House rule question: Grenades and delay

[Marc]

Not a surprise, I suppose, for the veteran members of T2K forums. But, as a newbie, here is my question:
-Do you apply any kind of delay to the explosion of a grenade?
-If affirmative, what delay?
-If delayed, I suppose that you allow the character to return the grenade. Any additional control to do it? A fright check to do it?
-Any bonuses to launch a grenade with delay (making it to rebound on the floor, on a wall, etc.

[jester]

Originally Posted by Marc

Not a surprise, I suppose, for the veteran members of T2K forums. But, as a newbie, here is my question:
-Do you apply any kind of delay to the explosion of a grenade?
-If affirmative, what delay?
-If delayed, I suppose that you allow the character to return the grenade. Any additional control to do it? A fright check to do it?
-Any bonuses to launch a grenade with delay (making it to rebound on the floor, on a wall, etc.

Simple,

I use how well the characters use the grenades to begin with. Say if a character "milks" a grenade. which means they pull the pin, lets the spoon fly and holds it for a moment to use up some of the delay so that the target doesn't have time to throw it back. However, when characters do this, I also roll for mishap, they fumble and drop the grenade, or the grenade fuse is defective and it goes up sooner than anticipated.

Then, we also have the roll for the coolness of the people who have the grenade thrown at them. Do the freese, do they act? IF they freeze then precious seconds are lost to snatch the thing and throw it away.

As for the time on a grenade, and I have only had to roll on this a few times when it really mattered, I generaly use a 6 sided die plus 2. For those recieving a grenade they got a 4 sided die plus 1.

[Marc]

I like the dice factor in the delay. I was thinking in an entire turn or a fixd number of intiative steps, but the dice factor adds an uncertain factor very suitable.
Would you roll it openly or "behind the screen"?
And, the result what unit represents? Initiative step or seconds?

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by jester

Simple,

they fumble and drop the grenade.

That is having a bad day, Oops.

[Marc]

Well, for certain Twilight character (without house rules), it may only involves a headache.

[Targan]

No PC has ever attempted to return an armed grenade in any of my games. My brother's first character in my current campaign threw himself on a grenade booby trap that he was trying disarm when he critically failed his skill check followed by a second failure. His selfless action probably saved the rest of his team's lives.

[jester]

For me the roll determined how many seconds they had, and then I would usualy have a negative modifier, and unless it was a 1, then they'd have to roll verses the GMs roll, he beats my roll he wins, the GM beats him, the grenade wins.

[pmulcahy11b]

Well, you could borrow a rule from the old SPI RPG Commando!: Grenades don't go off until the end of the phase. That will work for most hand grenades, which have a 3-5 second delay.

[jester]

One thing I have noticed. Players don't tent to use grenades, much like many troops in real life.

For me, for the most part, I used them more for a prop, this solves alot of the problems for a GM, because it allows you a device have the characters deal with a number of faceless nameless bad guys in one fell swoop. And again when dealing with badguy NPCs it saves rolling and control, and it can also save the PCs in a desperate moment as they are about to be overwhelmed by bad guys.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by jester

One thing I have noticed. Players don't tent to use grenades, much like many troops in real life.

In my campaign the nature and personality of each PC seems to have more bearing on whether a PC uses grenades than player preference. One of my players is onto his fourth PC and of those four two used grenades and two tended not to. The Gurkha he used to play had a particular fondness for hurling WP grenades at the enemy for instance.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by jester

One thing I have noticed. Players don't tent to use grenades, much like many troops in real life.

Will that be one of the problem with unexperienced conscripts? When doing service, during the first exercise, I was the only one to hand over my two grenades as I never had the oportunity to really use them. Every other guy in the company had used them both probably throwing them anywhere or to their own bodies. Never thought about it but I hope one of the officer did look over the area as we were outside the base. I bet many had been thrown without being ingnited and that is a bad gift to give a passing by 11 years old kid, even as they were exercise ones. I know what I'm talking about I used some of these when I was 11 and I used to make grenades with beer bottles (worked fine and you better take cover; it might not kill you but will certainly do some nice injuries). That is something my Mum must never learn about .

