no one will challenge me on it.

The FAQ suggests target penalties for a Dodge Test when attempting to dodge grenades, and target penalties on the test due to obstacles or restricted terrain. But I would rule the guys can't dodge this one.

Front passengers resist 55S physical using Impact Armor, rear passengers resist 48S physical using Impact Armor. Lets assume no passenger rolls a success. We compare attacker successes (1) and passenger successes (0) and do not stage the Serious damage level of the grenade either up or down.

[These calculations assume the GM is not using the optional rule for Grenade/Explosives damage on the right side of p. 119.]

Not true. See the Grenade Blast Diagram on p. 119 where it shows a bounce effect producing 20S. It's resisted once.

which is what makes grenades worthless. it's impossible to kill someone with a grenade blast. Which is nice.

If you want to kill people with grenades, use the optional Grenade Damage rule on the right side of p. 119. This rule will cause more deaths than just deciding that grenades do 10D instead of 10S.

Just use the optional rules for staging up grenades, they work great. that 20s is a 10s plus 10 dice at TN4 for staging up damage. Statistically that's gonna be in the area of a 20S +5 sucesses they have to eliminate first. They need 4 20's minus their impact armor to NOT take a deadly.

Grenade rules are just fine.

In my game we extended those staging rules to include other naturally staged instances of damage, like explosives and falling. Works great.

Not just dead. Closed-casket dead.

The optional rules is named "Grenade/Explosives Damage", and all through the text it says "grenades/explosives" at every point as well as discussing both Demolitions and Throwing Weapons. And the example is about explosives too.

It has never occurred to me that some people might play the game without that particular rule. It makes perfect sense, and certainly makes grenades more deadly (perhaps not deadly enough even then, but certainly more so). 55S becomes an average of 55D+5, 20S becomes an average of 20D+1 and even 10S becomes an average of 10D. In a small enclosed space, the optional rule makes surviving grenades impossible for anyone except an extremely heavily armored troll.

Perhaps you could have the vehicle swerve off the road into a hole/ditch and be promptly buried by a landslide or Ares Asphalt auto-surfacer drone?

How so? Even using the standard rules, it's quite possible to kill someone with a grenade - you just have to get enough net successes on your attack to stage it to Deadly, just as with any weapon.

I think that the optional rule makes quite a lot more sense, granted, but arguing that it's impossible to kill with grenades under the standard rules (which is how I read your statement - correct me if I'm wrong) seems silly to me.

"The new reddish-brown graffiti on the nearby buildings appears to be fresh ... wait a minute, THAT'S NOT PAINT!"

erm... off a bit on the examples.

On a 55S blast you roll 27 dice for staging at TN4, getting 13 sucessses on average. That works out to a 55S+13. It's not fair to call it a 55D since staging happens after damage resistnace in this case and calling it a D isn't dair to the player resisting due to the way staging works...

On the 20S blast, you roll 10 dice at TN4 for staging, for an average of 5 sucesses, making it a 20S+5, 3 sucesses worse (or better, of you're the victim)than in your example.

Staging in this way works pretty damn well.

This is one of the rules where you divide-by-two and round up. On a 55S blast you roll 28 dice. I don't know why they bother making this a round-up rule, its just one more thing to memorize.

Heh. I was thinking of converting a 9M heavy pistol to (6 + 1d6)M.

It would be amusing for an evening to shake up basic assumptions.

-Siege

Most real 'throwing knives' don't have the type of handles (or hilts) that would facilitate this kind of thing.

Assuming the enemy doesn't stage the damage down, 55S ends up being, on average, Deadly + 5 Over-Damage (thus 55D+5). With the same assumption, 20S ends up being Deadly + 1 Over-Damage (thus 20D+1). No mistake anywhere, just different format. (Except that which was shared by us both, ie that 55S in fact rolls 28 dice, for 55D+6 on average).

I always give the Damage Codes of explosives in that format, because that way they are easily comparable with other damage, like that from firearms. 20S+5 seems much more ambiguous to me, and I don't think I've ever seen a Damage Code written like that before (I spent a while thinking about what that meant). Is there a canon way to write down these kinds of Damage Codes?

I wonder if you could set-up stencils to get an actual pattern going? I can see a nasty gang for my next campaign forming... You do not want to get on the bad side of the "Toothless Ghouls" gang.

True, but most real throwing knives are designed to be solid enough for use more than once. I could see some nasty barbed aerodynamic grenades, thrown using the thrown knife range table, being remarkably effective. You get 3 stages of damage: Knife impact damage, Grenade explosion damage, then knife-head-being-driven-through-some-poor-bugger damage

[edit]Has anyone noticed that the ranges for throwing knives and grenades are all screwed-up? For some odd reason you are far more effective throwing cue balls and base-balls as they have ranges over 3 times those of throwing knives and do the same damage[/edit]

Just use an impact-detonated HEDP grenade. If you hit the target, s/he is now the proud owner of a brand new 1' diameter hole. If you miss, you still do extensive damage. If that doesn't kill him, you might as well start carrying around LAWs -- which, regardless of what the Cannon Companion might want you to believe, certainly do kill any humanoid they hit and detonate against, any form of body armor notwithstanding.

Too true... The problem is that the points are usually too dull to penetrate much, and the become even duller really fast.. My friend has a set of throwing knives, and they are very well balanced.. I can barely get it to stick in his wooden fence at 10 feet away.. And that's only IF I hit with the point, which is rare enough as it is.