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Message no. 1
From: pbailey@***.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (Peter Bailey)
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 00:02:54
Hi David,

> Yup. My players figured that one out a long time ago. I haven't seen a
> grenade thrown in my game in three years. And I think I've only had an NPC
> throw one once (the grenade landed six meters off target and only knocked
> the PCs off their feet).

Hmmm. My team don't like them, but they do use them Especially the launched
mini variety.

> And my one other experience with grenades went as follows: a Troll/PhysAd
> was in a confined space with the PCs. He challenged one of the PCs to
> single combat. The PC looked the Troll up and down and said "$#@! that!",
> pulled out his gun and opened fire. The other PCs joined in (attacking the
> Troll). I had expected the character to accept the challenge and reacted
> (poorly in retrospect) by having the Troll pull out a defensive grenade and
> drop it in the middle of the room. After doing the math the characters were
> faced with a 20somethingD attack. After modifying for armor and using up
> their karma pools the characters came away with from it with Serious
> wounds. The Troll was dropped because he didn't have a Karma pool.
>
> My problem is this: a grenade went of in a room measuring approx. 3x4
> meters and none of the characters even went down. What's wrong with this
> picture? I like my game to have a heroic/movie atmosphere but this one
> defied the laws of reality just a little too much for me. Is there anything
> that can be done to make grenades realisticly deadly, or did I just miss
> a rule someplace?

Nope, you got caught by that damn karma pool. I think I am going to pull
the "re-roll failures" capability of the karma pool. The NPC's just have
no answer to it at all, and it makes the game too unbalanced onto the PC's
side.
Message no. 2
From: "A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 15:00:13 +0000 (GMT)
|> My problem is this: a grenade went of in a room measuring approx. 3x4
|> meters and none of the characters even went down. What's wrong with this
|> picture? I like my game to have a heroic/movie atmosphere but this one
|> defied the laws of reality just a little too much for me. Is there anything
|> that can be done to make grenades realisticly deadly, or did I just miss
|> a rule someplace?
|
|Nope, you got caught by that damn karma pool. I think I am going to pull
|the "re-roll failures" capability of the karma pool. The NPC's just have
|no answer to it at all, and it makes the game too unbalanced onto the PC's
|side.

Why not switch back to the first edition Karma system?
There is no difference between Good karma and pool karma because the pool
doesn't exist.

You get to choose EXACTLY what to spend your Karma on. Skills, Attribute
increase, Spells, initiation, re-rolling failures, avoiding an oops and of
course guaranteeing successes.
It all comes from the same source and it runs out that much quicker.
As well as that, there is no refreshing of the karma pool!
What you get given is all you've got.
As you can probably guess, I still prefer the 1stEd rules.
My characters always make sure they have at least 2 karma free for a run
just to guarantee that all important death save.
(We never played the "you must have at least one success" rule)

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 3
From: dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 08:54:44 -0700 (MST)
|From: Robert Watkins
|
|>They use up a lot of Karma to survive. How much did they actually BURN for
|>automatic successes?
|>If they BURNED it, I can't see a problem.
|>If they re-rolled.... how much karma did they have to be able to get that
|>many 12+'s?
|
|Ways to solve this: use MULTIPLE grenades. :) [snip]

Now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this one (and wondering why the
players have never thought of it either).

|--
|From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
|
|Larry White (WPG) (Exchange) said on 10 Jan 96...
|
|> I read in the books (SRII) that extra successes from throwing / firing a
|> grenade can stage up damage. This has never made sense to me.
|>
|> Samurai: "I shoot a grenade, using my underbarrel grenade launcher,
|> at the desk in the center of the room. My target number is reduced
|> by 1 because its a stationary object. I pull the trigger in such a way
|> and with such skill that the grenade twists and turns and bounces so
|> as to stage the damage up to Deadly on the 5 people near the desk."
|
|Actually it would do Deadly damage to the desk, and only Serious to the
|people around it, at least if I got it right :) The way I think this works
|is that damage is only staged up against the target you are directly
|aiming for, and anyone in the vincinity takes only the base damage.
|So, shoot it straight into someone's guts with your underbarrel launcher
|and you get to use thoe 10 successes to make him really dead indeed, but
|all his buddies a meter away only take 10S damage (or 9S, actually, with
|an offensive grenade).

