Explosives

Explosives
"Almost only accounts in horseshoes and hand grenades."



Explosives are an interesting topic; they not only look cool, but have the potential to do a tremendous amount of damage or take out a lot of enemies, all at once. Explosives vary considerably in quality and impact, but most explosives, over 1000 m/s, considered the range necessary for "detonation", do roughly the same thing. Hot, expanding gas resulting from an extremely fast exothermic reaction, ordinarily a combustion reaction, releases carbon dioxide, water and excess byproducts to produce an extremely fast moving pressure wave in the air, past supersonic velocities which allows it to produce a tremendous amount of destructive force. Low grade explosives, such as gunpowder, do very little damage and mostly harm the surface of the target, and generally lack the ability to pierce armor or greatly ignore the durability of an object. Higher grade explosives tend to not only be lighter for their energy content, but more powerful as well. While the explosives don't increase substantially in terms of damage, their brissancy, or detonation velocity, increases exponentially. A low grade explosive may have 1,000 to 2,000 m/s of velocity,but a high grade explosive can have between 6,000 to 9,000. This isn't just more, it's exponentially more. The power level isn't twice as strong for twice the velocity, but 4 times as strong. Going from a 1,000 m/s explosive to 9,000 produces 9x9 or 81 times the shock force, allowing it to easily rip through or cut through metal and concrete. A low grade explosive may barely crack concrete, where as a high grade explosive might cut through steel. In terms of the durability the explosive ignores, higher grade explosives typically ignore durability better, meaning they can more easily destroy objects.

A low grade explosive may only be able to get through dry wall and wood, where as high grade explosive might cut through steel like it's butter. While the damage does not increase with higher grade explosives, their ability to penetrate through various objects, does. Some explosives are so low grade to where they do in fact need more material to remain deadly, but these are rather rare. Otherwise, all explosives do 1L for a pound of explosive, rounding down. .5 a pound of explosive still does 1L, but simply has a shorter range. With an athletics or science roll to to deploy the explosive to the target, you can add the successes of the roll to the damage roll to the target. Any secondary targets in the blast radius only take the damage of the explosive, itself however. So for instance if you place an explosive on a locked door in order to do an entry, you can add your successes to the roll. If an enemy steps on the land mine you set, you can add your successes of your science + wits roll to the damage done, although the surrounding targets only absorb the minimum damage. Crafts or science can be used to make or deploy explosives, but only science can be used to run particular tests.

Explosives, mechanically, have a number of features. First is the blast radius, of which all explosives have a lethal and injury blast radius, represented by two numbers such as 8/16, the first lethal range which does lethal damage, and the second which does bashing damage. Explosives over 8 pounds have an additional disorientation range, that adds certain penalties, at double the injury range or, for example would have a range of 8/16/32. While the damage increases linearly, such as 8 pounds of military grade explosives would do 8L damage, the range increases by a cube root. It would take 8 times as much explosive to create 2 times the blast radius of a 1 pound explosive. While the explosive does more damage, it's effective blast radius is only increased by 1.25 times the amount for every doubling of the amount, or 2 times for 8 times the amount. This scales from a minimum of half a pound of explosive, which has an effective lethal radius of 3 yards. The grades of explosives vary, but largely impact how much durability the explosive can ignore. An entry level explosive only ignores 1 durability of an object it's trying to damage, such as a mailbox in the way of it's potential victim, where as a military grade explosive would ignore 4. Any object in front of a target effectively absorbs that damage, acting as armor. To do damage to the intended target, you must not only destroy the object, overcoming it's inherent durability and structure, but also still do damage to the target. If you did 12 damage through a mailbox which absorbed 8 total damage from the blast, then the target would only take 4 damage, instead of 12. Higher grade explosives ignore a higher amount of durability, from 1-5 depending on the grade. All explosives produce a stun effect in to their maximum radius (injury or disorientation), of which those effected have to make a resistance roll, or face losing their next turn.

Bear in mind, this the deployment of raw explosives. The actual impact of certain explosives such as, military hand grenades and shaped-charges in rocket launchers designed to pierce through armor will be different. For the individual effects of certain prestablished explosives, see the weapon's in mind.


Explosive variability
Home made explosives are a touchy subject. They not only include thousands of forms of potential chemicals which can be made in to bombs or bomb like weaponry, but they also are commonly used by terrorists and mass murderers alike. In order to prevent the spread of knowledge on how to make them in real life, I will not be posting elaborate lists of information about them. However, if you character rolls to make a home made explosive I will, enlighten you if any chemicals in the area can be used to make a bomb. While explosives vary in quality, they're all essentially the same thing; a way to produce hot gases quickly. Various methods can be used to increase the brissance, or explosive force of a bomb, even if it's low quality, such as a strong container or aluminum powder. To that end, nearly any explosive can become sufficient to crack concrete or destroy normal objects, but they will be heavier or more difficult to produce. Nearly any explosive in sufficient quantities can effectively destroy a target; the only question is, how much.

