[Ravensong]

I love the idea of a Mercenary who is solid with shotguns, sniper rifles and setting up improved explosives for ambush. How useful is the demolitions skill really?

[8-bit]

From my understanding, Demolitions is more about setting up solid blocks of explosives. It's good for preplanned demolition to destroy a building, but I don't think it's that useful for combat purposes.

I'm not sure if you have Run & Gun, but that book has some in-depth rules about explosives. IIRC, the rules only really covered setting up bricks of explosive to purposefully destroy a vehicle or building.

[Ravensong]

Yes, have been looking into Run and Gun. A great expansion for demolitions, but the specialty for improvised explosives was not covered in any detail. Like for example, making a tripwire trap with a grenade, or an IED for a roadside ambush.

[Imveros]

seems like you should be able to use it for booby traps as well. As for its usefulness, it all depends on the kind of game you are playing. Black trench coat games, explosives are too flashy, too much collateral damage. Pink Mohawk games, you get bonus damage if you set up a slow motion camera and speakers playing classic synth rock and roll!

Isn't demolitions also used for defusing bombs? Seems like a great skill if your GM is willing to play ball.

[Ravensong]

Yes, on the last run, saved the team's life with a timely bomb diffusion, and then re-armed the bomb as a trap/cover, once our exit route was established. Looking to do more with traps.

[Imveros]

sounds like you have the perfect GM to make a demo man then! I think that's where the hesitation comes in. Demolitions is a very group specific skill. It may be invaluable for you, and less than worthless for another

[Michael Chandra]

Tripwires for grenades are in SR5 Core, but you're right on that IEDs aren't explicitly described. Which makes sense, since you're basically just setting a default explosion there.

[Shaidar]

Many IEDs are just repurposed mortar, RPG, or artillery shells with imaginative trigger mechanisms replacing their typical fuses.  So for damage stats you might want to look at assault cannons and missles/rockets.

[Mr. Black]

"there is no problem on earth that cannot be solved with the proper application of high explosives." Or something like that. Just making IED's seems like a waste of the Explosives skill. Among the varied things I have done with the Explosives skill:

• After a fellow party member killed a cop, and then locked the body in the trunk along with the car keys(!), I blew a hole through the backseat firewall to retrieve said keys and allow the car to be driven away from our stakeout. (yes, the player was an idiot, and no, i did not have my lock picks with me that time.)
• Instead of walking in the "front door", filled with armed guards and mages and such, I found nearby sewer mains ( the big, "drive a car through" sized ones. The kind with albino mutant alligators and other awakened beasties in them.) and blew a 6' wide hole through reinforced concrete, creating a "back door" entrance. The explosion also stunned the mages and guards with the "Big Bad Guy", giving us an edge.
• Parachuted/glided to the 44th floor of Renraku arcology, and set off a frame charge to allow the rest of the team to parachute/glide/fly through the hole and into the arcology.
• Stuffed RC cars full of plastique and then ran them under parked cars, blowing them up as a distraction. I have also done this with cars full of "bad guys" who were staking us out.
• Dropped trees/power poles to stop pursuit/pen people in.
• Dropped walls to do the same.
• Blown doors/locks when an exit was needed and stealth time was over.
• Blown through the vehicle grade armor of vans and limos to get at occupants.
• Slapped plastic explosives in a wheel well and blown the wheel off to disable pursuit, without killed the occupants.

So many things you can do, and so little time.

[St Evil]

Yeah, it is niche, but if you can support the skill w/chemistry knowledge shill, then you can pull  a sweet line like," Just a few household chemicals in the proper proportions," type line.