Again, wishing I had thought of it. It makes a lot of sense. You can nail
the target your aiming for but everything in the blast radius just takes
the base damage. However, I would only allow damaged to be staged if the
target was hit dead on. If it scatters so much as one meter I don't think
the staging would count.

|--
|From: "A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
|
||> My problem is this: a grenade went of in a room measuring approx. 3x4
||> meters and none of the characters even went down. What's wrong with this
||> picture? I like my game to have a heroic/movie atmosphere but this one
||> defied the laws of reality just a little too much for me. Is there anything
||> that can be done to make grenades realisticly deadly, or did I just miss
||> a rule someplace?
||
||Nope, you got caught by that damn karma pool. I think I am going to pull
||the "re-roll failures" capability of the karma pool. The NPC's just have
||no answer to it at all, and it makes the game too unbalanced onto the PC's
||side.
|
|Why not switch back to the first edition Karma system?
|There is no difference between Good karma and pool karma because the pool
|doesn't exist.
|
|You get to choose EXACTLY what to spend your Karma on. Skills, Attribute
|increase, Spells, initiation, re-rolling failures, avoiding an oops and of
|course guaranteeing successes.
|It all comes from the same source and it runs out that much quicker.
|As well as that, there is no refreshing of the karma pool!
|What you get given is all you've got.
|As you can probably guess, I still prefer the 1stEd rules.
|My characters always make sure they have at least 2 karma free for a run
|just to guarantee that all important death save.
|(We never played the "you must have at least one success" rule)
|

Let me see if I've got this straight: the characters fund their Karma Pool
themselves from karma gained from runs, they can only use the Karma Pool to buy
automatic successes (1 karma equals one success), and the Karma Pool does not
refresh.....I LOVE IT!

One question though. Is there a limit to how much karma a character can
spend on automatic successes for a test? Like characters can't spend more
karma on successes than the attribute or skill involved.

I love this list! Thank you all for your input, you've been a great help.

-David

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Buehrer
The UnCover Company
Data Entry Supervisor (Dayshift)
Phone: (303) 758-3030 ext 132
FAX: (303) 758-5946
mailto:dbuehrer@****.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 4
From: DarkAngelI@******.com
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 08:35:20 -0800
Just a quick injection into the grenades debate...We all agree that damage is
staged up for ranged attack weapons such as guns because you might hit a
particularly vital body part and do more damage...right? Then why wouldn't
the same apply for the grenades? Just imagine the blast bouncing back off
that desk you were aiming at. The force would be increased. Just my two
cents...
The Dark
Angel
Message no. 5
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 21:06:06 +0100
David Buehrer said on 11 Jan 96...

> |Actually it would do Deadly damage to the desk, and only Serious to the
> |people around it, at least if I got it right :) The way I think this works
> |is that damage is only staged up against the target you are directly
> |aiming for, and anyone in the vincinity takes only the base damage.
[snip]
>
> Again, wishing I had thought of it. It makes a lot of sense. You can nail
> the target your aiming for but everything in the blast radius just takes
> the base damage. However, I would only allow damaged to be staged if the
> target was hit dead on. If it scatters so much as one meter I don't think
> the staging would count.

That was what I meant to say. Although I allow grenade launchers to be
fired as other firearms, without scattering, if they are fired against a
specific target. As soon as a player fires it "into that room" it
scatters; if he shoots it "between that dude's eyes" any success is enough
to make it score a direct hit.
Although I am now thinking of making this last bit only possible at Short
and Medium ranges...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
It ranks right up there with finding money on the street.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 6
From: "A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 20:31:35 +0000 (GMT)
|Let me see if I've got this straight: the characters fund their Karma Pool
|themselves from karma gained from runs, they can only use the Karma Pool to buy
|automatic successes (1 karma equals one success), and the Karma Pool does not
|refresh.....I LOVE IT!

