Re: [HoE] Got my HOE (SHANE)

[Vagabond <tbet1@student.monash.edu.au>]

On 14 Sep 98 at 17:20, I wrote:

> Woohoo,
>         Finally got my copy of HOE today. Haven't had time to read 
> much yet (still haven't finished reading chapter 1)  but I did flick 
> through looking at the pictures. 

Finished reading it this morning...

[snip colour art bit]

> The B&W stuff is a mixed bag, and I wont go into it 'cause I'm 
> getting kicked out of the computer lab...crap...

Now that I'm un-kickoutable I'll continue...

Spinning through from front to back, I've got a few questions and 
some comments...

Chapter 1: I think this reveals a little too much to the players 
about what went on for someone who is planning on running the game in 
parallel with Deadlands (I'm mainly talking the Stone section since I 
still have the road to hell thingy to run my posse through, easy 
fixed, I just wont let them read it...)
I like the story though... One question occurs:
What happened to the major players who aren't mentioned (I'm thinking 
mainly of Grimme and Biren). Did they get wiped out pre Last War, did 
they get possessed as the physical bodies of the reckoners, are they 
still around and hiding? 
Do they still have a role to play in HOE or are they long gone? 
is essentially what I'm asking I guess.

Chapter 2: Rules, not much more to say... I like the overall design 
of the pages (with the wasted landscape etc.) but some of the boxes 
are perhaps a little dark...

Chapter 3: more rules...

Chapter 4: The burning question, what's up with the Dr. Pepper? Am I 
missing something being Australian or do you have some sort of weird 
Ad campaign going with them?

Chapter 5: even more rules...

Chapter 6: still more rules...

Chapter 7: Doomsayers. Cute, now of course you realise that my posse 
is going to become the X-men (well they'll try, bless there woefully 
innocent souls >:)
Q: Can Doomsayers use Touch on themselves?
Q: If they can (or if they do it on another Doomsayer) does tolerance 
help them avoid the radiation burns?

Chapter 8: Junkers. Errr, cool I think. Need to see them played.
Q: Is the build time cumulative?
example: I build 'the big gun', it has a ROF 12 and does 4d12 spirit 
damage (damage of over 351 points) and has the shootin': big gun 
trait at 30d20 (trait of over 351 points). This would require two 
rolls of TN 21 and 4d6 years to make, correct?
Q: Can/Should I extrapolate the table past 351+
Q: Is 10d20 the maximum damage possible?
Q: Has anyone tried to make an automaton using the junker rules?
Q: Can junkers work together to reduce build time (as it stands to 
make a jet plane that can fly at mach 1 with a range of 100 miles 
costs an additional 650% and would probably take decades)
 
Chapter 9: Sykers, hmmm. I'll have to see them in play before I 
formulate an opinion of these guys. (Does the picture on page 142 
scream Macross/Robotech to anyone else?)

Chapter 10: Templars. Do these guys rock or what?

Chapters 11-15: yet more rules...

Chapter 16: 
Backgrounds: Destiny is cool, looks like a lot of fun...

Mutations: These are, for the most part, cool also. Some of them are 
a little lame but hey, thinking up 52 mutations can't be easy.
Did anyone else start reading them, get half way through, go back to 
the start and go "Hmmm. Clubs=Death, Hearts=Famine, 
Diamonds=Pestilence, so Spades should be Wa... no what gives."?  
Spades just doesn't seem to have quite as strong a coherent theme 
running through it... Can be taken from the 2, 10, K, and A mutations 
but the others don't quite mesh (to my mind anyway)...

VotWW: Damned, this is sort of cool and a hell of a lot less lethal 
than the no fate chips version...
 
Junker Backlash: The 2 result. I take it this means that if a junker 
was building a gun and got this result he'd have to completely re-
learn how to use damage...

Chapter 17: Critters. I'm beginning to like the combine more and more
<evil grin>...

All up it is quite well done, although some of the arcane backgrounds 
cry out for source books...

One final question, when do we get to find out what's coming through 
the jump gate now? 



-- Tim
http://www.geocities.com/timessquare/maze/7309