How do you handle explosive damage?

[Weaselwolf]

How do you handle explosive damage?

Here's the thing, in the main book it says for explosives "Damage is applied to the overall body rather than to a location."

That line lead to some different interpretations amongst the group.
Some said that it means that the damage is applied like a chest wound would be. Direct to your wound track, just once. Mini-missile goes off, roll 4d6, take 18 damage and pray your armor soaked most of it. Chances are if you have any kind of armor, you just brushed it off.

The Reff and a few others read it that 'overall body' means "to every location"...so you get hit by a mini-missile, you roll 4d6 for your chest, 4d6 for your right arm, 4d6 for your left arm, 4d6 to your right leg, etc, etc...which makes them insanely lethal if you don;t happen to have great armor everywhere (especially the head which is often hardest to armor).

The RAW seems to go either way, and it's hard to refute the logic that yes, you can get your arms, legs and/or head blown off in an explosion, and that you really, really need to avoid getting hit with a missile or grenade.

But it just seems obscenely lethal to me, especially considering how cheap grenades are. Sure, a frag grenade costs about as 100 rounds of very heavy autopistol ammo...but that's still like 30-40 bucks and will instantly splatter just about anyone in a fairly sizable radius. (7d6 to 5m radius, 3d6 to 6-10)

How does everyone else handle blast damage?

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

I treated different types of explosive differently.

Mini-missiles are only small, and even though they have an explosive blast, they are impact detonated and thus focus their damage on the struck location.

Plastique and grenades, (unless they are in direct contact with the target,) apply their blast damage globally. These large explosions ignored armour, the same as HEP rounds, dealing concussive damage as well as lethal damage and mashing armour. If the explosive was in contact eith the target, then I applied the same damage as a regular blast, but a added the same damage again to the specific location as well.

That is how I played it anyway.

Explosives were especially lethal in my games.

 

[wisdom000]

When writing IU, I came across the same problem. This is how Interlock Unlimited covers explosive damage:

EXPLOSIVE DAMAGE: To determine effects and damage for
anyone caught in the Blast Radius of an Explosion, first determine
the targets distance from the center of the blast. Next figure the
Area Of Effect Range.
Targets that are hit directly by explosives, or are in point blank
range of detonation, take maximum damage
For every yard away from the Point Of Explosion damage is
reduced by 1 Die increment (shaped or directional charges are
reduced by 2 Die increments).
Explosive damage is taken to 1 location for every 2 Die of damage
(round up) the character(s) in the Blast Radius receives.

For Example: Jack throws a grenade at a group of enemy
soldiers, trying to hit the center of the group. He rolls his
athletics to hit and gets an 18, the grenade hits dead center but
rolls 2 yards to the north before exploding because Jack gets
nervous about holding onto live explosives. The grenade
exploded right at one soldiers feet, doing 7D6 damage to 4
locations (both legs, his torso, and an arm). That soldier
disappears in a fine red mist. One of the other soldiers is only
a yard away, he takes 5D6 damage to 3 locations (head, right
arm, torso), killing him as well. Another soldier was at the
edge of the blast 5 yards away, he only takes 2d6 damage to 1
location, his left leg. He is alive, but in pain. The last soldier
was clear of the Blast Radius and is coming after Jack hard.

 

[Weaselwolf]

I like the one location per 2 dice thing. Keeps things like micromissiles and mini-grenades from being too nasty but still keeps large explosives instantly fatal.

My brother has thought about implementing a sort of 'splash damage' system where explosive attacks hit the random location plus any location ajacent to it...so a torso hit hits everything, head would hit head arms and torso, leg would be both legs and torso, arm would probably be one arm the torso and either the head or a leg.

 

[Sardukhar]

Damage across the body, armour stops it, but if you aren't armoured anywhere, damage gets through there. That's for general, C4 style explosives and frag grenades. Within reason - you're lying face down away from the grenade, your head is probably okay.

Explosive damage is apparently pretty nasty, yeah, which works out for us. Either you're totally armoured and maybe okay or whatever isn't protected, is smeared.

