Does the blast damage of a weapon benefit from the breach quality of the same weapon, or does breach only apply to the direct hit?

I'm inclined to say that Breach (or Pierce for that matter) doesn't apply to the damage from the Blast quality, if only because being able to apply those two qualities makes Blast a great deal more powerful, particularly since Blast can be used to still deal damage to the primary target of a missed attack with the weapon in question. Especially for weapons with Breach, like the missile tube and thermal detonator.

I'd still let other passive qualities (like Stun damage on stun grenades or Vicious on thermal detonators) be applied to damage from Blast though.

I'd say that pierce/Blast affects the blast damage.

My reasing is the following:

The Blast Effect comes from the Explosive properties of weapons such as Detonators and Missile Tubes.

All Targets are affected by the exact Same explosion, why should it have different properties in different targets?

Also, when you look at the Spread barrel Modification, why should those Scattershots not pierce, when the main weapon did pierce?

Balancing Wise I see, that would make such weapons more pwoerful (whough a Therman detonator would oblitarete anything either way)

But in the other hand: if the Spread Barrel damage does not pierce, it would deal little to no damage.

What I don't like about blast is the first place is, that is also applied to the original target, that doen't make any sense in my opinion.

Also: Can you trigger Critical Injuriesfrom blast Damage on the non-original targets?

I'd give it a test for a few sessions, the liberal version first perhaps... if that results in too effective thermal detonators and missiles (if being sort of silly for these powerful weapons really), test the other version which is more limited.

An alternate, less elegant solution, would be to halve the Breach 1 which equates Pierce 10, to Pierce 5... if that really matters, most character doesn't have 5+ Soak unless they're the Brawn 4 to 6, with heavy armour with armour mastery and improved armour mastery talents...

What I don't like about blast is the first place is, that is also applied to the original target, that doen't make any sense in my opinion.

The way I read Blast is IF you hit and you activate it, it hits the target and nearby targets, but if you just hit the target (ie don't roll enough advantages to activate Blast) it just hits the original target. The first time I had it come up I was having it to 8 to the target and then doing 8 to everyone including the target again, but when I re-read the rules I don't think that was how it was intended but rather it just was supposed to do 8 to everyone in range.

@Icebear

As I understand it, a Blast Weapons deals damage according to it's damage value (plus net successes) and then, if blast activates the blast Valoue to the target and all Targets that are enganged with it

Meaning, a Thermal Detonator Does 20+15 to the main target and 15 to the rest.

I just don't see why the main target should get so much more damage then everyone that is standing so close to it, I would think it would be more natural that the Blast is only applied to the targes that are close, but I might as well remember the wording wrong, as I don't have the Rulebook at hand right now.

From the book, p155:

"If the attack is successful, and Blast activates, each character (friend or foe) Engaged with the original target suffers wounds equal to the weapon's Blast rating (plus an additional wound per Success as usual)."

Edit2: Doh! Now that I read what I wrote the original target takes the normal damage and if the Blast activates then EVERYONE ELSE at Engaged range takes the Blast damage. Man, reading fail

If you read the description of the Blast quality, the meaning is quite clear.

"If the attack is successful, and Blast activates, each character (friend or foe) Engaged with the original target suffers wounds equal to the weapon's Blast rating (plus an additional wound per Success as usual)."

In other words, everyone else suffers the Blast damage; but not the original target (since the original target is not engaged with himself). The original target only suffers the base damage of the weapon.

So with a thermal detonator, the original target suffers 20 + Successes damage and those engaged with him suffer 15 + Successes damage.

This is further clarified in the description of activating the Blast after missing the attack roll.

"In this case, the original target and every target engaged with the original target suffers damage equal to the Blast rating of the weapon."

Note that they are now making it explicit that the Blast damage will affect the original target, since it normally does not.

So the missed attack with the thermal detonator causes 15 damage to the original target and everyone engaged with him.

Yes, sorry I realized that above and edited my post. I have only been reading for 3 days, yeah that's my excuse :-)

Thanks for the clarification.

With this new "Evidence" i'm very much in support of the Interpretation, that Pierce and Breach work with the blast damage too. I just makes mor sense to me.

I am inclined to think that Blast damage benefits from the weapon Breach or Pierce quality, but do we have an official answer to this?

Cheers

Yepes

I'm AFB but I believe both the Pierce and Breach quality require that you hit, Blast does not. So if you Hit (Success) the Target then that target triggers the Pierce and Breach quality for itself, however since those affected by only the Blast were not Hit they only suffer the Blast. No Hit (Successes) no Pierce and Breach quality.

If you want a modern day example: you have a Tank and a soldier next to that tank. An anti-armor RPG would have the Pierce and Blast quality. When it hits the tank the warhead pierces it's armor, the poor GI next to the tank gets caught in the Blast but since the rocket didn't hit him it doesn't go through (Pierce) him.

I'd say no. Based IRL and called the Munroe Effect, it is directly tied to the type of charge and it's diameter in regards to how much armor it pierces, as well as, the direction of the weapon. To be sure people would be injured standing near a shaped charge detonation but only the target being hit would receive the full penetration effect of the weapon.