Dear all,

Is it just me or did grenades became less powerful in the 40,000 years from now on? I mean, a Frag Grenades mostly only scratches even mundane lightly armoured (N)PCs, even if standing directly next to the detonation. Beyond 4 m (in BC and OW only 3 m) you never even get a scratch at all (even in enclosed rooms).

Are grenades somehow underpowered or at least heavily unrealistic? At least the effective range of the blast should be increased and I do not get why they even decreased it for DW, BC and OW (in IH they at least increased it to 5 m). Increasing the blast radius (or making it more random) would not even make it far more powerful, as it would become more difficult to use with such a chirurgical precision (as my players do most of the time).

I am looking forward to your opinions.

Cheers
LH

Well, the massproduction Fraggrenade could be seen as weak, yes, but the reason is not its damage, its the decent armor that is in use by the most military forces. A frag grenade cann wipe out a foxhole or blast its fragments into nowhere, that the random damage system. Even a bolter Hit can be stoped by some "weak" armor and thoughness. The average Frag damage is around 10, Guard armor will absorb 5 and toughnes 3-4 for most PCs, but hey, thats what the guard armor is for, its a Flak Armor against exactly this effects. I know that in reality a frag grenade is realy devastating but for the balance sake its most usefull against unarmored targets.

But dont fokus to much on the damage grenades. Take the Stun Greande from the IH, that nade would fit in any soldiers arsenal and could also help you with the dodge problem. 1d5 Rounds stun is extremly, extremly dangerous to anyone, though it can be counterd relativly easy. But then look at the Krakgrenade, it sacrifices its aoe for decent damage centered on one target. Hallocinogen grenades are also the ideal tool to bring utter disturbance to an overhelming enemy to allow escape, the same for Blind Grenades. And Firebombs are so cheap you can spam them so long until they do decent damage, and they will. And Photon Flash are realy nice too.

But you are right, dont look for pure destructive power on grenades, we already got enough guns for that. But you dont need any skill for grenades, everyone can use them (Unles they got decent BS ) and the more important thing is, you get a sheer amount auf extremly! strong tactical options that are both, a curse and blessing for your Players. And the good thing is, every NPC can have some Grenades, some of them arnt that expensive, other are. So you can create a real chalange with autogun gangers while oder GMs switch to generaly stronger enemys.

Imagine a group of npcs that cath 1-2 nasty Photon Flash grenades, they dont pass the toughness and are 1d5 Round blind. That means -30 on Dodge/Bs etc. and halfe movement. Let this happen in an ambush on open field…

Not played DH for a while but we played a lot of it and I never really considered the frag grenades to weak. They certainly caused a lot damage in the right situations. It's difficult to miss for one, even thrown against a small group and the potential (and actual in some of my games) to put a stron attack against a good number of foes, it is especilally good against troops in cover which is fitting,

It's not the most realistic mechanic, but I think it is balanced. There are move powerful grenades available for later game.

I suppose you could have mechanic where there was a base damage that is reduced per meter from from the explosive and have the area larger but that's got the potential to add a lot more caculation to what can already be a slowish combat system.

Face Eater said it: Throw them against groups

If you use Grenades vs. 1-2 Enemys the chance that nothing special happens is there.

But if you throw it against 3-4 Enemys the chance that you do sirious damage is quite realistic.

Its a anti Crowd weapon that has the chance to be realy effektive… or not. But another important thing is you force them to use their dodge.

But if you fight vs. well armed Enemys (Imperial Guard/Arbites) they are more and more harmless. But they were never build to penetrate personal armor.

Most weapons in roleplaying games are "weak" compared to the damage their real-life counterparts do. It's quite possible to kill someone with one bullet from a modern day pistol, but a single shot from a much more advanced laspistol isn't likely to do the same in the game.

That's because if the game started with laspistols and frag grenades being a one-shot-one-kill weapons, and then made much better weapons equally deadly against heavier targets, the game would be a random killfest, and people would go through several characters in one game session. Which isn't really fun for most people.

That said, frag grenades can be extremely useful, for two reasons:

1. They are the easiest way to damage multiple enemies simultaneously.

2. They can be lobbed over low cover.

This combined lets grenades negate two greatest advantages every kind of enemy can get against the team - superior numbers and cover. That's why even Space Marines carry around some frags.

They are still very situational, but they **** should be - you don't see real soldiers carrying a full backpack of grenades and lobbing them at enemies rather than shooting, do you?

Morangias said:

Well, some Armies issued grenadiers with Vests full of grenades…^^

But yes, Grenades fullfill their role, but they dont replace regular guns in the rulesystem.

My Guardsman loved his Combi-Hellgun-Grenadelauncher in which he had 3 different Grenades (The combi grenade Launcher has a magazin of 3) and some kind of fire selector to choose them.

