If I'm Close, but not Engaged to the target of a Blast attack (like a missile), do I get to be damaged by the Blast effect?

LukeZZ said:

Nope. Per the wording of Blast, the targets of Blast have to be Engaged with the original target of the attack.

So if you're at Close (starship) or Short (personal) range compared to the original target, then you won't be affected by Blast.

Whether this keeps Blast from being too powerful or renders it nearly useless is up to the individual player and/or GM.

LukeZZ said:

Grenade? no.

Thermal Detonator? yes.

-WJL

Are there often situations where combatants you'd want to toss a grenade at are actually standing at engaged range to each other?

Short range is defined as several meters. The description of a frag grenade is that it causes "as much damage and mayhem as possible over a large area". While as a GM I don't love the idea that a grenade could take out an entire room and make combat too easy, I'd have to say it stretches credulity to think it wouldn't be absolutely lethal at short ("close") range. I think at the least I'd allow 2-3 advantages to be spent to upgrade the blast, much like auto-fire.

A thermal detonator should be a special kind of boom in comparison. Without a doubt it should fill a short range area at no activation cost, as the book states, but I'd like to think a small building would be structurally unsound after one of these dogs barks, so someone at medium range might get hit on a high activation cost. A strong counterargument to "that's too powerful" is "it's a thermal freakin' detonator!"

The small bar in the basic intro adventure is medium range end to end. That kinda puts the range in perspective.

So if you're at Close (starship) or Short (personal) range compared to the original target, then you won't be affected by Blast.

Whether this keeps Blast from being too powerful or renders it nearly useless is up to the individual player and/or GM.

Wouldn't that make blast useless on missiles though? Starship doesn't have engaged range, it has close instead. Since blast only hits the other targets, not the original target, it would make it ineffective if it didn't damage another ship in close range.

Wouldn't that make blast useless on missiles though? Starship doesn't have engaged range, it has close instead. Since blast only hits the other targets, not the original target, it would make it ineffective if it didn't damage another ship in close range.

Not really, since you can spend 3 Advantage to trigger the Blast quality and deal damage to your original target if you missed the first time around.

Granted, it also takes 3 Advantage to activate the Guided quality, which both the concussion missiles and proton torpedoes (the two starship weapons with Blast) have. But the Guided quality is just Ability dice equal to the quality's rating, and it can be spoofed. Blast is an assured level of damage (particularly if the GM allows the Breach quality to also be applied).

So if you're at Close (starship) or Short (personal) range compared to the original target, then you won't be affected by Blast.

Whether this keeps Blast from being too powerful or renders it nearly useless is up to the individual player and/or GM.

Wouldn't that make blast useless on missiles though? Starship doesn't have engaged range, it has close instead. Since blast only hits the other targets, not the original target, it would make it ineffective if it didn't damage another ship in close range.

Also, you can use missiles on people and other targets which can be engaged range to each other.

Engaged is rather finicky. Blast seems to be too weak and autofire too strong.