Explosives

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Explosives have their own specific rules and mechanics, all of which are described here.

Types of explosions

Two major types of explosions are differentiated: Standard explosions and Localized explosions.

• Standard explosions are the typical kind of explosions; big, loud, fiery, and deals a lot of damage. They cause two kinds of damage: Target damage and Splash damage. Unless an explosive weapon or ammunition type is specifically described otherwise, it will create a standard explosion.
• Localized explosions are produced only by special ammunition types (namely, FRAG-12 and XPL), which are not quite as powerful as standard ones. Localized explosions are small, so they only cause Target damage (no splash damage at all), being closer in function to regular attacks.

Explosives, like all other weapons, can deal both Pain and Limb damage. How much damage exactly, and under what circumstances, is where target damage and splash damage are differentiated. These differences influence the end result and why being targeted directly by a grenade has more consequences than merely being splashed collaterally by that grenade's blast.

Target damage

Target damage is simply the damage done to the intended target. This is where most of the damage an explosive weapon can deal is concentrated.

If a creature takes target damage from an explosion (in other words, they received a direct hit), it will deal the following:

• Pain
• Limb damage (which can, in turn, cause injuries)
• Any additional effects such as shrapnel, fire, etc.

Splash damage

Standard explosions have the ability to deal splash damage, through the blast and shockwave generated by the explosion.

Splash damage is dealt to all other creatures on the same Side as the intended target.

Statistically, splash damage deals an amount of Pain identical to what Target damage would have dealt, but deals no limb damage. Additional effects such as shrapnel, fire, etc. may still apply.

Damage calculation

Explosives are special for dealing damage in a different manner than most other weapons and attacks.

Pain

All explosive weapons have a singular Pain value, rather than one for each Armor Class.

The singular Pain value applies across all ACs, effectively making Armor Class irrelevant towards protection against explosive damage. Since Pain is part of the damage that can be dealt through both Target and Splash damage, a single well-aimed attack with an explosive can wipe out groups of enemies on Pain alone.

Limb damage

If Pain is not enough, Limb damage of explosive weapons is calculated in a particular manner, depending on the weapon type, according to these following steps:

• Calculate total limb damage value (1d8 + LDV) as normal, then check the result: this is referred to as Base Explosive Damage or BED.
• The target will sustain limb damage on multiple body parts, at different rates depending on the body parts.

If the explosive weapon is not a pressure mine:

• All limbs in the UPPER BODY and LOWER BODY groups each receive 1x BED in limb damage
• All limbs in the LIMB group each receive 0.5x (rounded) BED in limb damage
• All limbs in the HEAD and EXTREMITY groups each receive 0.25x (rounded) BED in limb damage

If the explosive weapon is a pressure mine:

• Any limbs that can be described as "legs", "feet" or equivalent each receive 1x BED in limb damage
• All other limbs each receive 0.25x (rounded) BED in limb damage

All explosive weapons ignore the protective value of Armor Class entirely. For example, an A3 AC usually provides a LDV-3 effect, but an explosive weapon will ignore it.

Injuries

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(wip text) Nominally, the injuries caused by an explosive weapon are wounds, however the amount and location of wounds caused by explosions is calculated differently, and depends on the total amount of Pain sustained after all relevant modifiers (Pain Sensitivity, etc.) have been applied. This means that injuries can be sustained both from Target and Splash damage, so beware.

A blast will cause one wound to a random body part per full 50% Pain sustained. So for instance, if an explosive deals a total of (/wip text)

Explosives versus Cover

Most cover will absorb target damage, but will not protect against splash damage. Creatures behind cover can therefore still be eliminated from the Pain damage or from shrapnel/fire of a standard explosion. Localized explosions do not cause splash damage, therefore they are sufficient to protect against those.

The only exception to this is if the cover in question has the blast-resistant trait; in which case, it will fully protect against both target and splash damage; effectively shielding all creatures in cover from explosive damage.

If an explosive weapon has the bouncing trait (VOG-25P grenades), then they have the ability to ignore cover entirely, acting as though there was no cover in the first place. There is no countermeasure for bouncing explosives!

Types of explosive weapons

Explosive weapons can be classified into the following groups:

• Thrown / Fired
• Planted
  • Command detonation
  • Timed
  • Pressure mine
  • Directional mine

Thrown / Fired explosives

This is the most common type of explosive weapon. It covers hand grenades, grenade launcher and rocket launcher rounds, and the specialty localized explosion ammunition (FRAG-12 and XPL arrowheads).

They are subject to the same rules as any normal weapon; Accuracy, Skill requirements, and any applicable fire modes all apply as they normally would.

Planted explosives

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Additional effects

Certain explosive weapons do more than simply producing a harmful explosion, with various terms to describe each effect:

• High Explosive (HE) refers to weapons that produce an explosion and nothing else.
• Fragmentation (Frag) refers to weapons that produce a number of shrapnel as an additional effect of splash damage.
• HE/Incendiary (HE-I) refers to weapons that produce both an explosion and an incendiary effect, as an additional effect of splash damage.
• Incendiary (I) refers to weapons that only produce an incendiary effect and do not technically explode.
• Gas cloud refers to weapons that produce a cloud of gas of some kind and do not technically explode.

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