A situation came up in a game I was playing the other night where a powerful Nemesis confronted the party and people started to throw Thermal Detonators, because with Damage 20 Breach 1 they are one of the hardest hitting weapons in the game. The issue that I started having with that whole scene was that Thermal Detonators were being thrown at an enemy that was in short or even engaged range with other player characters, and people insisted that as long as they don't trigger Blast there was no danger to anyone else but the enemy.

This just rubbed me all kinds of wrong, but the rules seem to agree, Blast does hit Friends as well as Foes, but it has to be triggered for the weapon to actually have an explosive effect. There is mention of the GM being allowed to declare that Blast hits everyone, but it specifically refers to enclosed spaces, and the GM in that game didn't think it was appropriate to invoke that rule.

What's more annoying is that if you actually play a Demolitionist or Saboteur you get a talent called Selective Blast that allows you to exclude friendly targets from detonations, so the game recognizes the value of being able to use explosive weapons inside of a group of friendlies, but it doesn't seem to acknowledge that some explosive weapons are so powerful that using them on a single powerful target that is surrounded by friendlies might easily end up being your best attack if you simply don't trigger blast.

Is there something I'm overlooking here? If I was GMing I'd say Thermal Detonators explode whether or not you trigger blast, triggering blast merely establishes whether you hit more than one enemy, but that is bending the rules as written. It really bothers me to think that in the Scene where Leia threatens Jabba with a Thermal Detonator there was actually no danger to anyone but Jabba himself as long as she doesn't trigger Blast.

RAW, the GM's permissiveness seems technically sound- but in his place I would definitely be using double threats to inadvertently activate the blast quality; such destructive and unstable devices should not be used with impunity.

" When using a thermal detonator. any f result on the check means the detonator explodes prematurely. The wielder takes full damage from the weapon unless he can perform an additional maneuver to try to get clear; in this case, he only suffers the Blast damage. " and this alone makes them risky to use against a nemesis?

Besides, your players are throwing rarity 8 weapons away without getting significant extra damage over other heavy weapons, 2,000 credits a piece, while a missile tube would do the job just fine. ;-)

16 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

RAW, the GM's permissiveness seems technically sound- but in his place I would definitely be using double threats to inadvertently activate the blast quality; such destructive and unstable devices should not be used with impunity.

Yea, but throwing a TD is an easy check, the likelyhood of it generating 2 uncancelled threats is minimal.

14 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

" When using a thermal detonator. any f result on the check means the detonator explodes prematurely. The wielder takes full damage from the weapon unless he can perform an additional maneuver to try to get clear; in this case, he only suffers the Blast damage. " and this alone makes them risky to use against a nemesis?

Yes it does, but this hole in the rules also applies to any other Blast weapon. It's just that most blast weapons aren't stronger than just using a gun, so the value of throwing them if you don't intend to detonate them is very limited.

I've seen a Saboteur that effectively uses grenades as melee weapons. Between Time to Go and Selective Detonation, it's mechanically viable even if it seems absurd.

2 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Yea, but throwing a TD is an easy check, the likelyhood of it generating 2 uncancelled threats is minimal.

I think this might be part of the issue.

Why is it an Easy check against such a powerful nemesis? As far as I can see, it's Ranged Light check, Adversary should apply. You're trying to hit the space that he presently occupies, just like if you were shooting him with a blaster.

Also, in the description of the Thermal Detonator, to paraphrase, it says even if the Blast quality isn't activated, it still detonates.

However, I believe your situation infers a larger problem. In my opinion, the players are absolutely abusing a strange loophole, and your GM seems perfectly fine with it. Thermal Detonators that explode to do damage but the players just "don't activate" the Blast quality? How does that even happen? As the GM, this would just be a "no", simply because that's just kind of ridiculous. The players are trying to use the advantages of a tool without the extremely negative consequences associated with it, and have managed to either convince or browbeat your GM into accepting this. That may be a problem.

What's next? "Okay, I leap out of the speeder and plummet 5,000 meters to the ground. I choose not to take falling damage."

Yes, that's preposterous, but it is no less preposterous to me than hucking grenades that do damage without exploding.

Just my opinion though.

It still explodes is the key here. You need to hit your targets with blast if you want to gain the guaranteed blast damage, but with all blast weapons there is still this line appling when they explode: " In a relatively small and enclosed area, the Game Master might decide that everyone in the room suffers damage"

Still, usually you should be save at short, personal scale weapons with blast have still a moderate sized explosion radius. So GMs should not be hypercritical about those weapons either, they will not be problematic if you stand in a reasonable distance and the room is not a death trap with reflecting blast waves which force most of the explosion into your direction. *g*

45 minutes ago, R5D8 said:

.

What's next? "Okay, I leap out of the speeder and plummet 5,000 meters to the ground. I choose not to take falling damage."

