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How do you feel about the rules for explosives with dice rolling for Blast damage? To me they feel a bit underwhelming and I felt the same way about fall damage in Forbidden Lands (FbL). I'm preparing my first session so am going through the rules and want to have this thought through if it comes up in play...

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Fall damage in FbL is deteremined by If height in meters ≥ 3 m, then roll X Base Dice where X = height in meters – 2. So if a player falls from 10 m the GM rolls 8 Base Damage and each success deals 1 damage to strength. We had a situation where a player was dropped from 18 m, so I rolled 16 Base Dice and the player only suffered 2 points of damage to strength due to lack of successes...

In Alien, this has now been replaced with damage equal to height (m) ÷ 2. No rolls, just straight up damage. In my example my player would've suffered 8 points of damage to strength. So I've decided to use the rule from Alien but make a Talent that a player can pick to use Mobility to lower damage from falling.

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Now to the issue; Explosives suffers the same issue in Alien that Fall damage does in FbL. Has anyone made any changes to the rules that you feel work? I'd prefer to have some kind of increased Base damage but allow a mobility roll to decrease it. What do you, who have played the game, think?

I haven't used grenades in Alien yet, but I have used them in Mutant Year Zero and that game uses the same rules (with one difference, see below).

A normal grenade have a Blast Power of 9. That should (hm) result in 1-2 successes. The grenade will do:
* 2-3 damage to everyone within Engage range (this includes the automatic +1 damage because of the range).
* 1-2 damage to everyone within Short range.
* 0-1 damage to everyone within Medium range (the Blast Power is only 3 on this range, so the you will only get 0-1 success).


In Mutant Year Zero a frag grenade does one extra damage to the first success of the Blast roll. So a frag grenade in Mutant Year Zero (Blast Power 9) will do if we assume 1-2 successes:
(the ranges is called something else in MYZ)
* 3-4 damage to everyone within Engage range (this includes the automatic +1 damage because of the range).
* 2-3 damage to everyone within Short range.
* 0-2 damage to everyone within Medium range (the Blast Power is only 3 on this range, so the you will only get 0-1 success).


An average person in both games can take three damage before become broken. So perhaps going with the MYZ is a way to go if you like better grenades, but not to op grenades.

The blast damage at short and medium range is fine. But the damage at engaged range is completely pathetic.

A Grenade should absolutely do more than 1 guaranteed damage at engaged range.

Grenades should do +3 damage at engaged range not +1 damage.

Aliens have 7-10 health and 8-12 armor so its not like a +3 damage grenade would kill aliens. not even close. youd be lucky to do 2-3 damage to the alien after it rolls armor.

Im not sure what the reasoning is behind the absurdly weak grenades.

The blast damage at short and medium range is fine. But the damage at engaged range is completely pathetic.

A Grenade should absolutely do more than 1 guaranteed damage at engaged range.

Grenades should do +3 damage at engaged range not +1 damage.

Aliens have 7-10 health and 8-12 armor so its not like a +3 damage grenade would kill aliens. not even close. youd be lucky to do 2-3 damage to the alien after it rolls armor.

Im not sure what the reasoning is behind the absurdly weak grenades.

The grenades are design to do what they do irl, to damage, not to kill, human targets. In Aliens, in my example above it will do just that, perhaps little bit short to be honest. MYZ is more spot on I think. There it will really do serious damage to the (human) target. In MYZ there are also other types of grenades, some much more lethal than this. Perhaps we will get other types of grenades in an upcoming book, energy-, rsv-grenades, etc.

Letting a grenade have +3 damage would probably auto-kill all humans. That would make other weapons, a little bit pointless.

Letting a grenade have +3 damage would probably auto-kill all humans. That would make other weapons, a little bit pointless.

it doesnt make the other weapons pointless unless you give your players too many grenades

the way I see it grenades should be powerful but grenade ammo should also be extremely limited

unfortunately grenades are pointless the way they are now. blast 9 is simply not reliable at doing damage. and xenomorph armor shrugs it off too easily without armor piercing. and the situations where theres multiple enemies clumped up dont really happen often. because if youre ever in a situation where theres that many xenomorphs that a grenade is actually worthwhile you have some pretty big problems.

Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand the damage does seem low for a grenade, particularly one going off right next to someone. But on the other hand upping the damage makes something absolutely lethal to players. You then are in the situation that if you have bad guys with grenades you are likely going to kill one or more of your players in what is a very unsatisfying way. If then you don't have bad guys with grenades your just giving a powerful tool to your players that you daren't use back. That's a tricky one...

