How does combat situation with thermal detonators work

[MattMartin23]

Hi All,

So in my upcoming adventure there are sniper NPCs that are targeting the PCs. These same snipers will hurl thermal detonators at crew once they realize that their rounds can't pierce through the characters' body armors. How exactly does the resistance against thermal detonators work. My player's sourcebook is at home and I am writing this on the fly.

These are notes I listed:

NPC will have a Grenade skill of 5D, hurls from 30 meters away (out of blast radius)

I figure he needs to roll a 25 to hit. I am giving a 15 (high moderate) as difficulty and saying that trees in the woods may affect his targeting.

I thought of the following possibilities on 1D6 if he fails his throwing roll:

1-2: underthrows by 15 meters; 4D shrapnel damage to target
3-4: underthrows by 10 meters; 5D shrapnel damage to target
5-6: overthrows by 15 meters; 4D shrapnel damage to target

To give the players the benefit from the failure to hit:

I was thinking that if the players declare a dodge that they would roll their dodge. If their dodge roll beats the shrapnel damage roll they are unharmed. If their dodge toll fails to beat the shrapnel roll they are damaged but only by shrapnel. Thus at worst, the PCs would be hit with 5D Damage v. their strength plus armor. In most cases this would be 5D Damage v. 4D Strength plus +2D armor v. Physical attacks.

Is there a better way for me to handle this? Just curious.

Thanks,

Matthew

[Naaman]

I kmow grenade deviation is covered in the rules but i am away from my books at the moment as well.

What you've got looks pretty good, though, if you're going to have to wing it. I might add that the trees could provide cover to anyone close enough. You have accounted for this with the high diff, but there is just one more option to consider.

Also, you could scale the damage according to margins of success/failure of the dodge roll... Just some thoughts.

[Fallon Kell]

Are you talking about thermal detonators or frag grenades? Thermal detonators don't throw shrapnel, and tend to do pretty spectacular damage on target. If your NPC gets a 25, you can probably expect a total party kill.

As far as blast radii and scatter patterns for misses go, you can find what you need on the Rancorpit homepage. Black bar at the top, WEG info, charts and tables, Page 2.

I use a differen scatter chart. 6 is up, 1 is down, 2 is left, 5 is right, 3 is too near, 4 is too far.
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[vanir]

Thermal detonators are an energy damaging weapon, they don't throw shrapnel but detonate in a thermal energy blast/shock wave. They damage as a heat/energy weapon rather than physical damage, making them more effective against most armour.

The blast radius is actually much larger than the throw distance/ranges. So you have to throw them and run the other way or duck behind cover, or you'll get caught in the blast. Even if throwing one at long range (12 metres) you still need to do a full move in the opposite direction immediately upon throwing it or else you get caught in the blast, which extends to 20 metres. If you throw one to long range and just stand there, you'll take 5D energy damage yourself.

With avoiding grenade damage you really need to map the PC positions and grenade hurlers. Avoiding blast radius is as much about movement as it is about dodge scores and attack values. As an indirect weapon (you can lob them over/from cover), you don't need to target specific individuals particularly if the enemy isn't moving and/or is behind cover and/or can't see the thrower in their line of sight. Grenade throwers typically use them against stationary troop concentrations, that's the smart way to use grenades. The target isn't a person, it's a spot close to a few people. Dodges don't mean anything, you have to physically get outside the blast radius from the spot the grenade hit on the ground, using moves. It's about getting distance, aint about not getting hit.
The fuse isn't a contact fuse it's a timed fuse, on a 3 sec fuse you count two and throw, a second later it hits a designated spot close to some enemy and explodes. Hopefully it catches a few people in the close range blast radius. That's the idea of them. For specific targets you use direct fire weapons like blasters. If you throw a grenade at a single, moving target then you'd have to beat their dodge to catch them in the blast radius, otherwise it's about the ground location the grenade hits and the movement of PCs to get away from this area, dancing all day with a somersault and backflip does absolutely nothing for them if they're still standing in the same spot, 3 metres from where a grenade landed and the fuse timed out: boom.

