[HoE] Fwd: Your HoE post.

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

Apparently this got redirected, but someone on that list was kind enough to 
keep a copy.  So about a week out of date, but hopefully still entertaining 
and edifying...

Well, our campaign group wrapped up this adventure last night.  And to put 
it bluntly, all I can say is...well, I hope these writers don't get invited 
back again.  Some interesting concepts, but they don't seem to have a lot of 
familiarity with HoE systems.  And there's a lot of sloppy writing. Ritter's 
family die two different ways, Ritter's body is located in two different 
location, an EMP that doesn't actually do anything, and an unwarranted 
over-enthusiasm with how dangerous their own adventure is....none of this 
bodes well.

Anyhoo, after last week's somewhat slow "Find Burke, get the key, get to 
Rock Springs", we picked up last night with the group emerging from the 
basement with Evanor and the EMP...














*SPOILERS TO FOLLOW*

Rosalita's combot takes out the scavbot as detailed and then runs off
(although it is also mentioned that it limps off a little later).  It leads 
the party to the factory down the street from where Ritter's body is (which, 
according to one paragraph of the adventure, his body should actually be in 
the basement of the factory, but moving right along...)

The bodies outside are still smoking, and the assumption is that the party 
while wandering through Rock Springs would have never heard the (presumably) 
recent battle that led to this mayhem.  Fortunately no one in the party 
noticed this.

Despite being a major setpiece, the factory map (an inset on a bigger
one-page street map of Rock Springs) was very much inadequate.  It was hard 
 >to visualize exactly what was going on, but I've winged enough
factory/warehouses that it wasn't too much of a problem.

Unfortunately, the adventure places Malias and his mutie squad relatively 
close together, and the combots (4 superior models and 20 regular ones that 
I tossed in for cosmetic reasons) not too far away from them anyway.  I 
spread this out a bit, but unfortunately the first thing that came to the 
group's Doomsayer's mind was Nuke!  Not too surprising.

The brains' canned speech (pardon the pun) goes off, Malias and his boys 
turn on the group, the combots turn on the group, and as expected...the 
group's Doomsayer gets two high cards.  Poof.  One Nuke.  I assume the NPCs 
are about 30 yards away from the doorway.  He casts it 50 yards away, and 
gets them for 3d20 damage (I'm averaging a lot here).  This doesn't help 
much for Malias' boys who...well, die.  12, 24, who cares?  I would have 
been tempted to spread them out a bit more but A) they're in a hostile 
situation, B) they're somewhat surrounded, and C) they're in a factory, 
presumably with all kinds of cover and stuff.

Malias is also hit rather badly, but throws about 6 white chips, spreads the 
massive damage from the nuke, and isn't out of the fight.  Thanks to their 
AV 4 and 5, the bots are pretty much undamaged.  I do roll for the superior 
combots, and one does take a Gut wound after armor.

I hold back on the 20 regular combots (they're there basically to give the 
EMP bomb something to do), so the party's Huckster, Templar, and Law Dog 
advance.  Law Dog's got the EMP "bomb, but they're not sure on the range.  
The 4 Combots open fire.  Huckster charges a Black Lightnin' (28d6 or so - 
whee!) but wants to do a hand-to-hand single discharge.

Malias, meanwhile, is tossing off MIRVs (the fact that he has the Glops 
 >miracle indicates a sense of humor on the writers' part, but is not for 
some reason very useful here).  Nuke and ICBM are simply too slow here.  He 
rolls...ehh, and the Doomsayer (did I mention he was a Super Soldier before 
the war?) takes a huge heap of Wind and a Wound on one or two locations (did 
I mention he has Thick-Skinned?), and burns a white chip or three, but is 
otherwise conscious and unscathed.  Malias gets off 2 MIRVs, and then the 
Doomsayer responds with a MIRV of his own.  He aces a couple of times on the 
Faith roll (about par for the course) and with open-ended rolling does 
around 60 damage on the first of his 6 MIRVs.  Ace one Malias.  But the DS 
is on his last legs and drops back to heal.

So it's the three party members against the Combots.  The Law Dog _finally_ 
detonates the EMP bomb, taking out the 20 "cosmetic" combots.  Yay - the EMP 
does something.  Although only because I reworte the adventure to do so.

The superior combots are better shots than HTH fighters.  The Templar sticks 
with Evanor (his normal sword won't get through their armor 5).  The 
Huckster discharges her black lightnin' against the one targeting her, hits 
in Brawlin', and blows the leg off a combot.  She drops back, charges up 
again, and draws a full house!  24d20 is stored up, she goes back in and HTH 
discharge/blows away another one that was attacking the Templar (he's got 
two since the brains recognize Evanor and give him a higher target 
priority).

