Another one of the "am I missing something"-questions

In the core rules any thrown weapon that misses scatters 1d5 in a random direction (if it is relevant where it landed). When missing with a grenade it is of course quite important where it lands, so this rule should be used right? The thing is the frag granade has a blast of 4, so a scatter of 4 or less will still hit the target. This seems a bit unreasonable, no matter how much you miss by you still have a 80% chance of hitting?

Am I missing something about the scatter? If not then how are people handling this (since I guess its a prime target for some house ruling)? I am considering something along the lines of misses scattering 1d5 extra per degree of failure. So if you miss with 3 degrees of failure then you would scatter 4d5. This could mean that on an abysmal role under difficult conditions you could have a grenade scattering 50 meters off target, but considering how extremely unlikely that is it's fine by me. Freak accidents with explosives just adds some flavor to the game

Afaik that is indeed the RAW, and how our group handles it. We've also house ruled the range to be STR x5 rather than STR x3, which is simply ludicrous...

Remember, close only counts in Horse-Shoes and Hand Grenades ;-)

You don't need to get a grenade right on target to hurt the target, that's the point of the damned things. Bounce one off the wall (so they can't tell from which direction it came and throw it back as a dodge instead of dodging... house rule to mirror real life ;-) ) into that room and duck, no real aim needed. The real limiter to grenades is the strx3 range. With that kind of range, your average thrower will have a 9m range on it which means a miss on the throw and an unlucky roll on the scatter chart could have the attacker dodging the explosion instead of the enemy.

One house rule I use for them which you might find helpful is this:

Scrap the 1d5 for distance missed. The distance missed on a grenade throw is 1m + 1m per DoF of the attack roll. Less rolling, more potential variance, and accuracy counts even more ;-)

I thought the Strx3 was for standard range, so double that would be long range and so forth. Also when it comes to dodging the blast they have to be able to move the AB to get out of it, so if they are in the last bit of the blast it would be more feasible to dodge.

Graver said:

...and Thermonuclear Warheads .

SBx3 has been fine for us.

The funny part was that the psyker in our group bought some Hallucinogen Grenades. Blast radius - 10m. His throw distance - 9m. So he bought a Respirator.

And the scatter rules have worked so far. The Arbite in our group had a Grenade Launcher that he started using before he picked up the training for it. He missed with almost every shot, but somehow rolled scatter back into his target (bouncing the shots of walls). Ended up giving him an made-up Elite Advance 'Trick Shot', allowing him to re-roll Scatter with his GL.

The grenade rules are fun.

BYE

Honn said:

Not quite. The defender still gets to Dodge. When dodging blast weapons, you move AB metres towards the edge of the blast to avoid it - if you can't move far enough to escape the blast, you can't dodge.

A 4m blast radius grenade that lands dead centre on an enemy prevents him dodging unless he's Agility 40 or above. If the grenade scatters 2m in any direction, the edge of the blast is suddenly only 2m away, allowing anyone with Agility 20+ to dodge out of the blast.

It makes a difference...

It makes a difference...

And of course, Flak armour protects with a friendly AP5 against blasts when you're not in the centre of them. So even if you fail that dodge, the thrower missing is between one and three points less damage for you.

The way I understand the range for grenades is that it works like any other ranged weapon's range - at >2x the range (i.e. SB x 6) you take a -10 to the BS test, if you're >3x the range (SB x9) you take -30 to the test.

Still a good idea to have a Respirator mask if you're throwing Hallucination Grenades, though.

dodge ... dodge...

well a grenade works like shooting a weapof if you hit you hit and the enemy get's a dodge

if you miss you miss no dodge then the grenade scatters and explodes... explosions grant no dodge (I checked rules thrice but I'ld be happy if mistaken)

if you intentionally throw a grenade directly to their feet and not at them they don't even get a dodge if you hit desired square as you did'nt attack them... and explosions grant no dodge (VA get's one)

Sirion said:

You indeed are mistaken. An explosion is an Area Effect attack and is covered on pg 193. Now stop being silly (even if it is increadibly fun) ;-)

Unusualsuspect said:

And if all else fails, buy a sling - they're cheap and they can be used for grenades as well as convenient rocks, giving you a 15m basic range (equivalent to having SB5).

Considering that the penalty for extreme range is not an issue (since you won't miss either way if going by RAW) you can easily throw it far enough that scatter back onto yourself is never an issue.

Yes you can dodge the attack, but that goes for a normal shot as well so that isn't really the issue. The strange thing with a grenade is that they are as powerful as many normal weapons but with a much smaller chance of missing. Not to mention the fact that missing doesn't even matter for many grenades (well, a little when hitting slower enemies, but not enough). Personally I want a miss to actually mean something

Considering that the penalty for extreme range is not an issue (since you won't miss either way if going by RAW) you can easily throw it far enough that scatter back onto yourself is never an issue.

