Re: [HOE] Grenades

[Sean Michael Whipkey <highway@cstone.net>]

GalenRasputin@aol.com wrote:
> 
> The reason I was asking, is because I had a player drop a grenade out the back of a moveing truck traveling at around 100 MPH, I needed to know how long it would take to explode, as the pursuit was catching up at around 140 MPH. I ruled that the grenade would go off at the bottom of the round, I.E. after duces. Is this what was intended in the rules?

Well,

In one second a car doing 140 MPH will go 205 feet, 4 inches.  A car
doing 100 MPH will go 146 feet, 8 inches.

So it would depend on what type of fuse the grenade had on it and how
far apart the vehicles are.

If it had an impact fuse, as soon as it hit the ground it would
explode.  It would approach the ground at approximately 32 feet per
second squared, and therefore would (in all odds) hit in under one
second - depending on height, of course.  A simple way to figure it
would be to use a stopwatch to see how long it takes an object to drop
from that height.  A rough estimate that I have hear in my office is
1/3rd of a second; therefore, the person who dropped it would
approximately 48 feet further up the road, and the pursuer would be just
over 68 feet closer.

If it had a timed fuse, simply figure out the difference in positions
and see if the pursuer would be near to the grenade when it went off.

Of course, that's my physics background kicking in, and we're not
playing Phoenix Command here, so let's figure this out in the way
appropriate for HoE.

If someone wanted to drop a grenade out of the back of a truck to blow
up a pursuer, I'd first check what kind of fuse they have.  If it's
impact, then BOOM!  They've blown up the back off their truck.  Laugh at
the player as your roll the massive damage.

If it's a timed fuse, have them make a Deftness roll.  Each success
(and/or raise) gets the grenade closer to the car; three raises would
get it right under the car.  It takes an extra raise if the player would
rather use his character's Cognition (guessing where the car would be in
his head rather than "intuiting" and going for an accurate throw).

The grenade, in my opinion, would blow up at the end of the turn, as per
what you did.  Should it be successful that saves you from another round
of combat.

Of course, in the movies one guy always survives that kind of crash, to
come crawling out when the PCs aren't looking and shoot at them while
they're looting the wreck or to hunt them down later. :-)

SeanMike

--
SeanMike Whipkey - Damnit.  Where's my witty repartee?
"Ow! Ow! Ow!  I had to go after mutants, didn't I?  I couldn't just 
attack Napster, nooooo. I had to attack freaks that know kung fu."
 - http://ter.air0day.com/xmen.html