I have two situations that I need a bit of clarification on. So here they are.

Scenario 1)

How do indirect spells work exactly? Why would you ever use ‘Flamethrower vrs Powerbolt/Manabolt?

Assume the caster has stats of all 6 and a spell-casting of 20.

The Target has stats of all 4 and is wearing 12 armor (armor jacket).

The caster sets flamethrower for force 5. He rolls his dice and gets amazingly rolls 8 successes. So what do I do next? Now the target gets to dodge AND resist the spell and gets armor to help? He only keeps 5 for the spell and then goes to the next phase where they ‘resist it, then they can resist it again with body’..

Please tell me the next steps on what goes on, like what is the final dmg? Its ONLY going to be 5 correct?

Scenario 2)

Assume a room is 4 meters by 10 meters. In one 2 meter corner is a trap door that you pull up against a wall (the short side wall).
Now our runners are careless. Three are in the room. Two are on either ‘side’ of the trap door and one is at the other end but has several large boxes of rice and stuff in the way (blocking the LoS) of the trap door.
Runner A and B are right on the edge of the trap door crowding that end of the room. Runner C is at the other end. Runner A lifts up the door only to find a Fragmentation grenade strapped to the inside of the door (as he lifted the door it pulled the pin).
My team is telling me they get all sorts of get out of jail free cards. One player is whining he didn’t get his combat senses to get a free roll to hear the pin or such.
The other player is whining that they get to ‘dodge’ the blast because Combat senses and such allow it.

Now I am not sure how a fixed in place grenade works. Seems like there is NO roll to hit or roll to ‘counter’ so they don’t get to dodge jack. How are the rolls made next? There is NO scatter at all. Grenade goes off, now how do I resolve this and if you can tell me why/who rolls what.
Do these guys get to dodge the blast? Do they ‘resist’ it? 18p for frag-grenades ok, and they get to add 5 to their armor so its like not even gonna tickle..(they are both wearing 12 armor and have 3 mystic armor for a total of 15 {troll adepts}). Both Runners have 3 combat sense btw.

Can anyone explain how the grenade works and goes off?

Thanks much for helping me be a better game master.

I will take a stab at a couple.

1.
Direct Spells (Powerbolt/Manabolt) are simple spells, generally resisted with a single (or maybe double) attribute, and damage inflicted is only your Net Hits.
SO if you cast at Force 5, with 5 HIts, and your Target resistsd and gains 2 hits, you will do only 3 Damage.

Indirect Elemental Effect Spells are a bit different, and depend upon your Type of spell... Single target vs. Area.

Flamethrower is a Single Target spell.
You roll your attack rool of 20 Dice, at Force 5 and gain your requisite 5 hits. Damage is Force + Net Hits, and AP -Force.
Your defender rolls his 8 Dice of Defense and rolls average, and gets 3 Hits to avoif the flames.
Now the Target must soak 7DV AP -5.
So the target loses 5 of his 12 dice of Armor, resulting in an AV of 7 and A Body of 4 for 11 DIce. Again, lets go average and give him 4 successes.
Resulting Damage is 3 DV and then you resolve special secondary effects of the Fire.

If that were an Area Effect Spell, Like Fireball, it is a little different.
There is no "Dodging" the Fireball, so you are left with but a single possible defensive action (It is in Run and Gun, and amounts to "running", if you can)
Otherwise, you assume you rolled the same 5 hits on spellcasting.
Target now resists 10 DV (Force +5 hits) with an AP -5.
So target gets those same 11 Dice as before, but he is resisting 10DV instead of 7, for a result of 6 DV taken (assumming hte same 4 soak hits).
EVERYONE In the area of effect (10 Meter Diameter) must resist that damage.
Resolve any Secondary Effects of the Fire.

Indirect/Elemental Effects are amazing for causing damage, especially if Area affecting. Direct Spells are decent for guaranteeing a small bit of damage each attack.
I tend to prefer Indirect/Elemental Spells over Direct Spells.


2.
Grenades are dodged in the same way area effect spells are... They aren't (they get the same potential defensive maneuver from Run and Gun, possibly).
Grenade causes damage across the room's area, and if there is DV when a wall is encounterd (as a grenade's damage falls off with range) you check the damage and compare to barrier, if barrier holds against the damage, the blast rebounds and causes additional damage along it's path (If blast DV exceeds the barrier, the barrier is damaged and the blast continues along its path). This makes explosive damage in an enclosed space very potentially deadly. Offensive Damaging Grenades/Explosives are the heavy hitters of the shadows. Their use can and will kill characters if they are unlucky enough to encounter them in non-optimal situations.

