These are his musings.

This week, I’m continuing to follow up on the fortified churches story with a quick look at explosives, and how a GM can support your desire to Blow Something Up.

Some science and games mechanics follow, along with a couple of maniacal giggles!

Dynamite

“Dynamite is an explosive made by soaking sawdust in nitro-glycerine and forming the mixture into sticks.” – Resistance, p146.

How does it work? Well; the “active” constituent of dynamite, nitro-glycerine, undergoes detonation in the presence of heat according to the following chemical equation:

4C₃H₅N₃O₉(l) + heat ⇒ 6N₂(g)+12CO(g)+10H₂O(g)+1O₂(g)

Now, if you never studied chemistry at school, the important point here is that 4 parts of liquid nitro-glycerine will produce 29 parts of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, water vapour and oxygen (or using a rough approximation, 1 wine bottle filled with pure nitro-glycerine will produce enough gas to fill 1,100 wine bottles of gas! These gases will expand in a bubble, trying to fill the available space around them as quickly as possible, until the gas pressure balances out with normal air pressure. The practical upshot of this is that the explosion produces a shockwave which travels outwards at a speed of over 7 kilometres per second, and it’s this shockwave that causes all the damage.

Why am I telling you all this? Good question. There are some points we need to take away from this when we talk about the rules for using dynamite in Dark Harvest:

1. The more dynamite you use, the bigger the bang. This is just a simple multiplication: 3 sticks of dynamite will produce 3 times as much gas as 1 stick, and it’s that gas expansion that does the damage.
2. If you pack multiple sticks of dynamite into a small space, you will get added bang for your buck, but only in a smaller radius of explosion. If the detonation shockwave encounters resistance as it expands (say a wall), it will destroy whatever is in its path, and carry it along with it as it continues to expand. The extra mass it has picked up will do more damage against the next thing it his, but moving all this extra material takes energy out of the shockwave, and causes it to stabilise faster. This is the basic principle behind all fragmentation grenades.
3. There is a minimum safe distance for a dynamite explosion. The shockwave will eventually peter out, and that’s the point where it’s safe to stand.
4. Skill plays a factor in how effective a dynamite detonation is – how much explosive and how tightly packed it is will determine the size of the explosion, and how far away you need to get before you’re safe (which determines the length and composition of the fuse you intend to use).

System Notes

Area Effect

For those not in possession of a copy of Resistance, here’s the weapon effect that applies to dynamite, with a slightly different example to what we published in the book:

OK so far? Right then, here’s the new bit. When combining explosives, you multiply the damage code by the number of devices (2 sticks of Dynamite = 16D), and add one to the Area Effect rating for each additional device (Area Effect(3) for two sticks of dynamite). Yes, this can get crazy, but we are talking about BIG explosions here.

Damaging Buildings

The other thing we need to consider when blowing something up is how strong it is. This is really for the GM to decide, but to give you some idea, the wall of a simple house will have around 15 Hit Points, and a more substantial townhouse around 25 Hit Points. More heavily constructed walls (say a barracks) may have around 40.

Proper fortifications like Tàrga Mures will have been built to resist explosives, and will have upwards of 80 Hit Points in a section of wall, but will also have a Fortification rating. Each point of Fortification on a structure will add a Black Die to the roll made by the demolitions expert… Which brings us to the mechanics!

Blowing Things Up

Finally! This is simple – a demolitions roll is a lot like a normal attack. Roll Wits + Demolitions, adding in any Black Dice for Fortification (and any other difficulties or penalties that are appropriate). Any additional successes on this roll will add extra dice into the damage roll.

Example: The slightly crazy Neculai bundles six sticks of dynamite together and lights it in an attempt to destroy the wall of a small house. He lights the fuse and gets well back. His Wits + Demolitions gives him five dice, and the roll gives him a 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 2 (the 6 gave him another die to roll). Three successes means two additional dice on the damage roll. The damage done at Ground Zero is therefore 58D (48D for the explosive itself, 7D for Area Effect, and 3D for Demolitions). Without taking up lots of space, this generated 24 successes! (I would recommend a dice rolling app for this roll, by the way!)

