[HoE] New Blast Rules (possible spoilers)

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

Since this is in the Marshal section of Iron Oasis I suppose it should be 
precluded by a spoiler notice.  Although since it impacts heavily on player 
characters, I'm not sure why...















Is it just me, or do the new blast/massive damage rules make player 
characters _more_ powerful?  The rules note that they should come as a 
relief to Marshals, but it seems to just "fix" one problem (i.e., PCs using 
chips to avoid a handheld hand grenade) and cause a couple of others.

One is that the damage becomes a bit more powerful overall, which means that 
Doomsayers (Nuke), some Psykers (Arson), and other characters (i.e., anyone 
who invested in a grenade launcher, to a lesser degree) are getting a pretty 
substantial benefit.  Granted, Arson-types probably could use the boost, but 
did we really need to make Nuke _more_ powerful?

Also, the damage-rolling system is _really_ a pain in the ass.  Before, I 
could start out at the further blast radius/circle, roll X amount of dice, 
and then just _add_ to the damage roll as I moved inwards with targets 
closer to ground zero.

In other words, for a 5D12 blast, I rolled 1d12 against anyone 5 radii away. 
  Then anyone 4 radii away, I just rolled _another_ d12 and added it to the 
first damage roll.  And so on, and so on.  I only rolled...well, 5 dice 
total.

Now, you've got to roll 5d4 against anyone in the outermost blast radii.  
Then you've got to roll a totally separate 5d6 against anyone in the second 
outermost.  And 5d8 against anyone in the third.  And 5d10 against anyone in 
the fourth.  And then _another_ 5d12 against anyone at ground zero.  That's 
a total of...25 dice!

Granted, HoE is already kinda "roll-playing" (how many rolls does it take to 
actually hit someone in combat...?  ;) ).  But this seems a bit extreme...

Anyone else notice this?

---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

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

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