[DL] Re: deadlands-digest.20020101

[Doplegnger@aol.com]

ok, I know all you players on this list are feeling left out right about now, 
but this email isn't for you either, so git!












I said git! *BLAM*








on the whole Stone thing:

first off, read through devil's tower 3 a few times before you run it so you 
know what's going on, it's RAMPANT with typos and plot incongruities. (minor 
ones, but since most of the ones I noticed happened in the dialogue you're 
supposed to read players, you kind of need to know about it before hand)

secondly, the entire deadlands world is actually immune to paradox as near as 
I can tell.   what happens is what happens and screw how it happens to work 
out that way.    one case in point of this is the young stone DOESN'T LIVE TO 
HELL ON EARTH, just the old stone.   so don't worry about that.

in reference to specific questions, I'm pretty sure it's the old stone they 
are going after in 3 (though I don't have it handy to check.)   the final 
fight was actually pretty anticlimactic, though I messed up in a few points, 
some things to consider:


first off, the average posse will be getting more actions than stone's 8, not 
counting jackie. (a party of 4 with 2 actions each would eaqual him, and most 
parties have a couple people that tend to get 3)

secondly, stone has just as many wounds as everyone else, and no armor (if 
there is a harrowed power for armor please tell me about it)

thirdly, stone (properly played, I missed this at the time) can put out lead 
faster that a steamgatling fired by an expert user.


so:   the posse is in need of a break: have stone go after jackie first (she 
is the biggest threat after all), giving them some breathing room.

and/or: have stone do two shots to the head as a vindictive bastard.   this 
will burn through one PCs fate chips like water (because no one can dodge 
that well) but the rest of them will burn up stone's other actions because he 
has to dodge them

and finally: go for the heart!   stone needs the heart to complete the 
ritual, grab the damn thing and run like hell (and if a PC doesn't figure 
this out jackie will)   This is what happened in my game. (also the devil bat 
heart can (if neccessary) be integral, so if they maim the other heart it 
could stop the ritual


if stone isn't properly menacing: make sure you remember he can fan with the 
single actions, that's 6 shots that can hit targets as long as they are in a 
2 yard spread, so he can fan down an entire posse.   (though then you get 
into the weird area of dodging automatic fire, more on that in a minute).   
also since his pistol reloads after holstering for a single action, his 
actions consist of:

quickdraw right gun, shoot from the hip for 6 shots fanned
quickholster right gun, quickdraw left gun, shoot from the hip for six shots.

wash, rinse, repeat

also, don't forget the evil eye to make fate chips unusable.   with 2 actions 
he can take anyone out with the old 1 2 combo (no fate chips, 2 shots to the 
head) (I allowed a legend chip to be used for this which allowed one PC to 
survive it)



at any rate, here's my question: how do you do dodging automatics if you 
aren't the primary target?

example:stone shoots the 6 posse members coming over the bend.   he hits with 
5 raises (a roll of 30),hitting them all.   the first one dodges with a 10.   
now he only hit with 4 raises (success at 10 and the 4 multiples of 5 to get 
to 30), so he still hits the first guy, but because of the first guy dodging, 
the last guy is now fine (qort of weird, but kind of acceptable that he's 
spending more time getting the first guy so he ends up running out at the 
end).   but what about the second guy?   can he dodge?   You can kind of say 
that he can dodge, and for each point above five he reduces the original roll 
by that much, as long as you keep track of who does get shot anyway (so the 
last guy doesn't dodge enough to prevent the first guy getting hit), but 
that's the best method I can come up with (and a little too math intensive 
for my liking, I like battles to be fast and easy, one thing I'm working on 
fixing in deadlands



as for if they kill stone, do it the easy way, keep stone's cards behind the 
screen.   when they deal the fifth wound to his guts or his head, pick up the 
fatechip pile and act like you just threw in enough to chips to have him 
survive.   then declare that he has the next action and have him ghost with 
that action and his held action (whether he had one or not).

simple, decisive, and efficient.



oh, a word of warning on devil's tower 3, if they end up running from Stone 
like my party did, there's a good chance they'll decide to run into the 
portal to get away.   you might want to make sure you have a plan for that 
(well, you don't really need a big plan for what's going on there, just a 
copy of ghost dancers.   what you need a better plan for is how the hell some 
random people are going to survive in the hunting grounds, and that could 
take a little more work.)


In my posse's case, that "little more work" involved a native guide, a posse 
member killed a little earlier who thus knew "the lay of the land" in the 
hunting grounds and could act as guide.

if you want more info on how DT3 or the hunting grounds played out I can put 
it up, it's a little late for me to transcribe it here (and my posse only 
does a few spurts of journals on their own so our website is a bit bare on 
the whole write-up area.