From: reanor@speedy.cs.pitt.edu (Jeffrey Getzin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Grenades (was SRUN: Magicalness and Dianetics)
Summary: Grenades can kill ... try this!
Date: 7 Apr 92 15:12:18 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept., University of Pittsburgh

>On a different note, I noticed this recent exchange:
>
>> thornt_g> Basically, mages in shadowrun are gods. They can do whatever they
>> thornt_g> like, whenever they like, and better than anyone without magic.
>> thornt_g> You let a plauer design a mage, just watch him assign particular
>> thornt_g> priorities in the right place, and BANG! He has a mage that can
>> thornt_g> do anything! You name it! Dial-A-Spell!
>>
>> Here, eat my 1/2 level fireball (tosses a grenade). Scratch 1 mage.
>
>What Shadowrun are you playing, and how can I get your grenades which
>actually *kill* somebody? :-) :-)
>

Try this modification to grenade rules and see how nice they become
now:

	1) Armor counts only as extra dice.   (blasts tend to find
	   cracks in the armor rather easily)

	2) After reducing error distance, each extra success increases
	   wound severity by one.

Example, Joe the Barbarian uses his Ak-98 with grenade launcher at
Fred the Samurai.    His skill is 6, so he rolls 6 dice and because
of smartgun gets 5 success.

Rolling 4D6 for error distance I get 14 meters.   One success brings
it to 9 meters, two successes bring it to four, and three successes
bring it to no dead on-target.   These remaining two successes are
used to place where on the target you're actually hitting.   With
two extra successes, the 6M3 has its wound severity increased
twice, 6M3 -> 6S3 -> 6D3.

Now your opponent has to resist a 6D3 with only dodge, body, and armor
counting as dice.    Grenades hurt.

If you're feeling benevolent, there are two variants of the above rule
mod:

		Variant One)  As above, but armor dice have a +4 bonus
			      to whatever is rolled (a rolled 2 counts
			      as a 6, for example).

		Variant Two)  As above, but extra successes count for
			      STAGING.   So it would take THREE
			      extra successes to go from a 6M3 to
			      a 6S3, and THREE MORE to go to 6D3.


I hope this makes your players shiver all the more.

On a side note, the following just happened in-game.   Really messy.

The party was infiltrating a camp which had an airplane and a helicopter.
They planned to escape in the helicopter, so they were going to set
up timed explosives on the plane.

The person on the plane, however, was spotted.   Rather than risk
it, the security (who were extremely skilled hired mercs) blasted
her with a mere defensive grenade.

The woman was wearing partial heavy, dermal, and had a body of 6.  She
didn't see the attacker so she got no dodge.   After all was said and
done, she brought it down to a Moderate Wound.

But then the explosives she was carrying went off.

Ouch.

Then that explosion set off the plane's gas tanks.

Double Ouch.

But she lived, although it took trauma patches galore, and nuyen
in the vicinity of 270,000 (including replacement organs, surgery,
hospitalization, etc.)   And no surprise, a piece of her cyberware
(beta-grade no less) got munched too.

Grenades can hurt if they're aimed at the right thing.   In this
case it wasn't her, it was what she was carrying.

			=*()*()* Jeff *()*()*=



--
					---
Jeffrey Getzin
saintdor@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp