Armory - Riot Grenades lacking info

[Cellion]

Not sure how I missed this, but there seems to be something missing in the entry for Riot Grenades in the Armory book. As an example, here's the explode description for Riot Grenade I:

explode (staggered; 10 ft.)

How long does the staggered condition from these last? The grenade description is silent. I was hoping there was some universal rule that caused conditions without a duration to default to 1 round, but I haven't been able to find something like that.

My only guess is that the writer might've been thinking of the staggered critical hit effect, which has a 1 round duration baked in.

Any thoughts? Have I missed some explanation somewhere? Does this need an FAQ?
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The Cryo grenades in the CRB similarly don't show a duration, which suggests to me that there's some universal rule I'm missing.

[Nefreet]

Didn't realize there wasn't an FAQ category for Armory.

Archivesofnethys doesn't list a Weapon Special Property for "Staggered".

I can't find any posts by John Compton, Joe Pasini or Owen Stephens, or even that this question has appeared in this Forum or the Product Discussion thread before.

Lacking any other guidance, the best answer available until it's addressed is probably the Staggered Critical Hit Effect.

Since there is an FAQ category for the other books, it makes me think that one is coming for Armory. Probably best to flag this thread for FAQ so it gets noticed (even if this is the first time this question has been asked).

[Pantshandshake]

My money is on one round as well.

The thing that makes the most sense to me is that someone looked at the explode rules, which state that the explode property will list "special effects (with a duration, if necessary)" and then looked for the staggered rule, found the only instance of staggered in the critical hit area, and noted that staggered only has a duration of 1 round.

Given Paizo's track record for Starfinder, I can 100% see someone saying "Well, since staggered only has a duration of 1 round, I don't need to specify that" while also huffing some glue and wondering how they managed to tie their shoelaces to their desk leg again.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

What has been said previously makes sense.

However I feel that a lot is missing from the riot grenade.

They are pretty useless as written.

It should have a duration both for the cloud and the effects.

If you look at the smoke grenade it is far more debilitating than a riot grenade for a fifth of the price (we will get to the sheer lunacy of the smoke grenade in a moment).

It should work similar to a smoke grenade with a duration of 1 minute.

The longer you stand in the area of effect the harder it is to save.

So I have house ruled it this way.

A riot grenade has a duration of 1 minute and the affected area provides concealment with 20% miss chance.

A creature that begins their turn in the area of effect must make a DC 10 + 1/2 grenade item level + Dex modifier +1 for each additional round after the first or be staggered for 1d4 rounds.

A creature that is already staggered from this effect that fails an additional save is staggered an additional 1d4 rounds.

One of my groups uses riot grenades and this rule has worked very well.

Now as for smoke grenades. To have them have the same effect as smoke from a fire is just plain silly.

As one who has professionally used smoke grenades and as someone who has been in a fire the are not the same at all. Not even close. Properly used a smoke grenade has negligible effect on the user or anyone who gets caught in the cloud. I have never seen anyone get into a choking fit as described in the rules and be unable to move.

Maybe at best you could slap the sickened condition on someone if you wanted to.

So my house rule for smoke grenades is just to remove the choking part.

[Pantshandshake]

Hawk, what's your concept of a riot grenade? Your houserule seems like you're seeing it as a CS canister, but the book entry makes it sound more like stingballs to me.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

Pantshandshake wrote:

Hawk, what's your concept of a riot grenade? Your houserule seems like you're seeing it as a CS canister, but the book entry makes it sound more like stingballs to me.

I do see it as a CS canister grenade. Especially the MK I, II and III that do no damage.

But I can see what you are saying when you look at MK IV & up.

Even on those grenades I would keep my house rule as is, saying that MK IV and up are a combination CS / Baton round grenade.

[Pantshandshake]

Hawk Kriegsman wrote:

I do see it as a CS canister grenade. Especially the MK I, II and III that do no damage.

But I can see what you are saying when you look at MK IV & up.

Even on those grenades I would keep my house rule as is, saying that MK IV and up are a combination CS / Baton round grenade.

Son of a...

I 100% missed that the lower ranks don't actually do any damage.

Ok, these things don't make a lot of sense.

If it pleases the court, can the FAQ also address just what Riot Grenades actually do? Is it a gas/smoke? Do environmental protections or winds do anything? The non-lethal damage on the higher ranks is S, which doesn't really seem like non-lethal or the kind of damage you'd get from riot control rounds, it sounds like shrapnel.

I mean, on the face of it, it looks like someone said "Hey, I like what smoke, flashbang, and frag grenades do, why don't we have 1 grenade that does all those things at once!"