Hi there,
im new here and happy to find a community of shadowrunners!

I got a questions about grenades launchers.

In the scatter table it is said that a grenade launcher have a scatter of 4d6 -4 per hit. (3d6 -2 per hit in the 20th anniversary rules).

my launcher is equipped with an airburst link that reduce the scatter to 1d6. But in the table it shows that airtime has a scatter of 1d6 -1 per hit (2d6 -1 per hit in the 20th edition anniversary rules).

my question is: the airburst link scatter use 1d6 minus 4 (2 for 20th anniversary) OR 1d6 (2d6 20th) minus 1 per net hit?

if its the last choice... I dont really see the use of having an airburst link if it reduces the number of scatter reduced by net hit too...

thanks!
ETS.

Don't have anniversary, but going from regular 4e, it says grenade launcher is 3d6 -4/net hit and airburst link is 1d6 -1/net hit.

I think I see what you're saying, that the -4/net hit is better than the -1 on the airburst, even given the difference in base dice.

But compare it with 3d6 -2/net hit and 1d6 -1/net hit for anniversary edition, and it seems like a significant improvement. If you don't like it for the 20th edition, just don't use the airburst link. You'll be roughly equally accurate either with or without it.

on the 20th anniversary an airburst link is 2d6-1 per net hit. witch is not really good

Just compare the numbers:

average scatter on 3d6: 11
average scatter on 2d6: 7
average scatter on 1d6: 4
average scatter on 4d6: 14

20th aniversary rules:

Standard grenade: average scatter 4m, 4 net hits needed to compensate.
Aerodynamic grenade: average scatter 7m, 4 hits needed to compensate.
Grenade launcher: average scatter: 11m, 5 hits needed to compensate.
Grenwade launcher /w airburst link: average scatter: 7m, 4 hits needed to compensate.

Questions?


That's for rockets and missiles. The Grenade launcher airburst link still uses the -2 per net hit from the grenade launcher.

Oh, does it actually say that, or are you inferring that? (I don't have the book like I said, so I don't know, but SR4 doesn't mention anything like that)

Oh, just found it in SR4, yeah, it does indicate that you would use the 1d6 airlink and then -4 per hit because it is a grenade launcher.

No, it's 1d6 less and -2 (according to SR4A). The excemple even states that specificaly.

Like I said, I was using SR4, not 4a.

ok so in sr4a it would be scatter 2d6-2 per net hit instead of 1d6-4 per net hit in sr4.

Also, in SR4 (but not SR4A) once you'd reduced the scatter to zero, any leftover hits stage up the DV that must be resisted by your primary target. This was taken out in SR4A because the powers that be dislike Hit the Helpless Hex as a strategy (Warning: TVTropes link).

The claim is, that by targeting an immobile point on the ground to get a straight success test instead of an opposed test, counting on the blast radius to do your work for you, grenades become "too easy". The counterargument is that while hitting an immobile point is easier, that ease comes at the cost of sacrificing the full potential of the grenade. If your target was the spot on the ground between your opponent's feet, and you manage to reduce the scatter to zero and still have hits left over, you're not going to do more than the base damage of the grenade to that opponent -- any extra hits would only stage up damage against your primary target, which was the spot on the ground. So, to remove this counterargument, they wrote staged grenade damage out of the system.

This is also why your hits in SR4A reduce grenade scatter by only half as much -- to make characters less likely to get down to zero scatter with leftover hits that now do nothing. Interestingly enough, while they bluster on in the FAQ about insisting on Opposed Tests if there's "intent" to harm a mobile target in the grenade blast radius, there's nothing in the actual rules for attacks against barriers that specifically forbids players from using AoE weapons against them if there are people close by.

ok! well thanks for the informations... I still think they went a bit too far cutting the power off the grenades but well manage..

thanks!

Well I still wonder, If the scatter with an airburst link in sr4a is 2d6 -2 net hits... what is the airburst in the scatter table?? (2d6-1 net hits).

thanks!

2d6 and -2 for the airburst grenade launcher. Check the excemple in SR4A.