Not quite. It costs 1 Karma to reroll all failed dice.
If you want to continue with the same test it takes 2 Karma
for the next reroll, 3 for the next end so on.
(Only for the same test of course)

It costs 1 Karma to avoid an ooops.
And
It costs 2 Karma for 1 Automatic Success
(If you want to limit it then fine, but I don't think
there was a limit set originally. If you want to buy
20 automatic successes, fine. But 40 Karma is a lot
of juice in amy game. (Bump up an attribute, initiate to
grade 3 and still have some change. I *don't* think a
player would be willing to sacrifice such a rare resource
like Karma in that way. After all, once it's gone, it's
gone for good.)



|One question though. Is there a limit to how much karma a character can
|spend on automatic successes for a test? Like characters can't spend more
|karma on successes than the attribute or skill involved.
Hope this helps even more.....
--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 7
From: Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 14:01:01 +1100 (EST)
>That was what I meant to say. Although I allow grenade launchers to be
>fired as other firearms, without scattering, if they are fired against a
>specific target. As soon as a player fires it "into that room" it
>scatters; if he shoots it "between that dude's eyes" any success is enough
>to make it score a direct hit.
>Although I am now thinking of making this last bit only possible at Short
>and Medium ranges...

I don't like it... grenades aren't as aerodynamic as bullets, you know...
Each to their own.
(Hmm.. maybe make it for the first five meters, where you couldn't
normally use it. :) )


--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/
Message no. 8
From: Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 14:01:24 +1100 (EST)
>Let me see if I've got this straight: the characters fund their Karma Pool
>themselves from karma gained from runs, they can only use the Karma Pool
>to buy
>automatic successes (1 karma equals one success), and the Karma Pool does not
>refresh.....I LOVE IT!

There are other uses of Karma, including buying dice, and re-rolling
failures. The Karma pool does refresh (but only when the GM says, like
during breaks in the plot). Buying successes does permanently reduce the
Karma Pool.

Funding the karma pool depends on how you play... In my games, every
tenth Karma automatically goes into it, and players can choose to put a
point of Karma pool in for 10 Good Karma.


--
Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers
are around at 9 am, it's because they were up all night.
Message no. 9
From: "A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 10:16:03 +0000 (GMT)
|
|>Let me see if I've got this straight: the characters fund their Karma Pool
|>themselves from karma gained from runs, they can only use the Karma Pool
|>to buy
|>automatic successes (1 karma equals one success), and the Karma Pool does not
|>refresh.....I LOVE IT!
|
|There are other uses of Karma, including buying dice, and re-rolling
|failures. The Karma pool does refresh (but only when the GM says, like
|during breaks in the plot). Buying successes does permanently reduce the
|Karma Pool.
|
|Funding the karma pool depends on how you play... In my games, every
|tenth Karma automatically goes into it, and players can choose to put a
|point of Karma pool in for 10 Good Karma.

I think you've caught the thread a bit late....

I was explaining about the 1stEd Karma system.
(No Karma Pool/All Karma the same/you use it, it's gone.)
--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 10
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 11:42:02 +0100
Robert Watkins said on 11 Jan 96...

> I don't like it... grenades aren't as aerodynamic as bullets, you know...
> Each to their own.

Then again, it is possible to fire modern grenades through windows at 100
and more meters, so I guess that at shorter ranges you can hit a
standing person with them too.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
It ranks right up there with finding money on the street.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 11
From: westec@******.COM (Neon Sihn)
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 12:46:56 -0600
>Robert Watkins said on 11 Jan 96...
>
>> I don't like it... grenades aren't as aerodynamic as bullets, you know...
>> Each to their own.

actually the fired kind are... they are not just hand grenades thrown down
a barrel with compressed air. if you looked at one it looks like a big bullet.







---------construction in progress-------------------
westec@******.com
TIP #1323 IPPA #A-0117 Lively #F188
---------construction in progress-------------------
Message no. 12
From: Technomancer <arvanit@***.uch.gr>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:42:20 +0200 (EET)
explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
scatter (except for the holy game-balance)?

*********************************************************************
* Technomancer * Modesty is one of my countless virtues *
* arvanit@***.uch.gr *
*********************************************************************
Message no. 13
From: "A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 18:52:39 +0000 (GMT)
|
|explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
|scatter (except for the holy game-balance)?
|
There's only a scatter when you have the grenades set for timer mode....

