A) I would give full fray, personally, although technically it's a ranged attack (I'd do the same for most thrown attacks.) They can see you draw back to throw, and the throw itself isn't anywhere near as fast as a bullet or a laser, so it's much easier to predict where the grenade is going and get out of the way. B/C) You roll a single attack, they each roll their defense against that, yes. As with any other attack, if you succeed and they don't, you inflict damage. If you succeed and they succeed, whoever has the higher MoS is victorious -- so let's assume you all have the relevant skills at 50. You roll a 35 on your attack roll -- an excellent success! Enemy 1 rolls a 33 on her defense -- normally you'd hit her because your roll was higher, but she got a critical success, so that trumps a normal attack and she dodges. Enemy 2 got a 20, which is still a success, but because your success was higher, you still hit. Take a look at the sample combat on p. 192. EDIT: Also, don't forget that blast effects reduce DV by -2 for every meter the target is away from the center of the blast, or -2 for every meter from the main blast sphere for a uniform blast.

As for what exactly happens when a target of a grenade attack uses fray to avoid it, this is a really good question in a combat system where cover is important; if I dive or run from the grenade landing point, there's a very good chance I am abandoning my cover, right? From pg 200 of the Core Book (which has rules for throwing back grenades and jumping on grenades) the implication is one can move their "movement range" in reaction to a grenade from the "Jumping on Grenades" rule. "The character must be within movement range of the grenade’s location and must take a Complex Action to make a REF + COO + WIL Test to fall on the grenade and cover it with their morph." As a GM I'd probably require the target move (potentially abandoning cover) to use fray on the explosive attack. But what if a character got a grenade attack against them after they already acted in their action phase? If I were GM I'd let them move their next move "chunk" forward, even if they had to steal it from their next Action Turn (not just next Action Phase). In addition, I'd let them steal/borrow a Complex Action from their next phase to augment their Fray/Freerunning check with the "Sprinting" rules from pg. 191 (+1 meter per 10 MoS up to +5 meters) if it would help them totally avoid the blast or obtain a new cover position. EDIT: To be clear, going with fully fray against the original grenade attack roll (which determines if the target was actually beaned by the toss) is NOT rules as written. Rules as written is 1/2 fray, even for thrown weapons.

Azathoth wrote:

Awesome NP, this is exactly where my mind is going with this! Right down to "borrowing" movement from a later turn. Now, I see two issues with this approach. It may set a precedent with some players that fray=extra movement. Then they may try to do this maneuver even when dodging bullets. Also, what if you successfully fray, but don't have quite enough move to escape the blast? Would you have the target suffer the reduced damage for being further from the epicenter?

I'd allow mitigation of the blast yes, based on the distance covered. Re: dodging bullets. Good point. You'd have to allow it for bullets too, otherwise it would be pretty inconsistent, wouldn't it? You definitely want to keep an eye on movement abuse. As is now with the house rule, someone can run and shoot (-20 penalty pg. 193), get shot at, and then run some more (borrowing a move forward from next phase) finally ending up behind unbeatable cover - all in the "same" action phase. There's some ways to reign in profiteers here I can think of: 1. Require Full Defense for Borrowed forward freerunning dodge. First, you could require that if somebody "borrows" a move to their current phase they must *also* borrow forward a Complex Action for Full Defense from their next phase AND must roll against freerunning (or fray -30 for defaulting to freerunning). Sure, they get the +30 to defend against all attacks (which is nice) but they basically sacrifice their next action. This is more consistent with the rules as normally you cannot use freerunning unless doing the Full Defense action (pg. 198), and freerunning "feels" like the right skill in this scenario as opposed to fray. 2. Time Freeze for each attacker if you use this maneuver Second, if I move, then borrow a move forward to get the +30 freerunning roll to get more movement in one phase with my dodge, and end up behind cover, any *other* attackers can still shoot at me on their turn as if I'm not behind cover yet. This preserves simultaneity (as all of these things are actually occurring at once - initiative is just a convenient conceit - if initiative breaks believability, believability wins over initiative rolls in my book). One problem I see with this is that your dodge roll for thrown and shooting is different (full vs half), and not only that but you oppose each attack with a separate roll. So that also implies your "extra sprint movement" will be different based on who's attacking you. Even "Time Freeze" doesn't fix that. What if I crit dodge on one attack, and critical fail on another dodge? Perhaps you should have the player roll once only for this "Borrowed Full Defense Freerunning roll" and that roll holds for all attackers. That opens another can of worms - this is a cheap use of moxie to boost this roll. I'd say you need to spend the moxie for each attack that you want to alter the dice on (e.g. I roll a 54 from a Target of 55 (zero MoS) and get shot 6 separate times - I have to spend 6 total moxie convert each of those rolls to critical dodges). A little fiddly, but at least it doesn't screw over players that put points in freerunning vs. fray :) P.S. I'd also allow them to drop prone at the end for free (not requiring a Quick Action) with this maneuver (for that -10 to be hit with attackers at 10+ meters) - pg. 193.