Sun 09 Oct 2022, 13:41
I had this problem come up yesterday, when one of the character was trying to throw a grenade into a freight cart, which had the door open. Note: I hadn't read the new close combat rules from UO yet and was solely using the vanilla rules from PM.
The exact situation was that the character was standing almost in front of the sliding door (adjacent hex), from which an enemy was harassing the group with rifle fire. So, basically it was a room clearing attack, but the door was approximately at the level of the character's breast.
The character missed the hex/rifleman and the grenade deviated in a slightly bent path to his left. On the hex map the character's position to the target hex was on the no. 6 hex when applying the deviation rule and the player rolled a "2". However, the player also rolled a "6" for distance. I ruled that the hand grenade missed the door low and landed in the hex directly adjacent to the wagon, bouncing off the gravel and tracks, exploding harmlessly behind the freight cart.
After re-reading the rules on deviation, I came across this part on p. 71 (PM) on deviation: "The deviation cannot exceed half of the distance to the target (rounding up)." I think, with the distance being "1", rounding up half of that, I accidentally made the right choice. The rules for hand grenades are a bit all over the place, though, I think: While you need Mobility to use grenades and their range is limited to Short range (usually Range 3 or 2, meaning 30 or 20 meters), Mobility is only used for hitting the target (hex), not for range. I know a lot of people who wouldn't be able to throw a 400 g ball for 30 meters, although they might be able to throw the same ball very precisely for 5-10 meters.
In other words, a good boules player isn't necessarily someone, who can throw the ball 30 meters. That's largely, because throwing techniques for shorter distances can differ considerably from those for reaching long distances, while also allowing for more precision. This means, distance and precision are linked with weapons thrown, making technique and skill very important.
I generally agree with the idea that deviation should be limited to "half the distance thrown", but I also think not all people should be able to throw any kind of throwing weapon over the same maximum distance. Consequently, a grenade exploding next to a character standing probably causes more damage than if the character would lie on the ground.
So, I propose a different set of rules for hand grenades: Range is "1" (could argue for "2") for every grenade, but it's not limited to "short" at all. Instead, the usual modifiers for Heavy Weapons are used. Successes on the Mobility roll can be used for extra damage or extra range. If the desired range is not, i. e. the grenade falls short, then the grenade travels as far as possible (depending upon successes rolled and allocated to Range) in the direction of the target. To roll for deviation, a new target hex is determined by calculating the maximum distance traveled into the direction of the original target. Then the grenade deviates as per the standard rules.
Example: If the original target is 3 hexes away, but only 1 additional success is rolled, the grenade travels just 2 hexes (1 for it's Range plus 1 for the additional success) into the targeted direction, making the hex adjacent to the original target the new targeted hex for deviation. When rolling for deviation, the grenade will now deviate 1 hex - half of it's distance to the (new) targeted hex - into one of 6 possible directions. So there is still a 1/6 chance the grenade bounces into the originally intended hex.
Thoughts? Ideas?
liber & infractus