He was boss in urban warfare.

Imagine a Krak that crushes the door and a few seconds later theres a Stun/Flash nade in the room.

Or theres a though Gangboss but you have the Krak at disposal or the frags against the gangers. Grenades are in my opinion one of the most important things if you play less action but more tactic heavy combat situations.

I do remember that fighting in built up areas the grenade replaces the rifle as the infantry mans best friend. I've seen other systems which increase grenades damage in enclosed places. I was considering giving frag grenades tearing when in was used in tight spaces as quick and dirty answer.

A standard frag grenades' 2d10 damage can result in some cringe-inducingly low rolls; it might be worth house-ruling that they are Tearing (thus rolling 3d10 and picking the best two dice, keeping the 'firecracker' results to a minimum).

Hmm, I dont like Tearing that much, it should stay something special… mostly because 3d10 have a high chance of rightous fury…^^

I do more like the Idea of "proven" damage like in Deamonhunter. But then you have the problem to say what should be the minimum damage.

But yes, the tearing is an elegants solution, though tearing is alwys stronger for player charakters.

Maybe get the Chymist & tech priest roll you out some good ones with Proven (3) or something like that, avoid Tearing on multiple-dice damage too, it creates sillyness

I've been toying with the idea of giving all explosives a concussive effect. Perhaps not as strong as a concussion grenade, but enough of a reason for pcs in carapace to pay attention.

I think it's worth noting that in every 40k game past DH, the amount of DoS on the attack roll also becomes the minimal damage you can roll on one die. That is, if you throw the frag 'nade with 4 DoS and then roll two 1's for damage, one of them becomes 4 and the final damage is 5.

Zakalwe said:

The Concussive weapon quality in Black Crusade/Only War is good for this, potentially - unlike the Deathwatch version, it can be scaled to an appropriate level based on the weapon.

In essence, every Concussive weapon has a value of 0 or higher in parenthesis after the quality's name - so Concussive (0) or Concussive (3), for example. When a creature is hit by a Concussive weapon, they must pass a Toughness Test with a penalty equal to 10 times the value in parenthesis, or be Stunned for one round.per degree of failure. Further, if the target takes damage greater than it's Strength Bonus, it's knocked prone.

In effect, give it to a high-damage, high Blast weapon like an artillery piece, and it'll flatten squads of warriors with every accurate shot. Put it on a 0-damage weapon, it'll incapacitate for a few moments but little else. Put Concussive (0) on a common Frag Grenade and it might just spice them up a bit…

Just to explain the physics of blowing **** up, at a very rudimentary level,

Your 'Krak" grenade is essentially what in the military you would term a "Concussion" or " Offensive " grenade, its primary purpose is blowing up machinery with about 220g of pure TNT and a casualty radius of about 2m. Aside the the can, primer and a few bits of metal, they don't chuck out much in the way of shrapnel, you still dont want to be anywhere near it though because it'll lop off limbs and make you deaf.

(Casualty? = Your arse will be destroyed if you are in this area, you are 'Out!' of the being healthy game, if not dead)

Mr Fragmentation grenade in a contemporary army is a wire-bound or steel cased monster which rips **** up and you will be a Casualty if you're within 5m of it and probably wounded if your around 15m from it… maybe really unlucky and eat some of it at 30m. They are a Defensive grenade, meaning you ONLY throw it if you're behind something really tough or have the arm of an outfielder to tonk it far enough away. Unlike the Concussion grenade, they've got 150-170g of something called RDX in them, which is basically diluted TNT mixed with stuff to shape the explosive and it slightly retards the megajoules of the explosive by about 20%, but increases the velocity of the expansion by about 20% as well. When you are ripping **** to bits, velocity and not necessarily power is very important. Think 'bullets'

Stun Grenades are probably what most people think of when they hear 'concussion grenade' and they're not 100% incorrect. They are basically very big firecrackers full of a tiny bit of ANFO (about 5g), a lot of magnesium powder all wrapped up in a nice aluminium tube with a solid steel, perforated case (that hopefully doesn't fragment). Everything within 5metres gets to eat a 170-180dB explosion and the equivalent of a spotlight being shone in your eyes… they are technical non-lethal as long as your definition doesn't include people charging into the room and spraying everything down with bullets.

Our friend the Offensive is about 180dB in a 1-2m radius and the Defensive is 180dB at 4-5m

You are Here----->40k something

Wind the world of things that explode 15,000 years forward and people are wearing lots of armour on a regular basis when other people are trying to kill them with things that explode. How do we defeat this? We make things bigger so they do more damage, however that approach means the chucker is as dead as the catcher as we've moved past the point of grenade and up to full size bomb and approach it from a lateral angle of fancy stuff like Plasma (solar flare levels of ow!) toxins/virus (what armour) and Vortex (say hi to hell).

