Me and my group tried to tackle grenade combat for the first time last night and had more than one problem.

1. The first problem we ran into was how many tests a character needs to make. The first paragraph under "Hitting the Target" on page 118 says to make a success test against a base number from the table on page 119. The next paragraph says to determine the range to the target, and at the end of that paragraph says to make a test against the modified target number and note the number of successes. So does a character make two roles when throwing a grenade?

2. What happens if a character fails the attack? If you fail to hit with a shotgun, you miss, but the grenade was still thrown. Do you just not get to reduce scatter at all?

3. Are standard and aerodynamic grenades indentical in every way except for range and scatter distance?

4. Is there any way to stage up damage with a grenade or increase it's power?

5. Just for a clarification, would an offensive grenade with a rating of 10S, have a blast radius of 10 meters? And a defensive one have 5 meters?

There were no examples given of grenade combat with exception to the "chunky salsa effect" so we are having a hard time figuring this all out. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help. So even if a character is throwing a standard grenade, if they get no successes they roll 3d6 for scatter as if it were a grenade launcher? And what did you mean by "(3d6 ~9-12 meters off target)."? Wouldn't 3d6 be a range of 3-18 meters?

I believe he was meaning that on average the scatter with 3d6 is ~9-12 meters. You are correct that the scatter could be as little as 3 meters or as much as 18 meters.

Oops, i got my numbers mixed up! Standard grenade is 1d6 NOT 3d6. 3d6 is a grenade launcher, sorry about that.

The range i listed was the avarage numbers rolled. On 2d6, you'll get 6,7,8 more times than not, and with 3d6 9,10,11,12 are more commonly rolled.

Ok, I understand now. It still seems a little odd that a character with a throwing skill of 1, could get no successes with a standard grenade, and only be up to 6 meters off from their target. I guess it could make a little sense if you consider how simple a grenade it, but it makes for a very powerful weapon in the hands of even the most unsavy combat person. Even if you had no skill in throwing you could default so long as the base number wasn't 8 or more, and you aren't even required to succeed to be succussful .

Well 6 meters is a good distance, I'd think most anyone could hit the side of a barn or atleast get withing 20 feet of it.

Yeah it doesn't take much talent to remove the pin and set it down. THe only real skill is putting in where you want it and you might consider modifying the scatter if other conditions apply like being down-hill, severe weather, etc.

If you use the "Deadlier grenades" rules, you find out fast how little effort it takes to kill things with grenades.

EDIT - Forgot to mention, that a roll of all 1's would mean you probably fumble it, dropping it at your own feet or something. Pays not to have a low throwing skill and an armed-grenade.

That's pretty much the point of grenades, not having to be spot on. Throwing small, heavy things is pretty easy and does come naturally to most people.

To protect yourself from grenades, cover works great. Even if you haven't got time to dig a foxhole with a proper grenade hole, there's usually something.

[Edit]GMs who play all-ones with grenades and explosives as the character blowing up should be drawn and quartered.[/Edit]

Depends on the circumstance and amount of obstructions. I could rule it as anything from dropping the grenade to chucking it into the ceiling and having it bounce back to not actually managing to activate the grenade properly before throwing it.

~J

Yeah, it's situational, i change what to do for all-1's depending on the mood of things.

Grenade issues can happen, from a dud to a faulty fuse.
Personally, it's rther anti-climactic thatyour "hero" can die from using their own weapon, I try to save that for NPC's only. However, you roll 10 dice to throw a grenade and get all 1's, something has it out for that character.

The most likely all-1s results with a hand grenade in my game would be that the character misses by a mile, doesn't manage to activate it properly, drops it prior to activating it, or generally fiddles his Action away with it. Dropping a hand grenade at your feet is not a feat easily managed by anyone with functioning hands and a rather small amount of physical disorders.

Elastic hand grenades are another game-phenomenon (and to a lesser extent movie-phenomenon). Take a 0.3kg object with a solid, hard metal outer shell and throw it at a wall. See how far back it bounces. In general, it isn't going to bounce back more than a meter or two (if it's high enough when it hits whatever it hits), so getting it right back at you is not exactly likely.

Let's put it this way: Something like 20,000 live hand grenades are thrown by people who absolutely cannot have a Throwing Weapons skill of a rating higher than 2 (nor a STR higher than 3) in the Finnish Defense Forces every year. The last major accident is from the year 1995. Either every one of us saves our Karma Pool for those situations, or we're a very lucky nation.

Actually flat-out dropping the grenade I'd agree would be pretty uncommon. Doing one of a number of other things to get oneself unintentionally caught in the blast would probably be a lot more along the lines of the chance of botching.

~J

That's be funny, tossing the grenade without pulling the pin.

There've been at least 2 cases of live hand grenades thrown without the pins pulled out in the FDF in the last few years, but not a single case of anyone even being in danger of being hurt in any way by a hand grenade blast.

[Edit]To put this into context, more people have been unintentionally injured by projectiles fired by them from their own weapons, from ricochets mostly, than from any sorts of explosives in the FDF over the past at least 10 years. I don't think many GMs play rule-of-1s with firearms to mean you shot yourself.[/Edit]

I was once talking to my dad about going through basic training, and grenades came up.

He mentioned that as long as they were throwing dummy grenades, everyone did great - pull the pin, throw at target, get into cover, etc.

