No Subject

As a note here, one problem we've noticed is that some Traits in and of 
themselves are much less necessary than others.  For instance, Quickness 
(both good Trait and Coordination) are extremely important because every 
combat you're in, you'll be making Quickness rolls to determine the cards 
you get.  Vigor is always used for Stun & Recovery checks.  Cognition to 
avoid surprise.  Strength for HTH damage.

By comparison, how often does someone use straight Mien?  If you wanted to 
be persuasive, you buy the appropriate Skill.  If not, you'll leave it up to 
someone who did.  Ditto for, say, Knowledge and Nimbleness.

Perhaps part of the frustration lies there...?

>Default Skill Rolls (26): Along with the change to Trait checks, we made
>default rolls diffferent so that players aren’t looking at their 1d12 
>search
>and wondering why they wouldn’t want to always roll their 4d12 Deftness
>instead, even with the old “unskilled” penalty of -8. Changing the way
>unskilled rolls works to a single die with a -4 penalty also changes the
>mindset of those who think it’s better to be unskilled at something and
>suffer the modifier than to get less dice. (Statistically, it’s true in 
>some
>cases and not in others.)
>

Hmmm, does this apply in HoE?  Would have to check...

>Skill Lists (38-48): These are now alphabetized instead of listed with
>individual Traits.


Hmmm, actually IMO it makes a bit more sense to list them by trait.  
Provides one with a logical place to look, whether you're a newbie or a 
veteran.  If I'm looking for the skill that will help me spot things, I 
might look under P (Perception), or S (Spotting, Search, Scrutinize, Scan), 
or any other letter/word someone might think of.

On the other hand, once I understand the basic concept of Cognition, then I 
understand that the skill I'm looking for will be under that subcategory, 
and I can turn there to find it.

>Throwin’ (46): Who wants a concentration for all the different things you 
>can
>throw? Like with Hell on Earth, we divided the concentrations up into
>balanced and unbalanced.
>

This is already done in Hoe - works for me.

>Night Terrors (56): Everyone hated the way this Hindrance worked, and it 
>was
>a pain in the saddlesore to keep up with. The new night terrors works like
>this. Make a Spirit roll at the beginning of each session or lose your 
>lowest
>chip. If you do lose a chip, however, your character experiences a 
>prescient
>dream as before.
>

I'm more into Hoe than Deadlands these days.  However, at least in HoE you 
only gained a prescient dream if you _bust_ on the Spirit roll.  It's been a 
little while, but I don't recall you getting a prescient dream _every time_ 
you failed the Spirit roll, as the paragraph above implies.

I never found the system above that complicated.  The main problem I could 
see with this system, which I assume is dropping the cumulative -1 (up to 
-5) is that someone with high Spirit can take this and pretty much ignore 
it.  At least under the old system, the cumulative -1 applied (I believe) to 
the Spirit roll itself on subsequent nights, making it harder to get away 
with that particular stunt.

Certainly, the proposed system is a bit more survivable:  the poor soul who 
did have a -5 on all of his actions after five days of failed rolls was 
pretty much useless.  I'd dislike seeing high Spirit types be able to take 
and then ignore this penalty at will.

>Gift o’ Gab (62): Characters now get to pick up languages as if they had a
>skill of 1 after a few minutes of conversation. This cleared up some
>ambiguities on the old system.
>

Works for me.

>Luck o’ the Irish (63): This Edge now give the character an extra Fate Chip
>per session. Much simpler.
>


Agreed.

>Knacks (Quick & the Dead): These are no longer Edges. Your character can 
>get
>them only by gaining a mysterious past (drawing a Joker during character
>creation).
>

Hmmm.  the only problems here are A) what are these going to substitute for 
on the existing chart? and B) aren't they rather...extensive compared to 
most of the existing entries?  Okay, one card, I get a cursed relic, on the 
other I got 5+ different Knacks to choose from, all with their individual 
entries that are at least as long as any of the existing Mysterious Past 
entries.

Will all knack descriptions be included in the players' book?

>Movement (116): In earlier editions, movement was broken up over your
>actions. That was mainly done to figure out when a character was running or
>not. It was clunky and made for some strange situations (characters with 
>more
>actions moved in small increments while slower characters raced around the
>battle area). We changed it so that your hero can still move up to twice 
>his
>Pace in a round, but you can break it up however you want. Move over his 
>Pace
>in a single action and he gets the running penalty.
>

Works for me, and will probably implement into HoE ASAp anyway.