So Damage Resolution... 18DV AP +5 (-1/Meter)
Corner of a 4x10 Meter Room - I will assume the grenade is at the leading edge of the Trap Door.
And I will assume that it is reinforced so that the wall can take the initial 18p blast and reflect it once before they are damaged enough to no longer reflect the blast (maybe not realistic, but who knowns - I will include a second rebound for completeness sake, but only iin a non-additive manner as Additive Chunky Salsa is super deadly - but to be fair, blasts in an enclosed space built to take them are super deadly).

A/B are pretty screwed, being right at the epic center of the blast. They will suffer the initial 18p, plus 3x14p, plus 4p (for a single rebound (note that I did not include floor or Ceiling in the rebounding chunky salsa calculation), which then destroys the walls of the room). Chuncky Salsa says to add all that up (I would disagre a bit and have them roll individual soaks on each damage) so that comes to 64p AP +5. Your very unhappy A/B Runners now get to soak with their 12 /+3 Armor and being Trolls, I will give them 8 Body, so 23 Dice, plus the AP of +5 for 28 AV. Even if they got a hit on every die, they are still spread across the room in a red mist (taking 36 DV remaining from the 64 DV of the explosion). Even if they were in a room that only reflected the damage once (or if you applied each reflection individually, they would still be taking 18p AP +5, resulting in 28 Damage Reduction Dice ( 12+3+5+8 ) for an average of 9 DV soaked, so give them 9, taking 9s DV in damage (18p is lower than their adjusted Armor Value of 20). Additional reflections (3x14p AP +5) would result in an additional 15s in Damage, the last reflections if applied (dv10 would result in 1 additional DV x2) for a total Reducing total of 9+5+5+5+1+1 DV Stun. Total of 25dv in Stun Damage. Assume 10 of that is actual Stun before Overflow, reduce the 15 to 8 Damage Physical for Overflow into physical (2 Stun = 1 Physical Damage) and your Trolls are still alive, though not very happy at all... That is, of course, if you use non-additive Chuncky Salsa. If it is additive, the only one left alive in the room is Character C.

C is looking pretty good, as he will only have to soak 10 DV (8 meters away) so that is 28 Soak Dice gaining 9 hits and taking a single DV in Damage.

This is VERY HELPFUL

Thanks!

Just as general comment, I wouldn't use grenades like that unless you also give your players some way to at least detect thing before opening the door. A no save booby trap with a grenade is a pretty sure fire way to kill your party. Players tend not to like that. Now, if they had a chance to detect it and didn't bother or ignored the warning or whatever, then it's fair game.

personally, i would presume the grenade is on the standard fuse (goes off at the end of a 3-second round after being armed). i'd handle it by making a surprise check (use the skill of the person who crafted the trap, or in this case since it's a fairly simple one just pretend the trap has "standard" attributes and skills of 3 as appropriate). possibly have one combat turn already burned in the time since they lifted the trapdoor, depending on how dangerous you want it to be.

why is the grenade on the standard fuse instead of instant? because the person who set up the trap also wants to have 3 seconds to get away in case they're nearby when it goes off, and can't be 100% sure they aren't in the room the trapdoor leads into most likely. unless there's a plausible reason to have a separate room for the trap and nothing else, that is (but in most cases, if someone is using tape and a grenade to set up a trap, i would expect they don't have the budget for an exploding room, and that trapdoor is probably also an emergency exit for them, so having 3 seconds to throw the grenade behind them while they get out through the trapdoor when they are coming through from the inside is likely a good setup for them).

I made the encounter up as part of the Vampire module Mother of Mercy. In an abandoned hotel they are supposed to run into fireball alchemist traps. The players easily found them and bypassed them via 'unconventional means, like boring through a wall rather than trip it when it was on a doorway....

So I got creative the bad guys left one last trap for the players covering their exit route..the booby trapped trap door.

Are there means for detecting traps? Do we have a skill for that?

Demolitions? or Engineering?

Would Combat sense help our players? Did he really just tell me he heard the pin pulled out....ting....

I also learned alot from this thread thanks.

Indirect AOE spells are good.

Grenades are very good if they do not scatter...

Grenades in 10 x 10 concrete reinforced rooms are great at making pink mist out of players!

Thanks very much!

combat sense helps you when you're surprised. i see no reason for it to not work when the surprise is coming from a trap. it works on drones (whether piloted by an ai, sprite, rigger, possessing spirit, or pilot program), which are ultimately just objects, so why wouldn't it work on traps, which are in many ways an awful lot like drones

Danger Sense is far better for Traps than Combat Sense is, in my opinion.

A perception test
Detect Traps spell

^^ We ran into a fireball. On page 281 its says ALL INDIRECT SPELLS get the 'dodge' roll, yet you are saying that a fireball does not get a dodge and is a Fireball dmg reduced on distance form center of blast?

Example:

Fireball force 8.. Caster rolls 4 'hits' and lands on target.