As soon as they switched to the real thing, accuracy went to shit, because people were more concerned with getting the armed grenade away from them then with pinpoint precision, and they did have one incident of someone dropping the grenade at his feet after pulling the pin, and getting bodily thrown by the instructor into the pit dug for this sort of eventuality...

That's one part of it. When you know that little thing you're holding in your hand can blow you into bits if you aren't careful, you suddenly become extremely careful. Perhaps too much so. And if you have a major tendency to panic under stress, that can be bad. Just what the fuck someone who can't control his hands when under stress is doing in the military or as a shadowrunner is a decent question, though.

Given that average grenades do 10S damage in this game and damage cannot be staged with grenades, a character could hold a grenade in the palm of their hand without any fear of dying; just a few days or weeks in the hospital. A costly intimidation technique.

Only if you don't use the rules where half the Power of the grenade is used to roll against 4 which then counts for staging. Which you absolutely should.

Oh, I had never heard of those rules (I'm new ). Could you point me to where they are located?

SR3, p. 119-120. It is optional, like some other common-sense rules -- Deadlier Over-Damage springs to mind.

Don't forget that under cannon, the successess scored on the throw do stage up damage.

Do these stack then?

See, I do make it so when you fumble with a grenade, you drop it at your feet. I also rule it that when you fumble with a gun, you've shot yourself, so go figure.

There's a story behind this. I'm GMing again, and the mission is to take out a heavily-secured facility. Now, they're getting paid to cause heavy damage and carnage, so they go in packing heavy, knowing the opposition will be just as well-armed. Since they need to raze the place, they even brought satchel charges; research has revealed the walls are all heavily reinforced, so extras are packed.

Things are rough, but they're still going well, up until this point, when the oppostion barricaded a hallway.

Let me skip ahead to the punchline:

Me: (to mage) Let me get this straight. You're in a two-meter wide, ten-meter long hallway. The barricade is about 7 meters in front of you. You're sustaining a Levitate Self and Improved Invisibility spell, you have a moderate Physical and a Serious Stun wound, lighting is bad and you have no vision enhancements, and you want to do what?

Mage: I want to fly over them and throw a grenade. I got a frag left, it'll mess them up.

Me: *pause* Ohhhhkay. You're only dropping it, so I'll go against base TN of 2....(calculates modifiers) Target number 17. You do have Thrown Weapon, don't you?

Mage: Yup. Lessee... I got it at one.

Everyone: *pause*

Me: Are you really sure about this?

Mage: Yup. I'll drop it, and fly right past. I can spare one from my combat pool.

Me: Ohhhhkay.

Mage (rolls): oh.

Sammie: What??

Mage: I rolled all ones.

Sammie: Spend some karma pool, doofus!

Mage: I'm out of Karma pool. I spent it to resist drain.

Me: Well then. (I start pantomiming) You grasp the grenade in your left hand, pull the pin, and throw. An object goes flying. Then you look down at your left hand, and have a second to yelp.

Surprisingly enough, the mage managed to survive this; the sammie, some distance away, did so as well.

And yes, this has been submitted to the CLUE files.

So you'd require a character to make a Throwing roll to drop a grenade at his feet (before running around a corner to get away from the blast) and hit him with penalties if the lightining was bad?

I can see requiring him to make a... I don't know, a Reaction check, or something, to fly down a narrow hallway and past a barricade while distracted and wounded without bouncing off the walls or plowing into the barricade, but the actual act of letting go of a grenade... Doesn't really seem to me to require a TN 17 check any more than opening a door would. It certainly makes no sense that it was only marginally easier than if he tried to throw it from seven meters away, and a shitty deal for getting so close to the enemy.

Oh come on, dude, grenade disasters make games interesting. The more the better.

The more grenade disasters the better, yes, but much as I love screwing over players who do stupid things, even I think it's a bit harsh to put all those penalties on just dropping the grenade. With that kind of spell sustaining and wound penalties I might give TN 4-6 or so to manage to actually get the pin removed properly or otherwise armed, but 17 for just dropping?

~J

It's a free action to drop an item you are carrying.

If you’re a sadist you could house rule them to stack. I wouldn’t recommend it though.

Edward

I can fully imagine the situation..
they make memorable moments out of a campaign.. and an all 1 s result when using any kind of explosives should be painful. That , and attracting undue attention are the reasons everyone doesnt just load up on grenades for all combats..
in an old sr2 campaign we tried a system with body parts <when shot you would roll to see which part was hit etc.. > it fell apart because of grenades, when a player got left arm-D, right arm-D, left leg-D, right leg-D, head-S, Torso-S
& black adder jokes started being made..

DS

Tounge-in-cheek aside, I don't make players roll to simply drop a grenade, since it is a free action.

That could make for an interesting character. You wouldn't even need any combat skills.
Quickness-cybered-up Sammie with Kid Stealth legs, cyberskates and maxed Athletics: MEEP! *whooshes by, drops grenade*
Security guard: What the hell was that?
BOOM!

But of course.

Horse shaman shifter. x4 running multiplier in human form, sometimes faster as an animal, and an 8 multiplier for the movement power instead of 6 (or less).

if he didn't intend to run away afterwards, he wouldn't have had to drop it !!