Okay say you have 3 PCs kneeling behind some 3/4 cover pinned down by enemy blaster fire, returning fire with their own blasters. That's a good time to use a grenade or thermal detonator. You don't aim your throw at any particular PC, the thrower says, "I'll throw my thermal detonator into the pack just over their cover." His difficulty is the range difficulty and a successful roll means it lands square in the midst of the pack, say each is 3m from a central point, that's where the thermal lands.
Now the PCs can reaction dodge, but what they need to do is use moves with it. Say one says, "I'll dodge and fire on the thrower," the next says, "I'll dodge, make one move and fire on the thrower," the third says, "I'm gonna dodge and run two moves from that grenade (you can't tell one grenade from another in the heat of battle really)."
So the thrower is say, 10 metres away behind some cover of his own, pops up and lobs the thermal and rolls a 22 so makes range. The PC dodges are irrelevant as he's not targeting any one of them specifically, he's throwing into the pack. PC 1 dives for only 5m distance (for a total of 8m from ground zero) and takes 8D damage despite rolling say a 50 on his dodge with 13D skill. It's about movement and distance here, catch my drift? PC 2 gets 13m for 2D damage (may have a radiation survival roll however, in our game thermals are mini-nukes and do neutrino shock, blast wave, heat/energy damage, and radiation throw so they're super scary) and PC 3 made 20 metres so takes no damage even though he only rolled a 10 for his dodge because he has 4D skill. Now what I do here is just use the dodge roll as a movement difficulty roll for terrain difficulty, same as a running roll except it applies as a dodge for blaster/direct fire in the same sequence.

That's what makes grenades cool and handy troop support weapons. The only thing better is a mortar or a pack howitzer. Seriously, at close range, grenades are tough for soldiers to deal with, the high attrition rate at Stalingrad is fully half due to grenades being lobbed from trench to trench left right and centre everywhere you went. Find a nice hide in a basement? Soon as you fire one shot you had a dozen grenades come over the rubble back at you. I have diary records of the battle irl, scary stuff.

But...the trick with grenades is keep on the move. Keep moving around, and grenades are next to impossible to target individual troops with. That's the secret, you do not, you do not use grenades against a person's dodge. Use them against stationary troop concentrations. Use them like the simplest form of indirect artillery fire.



That brings me to snipers. Also discussed at length in our group, and also marked by house rules to make them more interesting, more realistic, better suited to high level gaming and just plain more detailed.

We use sniper skills the same way as Lightsabre Forms in combat, with special bonuses for sniper techniques. The rule goes, if you're specialised in the weapon you're using, eg. Blaster: blaster rifle, then you can do special shots. When taking a round to aim and prepare, instead of gaining +1D blaster to hit the following round, you can choose to add +1D to damage. So I get my specialised sniper rifle, I use my specialisation of Blaster: Blaster Rifle, and I line you up through the scope for a round, rest the weapon against a hard surface, get my +1D for a braced shot, turn my +1D blaster for an aimed/prepared shot into a +1D damage for a sniper shot to the head. Plus if I have a special scope for additional benefits I get that.

Then some people add other house rules for snipers, such as for each group of 3 points you exceed the enemy dodge/difficulty for the shot, you get an extra dice damage, I haven't used that sort of rule in our game yet. So far we've kept it simple that a special sniper shot just reselects where the dice bonus for aiming goes: damage or blaster skill, up to the Player.

Still, a 6D blaster damage is pretty good for acheiving damage on most armoured PCs. And you can add GM specials like say, if a sniper is doing an aimed heartshot for maximum damage, even if the 6D damage only stuns or wounds the character, you can rule they also have to make a very difficult stamina roll or increase the damage class by one level due to system shock of a precise sniper shot, or whatever rule you think appropriate, if it is a very well role played and pivotal adventure moment. Or say you might let them, for an aimed sniper shot, add 1-2 Character Points to the damage (maximum 2 CP).

[garhkal]

What Vanir says.. Thermal detonators are more for using with Demolitions skill, not grenades skill. Even if throwing it, you will be in the 3rd blast radius zone..

Thermal Detonator
Model: Standard thermal detonator
Type: Explosive
Scale: Character
Skill: Grenade
Cost: 2,000
The Star Wars Roleplaying Game
Weapons and Equipment
Availability: 2, X
Range: 3-4/7/12
Blast Radius: 0-2/8/12/20
Damage: 10D/8D/5D/2D

So if they throw it the furthest they can, the pc's will end up being in the 4th blast zone (2d) while the snipers themselves will be in the 5d zone.
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[ZzaphodD]

If Im not mistaken you can actually dodge grenades by the RAW..

