| From: | Marc Renouf renouf@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Launched and Air-timed Grenades |
| Date: | Wed, 3 Mar 1999 09:21:46 -0500 (EST) |
> Are 'explode on contact' mini-grenades available? They'd make everything
> alot simplier for GMs and PCs [and allow a few nasty situations].
I've always assumed that all standard (i.e. not "air-timed")
grenade-launched grenades are contact triggered. The only way a
mini-grenade is going to bounce around is if it hits something and
ricochets before it has traveled its full arming distance (5m).
"Air-timed" grenades are only slightly different. They are set to
detonate after having traveled a certain distance (which is measured with
the rangefinder, and relayed to the launcher via the rangefinder grenade
link. This figures out how much time to delay the explosion, and sets the
grenade's fuse appropriately.
Note that this is only my own interpretation. Some people run it
differently. I have a GM friend who has ruled that the grenade has a mini
inertial navigation system, and thus "knows" how far it has flown (thus
taking "air timed" quite literally) and only explodes if it goes that
distance from its original location. I tend to think there are a few
problems with that interpretation, and go with the far simpler and more
robust "timed fuse" method. If it's good enough for the OICW, it's good
enough for me.
Note that any interpretation poses its own set of ramifications,
however. The way I run it (timed fuse), if the shooter scores a "hit"
(i.e. rolls any successes), there is *no* scatter. The grenade goes along
the trajetory the shooter has chosen, and detonates at the desired time.
Boom! Sucks to be the target. If the shooter misses, I handle the
situation much like Gurth describes, although I allow ricochets since the
grenade won't detonate on impact, but only after its "time" has elapsed.
This can lead to some funky situations, as a missed grenade bounces off
some object partway through its flight path, changes direction radically,
and explodes somewhere totally unintended.
This *can* be used to your advantage if you're careful, though. I
had a player with a rangefinder grenade-link, smartlink, mathSPU, and
rangefinders in his cybereyes calculate a distance-to-target (DTT) along a
ricochet path (he could see the target, but there was an armored-glass
barrier between them that he was "going around"). He calculated the
straight-line DTT with his cybereye rangefinder, used his math SPU to
figure out the proper angle and ricochet DTT, then used his cybereyes
again to find a random target at that distance, lased that target with his
rangefinder grenade link to set the timer to the desired delay, then
turned back and fired the now "mis-timed" grenade at the ricochet point.
The grenade bounced off the wall and travelled the "wrong" distance, which
was actually the "right" distance for that trajectory. All this
calculation took him a few actions, but even with all the modifiers I
piled on him for difficulty, he still got a success, and dropped an
air-timed mini-grenade bank-shot-style into his opponent's lap.
It was consistent with my interpretation of how air-timed
mini-grenades worked, so I let him do it. Not only that, I had to give
him smarts Karma for coming up with the idea in the first place, and
"Right Place, Right Time" karma for having all of the appropriate
cyberware and weaponry to pull off the shot that none of the rest of the
team could make.
Marc
