Frag Grenade (Fallout 3)

A frag grenade is a thrown explosive in Fallout 3.

Characteristics
Frag grenades are standard grenades creating an explosive blast and dealing significant damage, with a high chance to cripple limbs. It seems to have the same blast radius as its more powerful energy-based variant, the plasma grenade. They are commonly used by melee-equipped raiders and super mutants when they are out of melee range.

Thrown grenades are affected by physics, they may bounce or roll unexpectedly if not thrown carefully. However, in-game physics can also be used to an advantage, such as throwing grenades through doorways or bouncing them around corners to ambush enemies out of sight.

Grenades are an optional target in V.A.T.S., and can even be shot out of the air, causing them to detonate. This can be used to an advantage, as they will deal damage to an enemy if they are holding them or in close proximity when they explode. Grenades can be thrown point-blank in V.A.T.S with less danger due to the fact that the player character only takes 10% of the damage in V.A.T.S. they would take when outside V.A.T.S. Additionally, throwing grenades with V.A.T.S. and subsequently landing a successful hit will cause the grenade to explode right at the target's feet, making V.A.T.S. the most efficient way to use grenades to best effect (unless throwing it around a corner or through a hole in the floor/ceiling).

A grenade that has been thrown toward the player character will show up on the HUD as a red arrow denoting its direction relative to current position. Move in the opposite direction as quickly as possible to escape the blast radius and minimize the damage to both overall health and limbs.

It is also possible to plant live grenades on a non-player character by passing one from one's inventory to the non-player character's inventory via reverse-pickpocketing. This will kill the non-player character, regardless of how much health they have, making the frag grenade far more deadly. Getting caught putting a grenade in an non-player character's inventory makes them take it as stealing something from them, and return the grenade to the inventory though it won't detonate. Successfully killing a non-player character using this technique can give the Psychotic Prankster achievement.

Variants

 * Sim version - A version used exclusively in the Anchorage Reclamation simulation.

Locations

 * 8 grenades in a niche in the cave area of Shalebridge hill with the giant ant queen.
 * 8 on shelves in the large bunk area of Meresti Metro station.
 * 6 on the counter next the protectron pod in the pharmacy.
 * 5 in a bucket in small room with a sink in the back of L.O.B. Enterprises.
 * 5 behind the gate in Hamilton's Hideaway (key obtained by Three Dog).
 * 5 in a sink in a bathroom in the southwest of Northwest Seneca station.
 * 5 on a shelf in a small room to the south of Bethesda underworks's entrance (circle around).
 * 5 in the Chryslus Building's basement.

Boxes
One guaranteed grenade, 75% chance to spawn 2 to 6:
 * Three in the Rock Creek Caverns.
 * Two on shelves, east of the metro in Pennsylvania Avenue, in a trapped super mutant hideout below a building.
 * Two on the second floor of a ruined house, east in the Fairfax ruins.
 * Two on the beam going over two metro trains in Warrington trainyard.
 * Two Average locked boxes north of the exploding scientist truck, next to some wrecked cars and a skeleton.
 * Two in the Grayditch sewer.
 * Two in the Dunwich Building, ground floor.

Behind the scenes

 * The frag grenade does not appear to expel any fragments; the damage radius also supports this. It seems that the frag grenade works more like a concussion grenade.