Re: [HoE] Answers to my "Something About A Sword" post...

[The Baron Samedi <baron11@netmcr.com>]

>>
>>Human tendency.  if you look in on games, most people say I shoot X with
>>the Nuke.  In at least one case, a Doombringer is instructed to, in an
>>adventure, hit a PC with a Nuke.  So it is not all that alien.  Generally,
>>people do not aim for the ground or feet with such things.  Why? well, the
>>way people think does not always make sense.
>
>*shrug* That's a kind of mentality thing (relating to experience, which 
>other games you've played, etc.) so it's hard to discuss one way or 
>another.  My group, which are hardened D&D players, think of it in terms 
>of the Fireball spell, which doesn't require that you "roll to hit" per se 
>but instead the target tries to get out of the way.

I can see that analogy fairly well.


>Which adventure?  I'd be leery of anyone  advising anyone to hit someone 
>with a Nuke.  Have folks been using the new Iron Oasis rules for massive 
>damage vis a vis Nuke?  Yukkk...

If Memory Serves Me Right, Doom Comes to Frogtown.


>>>2) Malias is a Doombringer.  A slight difference, but presumably DBs have
>>>a little better chance of surviving an encounter with a powerful Templar
>>>than a Doomsayer.  At best, a DB may have survived an Atomic Blast or ICBM
>>>or something being Deflected back at them.
>>
>>True, although in the case of Deflection, they stand a very real chance of
>>eating their own Blast which is a fatal to them as anyone.  Oh, their Syker
>>buddy may have been deflected but would they notice that much?
>>
>
>Do Syker have a deflection ability?  I recall them having Negator, but 
>that's not the same thing...

bad phrasing on my part.  I was thinking seeing a Syker hit by his own 
shot.  sorry.


>Actually, that raises a question I've had come up several times.  Can 
>Doombringers be destroyed by _any_ Doomsayer miracles (including their 
>own?!?)?  Granted, we don't really need a lot of Doombringers running 
>around using Ground Zero.  Still, it seems mildly odd...

My understanding is yes, Radiation Magic can kill them.  Including their 
own.  I even have Glow Bones able to kill them if the Doombringer is dumb 
enough to stand there and suck the damage when a Harrowed uses it.  I 
really don't see that happening tho.






>Again part of it boils down to the whole hunter-nature of 
>Doombringers.  As I noted later, I would tend to agree with your 
>assessment if we were talking your average run-of-the-mill green-robe 
>Doomsayer.  Of course, they're more the conversion-type anyway, depending 
>on which viewpoint you take anyway...

I can see it.


>>>4) The Greater Power lets the Templar deflect a Nuke directed against
>>>anyone (in which case #1 above is a moot point, true).  And it's true
>>>probably not too many folks have seen a Templar with that Greater Power
>>>(and survived).
>>>But a Templar only needs one level of Deflection to try and thwart a Nuke
>>>directed at him.  So I don't think this is as big a rarely seen tactic as
>>>made it out.
>>The Greater Reward can leave you hatin' life if yer playing a Doomsayer.
>>I guess how likely you are to survive seeing that greater reward is
>>inversely proportional to how arcane your attacks are.  Letmetellya, the
>>next Anti-Templar I fought I used an Auto-Shotgun on.
>
>The Greater Reward is no great shakes for Syker opponents either.  :)  Of 
>course, the next Anti-Templar you fight with your shotgun will probably 
>have Guardian Angel, which is another pain-in-the-ass Reward and Greater 
>Reward.
>;)

In all probability, yes.


>Really, it boils down to this for me.  Discussing Nuke is 
>pointless.  Under the new Massive Damage rules, it becomes at least 50% 
>more effective.  The area of effect now becomes controllable, and the 
>damage goes up significantly (full damage on each of 1d6 
>locations?!?).  It's also now a pain in the ass to roll the damage against 
>multiple spread-out targets.
>It's quite, frankly, a Radmiracle I'm not going to toss at PCs, whether 
>they've got noticeable Templars in the group or not.

same here, generally.