Micromissiles are more like bullets to us and are treated as heat-seeking bullets, not explosives.

 

[fuzzytroll]

I'm thinking explosives that have a radius of 2m or less (using 2m squares for combat) and shaped charges aimed at the target applying splash rules: Leg hit hits both legs and torso, Arm hit hits that arm and torso, Head hit hits head and torso, torso hits all. Roll once for damage and apply to all locations allowed a solo in the pre-built tutorial to survive a grenade attack that rolled shit and made the attack faster running then rolling 6 times (hard enough to get through a high rolling burst attack without being sick of counting dice).
For explosions bigger then 2m anyone standing at the blast point takes maximum damage to all locations (don't stand on grenades!), those within 1/2 the blast radius take one roll applied to all locations (likely to survive if armored, but certainly painful) and from 1/2 radius to edge of blast take splash damage (probably no sweat if armored, but still dangerous).
This makes small explosives more dangerous then bullets, as they should be but less fatal then the big bangs. Bigger explosives are of course still pretty dangerous, but if you aren't the guy who stepped on the mine (who is never NOT fucked) you have good odds of at least living. Besides, who doesn't have cyber-legs Chooms?

 

[doomblade403x]

I was watching an episode of burn notice this morning and in the voice over Westen described the four lethal portions of the explosion.

1. Concussion

2. Shrapnel

3. Fire

4. Oxygen Depletion

Any one of these could be lethal but exposure to all four would be devestating.

 

[cycoholic]

Sorry for digging up an older post.

When writing IU, I came across the same problem. This is how Interlock Unlimited covers explosive damage:

This sounds like how we dealt with explosives. I think. It's been a long time, that and I can't find our house rules from grenades. Which lead me to searching these forums for how other people handled them. I think your ruleset handles them a little better than ours. We did something similar with locations, and for explosive radius we used the rules from LUYPSH.

 

[Don_Carnage]

Wisdom's IU rules worked best for our game.

 

[jacqsynn]

I just like rolling damage applying it to the person as a whole have them make any saves as needed, then roll a hit location and seeing if that is still there after the bang by having them make a save for that limb. My players hate it when I roll 1's

 

[Frankensteel]

I treated different types of explosive differently.

Mini-missiles are only small, and even though they have an explosive blast, they are impact detonated and thus focus their damage on the struck location.

Plastique and grenades, (unless they are in direct contact with the target,) apply their blast damage globally. These large explosions ignored armour, the same as HEP rounds, dealing concussive damage as well as lethal damage and mashing armour. If the explosive was in contact eith the target, then I applied the same damage as a regular blast, but a added the same damage again to the specific location as well.

That is how I played it anyway.

Explosives were especially lethal in my games.

I likes that because explosives are truly devastating and the 2 dice = 2 hit location rule from interlock unlimited won't suit me ( wearing full metalgear u can't be wounded by 2d6 damage even by multiple hits, not enough penetration by the maths) It's seems good for a shrapnel grenade but not for pure destructive blast damage likes bombs or howitzers, blast does internal global damage bypassing armor as HEP rule. Some factors, hard cover, prone position and blast confinement can halve or multiply the base damage.

BUT, explosives are deadly but some people survived it because of sheer luck. If explosives rules are too deadly, it became boring and it's time a LUCK check for unlucky people in the blast zone, (1d10+LUCK vs damage to take minimum damage only), give them a chance.:yes

 

[Suhiira]

Wisdom's rules have a couple problems.

Explosions, like any other force are subject to the laws of physics. The effects are dramatically reduced by the distance from the center of the blast. For instance a 2000 pound Mk-84 bomb has a blast radius of 400 yards (365 meters). So the obvious rule-of-thumb in 1 yd per 2# of explosives. And the damage should be reduced by half for each doubling of the radius.
That's why almost all grenades/artillery/bombs are fragmentation rather then pure concussion.

Directed explosion ammo (HEAT) has very little effect (comparatively) if you're not in direct line with the explosion.