If you beat the 'attack roll' (ie: roll to throw the grenade) you take no damage as you 'hit the deck'. Very stupid indeed, but I think thats the RAW (Which I dont play by btw. A characters dodge will get him certain meters away from where he is standing when the nade hits).
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[vanir]

Quite right ZzaphodD, in RAW the presumption is a specific character is being targeted on the run by the grenade thrower, to land it within immediate blast radius versus his dodge to change direction and duck into some cover from the blast.

But here I think, particularly with special weapons and specialised combat techniques, the idea of RAW is a great general guideline to keep the action moving when you're not really roleplaying every little detail of the combat encounter.
But I think like the way there are optional rules for enhanced lightsabre duelling, optional/house rules make sense for special weapons and special combat techniques, if your particular gaming group is very interested in enhancing these particular details of combat. I know mine is, because most of our group are military enthusiasts, with combat veterans in the family and war stories they've grown up with, and they want to see that kind of action in the game. They want to see how artillery works differently when indirect fire and when used over open sights, they want to see why grenades are so useful despite being very dangerous items for a trooper to carry around (think about it, you've got a powerful explosive strapped to your chest webbing and you're running into combat with hot bits of metal flying around you, diving all over the place...).

So I think if you don't need the extra detail and just want to keep the action moving, you can use RAW and treat grenades just like any other aimed weapon shot at specific characters. But if your group wants to enhance the detail or you need to squeeze some extra kudos out of an enemy NPC group just to take on your PCs, then using some optional/house rules for special equipment is a smarter alternative than just piling on extreme skills or teleporting E-Webs into enemy positions.
Which don't get me wrong, when we played simpler using RAW, I did this because you pretty much had to.

Now what I prefer to do, is have a Stormtrooper squad equipped like a proper military assault squad, using special weapons. Grenades and blaster rifles yes, but a sergeant will have a vibroweapon and some skill with it, a heavy weapons trooper will have a support weapon like a medium repeater or a Plex launcher for antivehicle. One trooper will possibly have a concussion rifle or a particle weapon as a special item for alien encounters (re: movie Aliens, "I like to keep this handy...for close encounters").
My house rules: a concussion rifle does concussion damage directly against the eyes, ears and brain of a PC the same way as Concussion Grenades work for SWAT irl. Even if you're wearing armour, unless you have special headgear protection or a sealed suit, if you wear armour without a helmet then you still take full concussion damage, because it works against your head and does brain mushing damage. So PCs without headgear, don't get armour bonus against concussion weapons (rifles or grenades).
Meanwhile a particle weapon shoots straight through ceramic and polymer armours like Stormtrooper armour, most bounty hunter armour and other modern armour types. The only type of armour that gives you bonus against particle weapons is metal armour, old school, heavy and encumbering, it's the armour like Link Armour and Old Republic armours, or Gamorrean armour plates, that have very high Dexterity penalties (eg. +2 vs energy, +1D vs physical, -1D Dexterity penalty, this is a very high quality metal armour as you can see doesn't protect as well for the same encumberment compared to modern armours). So most PCs won't get an armour bonus against particle weapons, making it another excellent heavy combat support weapon.

Use special items and optional/house rules I think, when you need to squeeze some extra capabilities from a trooper group.

[garhkal]

For sparks we separate it into 2 cats..
Cat 1 are aerodynamic grenades of 6d or less damage. Successful dodge means you take no damage even if you are close but lying down.
Cat 2 are for unaerodynamic explosives of 6d+1 and higher damage, which a successful dodge shifts you down 2 'blast ranges'..
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[ZzaphodD]

The Raw rules for grenades have nothing to do with aiming grenades at specific characters. You throw the genade at a specific point and everyone in the blast radius gets to dodge vs the throwers attack roll. success means no damage. As I said I dont play it that way, instead the dodge roll indicates how far you manage to throw yourself before hitting the deck.. Also, dodging grenades is always a 'full dodge' without the range bonus.
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[MattMartin23]

Okay, I think I have a plan...

The bad guy NPC will require a 25 or higher to hit. Reason is that there is a -10 penalty to his roll because of the tall trees in the woods and he needs a high moderate roll of 15 to hit. 24 and under results in the miss.

He is hurling it 12 meters and turning to run. His grenade skill is 5D. With the -10 penalty on 5D it will not be easy to get 25 or higher.

The miss will provide an auto-benefit to the PCs as it will deviate by 3D meters from the PCs. There is a chance with a miss that the thermal detonator will do 2D damage most to the PCs and NPCs, totally do-able.