Wind it forward another 5-7000 years and humanity is suddenly a collective bunch of wall-eyed dumbshits that can't make Plasma, Virus and Vortex grenades on a regular basis anymore, or if they do, they aren't giving it away for less than top dollar. Which leaves us with the problem of people still running around in armour and the tech-level of -20,000 years ago still trying to work. The answer is, in the perpetual offence vs defence battle, defence hasn't completely lost and offence hasn't completely won either, your technology still kills people as good as it did 20,000 years ago, if they're wearing the pants and shirt of 20,000 years ago. If they aren't and wisely wear the Flak, the effect is lessened considerably, but not completely diminished.

Game Designers

Should probably research more or consult a specialist before calling things what they are, however they also have to reach a happy middle ground of design of PC's not maiming a suburbs worth of people with a single handheld device and still manage sounding like they know what the hell they're saying so you can imagine stuff So… you have the current set of rules, you're a little bit wiser on how **** gets blown up and can work the rules into something thats 'slightly' realistic and more to your taste.

That's a very interesting breakdown, thanks a lot!

I'd add one thing: in the case of Fantasy Flight, the designers also had an obligation to follow the pre-existing fluff (and, to a degree, crunch) of the TT, while simultaneously balancing things out so that hopefully there aren't any auto-win pieces of equipment in the game. The state of grenades is the end result of the two first and foremost.

You're welcome anytime.

If someone in the unlikely event wanted me to make up a semi-realistic fragmentation grenade for this system which is based on 20th century technology and looking at the pictures of them in the artworks, (they're huge! Like WW1 rifle launched Mills Bomb huge!) I would do something like this:

Primary Damage 2D10 Pen 2 Proven (2) Blast (5) Concussion (1)

Secondary Damage 1D10 Pen 1 Blast (10) with a +20 to Dodge rolls

(This is not Agility bonus dependant to avoid a secondary radius… actually, more luck than anything else! )

The Krak Grendade (redux) version could look something like this-

Primary Damage 2D10+4 Pen 6 Blast (2) Concussion (1)

Secondary Damage 1D10+2 Pen 0 Blast (5) Concussion (0)

That may be too rules heavy for quick play? Maybe not, some people don't bother using the standard rules of using Cover and others do.

Really great ideas so far. Thanks for that. You are certainly right, grenades are not really underpowered when compared to how easy they can be used and how easy the can be purchased (in regard to availability, cost and weight). Though what still irks me, is the precision my players use them. Knowing that the blast radius is always 4, they simply throw it 5 m away. What is really missing imo, is something like the randomness in the blast radius like for the Blind Grenade. So it would most probably be more fitting to have something like a 1D3+2 blast radius. To have two different zones of damage sounds also rather fitting, though a little more complicated to apply ,

@ No1: Cheers, I've just picked up the OW Beta and will check it out. $20 bucks to get the latest version of the rules, sounds good to me.

@ MKX: Nice breakdown, especially the offensive/defensive distinction which I admit to having forgotten. I suggested concussive from experience, having spent many naval gunnery exercises separated from the five inch gun by a few metres and a thin steel bridge bulkhead. I could actually feel the boom and shuddered to think of what it must be like on the recieving end (I would be looking through my binoulars at whatever unfortunate piece of land we were shelling thinking 'I'm so glad I didn't join the army!').

@Luthor: My group loves frag grenades. We often use them to 'soften up' opponents so they go down easier when we hit them with bullets or swords.

Though what still irks me, is the precision my players use them. Knowing that the blast radius is always 4, they simply throw it 5 m away

You do realize grenades can scatter back if they don't make the BS roll, right?

Cifer said:

Not to mention, NPC's can do exactly the same. If they get a bit too complacent with their battle tactics, have your enemies launch grenades at them with a Grenade Launcher. Use a Photon Flash Grenade, and then a Frag Grenade. Don't be a complete jerk about it and just spam grenades at them, but make them sweat a bit

We often think of Grenades as underpowered because they have a severely limited range dependent on SB. Grenades can shine, and I mean really shine, when you have one or two guys in a group using Launchers. 2d10 X Blast(4) doesn't seem like much when you're 6 meters away, but it's pretty darned handy from 60 meters away. It will break up a group who's just itching to gang up on a group in melee. Then there is the 20% chance of rolling Righteous Fury. Critical wounds from explosives can cause great chain reactions as well.

Last I checked, wasn't a frag grenade cheaper than a bolter round?

Cifer said:

IdOfEntity said:

Besides, does someone know how it is handled if somone is in melee and dodges out of the blast radius of an incoming grenade (and thereby out of melee range)? Is he disengaged then? And if yes, is it automatically or does the melee opponent gets a free attack?