Yes, that's preposterous, but it is no less preposterous to me than hucking grenades that do damage without exploding.

Just my opinion though.

1 I agree with the sentiment and your assessment in the context of exploding grenades/thermal detonators without activating blast.

2 I don't agree with the wording of your example, give a major league pitcher a grenade with a busted pin that can't be pulled and he could do significant damage to a single opponent without hurting someone next to him.

3 the big bad in the op's post should have at least had adversary 3, 2 or more points of defense and I would be inclined to give him time to go (if retroactively on the spot, because npcs can have whatever talents the gm wants), if my players started chucking thermal detonator scoring hits with out activating blast or scoring threats and I wasn't inclined to say no or flip a destiny point from black to white as narrative fiat to activate blast because for some reason I had too much compassion on my players to kill their pcs for stupidity, then I would go to time to go and flip destiny points from black to white in exchange for them wasting 2000 credits a pop. But I honestly don't have that much compassion on my players or rather their characters

https://youtu.be/zEu_U78XFg4?t=73

Seems pretty normal in the source material....

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

2 I don't agree with the wording of your example, give a major league pitcher a grenade with a busted pin that can't be pulled and he could do significant damage to a single opponent without hurting someone next to him.

I would agree, if we weren't talking about 20 points of damage, Breach 1, Vicious 4. Yes, a major league pitcher could bean someone hard enough with a dead grenade and kill him. But hard enough to do more damage than any other hand held weapon in existence? And hard enough to ignore the thickest personal body armor? I do not believe the damage they list for a thermal detonator is for merely beaning someone in the head with it. (It's entirely possible I could have misunderstood what you meant though)

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

https://youtu.be/zEu_U78XFg4?t=73

Seems pretty normal in the source material....

Not being an expert in Mandalore tactics, I couldn't say if those were Thermal Detonators or "merely" Frag Grenades, but yes, this could be a very cinematic way of handling things. I believe the OP's situation though, is that they were being thrown at the Nemesis for full damage without hitting the Players that he was engaged with.

However, perhaps I was too harsh with my words in the first post. The problem could be addressed next time by giving the Nemesis 1 or 2 ranks of Adversary and (if this was the situation) making the players roll to hit the nemesis with the grenades.

Ranks of Adversary are all well and good, but I don't think the issue is that it's too easy to achieve a positive roll, but that there simply shouldn't be any situations where you gain a benefit from not spending advantages. Especially considering that it's a high end demolitionist talent to exclude targets maybe weapons with blast should simply always hit all friendlies in the area, regardless of whether the quality was triggered or not, and triggering it is only required so that enemies don't dive out of the way.

Another huge thing about Thermal Detonators that people ignore is that since they have short range and a blast radius out to short there is actually no way for an untrained person to throw a TD in impact mode and not be caught in the blast. Only a trained demolitionist can use a TD safely when it's set to impact mode. Any other character would have to use the delayed detonation mode to get out of its area of effect before it blows.

Also, another question: What happens if an explosive weapon goes off without having made an attack roll? As a GM I'd say it obviously blows up for full damage, but it's once again a situation where if you're running on the pure wording of the Blast quality it wouldn't harm anyone, since no advantages were rolled.

12 hours ago, Aetrion said:

[...]an enemy that was in short or even engaged range with other player characters[...]

Greetings,

don't forget that any ranged attack on an enemy with an engaged ally receives an auto-upgrade, i.e. the attack will have at least one red die and therefore at least 1/12 chance for a despair. And when that despair hits:

"[...] if the attacker's check succeeds but generates at least one Despair, that Despair is automatically spent to make the attacker hit one of the individuals engaged with the target (of the GM's choice), instead of hitting the target."

If the target also has ranks in adversary, throwing TDs at them while an ally is engaged becomes really dangerous for that ally...

Apart from that, as a GM I would spent 2 Threats to trigger blast for the player, as others suggested. Playing around with TDs should be dangerous for everyone involved.

May the Triumph be with you

Fred

38 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

Another huge thing about Thermal Detonators that people ignore is that since they have short range and a blast radius out to short there is actually no way for an untrained person to throw a TD in impact mode and not be caught in the blast. Only a trained demolitionist can use a TD safely when it's set to impact mode. Any other character would have to use the delayed detonation mode to get out of its area of effect before it blows.

I guess you could set the timer really short, such that you can still take a maneuver after throwing it to get to medium range. One maneuver less for you to aim. And since no one else gets a maneuver, the TD still behaves like impact mode except for you. But otherwise you are right, only a trained demolitionist can use them in true impact mode without risking to be caught in the blast.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

a blast radius out to short there

They have, I thought blast with range short was for planetary scale weapons while personal scale ones like frag grenades or thermal detonators have engaged. Don't get me wrong, for thermals I think short is appropriated, but I still would like to the source for that, as I though blast stated engage with original target and did not see any special rules attached to the thermal detonator in the core book. Is this in the hired gun career book?