Assuming your enemy is far enough away from you - and when you intentionally overshoot so he's caught in the blast while you aren't, there's a real chance of the grenade either hitting noone at all (bounces further away) or hitting you as well (bounces closer).

Yes you can dodge the attack, but that goes for a normal shot as well so that isn't really the issue. The strange thing with a grenade is that they are as powerful as many normal weapons but with a much smaller chance of missing. Not to mention the fact that missing doesn't even matter for many grenades (well, a little when hitting slower enemies, but not enough). Personally I want a miss to actually mean something

Um... grenades are also quite a lot more expensive than normal ammo. You can't carry as much "ammo" for them as with normal guns. You need to ready each grenade before throwing it. You can't reliably attack an enemy at point-blank range or while he's in melee with a friend.

Grenades are fine for their intended job - harming massed enemies at semi-close range and flushing them out of cover. But they're not uber-weapons.

Cifer said:

Not really. Since you can usually throw 20-30m or so with easy (since you don't care about the penalty) you simply aim directly at anyone standing at least 10m away. There is a 80% chance of a scattering frag to still hit the target and 0% chance of scattering to hit yourself (although you could of course still get a jam). And that is of course on a miss.

Sure, they must be bought and require a half-action to ready, but I am not saying they are a magical win-all items. Things are deadly in DH in general. However I do think its rather silly to have a weapon where you accuracy is all but ignored (yes, there are some differances, but the penalty for a complete miss is extremely low). A nearsighted one-armed farmer is almost as good as the PCs with grenades, and imo thats a bit odd

Not really. Since you can usually throw 20-30m or so with easy (since you don't care about the penalty) you simply aim directly at anyone standing at least 10m away. There is a 80% chance of a scattering frag to still hit the target and 0% chance of scattering to hit yourself (although you could of course still get a jam). And that is of course on a miss.

Well, that's my point - if your enemy is between 10 and 40 metres away, everything's fine. If he's farther away, you better have a friend suppress him while you run closer because you'll have a few holes too many once you get in range. If he's closer than 9 metres, you can't reliably hit him without also being in danger of getting hit yourself.

Sure, they must be bought and require a half-action to ready, but I am not saying they are a magical win-all items. Things are deadly in DH in general. However I do think its rather silly to have a weapon where you accuracy is all but ignored (yes, there are some differances, but the penalty for a complete miss is extremely low). A nearsighted one-armed farmer is almost as good as the PCs with grenades, and imo thats a bit odd

So... how is that different from a flamer? Or a plasma cannon, although I can't see too man nearsighted one-armed farmers getting their hand on one of those?

Grenades just aren't a weapon you can improve that much with training, although it does help when you need pin-point accuracy due to friendlies near the blast radius.

I might be missing something with plasma cannons, but isn't a miss just a plain old miss with one of them?

But I guess you are right about flamers (except that not having training increases the chance of the enemy dodging unless I am misstaken). One of the things about granades however is how common they are in 40k. Look at the table-top, pretty much everyone has them. Sure, that's the millitary, but if the military has enough of them you can be sure that the local dreggs have at least some chance of getting their hands on a granade or two. Flamers, not so much.

I might be missing something with plasma cannons, but isn't a miss just a plain old miss with one of them?

There are plasma cannons with the Blast rule around.

But I guess you are right about flamers (except that not having training increases the chance of the enemy dodging unless I am misstaken). One of the things about granades however is how common they are in 40k. Look at the table-top, pretty much everyone has them. Sure, that's the millitary, but if the military has enough of them you can be sure that the local dreggs have at least some chance of getting their hands on a granade or two. Flamers, not so much.

Um... actually, there's all those friendly guys in your local underhive that would be happy to hand you a flamer along with an oversized chainsword and a red cowl. Getting access to a flamer isn't that difficult - they're only scarce.

There are plasma cannons with the Blast rule around.

Yes, but the scatter rules only apply for thrown weapons, not all blast weapons. Miss with a Plasma Cannon and you probably just toasted a nearby tree.

Um... actually, there's all those friendly guys in your local underhive that would be happy to hand you a flamer along with an oversized chainsword and a red cowl. Getting access to a flamer isn't that difficult - they're only scarce.