Do the Runner all four get to roll (reaction+intuition) to avoid it and why not..the header at the top of paragraph says ALL INDIRECT SPELLS this includes fireball, where is the exception? So runners are in the fireball dmg is 8+4 =12, the it does -8ap so the runners roll only Body+Armor (troll body 9, troll armor is 14~ {do we add combat sense also?}... so the book reads as if it its two step process we 'argued' over if he gets the dodge roll to reduce the damge and on distance degradation...

So to recap my game on this help me out.

Do you get dodge roll on Fireballs? Why not?

Do you get Combat Sense to reduce damage on Fireballs?

Does damage on Fireballs degrade on distance like a grenade and if so what is degradion amount per meter?

The idea that area of effect indirect combat spells do not get a dodge roll comes from the line that says they act just like grenades. Grenades also do not get a dodge roll.
So if that is the case, then no the runners do not get a dodge roll.

Combat Senses only help to dodge attacks. They have no effect in resisting attacks. So no, Combat Sense does not help with the damage soak roll.

Fireball (and all other indirect combat spells) have no damage fall off with distance. The spell is just as damaging at the edge as it is at the center. It fills the entire area with magical damage of equal effect across the entire area.

The example on page 283 muddies the waters, because it contradicts the text of the rules (the gangers targeted by a blast spell get to roll to defend and to soak damage).

The "run for your life" interrupt action, described on page 125 of Run & Gun, gives you an option for getting out of the way of incoming indirect area-effect spells. It is so vital to balancing grenades and indirect area-effect spells that it should have been in the core rules.

Ok so the last poster puts into the rules mix the fact that you do get a dodge roll. My issue right now is that Shadow Run is a mess <rules wise>

Wifi which effectively makes Samurai worthless on top of the fact that Samurai get worse or no improvement over time while Magic users do get better over time and runs.

Samurai get nothing but that is another topic.

The rules in the core book say what? Read the paragraph sentence..ALL INDIRECT SPELLS.. (this is pretty clear right) yet folks here are saying its not the case.

I am about to shelve my game until new rules come out. Currently my game is 2 mages and 2 adepts. No reason to have hardware at all when a mage or adept can do it better AND improve in effectiveness over time.

Yea I am a bit irritated but I will say the folks on these forums are HELPFUL and FRIENDLY, thank you all very much!

Well this is the exact rule from pg 283.
Area indirect spells travel from the magician to the point of detonation and then go boom. The test is like that for grenades (p. 181): a Spellcasting + Magic [Force] (3) Test with scatter of 2D6 meters.

So there isn't any ambiguity as to how the spell works. The section on grenades mention nothing about a dodge test but this is seen as a little unfair, thus they introduce the rule Glyph mentions; Run for your Life from Run & Gun. So if you have that book and use that rule then the spell allows a dodge. Otherwise no dodge. While the examples are there to help understand the rules, they are not themselves rules and so in case of disagreement, I go with the rule rather than the example.

That said, I feel your pain. 5th ed is a mess but at least some work is being done to correct this. Patrick Goodman has a crew together and they are working on errata for the game. Whether they get to address issues like this or not remains to be seen. It's things like this that led me to give up on 5th ed and go back to 4th ed.

I feel necessary to mention that the damages for grenades in SR5 are completely ridiculous. 18DV? Come on!

^^^ There is a TON of room for ambiguity. Take that exact page and read the header and first paragraph,..ALL INDIRECT SPELLS get yadda yadda yadda.. it says right there..it does not say ALL INDIRECT SPELLS (except aoe)... So the argument still has validity. I get that exactly why it says further down.which is what you quoted, but the argument says...'all indirect spells'...period. There is no mention of an 'exception aoe' which is what it SHOULD HAVE SAID.

Or it should read, ALL INDIRECT SINGLE TARGET SPELLS GET>>>> but as it reads one can read that and say hey... Fireballs get a dodge. Also it is not mentioned anywhere that Fireballs do or do not degrade with distance..more ambiguity! I am very grateful for the replies that clarify and believe me I use them but it really brings the game to a grinding halt while I have myself and a player arguing about a rule that in itself is poorly written and open to argument.

Thank you again for your help! I am very grateful for it!

You are running into the general rule vs specific rule issue. SR has a lot of these. There is a general rule, for example, ranged attacks get a dodge and then there is the specific rule to cover an exception like with grenades, a ranged weapon which does not allow a dodge.
So indirect spells allow a dodge (general rule) but AOE indirect spells do not allow a dodge (specific rule). Saying specifically that AOE don't get a dodge would make things clearer but by saying they act as grenades tells you whether to use the general rule or the specific rule.

If the spells damage degraded over distance it would say so, like it does with grenades or rockets. Since it does not say so, then it does not degrade.

These sort of rule issues are pretty damn common to SR, even in previous editions but if you approach the rules with a general rule/specific rule mindset on how to interpret something, it is easier to get a handle on.