While it varies from explosive to explosive, there are various "grades" that do exist. While the actual blast radius and deadly nature of an explosive varies, it is also contingent on shrapnel. While not a part of the explosion itself, the high mass of fragmentation and the transfer of energy to both the target and the material allows it to do substantially more damage at a farther range. Gas is compressible, and thus not only conforms to it's surroundings, losing energy fast, but possesses very little mass, giving it extremely low momentum. If the explosive transfers the energy to something more heavy such as, solid steel, it can travel much farther and thus be, much more deadly. The MK3A2 hand grenade for example, designed purely with explosive, has a lethal range of approximately 2-3 meters, but the M67 hand grenade has a causality radius of approximately 15-30 meters, which is significantly greater. Transferring the energy to the shrapnel is a great way to increase the range, but it does decrease the power of the explosive a bit and require substantially more weight, almost doubling the weight necessary. All explosives except for entry level explosives do 1L for each pound of explosive used, which entry level explosives use 2 pounds. This is rounding up, so half a pound of explosive still would do 1L, but simply having a shorter blast radius. An additional pound of shrapnel is needed for every pound of explosive when shrapnel is used, increasing the injury range to about 5 times that of ordinary explosives.

Shrapnel is very poor at penetrating or destroying common barriers, and thus only has the ability to ignore 1 durability of material, irregardless of the quality of the explosive involved. The grade of explosive is largely measured by the durability rating, that is the durability of an object it can ignore. A military grade explosive will ignore 4 durability of an object of the structure you're trying to destroy, within the primary blast radius. The lethal and injury blast radius of the explosive without the shrapnel is the range of which it can destroy materials with relative ease. This is equal to the damage done to the initial target, and the objects damaged are in the lethal and injury radius (without shrapnel).


Grades of explosive - Making explosives
Finding an explosive is easy; all you have to do be in the right vicinity and, now you've acquired it. Making it yourself can be more challenging. You not only need to find the materials, but possess the resources and the technical know-how to fashion the explosives together, yourself. The extended explosives roll for making an explosive is equal to your intelligence + science or crafts roll, in addition to any relevant equipment (such as a demolitions kit). Making an explosive of the certain amount requires 10 minutes worth of work for each roll made, to make a pound of explosive. Making an explosive depends heavily on the grade; it scales linearly with the grade, so an entry level explosive would take 1 success, where as a military grade explosive would take 4 successes. With a demolitions kit, you can subtract it's rating from the successes needed; so, a military grade explosive would need only 2 successes per pound, if you had a demolitions kit with a rating of, 2. Certain materials can be made in to an explosive rather quickly if combined. These explosives require an extended roll equal to your science or crafts + wits, and on a dramatic failure can result in an accidental explosion. However, each roll is only equal to a turn's worth of time. Not all explosives can be made in this amount of time, but those that can are usually extremely deadly and very difficult to handle, and generally not very high grade. All explosives can be made with etheir a science or crafts roll, but certain elements may require one or the other to work.

-Entry level (gunpowder, pentane etc.) - 1L for 2 pound - Durability: 1
-Moderate (Ammonium nitrate, Nitromethane) - Durability: 2
-Entry Military Grade (TNT, ETN) - Durability: 3
-Military Grade (C-4, Semtex, PETN) - Durability: 4
-High Grade (HMX, Octonitrocubane) -Durability: 5


Explosive blast range and damage
Almost all explosives, unless otherwise stated, have two ranges. The first is the lethal range; this is the range most likely to kill someone, which does damage equal to it's lethal damage. The second is the injury range; this does bashing damage. While explosives that are within range of the target do automatic damage, and this damage can be far more than the health any character could conceivably have to survive the explosion, it still does lethal damage. So, to deal aggravated damage, the explosive still needs to fill all the health boxes with lethal first. Which should be rather easy to do with tremendously powerful explosives.

The first blast range is fixed; the explosive device has a minimum and maximum range, and this doesn't change. The second are variable blast ranges, which depend heavily on the volume of explosive. The actual volume of explosive doesn't scale linearly; when you use twice as much explosive, the explosion isn't twice as big. To produce an explosive twice as wide, high and tall, you need 8 times as much explosive. So, to create an explosion with 8 times the size of a 1 pound explosive device, you would need 8 pounds of explosive. However, damage increases the same. So if 1 pound of material did 1L, the bomb would instead do 8L damage, only in just twice the blast radius.