>Weapon Speed (118): The biggest change to combat is that we got rid of 
>weapon
>speeds. We originally did this so that there was a difference between 
>single-
>and double-action pistols. It’s a very slight difference in the real world,
>and hard to model in a game. We started with the most realistic but it made
>single-actions, rifles, and shotguns slow and a pain to remember the
>“shootin’ from the hip” modifier. So we ditched all that and did this
>instead: double-actions get to fire twice each action while single-actions
>fire once (but can fan). Rifles and shotguns can fire once per action.
>

As long as it is clear which weapons are double-action and which are 
single-action, should work.  Presumably Bows will be one/action stuff as 
well?  I would have some concerns about shotgun, which at close ranges can 
be extremely dangerous without a slow-down.  So a Dbl-bar Shotgun will now 
be a Speed 1, ROF 2 weapon that does 1-6d6 damage _twice_?

The problem I saw when playing Deadlands when the D-B Shotgun had these 
stats (and presumably still does) was that someone could Speed Load the D-B 
Shotgun and throw some truly hideous amounts of damage into the air at close 
range.

>Fate Chips (145): Chips can be spent on the Strength portion ofhand-to-hand
>damage rolls. Legend chips can be used to reroll anything, including table
>results like backlash. They’re also discarded once used! Use ‘em wisely!
>

The strength bit is already part of HoE, I believe.  Legend chips work 
similar.  However, as I recall, there is a 50% chance of the Legend chip 
being discarded, not 100% as the new rule here suggests.

While I agree that they should not be in the pot forever and ever, amen, I 
also have to echo the concerns of other individuals on the Hoe List that 
there shoudl be at least a chance that they stay in the pot.  To have them 
played and discarded is to make them almost insignificant in the grand 
scheme of things, both as a reminder of the "legendary" event that earned 
them, and as any kind of impact on game mechanics.

Plsu, going from the recent Templar sourcebook, the strength of some of the 
Martyr Blessings just aren't good enough to warrant losing a Legend Chip on 
that level of ability.

>Hexes (154): Hucksters have gotten a rock from the start. Not only did they
>have to buy each hex as its own skill, they then had to make a skill roll,
>draw cards, and risk getting their heads blown off by manitous as well. 
>They
>still have to do the card business, but red Jokers are always good, and all
>their hexes now use a single skill—hexslingin’. That means they can get
>better at their craft and have better chances to pull off their spells.
>

The current system as of Huckster & Hexes,, which pretty much doesn't 
penalize you for Red Jokers anyway, seems to render the Red Joker complaint 
a moot point.

While I would agree that the current system is not consistent with existing 
stuff, and this change would make such things consistent...

...one problem I've noted in HoE is that Sykers and Doomsayers, who have 
such a system, look awfully similar.  _Everyone_ takes Blastin' (or 
Faith/Glow) 5 - unless you're a greenie/initiate, of course.  And indeed, 
there's no reason not to.

Say what you will about the current Huckster system, it at least is 
different and reflects the fact that different types of Hexes _are_ 
different.  Someone good at Knowledge-type Hexes may not necessarily be good 
at Spirit-type damage stuff.  Now, maybe this could be reflected by areas of 
specialization, like with Sykers.  This would seem to make the Huckster 
sourcebook even more obsolete, however, which doesn't strike me as a 
particularly good thing.

A system such as that for HoE Sykers would probably be best, but this will 
require more errata.  The "divisions" are already there, based on the Traits 
the original Hexes related to, though.  It sounds like we're talking 
"concentrations" as mentioned below for Shamans.

>Mad Scientists (165): Red Jokers are always good and no longer cause 
>madness.
>

Agreed.  Although we favored a system similar to Hucksters, where if yoiu 
had Level 3+ in the appropriate Science, you ignored Red Jokers for madness 
purposes.  Yeah, the books said not to do that, but nobody would take Mads 
otherwise.

>Rituals (182): Shamans got the same makeover that hucksters did. Their
>various rituals are now one skill with several concentrations.
>
>

Our question would be, how far are you going to take the concentration idea? 
  This seems necessary for Hucksters as well.