New Combat Values for Spells and Maneuvers

Monday, September 18, 2006

I found an easy way to insert more decision making into my game: change the combat values of the spells to numbers other than “3″. Right now the decision of whether to cast a spell or use it as a combat card is too obvious. If the most powerful spells were also high numbers, the decision whether to use the effect or the value could be a hard one. I’m also hoping to create fewer ties in combat, but that issue is more complicated.

I’ve solicited feedback from a few players and compiled the results in the list below. Next step is to track down the odd men out on the few where there were large discrepancies between the suggested values (in bold). I actually find it re-assuring that we are disagreeing about the values of the spells, if it was easy to evaluate the value of cards (magic bullet +2 vs. fire breath +3) then the game would be pretty boring.

Oh, and I’m also re-adjusting the maneuvers (excluding Flight) to have combat values that more closely reflect their worth. It breaks the Page, Knight, Queen, King order of the original tarot cards, but I’ll live.

Healing

…

Halt

The thought here was that this spell is extremely circumstantial, therefore less powerful. Were it a higher value the tendency would be to wait as long as possible to cast it, holding out for a great spell to counter, but knowing that you could always fall back on using for defense. Then again, maybe that would be better than the current “Halt anything that moves” strategy, since you don’t want to get screwed by having to defend yourself with a 3.

Teleport

…

Escape

…

Wheel of Life

…

Temperance

…

Pact

In a game where a common tactic is to flush low cards out of your hand on attack (where you aren’t as likely to get hurt) and save the better cards for defense, being able to consolidate a lot of power into one concentrated attack is often what it takes to do significant damage. But it was also pointed out that Pact, presuming that you succeed in doing damage, only gives you a 1 or 2 point life advantage. And that’s in 2 player, with more players it’s worse. It also totally sucks on defense. Compare this to Strength, which gives you +3 for free, in any situation, and the value of this card drops more.

Charged Lightning

This spell is still in the works, and requires further playtesting. There are certain setups in multi-player where the latest version could allow you to attack each of your opponents a couple times. But, given the rarity of these situations the value should probably be on of the lower suggested values. Its cousin Fire Storm can more often be used in a directly offensive manner.

Scrying

…

Illusion

…

Fire Storm

…

Reckoning

Here’s another one that’s significantly more powerful in multi-player. In single player it’s justa weak Unite/Teleport, in multi-player it’s a free pot-shot at everyone else without having to get close to them. So, which case do we use for evaluating it? Clearly the lack of 2 player utility, and the no-flying penalty were considered heavy enough penalties to bring down the value by the majority of those interviewed.

Blank

This one’s tough because nobody really agreed, except that it ought to be low. I guess it just depends on who has a permanent effect in play.

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Minion Rules, Take 2

Friday, September 1, 2006

Still trying to figure out these Minion End-Game rules. Let me see if I can list what they need to do, in priority order, then I can take a stab at how.

  1. Masters should be protected from their minions.
  2. Minions should be weakened.
  3. Masters should have some level of control over and/or interaction with their minions.
  4. Other dragons should be able to capture a minion and become its master.
  5. Minions need their own goal, if not re-gaining autonomy and potentially winning, then something else.

Here goes an attempt at some rules…

Instead of being eliminated, dragons with zero or fewer life remaining become the minion of the dragon who defeated them, known hereafter as the dragon’s master. If a player loses his/her last life on his/her own turn, that turn ends immediately.

  • Upon losing their last life stone, defeated players give their new master the last life card to be placed sideways under the master’s life card(s) as a token of fealty.
  • The new master gives the minion a card from his/her hand to be the minion’s new life card. The master places life stones on the card equal to its value.
  • When that life is lost, the dragon who damaged the minion last becomes the minion’s new master, granting the new minion a new life card. A minion dragon who takes its own last life becomes its own master using a life card from the player’s own hand.
  • A minion cannot initiate an attack against his/her master (though a Counter maneuver is allowed in defense).
  • Masters can cast cauldron spells at the begin/end of their minion’s turn.
  • When a minion draws a new hand, before looking at it he/she first gives it to his/her master who may exchange one card in his/her hand for one card in the minion’s hand.

Let’s see if these rules accomplish what I set out to do (although only playtesting will really tell).

Masters are protected from their minions, except from spells and from minions who get sick of their masters dumping low combat cards on them and decide to counter attack. I think that’s fair play, getting rid of low cards is an important part of the game, half-heartedly roughing up one’s minion is a legitimate strategy, as is turning around and smacking one’s master with a Counter.

Minions are weakened by their masters cherry picking from their hands. The old -1 penalty on attacks was too hard to remember to apply, I think this will be even more of a hindrance (masters will likely dump their 3s, 4s and 5s onto their minions in exchange for high cards or spells, although a more diplomatic player than I might be more clever). This also makes the above mentioned Counter maneuver far less likely.

Masters have a lot of control of their minions, in both seeing and stealing from their minion’s hands. Combine that with the ability to cast spells during their minion’s turn and having a minion is going to be pretty cool, you’ll never forget who your minion is, and players will be fighting over them.

Giving a minion a life card from what’s left-over after a presumably high card was used to defeat them means it’s likely to be a smaller card. This reduced life, the added power granted by having a minion, and the minion’s typically reduced will to live, means that minions are likely to exchange hands. That, and the only current way to regain control of one’s self is to commit hara-kiri via a spell, so teetering on the brink is the ideal state, if you’re a minion.

As I just mentioned, the goal of a minion at this point is to cast a Charged Lightning or Pact* and defeat yourself to become your own master. A dubious goal, and not easily achieved, but some of the feedback I received was that it’d suck if a dragon that you already defeated came back and won the game. So it shouldn’t happen very often at all, that way it’ll be cool when it does, so players might forgive the unfairness. Besides, can you think of a more twisted game mechanism than regaining autonomy by casting a Pact (with the Devil), The Devil being the original tarot card behind that spell?

* I think only these two spells could be used to defeat yourself, but I may need to either clarify the wording or put in some rules about “targeting” to make it clear whether you can Drain yourself, or other things like that. Targeting rules might be a good thing anyway, “target dragon” takes up much less room on a card than “a dragon of your choice”.

Thoughts?

I’ll have to balance out these rules by playtesting, but if any body’s following along here and thinks of anything I’ve forgotten to include from the last time we played the comments are open.

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