But on the other hand upping the damage makes something absolutely lethal to players.

no less lethal than any other weapon. A shotgun does 3 damage too and can push its rolls making it potentially deadlier.

if you want to give your bad guys non-lethal grenades thats what electroshock grenades are for. frag grenades should absolutely be lethal though.

I wouldnt have a problem with letting players make mobility checks to see if they can dive out of engaged range before the grenade goes off or even dive onto a grenade to take one for the team.

Another possible solution to a more powerful grenade is giving it a time delay fuse. Maybe it explodes at the end of the round or if you want to to be less predictable maybe it draws a random initiative card and explodes on that initiative during the next round.

I think those are both fair options.

I understand Fenhorns points about making it too lethal for humans. I think the Mutant YZ is a good enough trade off increasing base damage with 1. Does normal armor protect against explosives?

But on the other hand upping the damage makes something absolutely lethal to players.

Another possible solution to a more powerful grenade is giving it a time delay fuse. Maybe it explodes at the end of the round or maybe it draws an initiative card and explodes on that initiative during the next round.

I really like the idea of "giving it an initiative" or have it detonate at the end of an initiative turn. Maybe take the initiative from the player who threw/shot and add a modifier (maybe 1 or 2D6?). If initiative goes over 10, you keep going up the initiative beginning at 1 on the next round. Example, player has Initiative 3 and sets off a grenade. He rolls 2D6 (3 + 5 = 8). The grenade will go off at the end of Initiative 1 the next round (3 → 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 → (new round) 1. Players who act before can make a move check to completely get out of harms way (but triggering overwatch ). Anyone else can make a dodge roll to reduce damage using the normal rules.

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Throwing out some more ideas:

• Give explosives their own critical table, with potential to blow off limbs, ripping up someones face for a terrible scar if they survive, and so on. A simple D6 roll where 1-2 is non-lethal, 3 is lethal within D6 days, 4 lethal within D6 hours, 5 within D6 rounds and and 6 is instant death. Each result can have an additional D6 roll to determine which part of the body that is mainly affected.
• If the players are soldiers out to specifically hunt Xenomorphs or know they're going to run in to them, maybe they have access to specialized explosives created to be more effective against Xenos instead of finding a balance between being too effective against humans or not effective at all against Xenos?
• To make explosives more effective without making them more deadly, maybe a person who's been hit by or stand near an explosive (near range?) have to make a Wits roll (only attribute dice) against the damage taken or lose their actions on their next initiative?

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Are any of these ideas possible to use without overcomplicating things?

As usual, I'd want to refer to the movies as the primary source, and let them inform what the reality that this game depicts should look like.

And in the movies, the only scene where we really see grenades used against aliens is the one where Vasquez rear guards the Marines' retreat from the ops centre by lobbing off a couple (presumably M-40 HE's) into the advancing aliens from her pulse rifle, thereby creating enough slack in the advance to allow them to penetrate the door Burke locked, and regroup in the next compartment.
(Early during the battle preceding this, we see some flashes occurring behind the aliens that conceivably might be grenades going off, but we never see anyone firing off those grenades. I'd attribute those flashes to FX.)

We don't see those grenades explicitly blowing apart any of the bugs, but the implication certainly is that they have a devastating effect on them, sending several flying, and as I noted, creating the effect of temporarily halting the attack.

The other useful indication is the blast created by Gorman & Vasquez's suicide M-40. That single blast not only presumably kills both humans and the aliens close to them, but creates a shock wave powerful enough to propagate through the warren of ventilation ducts and still blow people off balance.

So all in all, I'd have to say that in order to be true to the movies, grenades in the game ought to be pretty powerful...

As for play balance -- this is after all still a role-playing game, not a board game. If grenades are powerful, it is up to the GM control their game effect by moderating the supply and being very judicious about when and how to use -- or not use -- them against PC's.

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Perhaps we will get other types of grenades in an upcoming book, energy-, rsv-grenades, etc.

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Not sure I know what an rsv-grenade is... Or did you mean "riktad sprängverkan" -- shaped charge (HEAT)?
But indeed, we can hope that in the Marines Setting Book, Andrew this time gets all the space he needs to go into the Marines' equipment in detail. It is clear in the movie that the Marines have access to a variety of grenades to load into their pulse rifles.

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Not sure I know what an rsv-grenade is... Or did you mean "riktad sprängverkan" -- shaped charge (HEAT)?
But indeed, we can hope that in the Marines Setting Book, Andrew this time gets all the space he needs to go into the Marines' equipment in detail. It is clear in the movie that the Marines have access to a variety of grenades to load into their pulse rifles.

Thanks. Didn't know what it was called in English.