Re: [HoE] New Blast Rules (possible spoilers)

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

>Steve Crow wrote:
> > Now, you've got to roll 5d4 against anyone in the outermost blast radii.
> > Then you've got to roll a totally separate 5d6 against anyone in the 
>second
> > outermost.  And 5d8 against anyone in the third.  And 5d10 against 
>anyone in
> > the fourth.  And then _another_ 5d12 against anyone at ground zero.  
>That's
> > a total of...25 dice!
>
>I haven't read the new rules yet, but I think you've given me a good
>idea of how damage works now.
>

Well the one thing I didn't mention is that you roll a d6 for the # of hit 
locations that are hit (all by the same amount of damage).  And you subtract 
1 from this total for each blast radius out from ground center.

Of course, this involves more die rolling...  :)

>I do think the rules needed to be changed a bit, massive damage really
>wasn't that massive. In real life, explosive damage drops off from the
>epicenter exponentially, and it looks like this new system works that
>way. Damage is going to be higher the closer you are to the blast. You
>may have a point that Nuke is now *too* powerful, but in my mind it's
>more of a double-edged sword now than anything else. Consider:
>
>Next time the Doomie whips off a Nuke at close range, the Marshall rolls
>up a bunch of dice, takes a look at the chips around the table, and
>says, "Don't bother, you're all dead." If anyone DOES survive the blast,
>the next time the Doomie says "I cast Nuke", they'll be using their
>sleeve cards to put a bullet in his back before he can cast it again.
>

In our group, they haven't been whipping them off at close range anyway...

>What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Silas' Doomsayers and
>Doombringers can now kill entire parties with one single attack. (Random
>tangent from the MAD take on Deathwisher III: "It only took us muggers

Well, that's part of my concern.  I don't _want_ NPCs that can kill entire 
parties with a single attack.  You can spread out NPC groups over several 
square blocks to minimize the damage from a single PC/Doomsayer-placed Nuke. 
  Unfortuantely, PC groups rarely have this option.

So in the sense the rules make Nuke both more powerful and less useable - 
for PCs and NPCs alike.

>three weeks to figure out we could use guns, too!") But don't stop
>there. Conventional explosives are incredibly cheap and easy to make. A
>grog with a hand grenade is now much more dangerous. If the PCs insist
>on using Nuke on anything that comes near them, return the favor with
>bad guys who always carry around grenades and sticks of dynamite.
>

Well, Nuke has a little better range than a hand-thrown grenade or stick of 
dynamite...  ;)

>If the PCs persist, cruel Marshalls can have all their bad guys attack
>at close range, where no sane Doomie would let off a Nuke. The problem
>there would, of course, be the insane Doomies...
>

Or a Doombringer?  Can a Doombringer permanently kill itself with its own 
Ground Zero or ground-zero-cast Nuke?

>Now here's the kicker... let's say the PC Doomie is smart enough to put
>lots of distance between the party and his target, oh, say, a Black Hat
>Raptor. He casts Nuke, and it explodes... roll damage and start telling
>the PCs how much damage they take. When they start to whine and moan
>about how they were too far away, inform them that the Raptor was
>carrying a full payload of missles, bombs, and other happy-fun stuff
>that has a blast radius two to three times bigger than Nuke. They may
>indeed be out of the blast radius of the Nuke, but are now well inside
>the blast radius of whatever they just blew up.
>

I don't think it works that way.  Since damage goes down by a die type, 
pretty much all explosions are limited to a 50-60 yard radius.  It goes, 
say, 6d12 - 6d10 - 6d8 - 6d6 - 6d4 - Nothing!  Of course, you can set up d20 
and above explosions, but you're then playing an escalating arms race to see 
how much damage you can do in your campaign.

>The key is to always find some way to do damage to the entire party,
>Doomie included, every time he whips of Nuke. Eventually they'll learn
>not to use it or kill themselves. Either that or you need to tailor your
>campaign so that using Nuke would be pointless (gobs of ambush/up close
>fights), or set up your encounters so that it can be used to save the
>PCs bacon when you WANT them to be saved.
>
>

You can tailor an adventure, but I found it excessively difficult to tailor 
a _campaign_ so that most of the combat (much less the significant combats) 
are all close-range.

I'm not sure what you mean by the latter.  Short of die fudging (which 
becomes _real_ obvious in the new system), how do you "save" a PC group from 
a Nuke?

>Anyway, your biggest concern seems to be about the number of dice you
>have to roll now... a very valid concern. DL/HOE is very dice-intensive
>(PEG seems to be trying to reverse the trend in the RPG market... that's
>off-topic, though). But like I said, realistic explosive damage should

PEG?

>be exponential. Exponents are vile, evil things in RPGs, so it really
>boils down to how much realism you want in your game. That's a personal
>preference/taste thing. I'll have to take a closer look at the new rules
>and see if there's any way to do a nice shortcut. Too much dice-rolling
>can be a bad thing.


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

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

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