Re: [HOE] HoE Hucksters... Did I miss something?

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 01:21  PM, Bryan Campbell ((Scooter)) 
wrote:

> I'm thinking of playing a Huckster in HoE. It is going to be a very 
> long campaign, so i am going to pick it up through play. There seem to 
> be some issuse that have risen.
>
> 1) Now, I understand that the manitous are more powerful. After about 
> 40 draws of 6 cards and not getting more than a few successful 
> castings (without inmplying the increased minimum hand from Junkman 
> Cometh), I have to wonder if this is just far to difficult. What are 
> everyone's thoughts on this. Are hucksters getting smacked down too 
> easily?

I've got a Huckster in my HoE campaign, and I replaced the one hand 
penalty with a +2 to the Hexslingin' roll to give him a chance. He 
still knows that big hexes will need a LOT of luck, but he's not SOL.

> 2) The AB in Junkman Cometh seems to allude to the fact that you have 
> to psudo become a Junker before you can become a Huckster (or at least 
> by that method). What about the good ol' fashion Hoyle's method?

I don't think so, but I may be wrong... Mine's a refugee from the Weird 
West via a badly bitched Gateway spell, so he hasn't even met junkers 
yet.

> 3) With the Hoyle's way, what would be the malfunction numbers for the 
> good book?

I believe it depends on age. An origional printing is flawless, with 
later copies having more errors creeping in. A 2070 edition would 
probably be an insanely poor reliability, unfortunately.

> The biggest thing that is getting me is that the hexes are really hard 
> to cast before the restrictions for HoE. Am I missing something?

I think the trick here is Hex selection. In HoE a Huckster isn't going 
to have the heavy artillery  to go dueling with Doomsayers or Sykers, 
but they have one major advantage: They can cast all day if the cards 
are favoring them.

My posse's huckster has one 'attack' spell (Soul Blast) a spell or two 
to help him hit with guns (Kentucky Windage, IIRC) and a couple 
defensive spells (Missed Me!) as well as some utilities and a few 
tricks.

A few comments... First, try to find Hucksters and hexes. more hexes 
(always good) and details on the standard editions of Hoyles. of 
course, the marshall gets to use the extended backlash table from it, 
too... A few of the edges greatly aid Hucksters (Old Hand, for example) 
and some of the relics may be useful (I let my posse's Huckster buy a 
set of Lucky Dice cheap.) It's also got more hexes and tricks, which 
can be extremely handy.