Re: [HOE] Massive Damage ...

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

> It's an explosion.  You can't be standing at ground zero of a blast and just walk away like Wile E. Coyote with your face blackened.  You are AT THE VERY LEAST going to survive with permanent damage, such as a missing appendage or 5.  If a stick of dynamite goes off in your hand, I'm sorry but you're going to lose an arm, probably along with a lot of the rest of you.  Personally, I didn't think massive damage was that strong before, and now it seems much more logical.

Well my group hasn't used the new rules yet (I think our Marshall just got
Iron Oasis) but the rules sound fine to me.
One thing to realize (maybe you do) is that you can only use chips if
there is a logically explanation for how the damage could be prevented. In
my DLs campaign if someone were to drop a stick of dynamite at his feet I
would NOT let him use chips to prevent the damage. There's the idea that
you could "blown clear" but that's covered in the off chance that I roll
four ones for damage.
I had one character run up to an automaton (little DL/HoE crossover) stick
his gun in the grenade launcher and pull the trigger. He looked at me like
I'd grown a second head when I informed him that he couldn't spend chips
to prevent the damage. "Hey you made your bed..."
In the end he whined enough and I let him use chips. So he takes the
cheese-ball approach and spends just enough chips to only take critical
wounds, knowing that the Preacher could heal him.
It was a personal victory when he bled to death from his wounds a minute
later because the Preacher was healing someone else (and unwilling to stop
mid-miracle) and the others couldn't find his body.

- Theo McGuckin, an obedient lackey licking the soft leather boot of High
Energy Particle Physics.