Hi,

> I would be willing to concede that grenades do not do ASN damage, if it
> would help to achieve a consensus. My initial reaction, however, would
> be that since it has such a small burst radius, that it would be used
> against vehicles; thus it should be able to do ASN damage.

The game stats seem to support your take on what a plasma grenade is, so
making it ASN would be okay with me.
 

> I don't agree that grenades should automatically beat AR. In a
> conventional sense, grenades are effective because they explode and send
> shattered pieces of metal (shrapnel) everywhere. I think that it is this
> shrapnel, and not neccessarily the explosive material in the grenade,
> that kills most often. This could be applied to RIFTS by saying that a
> strike above the AR means that a piece of shrapnel (or other explosive
> material) has found a weak spot and will do damage to the person. If
> armour was automatically bypassed, anyone being hit by a series of
> explosives (e.g. by a volley of mini-missles), better have an urn for
> their ashes because there is no way they are going to survive. I think
> that the armour would have at least some protection. It would be like
> saying that the bomb squad should not bother wearing body armour because
> it offers no protection anyways.

Do you intend for there to be another d20 roll, or the same as the strike
roll for throwing the grenade?  It doesn't make sense to me that your
accuracy in throwing the grenade would automatically correspond to the
explosion / shrapnel beating AR, or that a "good shot" would necessarily
beat the AR of everyone in range.  Rolling a separate d20 for everyone in
range would be a lot more realistic, since shrapnel could get some people
but not others.  On the other hand, it would also be a pretty big pain and
slow things down.  I don't deal with them alot, so what are your thoughts?
 

> I think I can see where you are coming from. This would make ASN a
> little more survivable. OK. I have just reviewed your rules for armour
> values. I think that the 1/4 vs. 3/4 damage is a good compromise. I was
> going to use the arguement of Modern armour vs. SN damage source, but I
> see now that total enviromental sealed armour follows its own rules
> (i.e. no matter where you hit, the armour is going to take some of the
> blast). The case where Modern armour vs. SN damage source, would apply
> would be in the case of Non-environmental armour vs. ASN damage source.
> How does that sound?

That's what I was thinking too.

> I am glad to see that we agree on so many issues. It would be great to
> have the same kind of success with the people I play with.

:)

Cheers,
Lindharin