Freeway Warrior Strength Score

[artichu]

SPOILERS for Freeway Warrior: California Countdown:






Okay, so in Section 111 Cal Phoenix is trapped behind a reinforced glass window and must escape from a raging fire. In order to test to see if you can break out, the text asks you for your Strength score... which doesn't exist in the Freeway Warrior books and doesn't clearly match up with any of the scores that *do* exist.

So what gives? Given that Cal breaks out by being clever and chopping at the frame rather than the window itself, I'm tempted to give it to Field Craft or Perception, especially since those are underutilized skills, but Field Craft is already used in the other branch (where Cal escapes through a chained door) and presumably this is an alternative. Besides, if it says "Strength" the best substitute should be something to do with strength, right? Stealth is "physical fitness" but that doesn't exactly seem to fit the bill, since in every other context Stealth is dexterity and agility -- the thing that fits the action of whacking something best is Close Combat Skill, but if you literally take CCS (which will always be above 10) then that makes this roll unloseable.

My feeling is that the best solution is to take CCS - 10 and without any Close Combat Weapon bonuses, except the ones explicitly stated in the section. But is there an official Project Aon ruling on this? Or, better yet, is this just a problem with my edition that was corrected in later printings?

[outspaced]

Ho-HO! Very interesting! I've just checked and my copy says the same as yours. I'd guess it means CCS, but I can't state categorically. There's currently no official Aon ruling on this because we haven't started work on that book yet (we've not started work on Highway Holocaust yet!).

However, that's no reason not to bring this up as an official error. Copy the following text:

(er) 04cc 111: Strength [**: There is no Strength score in the books. My feeling is that the best solution is to take CCS - 10 and without any Close Combat Weapon bonuses, except the ones explicitly stated in the section.]

Paste it in the Contact Form. Replace the ** bit with your initials. Be sure to fill in your full name and send it off.

Et voila! You're now an "additional" editor for California Countdown, whenever we get round to publishing it!

If you're familiar with the Freeway Warrior series, the next book Project Aon plans to work on is Highway Holocaust, so if you feel you could devote some of your spare time to a good cause, we would be most happy to hear from you.

[The Tagazin Poodle]

Maybe it was supposed to be Cal's Endurance score at the time.

[artichu]

That's possible but it seems unlikely, since that would also make this roll practically unloseable. I mean, the check is a random number plus your Strength plus a bonus for having any one of a certain set of Close Combat Weapons, and the threshold is 10 or higher.

I don't recall any of the other checks involving EP with a threshold this low -- it seems like Cal Phoenix must be doing really *awful* if, this early on, his EP has already sunk to below 10. It's certainly a possibility -- a new character without the skill bonuses from past books might get that badly beat up -- but it doesn't feel right to me. The window shouldn't be so easy-breezy an obstacle that only a bleeding, staggering, crippled, gasping, on-the-edge-of-death Cal Phoenix would be stymied by it.
Also, it seems incredibly cruel to punish someone for having an EP below 10 by taking away 5 EP -- but, hey, Freeway Warrior does this in other places, so maybe it's the same here. It'd certainly be a more standard, less weird solution than mine of using CCS, which isn't used that way anywhere else.

But I keep feeling like this obstacle is meant to be the one that "tough" characters can overcome while the chained door that requires Field Craft is for the rarer "clever" characters (which explains why this path punishes you by taking 2 EP and the other doesn't). An EP-based solution would only punish people who have already screwed up enough to be nearly dead, without making a good, fair differentiation between the tough and not-so-tough.

[Doomy]

artichu said:

Also, it seems incredibly cruel to punish someone for having an EP below 10 by taking away 5 EP -- but, hey, Freeway Warrior does this in other places, so maybe it's the same here. It'd certainly be a more standard, less weird solution than mine of using CCS, which isn't used that way anywhere else.

The Freeway Warrior books are certainly "cruel" at times - Book 1 is brutal, due to the sheer number of chances to be killed by random numbers. Your skill scores aren't high enough to get you through without large amounts of luck.
Combat is also more of an issue than in Lone Wolf - not only is the Combat Results Table adjusted to make you lose more EP^* but those lost points are harder to recover.
However it should be noted that if you somehow get through Book 1, things do get a LOT easier. Until you're asked to roll against nonexistent stats, anyway.

^*Will Statskeeper be adapted accordingly when the series goes online?

[outspaced]

Hopefully, either Statskeper or (hint, hint) the LWAC will be adapted for Freeway Warrior by the time we release the first book.

Doomy (and anyone else looking to help us out):

What we could do with right now is a preliminary scan through the printed book Highway Holocaust looking for errors, typos, incorrect grammar, confusing statements (esp. regarding rules), and any other problems with the printed book. Also, all onomatopoeiaic words ("sound" words like click) should be italicised, and need flagging up if they are not in italics. These errors can then be sent to Project Aon. Once the book is open for editing (i.e. the text has been pre-released to the Project Aon Mailing List), what we have will need checking against the text of the published book to make sure it's accurate (and any problems will need to be reported).

Any non-Internet Explorer users should be able to make use of the Project Aon Editor Companion to keep track of the errors you have found and those that have been posted once the pre-release is available. For more information on how to use the Editor Companion, visit this thread on these esteemed forums. Note: Editing a book in this way tends to bring to light an awful lot of spoilers, so if you don't own the book, and/or you haven't read it a number of times, you might not wish to be an editor of that book.

I'll post here once the pre-release text becomes available, which will likely be in about four weeks, but bear in mind that looking through the printed book for errors can be done even without that text being available.

Hope it helps!

[Doomy]

outspaced said:

Hopefully, either Statskeper or (hint, hint) the LWAC will be adapted for Freeway Warrior by the time we release the first book.

Please get Statskeeper updated. I like the fact it runs in the browser with no downloads required. This means I can play the books at work!

[artichu]

doomy said:

artichu said:

However it should be noted that if you somehow get through Book 1, things do get a LOT easier. Until you're asked to roll against nonexistent stats, anyway.

Actually this isn't so bad, as gameplay glitches induced by apparent typos go. It's not that unlikely you have the Weapons the text wants, since one of them, a Fire Axe, is a highly desirable +3 weapon that I think you have a very easy time finding in Book 3. The first time I came across it I managed to roll a 6, which with the +4 to the roll from the Axe was enough to get me through unscathed even if I assumed Strength was zero. And even if you fail it, all that happens is that you lose 5 EP -- not great news, but by Book 4 you ought to be able to handle the expenditure of two or three Medi-Kit units.

Far, far worse was Shamath's Riddle in Legacy of Vashna.

[Doomy]

It does make you wonder though - was playtesting invented back then?

[artichu]

I'm pretty sure the books were playtested, but they had a limited budget and a rushed publication process so the playtesting wasn't as thorough as it might be for, say, a big-budget video game today, or an Internet project like Project Aon with lots of volunteers.

[Doomy]

It's just that faults like the Strength thing and Shamath's riddle are so glaring it's hard to believe they made it to final publication.