An Explosives Attack represents the use of grenades, thrown charges, mines, and similar weapons. 💣 Explosives are resolved by placement and blast effects, not by directly hitting a creature.
A successful Explosives Attack determines where the explosive lands, not how much damage it deals.
Quick Reference
To make an Explosives Attack:
- Declare explosive, target point, and any special handling
- Roll d20 + 👁 PER MOD + 💣 Explosives Skill + modifiers vs Throw Difficulty
- Success: explosive lands on target. Failure: explosive scatters.
- Explosive detonates based on fuse timing (default: end of your next turn)
- All creatures in blast radius take full damage
- Apply Cover attenuation if Cover is between blast and target
- Apply creature’s Total DT (sum of all limb DT), then DR
- Full damage to HP. 1/6 of damage to each limb’s 💔 Cripple Threshold.
- Glancing Rule does not apply.
Declaring an Explosives Attack
When making an Explosives Attack, the attacker must declare:
- The explosive being used
- The intended target point (a tile, area, or object — not a creature)
- Any special handling (cooking, special Tags, fuse delay)
Explosives are rolled against a Throw Difficulty (TD) rather than a target’s Evasion. Explosives target locations, not creatures. Called Shots cannot be made with explosives.
Throw Difficulty
Throwing an explosive is a Normal task under ideal conditions.
Base Throw Difficulty
TD = 15
Grenades have an optimal range of Close (1-15m).
Range Penalties (Grenades)
Grenade throws are significantly affected by distance. For grenades, range penalties are doubled:
| Range | Range Steps Beyond Close | TD Increase |
|---|---|---|
| Close (Optimal) | 0 | +0 |
| Medium | 1 | +10 |
| Long | 2 | +20 |
| Extreme | 3 | +30 |
🏹 Range Effect Modifier still applies.
Situational Modifiers
Apply additional modifiers as appropriate:
| Situation | TD Modifier |
|---|---|
| Target point in open ground | -2 |
| Target point behind cover | +2 |
| Target point not visible | +5 |
| Small target area (window, gap) | +5 |
| Throwing while prone | +2 |
| Strong wind / unstable footing | +2 to +5 |
| Throwing under suppression | +2 to +5 |
Making the Roll
d20 + 👁 PER MOD + 💣 Explosives Skill + modifiers vs TD
Must exceed the TD to succeed.
- Success: The explosive lands exactly at the intended point.
- Failure: The explosive scatters (see Scatter below).
Explosives always detonate regardless of success or failure.
Scatter
When an Explosives Attack fails, the explosive scatters from the intended target point. Scatter represents imperfect placement, bounces, or misjudged arcs.
Scatter Distance
Scatter distance is determined by the margin of failure:
| Margin of Failure | Scatter Distance |
|---|---|
| Fail by 1-4 | 1 meter |
| Fail by 5-9 | 2 meters |
| Fail by 10-14 | 3 meters |
| Fail by 15+ | 4 meters |
Distance is measured from the intended target point, not the thrower.
Scatter Direction
Roll a d8 to determine scatter direction:
| d8 | Direction |
|---|---|
| 1 | North |
| 2 | Northeast |
| 3 | East |
| 4 | Southeast |
| 5 | South |
| 6 | Southwest |
| 7 | West |
| 8 | Northwest |
Alternatively, the GM may choose a plausible direction, provided the scatter distance follows the table, the location is reasonable, and the result is not deliberately maximized to punish the player.
Scatter Edge Cases
- If scatter would place the explosive inside solid terrain, it stops at the nearest legal tile.
- Explosives may scatter into cover, off ledges, or toward allies.
- Only one scatter is resolved per explosive.
Detonation Timing
By default, thrown explosives have a 1-turn fuse.
- The explosive detonates at the end of the thrower’s next turn.
- Creatures may react before detonation by moving, diving for cover, or using abilities.
Blast Radius
Each explosive lists a blast radius.
- All creatures and objects within the radius are affected.
- There is no damage falloff within the blast radius. Every creature inside the radius takes the explosive’s full listed damage (before Cover attenuation and armor).
- Creatures outside the blast radius take no damage.
- Cover between the blast and a target reduces damage (see Explosives and Cover below).
Damage Application to Creatures
Explosive damage affects creatures differently than direct-fire attacks.
HP Damage
The full explosive damage (after Cover attenuation and armor) is applied to the target’s HP.