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| | Zaphod Beeblebroxs' last meal was taken at the |
| u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk | Restaraunt at the end of the universe, since when |
| | he has been catapulted through time in a Hagunenon |
| | Spaceship, eaten by a carbon copy of the ravenous |
| | bugblatter beast of traal, received strange and |
| |unedifying instructions from himself (in his sleep!)|
| Andrew Halliwell | and in consequence made his way to the office |
| | building of the Hitch-Hikers guide to the Galaxy, |
| Foundation Year |which was then unaccountably attacked by a squadron |
| | of Frog Star fighters, Hauled in it's entirety off |
| Leading to | the surface of the planet and is now making it's |
| Principal Subjects in |way (with Zaphods' mysterious new friend Roosta) to |
| Visual Arts | the even more mysterious Frog Star. |
| & | He is therefore, not unnaturally, feeling a little |
| Computer Science | peckish........ - Douglas Adams |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 14
From: TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:48:54 -0600
At 01:41 PM 1/15/96 -0500, Technomancer wrote:
>explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
>scatter (except for the holy game-balance)?

Every grenade I ever threw was timed. The one's shot from various launchers
exploded on impact.

Problem with "impact" grenades being thrown is that you have to be sure that
the trigger for the explosive gets set off and that you don't set it off by
gripping it a little to hard.


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------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 15
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 10:48:57 +0100
Technomancer said on 15 Jan 96...

> explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
> scatter (except for the holy game-balance)?

Because you can miss with them, and then they end up somewhere else where
they blow up.
Alright, maybe FASA handled it in a bit of a strange way, with finding the
scattr first and then reducing it with the successes rolled, but it does
seem a good way for hand-thrown grenades. For fired grenades, well...
maybe only roll for scatter if you miss the intended target?

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
He's trying to prove something. But what I don't know.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 16
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 10:48:58 +0100
TopCat said on 15 Jan 96...

> Every grenade I ever threw was timed. The one's shot from various launchers
> exploded on impact.

There are impact grenades in service at the moment, even in the U.S. Army
by my knowledge. They have a back-up timer fuse so they blow up even if
the impact isn't hard enough.
Anti-tank handgrenades (RKG-3 etc.) are also impact-fused, but then again
these always land nose-down :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
He's trying to prove something. But what I don't know.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 17
From: Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 11:48:07 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Technomancer wrote:

> explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
> scatter (except for the holy game-balance)?

Though more aerodynamic than thrown grenades, the grenades
launched from undermount launchers are quite large (40mm) and are more
drastically affected by atmospheric conditions than bullets are. A stiff
cross-wind can make rifle fire difficult, it can make grenade fire damn
near impossible. Thus, scatter is an abstract way of allowing for the
fact that more stuff can go wrong with a launched grenade than with a
bullet. You'll note that with only very few successes, scatter is
quickly reduced to nil, as experienced shooters can take these conditions
into account an correct for them.

Marc
Message no. 18
From: Douglas Berry <dberry@********.hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Grenades drekcetera
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 09:03:03 -0800
On Mon, 15 Jan 1996 Technomancer <arvanit@***.uch.gr> said:


>explode on impact. (That what a buddie in army told me.) Why is there a
scatter
>(except for the holy game-balance)?
>
Most grenade have a five second fuse (you hope). A hand grenade can do
quite a bit of bouncing and rolling in five seconds. I once saw a live
grende get thrown down range, hit a tree limb, bounce halfway back towards
the throwing pit, and begin rolling downslope in the direction of the
training area before it blew!

Also remember, grenades are a bitch to throw accurately. The scatter also
accounts for the sheer difficulty of putting one right where it needs to
go. Best way to think of this is baseball. A baseball ptcher has scads of
skill in throwing, practices every day, and still runs into problems
getting the ball where he wants it to go.

Oh, one final hint: If you use a grenade to clear a room, "cook off" a dew
seconds of the fuse before you throw it in.. otherwise the bad guys may
throw it back...


--
Douglas E. Berry - dberry@******.net
"Just because I work for the Federal government doesn't mean I'm an expert
on cockroaches."
-Fox Mulder

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