Explosive traps

[Cúangol]

I cannot find an example in the rulebook on how Explosive Traps work. From the chart on page 37, I see they deal damage. From page 173 I see they shatter every item within range. This makes it seem like a call would be “50 explosive” or similar, but that isn’t a qualifier on the list on page 99.

Without more detail, it appears that the following holds for explosive damage, but that doesn’t seem right: “Carrier attacks are a special type of Weapon qualifier attack. If a Weapon qualifier attack has a damage number and a special effect, it’s considered a Carrier attack. In this case, the special effect will only work if the damage gets to your Body Points;” (page 101). If this were the case, then having enough armor (or a channel armor) would protect all of one’s items from being shattered by an explosion — but that seems to defeat the purpose of an in-game explosive effect.

Perhaps I should think of explosive traps as doing massive damage, plus a shatter effect? If someone can point me to that in the rulebook, or clarify here and include a full example, I’d appreciate it.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

I'm a little hesitant with this answer, because this is based on the old rules and ARC/Ownership may want to address it differently, but Explosive damage like Vengeance damage would seem to be a unique qualifier/effect in one. Certainly none of the other standard qualifiers seems intended to apply, as none of Weapon, Spell, Elemental or Poison Shield defends against it.

If it helps, I would think of the the Explosive Trap as using an Arcane qualifier, since it is intended to bypass all defenses of that style. Further, because it is only traditionally found on in the Trap, there should pretty much always be a hold called when it is occurring, and therefore a marshal to evaluate unusual interactions.