Half a pound of explosive has an effective lethal blast radius of 3 yards, and an injury radius of 6 yards. When going from half a pound to to 4 pounds of being, 8 times larger, this blast range increases to approximately 6/12 yards. When going from 4 pounds to 32 pounds, this increases to 12/24 yards and so on. When doubling the size of the explosive, you increase the blast radius by 1.25, rounding up. However, there are other factors that determine the range of an explosive, such as fragmentation. While the initial concussive blast radius of a bomb is obviously significantly shorter, the fragmentation range is considerably farther away. When fragmentation is added, roughly equal to half the weight of the explosive, the effective range is 5 times greater, for both the lethal and injury ranges. However, the disorientation range remains the same irregardless of shrapnel. All explosives have a stun effect; if an individual within the explosive blast radius range fails a resistance roll, that is two attributes selected out of three, either stamina, resolve or composure (such as stamina + resolve, or stamina + composure etc.), they also lose their next action the next turn. They simply are too disoriented to realistically be able to take actions.

For large enough explosives, there is also a tertiary effect and blast radius. Explosives are bright and loud, and large enough explosives can not only injure, but rattle the people within them. All explosives over 8 pounds have a tertiary blast radius, which is double the injury range, known as the "disorientation" range. So, an explosive with an effective range of 6/12 yards, would instead have an effective range of 6/12/24 yards, for the lethal, causality, and disorientation range, respectively. For everyone within the lethal, injury and disorientation radius, they suffer a -3 penalty to all rolls for 3 turns or until a successful composure, stamina, or resolve roll is made (with any combination of the three added together for a two-attribute roll). Being disoriented, their speed is halved, as sudden extreme pressure to the ears can disrupt the inner ear, causing vertigo. In addition to this, the user suffers a -5 penalty to all hearing rolls, and -3 to all visual based perception rolls. Until they overcome the effects of the explosives, they are essentially wandering blind, deaf and dumb, and seriously disoriented. Individuals within the lethal and causality range are effected by the explosive disorientation effects, but individuals within the disorientation range are only effected by the disorientation. Individuals within this range are also subject to the secondary "stun", effect, of explosives. That is, if a target within the explosive range fails a resistance check, they lose their next turn.
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Example
John Doe decided his best bet for fighting all the zombies was to make a bunch of explosives so he could clear a path to the building once he got there. Realizing that he had [censored], he figured he could mix [censored] with [censored] to make a [censored] and then combine that with [censored] in order to be able to [censored] [censored] [censored] up a [censored] with a [censored] so he would have to [censored] sideways. In turn, this generated an entry level military explosive, similar in power to TNT. After an extended rest inside of a building, he managed to create nearly 8 pounds of the explosive, which he hoped to clear the immediate vicinity of zombies out of the area. Being over 8 pounds, enemy's within it would also suffer from secondary disorientation effects, in addition to the lethal and injury ranges. The weapon's inherent concussive blast would have an effective lethal, causality and disorientation range of 8/16/32. However, because he decided to double the weight with shrapnel, increase the lethal and causality range to 5 times the amount, or 40 and 80 yards, respectively. Because he used 8 pounds of explosive to construct the device, the explosive would do 8 damage to all creatures in the immediate blast range, fully filling their health boxes, of 7, with lethal damage, enough to knock them all unconscious and provide an additional aggravated damage on top of that.

The disorientation range, despite the shrapnel, remained the same at 32 yards, rather than 80. The stun range was still within the injury range, however. With a science skill rating of 3, and an intelligence of 3, +2 for his demolitions kit, he had 8 die to roll when assembling the explosive. However, his demolitions kit reduced the successes need for the type of explosive equal to it's rating, making making the explosives easier. He would have needed 8 x 3 successes in order to make all the explosives, or 24 successes, but because of his demolitions kit, he only needed 8 (x3-2), or 8 x 1 successes. This took a total of 3 rolls to complete, and took 30 minutes to assemble. At 16 pounds, it was too heavy to throw for John, so instead he deployed it using his science skills. To attract the zombies attention and get them to crowd it around it, since he obviously placed it in a place he couldn't reach, he placed a really loud alarm clock on top, to draw their attention. With the zombies crowded around it, he detonated the device with his radio, allowing him to effectively clear the street in front of him of zombies.


[Censored] Example explosive
Weight: 8 lb
Type: Entry-military level
Explosive Range: 8/16/32
Shrapnel Range: 40/80
Damage: 8L
Durability: 3, 1 (For Shrapnel)