Scare compared to common and 300 compared to 10. Sure, in a hive you will find gangers with flamers, but probably not many and they are quite well visable. It should however not be a problem to find three common thungs with one hidden grenade each, thats just 30. Three thugs with a granade each could do some serious damage a party if they are standing close together (say when the characters are sitting by a table, not that hard to suprise someone with a small weapon like a granade). Anyone without alot of armor are quite likely to get killed outright. (On someone with 40 ag and 5 armor, who is not supprised, that would do around 18-19 damage on avarage. That is after armor has been applied).

Yes, but the scatter rules only apply for thrown weapons, not all blast weapons. Miss with a Plasma Cannon and you probably just toasted a nearby tree.

That's... odd, considering it's very likely that with large blast weapons in low ranges, you'll just aim at the ground beneath your target.

Scare compared to common and 300 compared to 10. Sure, in a hive you will find gangers with flamers, but probably not many and they are quite well visable. It should however not be a problem to find three common thungs with one hidden grenade each, thats just 30. Three thugs with a granade each could do some serious damage a party if they are standing close together (say when the characters are sitting by a table, not that hard to suprise someone with a small weapon like a granade). Anyone without alot of armor are quite likely to get killed outright. (On someone with 40 ag and 5 armor, who is not supprised, that would do around 18-19 damage on avarage. That is after armor has been applied).

Well, it's like the old adage about the man and the fish - give a man a grenade, and he'll frag another. Give a man a flamer and he'll be able to scavenge fuel from pretty much everywhere whenever he wants. Even weapons-grade promethium is only 3 thrones per shot. In the long run, the flamer is cheaper, doesn't have a 1-in-5 chance of exploding on you in case of a jam and does not suffer from a minimum range.

By the way: When you're surprising someone, killing them isn't that hard with any weapon. An autopistol would be about equally deadly.

By the way: When you're surprising someone, killing them isn't that hard with any weapon. An autopistol would be about equally deadly.

Not really no. First I must admitt I misscalculated, that should only be about 12 damage if the character can dodge (not a true suprise that is) or 14-15 if he can. So not quite as dead as I said just in horrible shape. However if the Scum where armed with autopistols and do a full auto they would do around 5 damage (about 5.5 if the character cannot dodge). Add to that the fact that the granades will damage several characters while the autopistols where all concentrated on one character. Not the same at all, the granades can really decimate the party. Of course, replace the Scum with Dregs and the granades do the same amount of damage (just about) while the autopistols drop.

The grenades seem too deadly simply because the chance to miss is so extremely low and because they are so easy to hide. Getting a grenade in the face should hurt, but the accuracy of the thrower and the enviromental conditions should affect the chance of actually being hit. If the attacker throws the granade at long range, in the middle of the night or if it is a snowstorm he should have less chance of actually getting the granade near his target, As per the RAW the differance is minimal even if all these where to apply at the same time.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to see if I had missed something in the rules or not. Now I just have to figure out how to change them

Honn said:

Change scatter distance from 1d5m to a number of meters based on the DoF of the attack roll and the range thrown:

• Short: 1+1m per DoF
• Medium: 2+2m per DoF
• Long: 3 + 3m per DoF
• Extreme: 4 + 4m per DoF

This would increase scatter the further you have to throw it, as well as taking a characters skill and accuracy and negative situatinal modifiers into account. After all, if he only has a modified BS score of 20 to hit, the scatter (based on DoF) would be potently greater then if he had a modified BS score of 50 to hit.

As for range, it might seem a bit short but keep in mind that grenades are usually only used against targets in cover (by lobbing it over/around the cover) or to clear rooms/bunkers/foxholes (which, I guess are just other forms of cover). Anyone who has been in the service will probably remember a drill sergeant reaming some new private for trying to throw a grenade like a baseball. Since they come in all shapes and sizes, grenades really are a "toss" weapon more than a real thrown weapon, which is probably why they have their own rules.

-Cynr

I've randomly doubled grenade scatter distances before when it felt appropriate.

So you could always say If you fail the roll by 30 or more double the range it deviates for example.

In our games grenades are still used for groups of people and not really thrown at a single guy. This makes missing everyone even harder of course but hitting most of group far more difficult. In addition if they aren't in the open then a deviation is often on the other side of cover etc.

Plus, frag grenades are just too inconsistant damage wise against tougher opponants and before you start seeing tougher opponants most people have far more reliable and cheaper ways of killing single people.

Blast weapons are for hitting more than one opponent, scatter therefore counts cos you may miss some of your intended targets.

Ive found that frags etc used against a single opponenet do not do enough damage in the case of armoured or very tough enemies or will miss anyway agaisnt a high agility enemy... that is if you are so scared you feel it nessecary to use a grenade on them. on high armoured oppoents a bigger gun or a krak is better to use and on high agility then a full auto burst of anything is better than a frag.

my 2 cents.