Grenades don't respect z levels

I got stuck 3 stories up and was surrounded by a zombie horde down below, however thankfully I had a stash of grenades on me. However upon using it the explosion went all around the house and killed me, even though I was three stories above it and sitting on concrete. Is this normal? I’m no pyrotechnic but i’m pretty sure grenades don’t climb walls

Shrapnel flies in all directions, including nearly straight up, and what goes up can come done down.

Without seeing what you did, I don’t know if this is a problem or not, but it doesn’t sound like it.

I have a suspicion that grenade didn’t fall to 0 z-level like expected and instead blew right in Bio’s avatar’s face. But yeah, without a save, preferably right prior to throwing the grenade, we can’t be sure.

i suppose in CDDA graphics you really dont think of an explosion as a sphere like it is, you think of it as a circle centered around the explosion… but yeah, shrapnel would indeed fly upwards, and if you were standing too close, even 3 stories up (assuming 7-ish foot celings) would be within the blast radius.

how much damage did you take? you generally take less damage from being farther away from the center of the explosion so if it for some reason landed on the square you wanted it to drop, but didnt drop, you would have taken a lot more damage than if it had fallen. also, did you have experimental z-levels on?

I was more thinking that maybe the shockwave hit the grenades in my inventory. I certainly know that I threw it off the ledge so it wasn’t in my hands

Well, licensed pyrotechnician here.
I can tell you all sorts of stuff about waterfalls, fountains and volcanoes, as well as the more explosive stuff like “rockets”, “shells”, “bombs”, “mines” and “mortars”… But we don’t use grenades, so I can’t say anything about their climbing skills…

Enough to kill the character, if I read that right… But yeah, if the health of whatever bodypart it hit was extremly low, even the slightest damage could kill…

The better question would probably be; on what version did this happen? Experimental has no longer an option to turn off z-levels (since the implementation of multi-level bridges).

Did you throw it or drop it? It’s possible that throws “miss”, landing on the tile next to you or even on the same tile as you are.
How far away were you from the edge? Explosions do travel up/downward (and can catch you even a few tiles back).
If you were close to the edge, it’s also thinkable that you’ve got grabbed and dragged down, right on top of the grenade, unless you’re sure you didn’t move…
Is it possible that the explosion of the grenade itself or a chain reaction triggered by it and an explosive component on the ground level destroyed part of the building, dropping you to the ground floor and killing you thereby?

I did some more experimenting by dropping a grenade from a radio tower and it seems that the blast radius was significantly tinier higher up. It seems that one z level isn’t enough to escape the blast radius…