[jester]

That is something else to consider. I recall a freind who was EOD said alot of their calls for "dud" grenades turned out to be grenades that were thrown without either the pin being pulled, or the safety being removed. Often, tney would just walk up without to much caution, look down, pick it up and replace the pin and hand it back as good as new.

But, I recall most of our grenade training and when we were issued them in the sand many people were afraid to have them, we were allowed no more than two, however, if you wanted one to spare, all you had to do was ask and someone who was afraid of having one handed one over. And then of course our 1st Sgt and Company commander did not want to even issue them, then when they did they wanted us to keep them in the cardboard cartons, it seems they were afraid of being fragged.

[Marc]

And here is how I have finally solved my house rule. I've taken the delay time of 3 to 5 sec. suggested by pmulcahy11b and the delay rolls of jester. If interested:


Character throwing a grenade normally: If a character does not say anything when throwing a grenade, it will detonate after 1d4+2 initiative steps (or seconds). If necessary, the grenade will explode the next turn. Consider each 5 second turn divided in 5 initiative steps, for the purpose of the delay roll. Example: An Ini 3 character throwing a grenade and obtaining a 5 in the delay roll implies that the grenade will explode at Ini 3 of the next round. Obtaining a 2, the grenade will explode at initiative 1 of the same turn. Solve the Throw Weapon skill roll as normal.

Character waiting a delay time and then, launching the grenade: At his or her Initiative step, the character gets ready the grenade (no ring, no safety). A Panic check is needed. Apply the following modifiers to the fright check roll: +1 if character has Combat Engineer skill, +1 if another character (that must pass a Leadership asset control) coordinates the procedure. If failure, the character launchs the grenade normally (as per point 1).

If the character success in the Panic check roll, he or she waits until his or her Ini-3. (and to the next turn if needed). Then, solve the Thrown Weapon roll as normal to launch the grenade. A second Thrown Weapon is needed to determine if the character has calculated the time properly. If success, the grenade explodes with no delay. If failure, apply 1d4-2 ini steps/seconds of delay. Treat a negative result as zero.

Any grenade that has not exploded yet can be returned or launched to any other place by any character who has passed a successful Panic check at his/her initiative step (again +1 to the fright check if any training in Combat Engineer skill). The returning grenade will explode with no delay. And, of course GM, all your delay rolls bus be hidden!!!

[swaghauler]

Since I was watching this with a couple of 20-somethings who had NEVER even heard of it, I decided to post this here...

https://youtu.be/B8QaslKkRzQ

Probably the best directions for using a Frag ever!

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by jester

That is something else to consider. I recall a freind who was EOD said alot of their calls for "dud" grenades turned out to be grenades that were thrown without either the pin being pulled, or the safety being removed. Often, tney would just walk up without to much caution, look down, pick it up and replace the pin and hand it back as good as new.

But, I recall most of our grenade training and when we were issued them in the sand many people were afraid to have them, we were allowed no more than two, however, if you wanted one to spare, all you had to do was ask and someone who was afraid of having one handed one over. And then of course our 1st Sgt and Company commander did not want to even issue them, then when they did they wanted us to keep them in the cardboard cartons, it seems they were afraid of being fragged.

I remember the first time I had to do this, we got called for dud grenades, when we showed up the unit was standing around, so we asked if they pulled the pin, they said they had and showed us the pin, and safety clip. So then asked what happened, they threw the grenade and nothing happened so they threw a second one to try and get them both to go. We did our long range recon and took a look at them, then walked down range and picked them up. Both of them had enough 100 mph tape to fix a tank on them. So we asked if they wanted to try again or have us dispose of them, they wanted to try again so we gave them back to the Force Recon Gunnery Sergeant and left, we did not get called back so they were able to solve that problem.