Cripple Threshold Damage
Explosive damage is distributed evenly across all 6 limbs (Head, Torso, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg). Each limb receives 1/6 of the total damage (rounded down) applied to its 💔 Cripple Threshold.
Example: An explosion deals 24 damage to a creature. The creature takes 24 damage to HP. Each of their 6 limbs takes 4 damage (24 ÷ 6) toward its Cripple Threshold.
Armor and Explosives
When resolving explosive damage against a creature’s armor:
- Calculate the creature’s Total DT: the sum of all limb DT values (Physical DT or Energy DT, matching the explosive’s damage type).
- Subtract Total DT from the explosive damage.
- Apply minimum damage of 1 (explosive damage cannot be reduced below 1 by DT).
- Apply the creature’s DR (percentage reduction) to the remaining damage.
- The final result is applied to HP (full) and Cripple Thresholds (divided by 6).
Example: An explosion deals 30 Physical damage. The target has armor providing 2 Physical DT on each limb (Total DT = 12) and 20% DR.
- 30 - 12 = 18 (post-DT)
- 18 × 0.8 = 14.4, rounded to 14 (post-DR)
- HP damage: 14
- Cripple Threshold per limb: 14 ÷ 6 = 2 (rounded down)
Glancing Rule does not apply to 💣 Explosives damage.
Explosives and Cover
Explosives do not use standard penetration rules. Instead, Cover attenuates explosive damage.
Let:
- D = explosive damage
- R = 💎 Hardness (Physical) or ♨️ Energy Resistance (Energy)
| Cover Between Explosion and Target | Damage to Target | Damage to Cover |
|---|---|---|
| No Cover | D | — |
| Half Cover | max(0, D - R) | D - R |
| Full Cover | max(0, D - 2R) | D - R |
Explosives always damage Cover if it lies between the blast and the target. Cover reduced to 0 🧱 Durability is destroyed and no longer provides protection.
Shaped Charges (Explosives +10 Milestone)
If you have the 💣 Shaped Charges milestone, the Cover’s resistance is halved when calculating blast attenuation against your explosives:
| Cover Type | Normal Attenuation | With Shaped Charges |
|---|---|---|
| Half Cover | max(0, D - R) | max(0, D - 0.5R) rounded down |
| Full Cover | max(0, D - 2R) | max(0, D - R) |
Cover 🧱 Durability damage is unaffected by Shaped Charges — you deal the same damage to the Cover object itself, but more blast energy reaches the creature behind it.
Interacting with Live Explosives
Once an explosive has been thrown and is on the ground with a fuse ticking, creatures near it have several options.
Throw Back
You may attempt to pick up a live explosive and throw it back.
- Cost: 7 ⚡ AP (2 ⚡ AP to pick up + 5 ⚡ AP to throw)
- Test: 🏃 AGI MOD + 💣 Explosives Test (DC 15)
- On Success: The explosive is thrown to a target location within Close range
- On Failure: The explosive drops at your feet (your tile). You have fumbled the throw.
Other Interactions
The GM may allow other creative interactions with live explosives based on the situation. Examples include kicking the explosive away from you, diving on the explosive to shield allies with your body, or shooting the explosive to detonate it prematurely (see Precision Shot perk below).
Shooting Explosives
💣 Explosives flying through the air or equipped on an enemies Quick Slot can be shot to trigger premature detonation. This requires the Precision Shot perk.
Mines and Placed Explosives
Mines and placed charges do not use Throw Difficulty or scatter. Instead, they are placed at a specific location through an 💣 Explosives Test.
- Test: 👁 PER + 💣 Explosives to arm the mine or place the charge
- Difficulty: Based on the rarity of the explosive used
- Detection: Enemies must pass a PER + 🏕 Survival Test to identify placed mines and traps
Mines trigger automatically when a creature enters their tile or meets a specific trigger condition (pressure plate, tripwire, proximity sensor, etc.) as defined by the mine’s properties.
Placed charges require a detonator to trigger remotely, unless the character has the Detonation Watch milestone (💣 Explosives +7), which allows them to detonate any explosive as a 😮 Reaction without a physical detonator.
Special Explosives Tags
Certain explosives modify the standard rules through Tags:
| Tag | Effect |
|---|---|
| Impact | Detonates immediately on landing. Cannot be thrown back. |
| Shaped Charge | Treat Full Cover as Half Cover for blast attenuation. |
| Delayed | Fuse timer is extended by additional turns beyond the default. |