>The PC in my group that has it seems to have gotten the message, and is 
>holding back on it (although 'tis true that since we got Iron Oasis, he 
>hasn't had much strategic opportunities to cast it).  If he does use it, 
>this may be our starting point to ignore the Iron Oasis "errata."

well, I have used it a couple times since the "errata", but one was a 
desperate situation (a Cyborg PC *who took no damage after fate chips at 
ground 0 of an 8d20*) being brat-packed by horrid little critters who 
ignored his amour. (the asterisks were my emphasis.  Nothing makes a 
Doomsayer look like a kitten like a Cyborg.)

The other being verses a single Black Magician Vampire who was very far away.


>>>Well keep in mind that "everyone firing at the ground" is not an option
>>>for most HoE-magical abilities.  It won't work for ICBM, or MIRV, or
>>>Atomic Blast, or Brain Blast, or...well, you get the idea.  So your
>>>Templar in the case above probably isn't going to be too sore, and the
>>>Marshall probably isn't going to do this tactic very often.
>>
>>My book is not here, but would it not work for ICBM?  I thought that had a
>>Burst Radius.  I could be wrong here.
>>
>
>Don't have mine either, but I don't think it does.  Its advantage is that 
>you can throw it in an arc over an obstacle and hit a target beyond.
>Alternately, you can just throw it as a single-shot more-powerful Atomic 
>Blast.  The rules don't seem to _require_ that you toss it in an arc...

I'll look later. I am curious now.


>>>We are _only_ talking about Nuke here (and a relatively small subset of
>>>other "area of effect" attacks like, say, Arson).  And the fact that it is
>>>pretty easy to bypass Deflection is indeed a problem...but overall it
>>>still means that Deflection gives the Templar an ability that lets him
>>>bypass and reverse a wide range of attacks that other folks don't
>>>have.  His inability to generally use Deflection 1-5 (w/o the Greater
>>>Power) against Nuke just means in this one specific instance, he is on the
>>>same level as everyone else.
>>
>>I dunno If I would call it a problem for people with Deflection. (like you
>>went on to say).  I am talking more about practical foreknowledge (how much
>>do the bad guys know) and less about game balance.
>>
>
>But the "bad guys" are you and me, the Marshals.  Above you were saying 
>how "people" tend to think in terms of targeting a single person with Nuke.
>Fair enough.  I'm not going to try convince any player to have his 
>Doomsayer think that way.  ;)

granted


>But for a NPC Doomsayer/bringer...I guess I'll have them think the way 
>they think.  Which will probably reflect the way I think.  If I don't 
>think there's any reason they'd target an individual over a ground-spot, 
>they're not going to do it.

I can see a Doombringer being wiser, then.
In the original example, though, I still contend that with that Reward out 
there, the repeated "right at me" should have been a real clue.  But I 
don't think we are debating that.

>>granted.
>>But Mindset is my whole point, and Deflection is 1 out of 22 Rewards.
>>We disagree on human nature here, evidently.  That seems to be the key.
>>
>
>Well, I'm not sure we're disagreeing.  But to use Nuke requires a fair 
>amount of strategic planning (How many are there?  How far are they spread 
>out?)  Heck in some cases you may _have_ to deliberately aim for a 
>ground-spot rather than a specific target to get the maximum # of targets 
>within the area of effect.

now this use makes perfect since to shoot at the ground. Or air. Or falling 
Cherry Blossom if you want to be poetic.

>And that last sentence is kinda my point.  It doesn't seem unreasonable to 
>me that a NPC, who has already mastered the various art to casting a 
>successful Nuke, is almost always going to think in terms of hitting for 
>maximum area of effect, _not_ for hitting a specific target.  Such 
>thinking would almost seem to be an inherent part of Nuke...kinda like how 
>it is for casting a Fireball in D&D.

right.


>Again, if a player cares to think of Fireball in terms of Lightning Bolt 
>casting (to use the D&D analogy) when it comes to using Nuke, more power 
>to him.  But my impression is that folks tend to treat Fireball-type 
>effects like Fireball-type effects, and Lightning Bolt-type effects like 
>LB-type effects.  Nuke is definitely the former rather than the latter.

I can see it.


>---
>
>Steve Crow
>
Jason,
Da Baron