Backpack full of explosives, and it goes off??!!

[Volar the Healer]

Common explosives require both concussion and high temperature to detonate. For instance, you can burn C4 and other plastiques as a fuel to heat your coffee. Some specialty explosives can only be set off by one thing - usually an electric charge. A modern hand grenade throws fragments and won't set off anything.

In Star wars, blasters (which I think are particle beams) should set off common explosives. Specialty explosives should be avaialable for ten times the price and require a special microwave/graviton/technojargon/whatever detonator. I would rule if the player (or NPC) carrying the explosives rolls a one on the wild die when he rolls his strength to resist damage, the explosives are hit and detonate. That character dies blown into pieces, nothing he carries can be recovered, no, don't bother rolling. This is the risk all explosive enthusiests run. On any other roll, the man (being!?) is hit, but not the explosives.

I would not apply this rule to characters carrying one grenade / detonator. Only the suicide jockeys who carry - what did you call it - a backpack of explosives. Though I might allow a killing shot to destroy, but not detonate, the explosive/rocket launcher/missile instead - especially if it is essential to the mission. 'cuz I'm nice that way.
_________________
Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[Whill]

In my game, it's extremely unlikely for any character (PC or not) to ever have a "backpack of explosives". In my SWU, even grenades are very uncommon (highly illegal and very rare). Thermal detonators are perhaps more common than grenades but still expensive, rare and very dangerous (I always rule they detonate at point blank range to the thrower if the player rolls a 1 on the wild die to throw one as a grenade). If a character in my game ever would have a backpack of thermal detonators or even grenades, and they got hit by an explosive or perhaps a blaster bolt to the backpack, I would almost certainly rule some explosive goes off, and it would probably be bad for the character.

I agree with womprat about detonite not being volatile, so if it were a backpack full of detonate the character was wearing, I would not be inclined to rule it exploded.
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage

[garhkal]

Would you give them a dodge roll to 'simulate tossing the backpack away before the boom damages them'?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Whill]

[Naaman]

I would rule no dodge/reaction skill to toss away a backpack.

As Whill mentioned, not getting hit in the first place is the real solution.

[garhkal]

[Theodrim]

As a general rule, I go with "somewhat realistic" as others said: it depends on the type of ordnance in question.

[In the current game I'm running, my PC's carry and toss grenades around like it's a multiplayer match of Modern Warfare 2...but on the other hand, the NPC enemies are more than happy to return the favor. Not to mention my PC's are on the cusp of having to face down Storm Commando fire teams to have a reasonable challenge, so at this point a few grenades per encounter just thin out the small armies of mooks they're up against, and from a metagame perspective speed up fights.]

"Low-tech" munitions and volatiles I'll give that chance, but anything else I don't. Even C-22's have detonite cores, so practically nothing short of a direct-hit blaster bolt is going to cook one off inadvertently. As incompetent and uncaring as the Empire can be, you have to figure they've built some safety mechanisms into their own explosive devices to prevent cook-off, especially when Stormtroopers march and fight in such tight ranks. Otherwise, you'd end up in situations where a stray grenade, shell, or rocket is going to blow up an entire unit in one monstrous, exponentially-growing, domino chain of cooked-off ordnance.

Thermal detonators are miniature nuclear weapons -- supposition based upon what I know of real-life nuclear weapons incoming. Based upon what's been written about them in Legends content, they're implosion-type devices made of the baradium core, surrounded by the explosive shell. That requires very precise geometry in the shell, and instantaneity in the shell's detonation to achieve prompt criticality and the desired nuclear (in this case fusion) reaction. Anything that would damage the explosive shell's geometry, the internal priming charges' wiring, or the circuitry controlling the charges, would cause the thermal detonator to simply fail...well, as a thermal detonator anyhow.

It'd still be something of a weak fragmentation grenade, I suppose (3D damage in a 2m radius, maybe?). Now, that says nothing of a damaged thermal detonator becoming an (accidental) dirty bomb. Make of that what you will.

Anything beyond that -- like damaged rocket or missile ammunition, mortar shells, energy packs, and the whatnot -- I feel is much better-served saved for when the wielder(s) rolls a 1 on the wild die.

[tcschenks]

Cracken's Rebel Field Guide indicated that detonite inserted in the tips of slug thrower ammunition could explode via ignition but not via impact. An additional material that ignited upon impact was required to set off the detonite.

[garhkal]

On the TD side of house, several spots in the WEG books seem to indicate how unstable they are, so shouldn't they at least have a chance to be set off by the enemy exploding stuff around you?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[tcschenks]

Yes, extremely unstable. There is a Star Wars adventure journal - don't ask me which - that describes how to turn a thermal detonator into a dummy prop and gives a chance for it to blow up in the process. I have no idea why anyone would ever want to do that.

[gavin storm]

Messy...

Something a Darksider could do to an explosives expert. Seen this done before, bit on a smaller scale.
_________________
Gavin Storm
Causing Imperials headaches, one punch at a time, since 2000

[garhkal]

Well if you have a dark sider, he can just use TK to detonate the TD the demo guy is carrying!
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[MrNexx]

[garhkal]

So too many pcs tried using it, so rather than evening the field (have enemy also do it) you just gimped it?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[MrNexx]