Explosives

Reasoning
Boldness
Self Discipline

Short Description

Safely construct, place, and disarm explosive devices for engineering, sabotage, and structural manipulation

Success Criteria

Roll d100 against DR 100

Effects

Success:You achieve the intended structural or mechanical result - such as collapsing a section of wall, breaching a hatch, disabling a machine, or disarming an explosivej - without destabilizing surrounding areas.

Modifiers and Restrictions

–10 DR — Target is brittle, dry, or already structurally compromised (e.g., sandstone wall, fractured bulkhead)

–10 DR — Target is made of organic or soft material (e.g., wood, roots, bones, lightweight polymers)

+10 DR — Target is constructed from durable composite or dense alloys

+20 DR — Target includes reinforced armor plating, energy shielding, or deep-set fasteners

+25 DR — Target is specifically designed to resist damage (e.g., blast doors, hardened vaults, stabilized load-bearing walls)

+30 DR — Target is high tech unknown or alien in composition (e.g., xeno-tech, pre-collapse materials)

–10 DR — Small target (e.g., door lock, crate, personal equipment casing)

+0 DR — Medium target (e.g., hatch, control panel, isolated wall section)

+15 DR — Large structure or object (e.g., full wall, generator core, reinforced turret base)

+25 DR — Oversized or anchored object (e.g., bulkhead wall, structural beam, defensive turret array)

+30 DR — Massive or load-bearing structure (e.g., underground vault, facility column, starship hull segment)

Action Examples

You need to access a locked-down research vault. The hatch is steel but not reinforced. You plant a compact breaching charge.

Target: Medium size, durable material. DR: 100 (base) +10 (dense alloy) = DR 110

Outcome: Success opens the vault with minimal damage to the surrounding area.

To delay pursuit, you rig a blast at a tunnel junction reinforced with concrete and support beams.

Target: Large size, reinforced composite

DR: 100 (base) +10 (size) +15 (reinforcement) = DR 125

Long Description

Explosives covers the controlled use of detonation to achieve specific engineering outcomes: opening sealed doors, disabling infrastructure, sabotaging machinery, and clearing debris. Unlike Demolition Tactics, which is about rapid battlefield impact, this skill is focused on precise, deliberate, and situational use of explosives in non-combat scenarios.

Whether you're clearing an ancient corridor, collapsing a tunnel to halt enemy pursuit, or rigging a generator to overload, Explosives gives you the knowledge to calculate blast radius, material yield, and structural risk. It’s also used to disarm, dismantle, or repurpose enemy explosive devices encountered in the field.

Sequencing

Not optimized for sequencing

Potential Counters

No direct counters

How to use this page

All the information above is intended as a guide to help you navigate the many situations that can arise during your game. Since it's both impossible—and frankly uninspiring—to plan for every possible outcome, players are encouraged to think creatively when using their skills. Game Masters, in turn, are encouraged to embrace and support that creativity.

Whenever possible, aim to resolve situations through narrative choices, logical thinking and role playing. If that’s not feasible, agree on a Difficulty Rating (DR) using the provided Success Criteria and Modifiers. These are not rigid rules, but suggestions - starting points to help you find the right level of challenge. The player describes their intended action, and the Game Master proposes a DR. This should be open to brief discussion at the table, ideally resulting in consensus. If not, the Game Master has the final say.

It’s important to emphasize that all suggested effects, modifiers, and action examples are exactly that: suggestions. If you’re unsure how to resolve something, they offer a reliable fallback—but wherever possible, we encourage you to push boundaries. That’s where some of the most memorable and exciting moments in play are born.

Sequencing and Potential Counters are far from exhaustive. With hundreds of skills, spells, and tech modules in the game, the possibilities are too vast to list. You’re encouraged to explore combinations that make sense in your story and setting and in the situations that arise in your game. Sequencing and countering are core to Cosmic Odyssey - they’re where strategic depth meets dramatic flair, and where legendary moments often take shape. Even if no sequencing and counters are mentioned, some certainly exists and can be smartly utilized.

So explore boldly, improvise wisely, and enjoy the game as it unfolds around your choices.