Meanwhile, the Law Dog is double-tapping and just about drops his combot 
when, ouch, the Marshal makes his first decent Ace-type damage roll of the 
night.  He's the least protected character of the party (and has that 
Veteran disad where you can't gain beneficial magic), and drops.  The player 
had fun with the Law Dog, but has had a back-up character for a while, so no 
tears are shed.

The Templar, deciding to admire the Law Dog for the first time in their 
mutual careers (they've had what constitutes a love/hate relationship up to 
this point, without the "love" part ;) ), swears vengeance and steps in to 
finish it.  He's got his Force Field up (did I mention he was a 
Greenie-Psyker Templar?), but for its dying blow, the combot switches back 
to its machine guns, hits despite its wound penalties and the guy's Guardian 
Angel-5, and...gets a hit to the head
and the Marshal rolls a 32 on the first 4d8! My luck runs high or low, but 
rarely average. ;(

When all is done, the Templar takes 55 damage to the head.  He's been saving 
up his chips (and he's Brawny, did I mention that?), with 20 points of light 
armor (Force Field, Armor of the Saints-5, etc.) to the head.  He takes 7 
wounds to the head and blows a wad of chips.  He wonders why his Armor of 
the Saints/major gift doesn't work, as this is the first time he's had a 
chance to realize it.  I just snicker - he'll be getting a visit from St. 
Stearn later (see my prior postings).

He drops it and the remaining combot.  They say a few words over the Law Dog 
while the Doomsayer uses Touch on himself.  The combots sent out a "defeat" 
signal, but I rolled a 34 for the # of rounds until reinforcements show up, 
and the party is feeling a bit weak in the knees, so I go easy on them and 
abide by the die roll.  I also give them a red chip because it's kinda the 
end of a scene of sorts, and they might need it (turns out they do, see 
below).

Then the party heads up to the control booth.  The door proves little
barrier.  Then comes the Gut check for Rosalita.  Difficulty 9, Fear Level 5 
city...the Huckster fails.  She declines to spend a chip, and on 4d6 on the 
Scar't table, the Marshal rolls 23!  After much further ace rolling, we see 
our first Corporeal Aging result.  Cool.  This time she spends the chip on 
the Vigor roll to avoid the heart attack, but adds another major phobia to 
her collection (her fourth, as I recall, between Terror checks and Hex 
Backlashes).  She now has a fear of obvious cyborg/corpses with wiring in 
them.  Much fun for future adventures there.  :)

The rest of them don't do too well for once, and have to spend the red chip 
I just gave them.  Ironically, this single series of terror checks was 
probably the toughest part of the adventure.

Rosalita gets off her "kill me" and then the centipede comes crashing 
through the ceiling.  More Terror checks, but no problems this time.  here 
we get to the sticky part...

This part didn't go exactly as planned, simply because what I would have 
guessed was their secondary plan kicked in before they could get to their 
primary plan (let the Guardian Angel/Armor of the Saints-protected Templar 
take the hits).  The Doomsayer gets a good Quickness roll, the centipede 
draws 2 cards and gets a black joker (no problem - it doesn't have a card up 
its sleeve but the second card is a 6), and the DS uses his superior 
initiative and remaining Strain to...EMP the centipede robot!

Well, the confusion here is two-fold.  First of all, the adventure assumes 
no robots have "military-grade shielding" in the first place.  Secondly, 
it's not clear what the effect of such shielding is against a Doomsayer's 
EMP is anyway.  The Cyborg book says EMP simply won't work.  The Doomsayer 
book lists "shielded stuff" as requiring 5 strain and a TN of 13.

I shrug, give the centipede some shielding, kick the TN up to 15, and let 
the DS go for it.  He succeeds, and ace one centipede robot.  They cut 
through its inert EMP'd body to get to Rosalita.  They kill her.  As the 
Templar notes, "First time someone ever asked me to kill them.  I think I 
can handle this."  Evanor to the brainpan, and game over.

End of this part of the adventure.  The group still has some chips, and 
their wimpiest character is the only one to die (plus the player was kinda 
angling for his death anyway).  No way am I going to hand out the chips like 
candy that the writers recommend.  They each get a blue chip, and a Legend 
Chip conditional on their storytelling next week (I'll post that when I get 
it).  They got Evanor, of course.

They presumably get a Grit point, although the adventure neglects to mention 
that as well.  These creatures required terror checks, they were a major 
threat, I figure it's Grit-worthy.

They also get to collect coup for the Doombringer.  I foresee problems with 
"stacking" that +1 rad-armor Coup, and disallow the party's Doomsayer from 
trying to collect (he's the only one who already got it - part of the reason 
he survived Malias' MIRVs above).  Between the two remaining party members, 
no one squabbles over chip expenditures to grab the coup and the Huckster 
gets it.


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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