5 hours ago, R5D8 said:

However, perhaps I was too harsh with my words in the first post. The problem could be addressed next time by giving the Nemesis 1 or 2 ranks of Adversary and (if this was the situation) making the players roll to hit the nemesis with the grenades.

Rolling to hit is a requirement unless you activate blast. *g*

4 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

but I still would like to the source for that, as I though blast stated engage with original target and did not see any special rules attached to the thermal detonator in the core book.

Check the long description in the core book. It's there along with several other mechanical details specific to thermal detonators.

Thanks, I missed the last sentence in all that flavor text.

So yeah, delaying the blast sounds like a perfect plan.

" The wielder takes full damage from the weapon unless he can perform an additional maneuver to try to get clear; in this case, he only suffers the Blast damage.", this btw strikes me like you can run before the thing explodes if you still have a maneuver to spend after throwing it. Though that's from the despair option, so I guess raw is still that you better not activate blast and limit the detonator to a limited scale explosion, which would be than what the group did against the nemesis.

As far as the "blast didn't go off" problem, you could always houserule that the first 2 advantages rolled automatically activate blast, whether you want to or not.

As far as I'm concerned the advantages should not be seen as determining whether the weapon explodes, they should be seen as determining whether the enemies who are engaged with the target scatter and hit the dirt before it goes off. The only thing that bothers me about it is that the game assumes friendly targets get hit when you spend advantage to hit more enemies. I think friendlies should simply always take the blast damage unless you have "Selective Detonation", so that those talents are worth it.

4 hours ago, Aetrion said:

As far as I'm concerned the advantages should not be seen as determining whether the weapon explodes, they should be seen as determining whether the enemies who are engaged with the target scatter and hit the dirt before it goes off. The only thing that bothers me about it is that the game assumes friendly targets get hit when you spend advantage to hit more enemies. I think friendlies should simply always take the blast damage unless you have "Selective Detonation", so that those talents are worth it.

The talent is worth it when you throw a thermal detonator in 10 groups of 6 stormtroopers who try to engage your buddies and only your buddies are standing after you used that blast. And once you set the imperials a baradium charge for 750 credits with 3 planetary scale damage on a long range blast with three success on that mechanic check … you gotta start to love that selective detonation talent. The domolist is not the guy who throws usually granates, it is the guy who blows up whole armies and buildings. That talent is already crazy strong already, absurdly strong.

One could just rule it in the same way as the Auto-Fire rules: Pick whether you want to activate Blast before you make the combat check. If enough Advantage or a Triumph gets rolled, it's automatically spent on that, hitting everyone in the weapon's Blast range of the original target.

In this way the players can still choose to activate Blast but those who have a particularly poor chance of succeeding might consider choosing to "switch on" Blast, so-to-speak, so they might at least get the secondary effect on the adversary/his buddies if they miss.

I think that it's important to remember that these are cinematic explosives rather than realistic ones. In cinematic scenes, it can make perfect sense to have an explosion take down one guy while the guy right next to him was shielded from the blast by his foe's body. It's weird, but no worse than some of the other issues that come up under narrative rules. OTOH, if you want a hardcore physics simulator, then there are games (and scientific calculators!) for that kind of play.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/thermal-detonator states that Cad Bane used thermal detonators on his assault of the senate building and suggests that they were used in the duel between Maul and Pre-Viszla thermal detonators were used. I guess blast was not triggered.

So they are not that powerful as you would imagine. Here a clear use of the thermal detonator direct a the beginning of this clone wars featurette.

Hm, looks to me like it blew up the whole room and then knocked the blast door down. That seems pretty **** powerful.

However, Thermal Detonators have wildly varied in power throughout many different incarnations of Star Wars. In some sources they are practically nuclear weapons, in some sources they are basically just hand grenades, some sources list classifications of them, like Class A, B and C, and so on.

I don't really think there is any right or wrong for it, the SWRP Starwars Universe operates slightly different from the cinematic universe, which operates slightly different from the various animated shows and video games and comics and books.

It seems to me like a lot of people obsess about perfect continuity when in reality we all know that there is no perfect continuity, no matter how much we try to invent reasons for the contradictions. To me the only real question where the rules are concerned is whether or not it's a good system, and that means, a system that produces a believable and fun story while still posing a challenge to the players.

One of the guards even survives and that was a thermal d with blast triggered ^-^

On 26/2/2017 at 10:36 PM, Aetrion said:

The issue that I started having with that whole scene was that Thermal Detonators were being thrown at an enemy that was in short or even engaged range with other player characters, and people insisted that as long as they don't trigger Blast there was no danger to anyone else but the enemy.

Is it written in the rules that the grenades do not affect people engaged with the target? I run the game that the grenade damage also covers everyone engaged with the target.