Twenty-four successes is more than enough to take out the wall (15 Hit Points, with no Fortification) – and remember that with the Area Effect code changing, anyone within 7 yards of Ground Zero will have taken 61D, and anyone within 14 yards will have taken 54D! (I do hope that Neculai’s fuse was long enough…)

So there you have it – a quick guide to explosives. See you next time the time-lock operates on the Think Tank!

These are his musings.

Welcome to the Think Tank! Iain’s piece on fortified churches got me thinking like a PMF general – how would the Promethean Military Force have organised their ability to handle a siege? What would they have done to develop the capability to take out the church at Denndorf, for example? This is the first of two short articles – the first gives an insight into the specialists of the PMF Engineering Corps; the second will look at explosives and their use against buildings in a bit more detail. Here we go…

The Combat Engineer

For as long as mankind has been creating fortifications, there are those who have wanted them torn down. This is the role in the Promethean Military Forces filled by the combat engineer; sometimes more romantically referred to in other armies as” pioneers” or “sappers” (Victor, though, has never had a romantic view of the military). The Engineering Corps consists of one battalion of around 400 combat engineers, divided into four companies of roughly equal size. The battalion is based in Bacӑu, and as a result, regularly assist with the reconstruction of rail lines in the area which have been targetted by Resistance “troublemakers”.

This may give you a clue as to what a combat engineer does. In general terms, their duties are to perform construction, repair and demolition operations, often in the thick of battle. This may be anything from clearing a minefield, to repairing faulty mortars, to tunnelling under a fortification and then using explosives to breach those defences. The fact that they are expected to be in combat areas means that they are trained to fight as well as any PMF soldier, and an engineer or two can often be found in amongst a company of infantrymen, ready to carry out repairs on field equipment, or kill the enemy – whatever is required.

The Promethean ideology of improvement through Augmentation has been applied to this necessary military role with great success, and two major types of Augmented engineer have developed in roughly equal number. The structural engineer (nicknamed castor, or “beaver”) has received implants which greatly increase his strength, and armour to afford him some protection from enemy fire as he tackles their defences; the equipment engineer (or veveriţă – “squirrel”) has alteration to his nerves and hands which allow him to work quickly on compact equipment in difficult circumstances. Once inducted into the Engineers, a recruit will be offered the option of one of two standard Augmentation procedures, detailed below – not every engineer ends up with these Augmentations, but the surgeons have become adept at these procedures, allowing them to be performed in a single surgery, and therefore much more efficiently than at a non-Corps clinic. This means that if one of these packages is taken at Character Generation, then the reduced cost for the Augmentations can be paid.

New Augmentation Options

The “Beaver” Structural Engineer Augmentation Package

Cost: 13 Character Points

•  1 level Armour (3 pts) – Dark Harvest, p156
•  2 levels Enhanced Attribute [Strength] (10 pts) – Dark Harvest, p157
•  Night Vision (3 pts) – Dark Harvest, p158

The “Squirrel” Equipment Engineer Augmentation Package

Cost: 12 Character Points

• Small Hands (3 pts) – Resistance, p121
• Extra Joints (3 pts) – Resistance, p121
• 2 levels Nerve Grafting (6 pts) – Resistance, p121
• Night Vision (3 pts) – Dark Harvest, p158

Sample Character

Name: Jani Eugenescu
Age: 24
Class: Middle
Vocation: Structural Combat Engineer, 2nd Company, Engineering Corps.

CHARACTERISTICS
Strength: +2 [+4]
Dexterity: +1
Fortitude: +2
Presence: -1
Wits: +1
Resolve: +1

DERIVED ATTRIBUTES
Initiative: 4
Movement: 6
Hit Points: 8
Fate Points: 8

SKILLS
Ad Hoc Repair (2), Blunt Weapons (2), Concentration (3), Demolitions (3), Dodge (3),
Engineer [Civil] (4), Engineer [Military] (5), Firearms (3), Fisticuffs (3), General Knowledge (2),
Might (3), Perception (2), Pick Locks (2)

TRAITS
Juggernaut (2)

AUGMENTATIONS
Beaver Package: Armour (1), Enhanced Attribute [Strength] (2), Night Vision

COMPLICATIONS
Rage

Join us next time for more on fortifications, including how to take a building, and turn it into rubble in one easy step!