Killer Shrike Posted February 17, 2004 Report Share Posted February 17, 2004 Picked this up this weekend. I havent had time to read it, but it LOOKS great! Sadly we've put our Champs game on hold to play Fantasy HERO, but if we hadnt Id be running this. Plus COIL just makes me want to yell "YO JOE!" and do my best Cobra Commander/Starscream voice. Yes, it calls to my inner geek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. MID-Nite Posted February 17, 2004 Report Share Posted February 17, 2004 I picked it up as well. Reasonably well done, though not as good as Shades to Black. I thought the adventure was a bit easy for standard heroes. The bad guys aren't that tough and several are encountered on their own. Gorgon may be a tough fighter, but no way she is going to stand up to 5 or 6 standard heroes for very long. And the toughest member of COIL is a potential turncoat(and he's not the only one). The ideas are good, but it'd require some modification for most "standard" level games in my opinion. The art was kind of spotty as well. Some was really good, but some wasn't so good. For example, it's mentioned in the description how impressive King Cobra looks with his hood extended and then the picture DOESN'T show it. The villains themselves seemed reasonable well built. Firedrake is questionable with the Multiform. Any player worth the name is going to blast the 3 SPD, super weak human form before he can do a thing. At the very least, they'll use a level of force appropriate to agents....which will still be sufficient to knock him out in one attack. King Cobra's main power was very nice and allows for a lot of future scenario ideas. Krait was probably the most original design in the book. I probably would have prefered more supervillain writeups(making COIL sort of a CU style Serpent Society.) Worth the purchase price though, so what more needs be said? Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted August 27, 2005 Report Share Posted August 27, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Old thread, but I ran across this and have to disagree re: Gorgon. The thing with her is, the situation in which you first face her is on the water. High likelihood of surprise, and almost anyone she successfully grapples is going to need to hold their breath immediately thereafter. Plus, she's built with both more strength and more defense than the standard 350 point brick, *and* a whole ton of levels too. If you faced her in the relative open, sure, she'd be only a moderately tough fight, but over deep water?? Way too lethal for 350ers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted August 27, 2005 Report Share Posted August 27, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth And Slither played from ambush -- especially if you have players who are silly enough to seperate at times can be positively lethal against various character types... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Yeah. Hell, just the fact that, in the final encounter, your facing a bare minimum of three supervillains who considerably outpoint the starting level party, plus a sizable number of minions using suicide tactics. . . I just don't see how this adventure is doable by 350 pointers, even with some experience in the earlier, easier encounters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. MID-Nite Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Yeah. Hell, just the fact that, in the final encounter, your facing a bare minimum of three supervillains who considerably outpoint the starting level party, plus a sizable number of minions using suicide tactics. . . I just don't see how this adventure is doable by 350 pointers, even with some experience in the earlier, easier encounters. Well, by this point, Gorgon is out of the fight. Both Krait and Firedrake are potential turncoats, and regardless, Firedrake holds back. That leaves King Cobra...and despite good stats, he's not a combat monster. Players tend to be more effective than you give the credit for. My 350pt group faced 5-3 odds against The Pack(Shadows of the City) and drove them off. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. MID-Nite Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Old thread, but I ran across this and have to disagree re: Gorgon. The thing with her is, the situation in which you first face her is on the water. High likelihood of surprise, and almost anyone she successfully grapples is going to need to hold their breath immediately thereafter. Plus, she's built with both more strength and more defense than the standard 350 point brick, *and* a whole ton of levels too. If you faced her in the relative open, sure, she'd be only a moderately tough fight, but over deep water?? Way too lethal for 350ers. Well...drowning is nearly impossible in HERO unless you're already unconscious. Surprise will let Gorgon get some licks in, but 5 or 6 on 1? Gorgon will not beat those odds. The heroes would have to fumble the encounter badly AND she'd have to be amazingly lucky IMO. Mind you...I like the encounter as written, but there is little doubt she'll be defeated...the question is how much she takes out of the heroes before dropping? (With an 80 STR Coil Crush...maybe quite a bit.) Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth The problem is, since her first action after a successful grab is to dive underwater, it won't *be* five/six on one, unless you've got party members who can effectively pursue her underwater. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Actually, as with just about anything published, the real question comes down to how the villains compare to your PCs, and how you choose to run the adventure... I ran the adventure against three relatively casual players, with chars ranging between ~360 to ~390 points. And quite frankly, I softballed it a lot... In the final battle, Firedrake saw the opportunity to play dead, and he took it with both hands... I didn't use Slither at all as a matter of good taste, in addition to wanting to weaken the opposition... *Doing a little pre-game combat analysis, I realized there was only one PC that Slither really had a chance of affecting with his main attack -- and just as quickly realized the player and the char were both Japanese and female. If you don't make the same connection I did, I'm not going to be the one to educate you* Krait nearly leveled the entire team despite my looking for any reasonable opportunity for him to turn on King Cobra -- until one of my players tried something I would normally consider tactically silly and rolled a crit... I think Krait may still be unconscious from that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth True. If the party has a phaser, or even worse, a hydrokinetic, that particular encounter would be much easier. *shrug* Not saying its a bad adventure; I quite like it. I just don't think its very "out of the box" usable for starting 350 characters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted August 28, 2005 Report Share Posted August 28, 2005 Re: Sharper than a Serpents Tooth Well...drowning is nearly impossible in HERO unless you're already unconscious. Surprise will let Gorgon get some licks in, but 5 or 6 on 1? Gorgon will not beat those odds. The heroes would have to fumble the encounter badly AND she'd have to be amazingly lucky IMO. Mind you...I like the encounter as written, but there is little doubt she'll be defeated...the question is how much she takes out of the heroes before dropping? (With an 80 STR Coil Crush...maybe quite a bit.) Rob I don't agree. Unless you have characters who can breathe and move underwater Gorgon has a huge advantage. Remember that it's not just drowning but the fact that any PCs will not get recoveries under the water unless they have life support. Gorgon can easily take 2 PCs down with her: one [probably the brick] being crushed in her tail and another being curshed in her arms. So after a couple of phases the remaining pcs not only need to defeat Gorgon but need to save their unconscious [and drowning] teammates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.