In the event it is a hit to the target, the characters will be able to dodge and depending on their roll I will let them clear 1D meters on a easy, 2D meters on moderate, 3D meters on a difficult.

Movement against impact grenade does not make sense as it will be difficult to see. Only reaction allowed would be dodge. Being that the characters are in armor, their dodges are reduced by 1D.

So let's say the detonator hits. PC 1 rolls a moderate dodge. On 2D he rolls a 4 and a 3. He dodges 7 meters. His damage is reduced to 5D. His strength is 4D+2 plus his armor gives him +1D to energy. The situation is fairly even as the 5D Detonator is attaching a 5D+2 strength.

PC2 rolls a difficult level dodge. On 3D he rolls a 12. He dodges 12 meters. His damage is reduced to 2D. This character has strength of 4D and body armor of +1D v. energy. Damage roll is 16 as bad guys roll 2 sixes including a 6 on wild die and another 4. On 5D, PC rolls 16. Tie goes to PC, no damage.

NPC1 with 5D dodge skill rolls a 1 on the wild die and is left with only a easy dodge for a combined 8. On 1D the NPC rolls a 3. The NPC is only able to dodge 4 meters. NPC takes 8D Damage. Roll 31 damage by the detonator. The NPC has 4D Strength Plus 1D with armor. The NPC rolls 21 v. the damage and is incapacitated.

NPC2 rolls a moderate dodge and yet rolls only a 10 on 2D so character will take 5D damage. Character has 5D strength and body armor of +1D. Character should do okay unless he rolls horribly.

I think this is pretty good. So long as the characters don't roll crappy they should live. Unless a second thermal detonator is hurled from the opposite direct right after. I am so evil at times...

Also to me the damage should read like this.

Range to throw is 12 meters. If character hits he is 12 meters from the target explosion. Under that principle he should only take 3D damage as he is farther than closer from the explosion. It should be based on distance from the target area. That is how it will be run in my game.

If it is a miss and it is a scatter and it does not go as far as he wants it, then he would take more damage as determined by the scatter roll and the 3D meter rule. It has to be moderately realistic and make sense.

0-2 meters; 10D Damage
3-4 meters; 8D Damage
5-6 meters; 6D Damage
7-8 meters; 5D Damage
9-10 meters; 4D Damage
11-12 meters; 3D Damage
13-20 meters; 2D Damage

Thanks for all for imput.

Matt

[vanir]

[MattMartin23]

[vanir]

Last time I had NPCs toss a thermal into a PC group it went something like this:


Black armoured Scout Troopers? No way! We're ducking behind the trash compactors.

Okay roll Perception.

Bugger that I'm using Tactics: squads, I got 5D.

Okay roll your Tactics: squads versus their initiative.

Yeah I got 19.

Okay they're 12 you win. Want to act first or wait and see?

You're kidding right? We duck behind cover man.

Everybody taking shots?

Yup.

Cool. It's pretty confined cover, you'll have to pack together behind the trash compactors, there's three of you and about six metres of space to huddle in.

Yup, that's what we do. And return fire from cover. I'm aiming.
Me too, I'm gonna rest my blaster rifle on the top of the trash compactor to return fire.
I'm just going to move around as I can and fire over the top.

Okay if you bunch behind the trash compactors you've got 3/4 cover, but bracing your rifle for +1D blaster skill means you expose yourself a bit more for 1/2 cover, got it?

Yup, we're cool with that.

Okay so you all dive for cover behind the trash compactors and two of you brace blaster rifles for +1D blaster skill, but only 1/2 cover, and the third is just popping up for a base skill shot at 3/4 cover, right?

Yup, that's our actions declaration.

A grenade-like object comes over the top and four blaster shots as they move and reposition themselves behind some half-cover, in accordance with your actions.

Oh crap I'm gonna bolt (reactionary dodge with 2 moves, still has his shot too).
I'm gonna shoot the thrower and dodge (half move, reactionary dodge, aim and shoot).
Me too (reactionary dodge at half move, aim and shoot).

Physical positioning means at least two PCs are caught within about 8 metres of a thermal detonator blast radius. Anything else is just a logical fallacy.
Third PC has around 23 metres distance to gain from the blast if his dodge is ahead of the throw.

The enemy throw itself is just a range difficulty to hit the area behind the trash compactors, he's not aiming at anyone specifically and the question really becomes one of how far can you get from that blast location during the round?

[Fallon Kell]

[garhkal]

Or as one pc tried (and flubbed the try).. use his blaster rifle to bat it back!
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