Re: [HoE] Re: hoe-i'll miss my boxes

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

>There were a couple others I did not care for (Devil's Tower III and
>Something About a Sword I would not recommend to anyone)
>

Not sure who your comment was originally addressed to, but if I may 
interject...?

Well, can't speak to Devil's Tower, but Something...had a number of problems 
with it.  No useful maps (nothing showing the interlationship between the 
towns and a pretty small "final battle" map), a few gaping plot holes and 
lapses (Evanor's owner seems to have lost his family a couple of different 
ways, the location of his death varies, and I don't think the town locations 
are consistently described relative to each other), the writers didn't seem 
to understand some of the arcane background stuff (a Doombringer uses a Nuke 
to demonstrate his power to the main bad guys right inside their HQ by 
nuking a single robot - ???), and the major whats-it that the PCs are given 
to defeat the bad guy should pretty much clear out _everything_.  Either 
that, or it isn't clear why it shouldn't.

I noted it in my review for Azrael Online that Evanor _plus_ the extra bonus 
chips the authors seem to feel their adventure warrants is kinda overkill.  
The guidelines in the basic rulebooks are presumably for relatively tough 
adventures.  If Something... is tougher still...then how are the players 
supposed to survive?  If the Marshal is going to have to dink around with 
the adventure to give his players a decent chance of survival and make it a 
more "normal" adventure...why should he give them the extra Legend Chips?

Another problem (and one I also had with Killer Clowns), HoE is a _very_ 
difficult game to "balance" combats and stuff for.  The vast variety of 
stuff available to PCs (Syker powers, Doomsayer miracles, Battlesuiters, 
Cyborg heavy armor and weapons, Deadlands Arcane Backgrounds, Templars with 
high levels of Armor of the Saints and Guardian Angel :( ), plus the 
open-ended die-rolling nature of the system, make it difficult to "balance" 
the opposing threats.

It seems to me that, adventure-wise, Pinnacle is leaving it up entirely to 
the Marshals.  See above for the fact that the Something... authors don't 
even seem to understand how Nuke works, much less the powers of their own 
what-sit (which I don't want to spoil here).  In John Goff's excellent 
novella, his three protagonists are only folks with guns.  Pinnacle 
publishes books with Battlesuit and Cyborg archetypes - shouldn't their 
published adventures also take these types of characters into account?

Oddly, the Muties/Monsters book kinda _does_ do this.  But Killer Clowns, 
IMO, released about the same time, doesn't.  The _only_ thing the Clowns 
have going against anyone with Armor 4 or better (i.e., your average Cyborg) 
is the Fear Level.

I can't speak to Boise Horror, having not picked up a copy yet.  But 
personally, I'd rather have tough adventures that I can downgrade with some 
die roll fudging, reduction of opposing numbers, etc.  Rather than 
adventures that are not tough enough.  Much easier to fudge a die roll down 
then up, IMO.  :)

*shrug* On the other hand, obviously some groups _did_ find these adventures 
tough enough (perhaps even too tough).  My group are excellent 
role-players...but they also know how to min/max the points to make 
effective characters.  You don't need character design points to role-play, 
nor is there necessarily a tradeoff between character design and 
role-playing.  So they role-play well _and_ build strong fighting 
characters.

Still, I guess I find it hard to believe that the folks that find Killer 
Clowns or Something...  too tough have failed to discover the kind of tricks 
to character design that my players have found, either.  Or maybe Marshals 
are stricter about such things (although there's nothing I've found abusive 
in my players' characters to date, design wise - your mileage may vary).

Oh well, it's a puzzle.

---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

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

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