Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: Wrclass on August 12, 2015, 04:22:46 pm

Title: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Wrclass on August 12, 2015, 04:22:46 pm
Witch Trial $4
Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may reveal a bane card from your hand. If you do, +2 Cards.
-----------------------------
Setup: If there isn't already a bane card, Add an extra card costing $2 or $3 to the supply. This is the bane card.

If Young Witch is present, both use the same bane card.

What do you think of cards like this?
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: popsofctown on August 12, 2015, 05:54:23 pm
If it's not flavor driven, there's no reason to re-use "bane card" for your special card.  You can define the cost to be always a 2$ card, or always a 3$ card, or always either Chancellor or Jester or whatever you want.  The likelihood that Young Witch is also on the board is very small and not a big deal.

If it is flavor driven, I expect a Witch Trial and I wanna see someone get cursed or discard cards!
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: belugawhale on August 12, 2015, 06:16:04 pm
Also, the current wording allows for continuous revealing of the bane card, drawing your deck.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: GeeJo on August 12, 2015, 06:21:58 pm
I disagree with the above poster that it needs rewording to avoid drawing your deck. Explorer doesn't give you unlimited Golds.

With regards to the card itself, I suspect that the reveal-bonus only needs to be an additional +1 Card. That would make it a Lab with a downside justifying its lower cost. I think it'll end up too powerful at +3 Cards +1 Action, since the 4-cost will let you spam them as cantrips until you find the bane card and turn the rest of them into super-labs. Still, test out the original to make sure. It's easier, relatively speaking, to recognise an over-powered card in testing, while underwhelming cards are easier to excuse ("Oh it was just a bad board for them, so I bought other stuff").

There was an interesting take by A Drowned Kernel on the "Bane Card" concept in the Cornucopia section of the Treasure Chest Design Contest. I ended up knocking together a template and printing it out for use.

(http://i.imgur.com/kHE5ig5.png)

Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: LastFootnote on August 12, 2015, 06:31:30 pm
Also, the current wording allows for continuous revealing of the bane card, drawing your deck.

No, it doesn't!
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Asper on August 12, 2015, 08:35:02 pm
The likelihood that Young Witch is also on the board is very small and not a big deal.

That's true in full random games only, and only for people who own many sets.

I think using the bane card is nice, but the current wording is ambiguous. If i draw a random kingdom, and first get Witch trial and Young Witch later, i'd argue it's not clear you don't use two bane cards.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: GendoIkari on August 12, 2015, 08:38:23 pm
Also, the current wording allows for continuous revealing of the bane card, drawing your deck.

No, it doesn't!

To Expand (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Expand) on this, infinite revealing is only an issue when it comes to reaction cards. This is because you are allowed to reveal multiple reaction cards in response to the same event, and therefore it is necessary to be allowed to reveal the same reaction card more than once in response to the same event. When you are revealing something as part of an instruction to do so, you can only reveal it one time.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Wrclass on August 12, 2015, 09:22:21 pm
The likelihood that Young Witch is also on the board is very small and not a big deal.

That's true in full random games only, and only for people who own many sets.

I think using the bane card is nice, but the current wording is ambiguous. If i draw a random kingdom, and first get Witch trial and Young Witch later, i'd argue it's not clear you don't use two bane cards.

Would something like this work?

Setup: Add an extra card costing $2 or $3 to the supply. Cards from that pile are bane cards. If another bane card would be added to the supply, don't add it.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Wrclass on August 12, 2015, 09:28:33 pm
I disagree with the above poster that it needs rewording to avoid drawing your deck. Explorer doesn't give you unlimited Golds.

With regards to the card itself, I suspect that the reveal-bonus only needs to be an additional +1 Card. That would make it a Lab with a downside justifying its lower cost. I think it'll end up too powerful at +3 Cards +1 Action, since the 4-cost will let you spam them as cantrips until you find the bane card and turn the rest of them into super-labs. Still, test out the original to make sure. It's easier, relatively speaking, to recognise an over-powered card in testing, while underwhelming cards are easier to excuse ("Oh it was just a bad board for them, so I bought other stuff").

There was an interesting take by A Drowned Kernel on the "Bane Card" concept in the Cornucopia section of the Treasure Chest Design Contest. I ended up knocking together a template and printing it out for use.

(http://i.imgur.com/kHE5ig5.png)

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll work on playtesting it. I'll also playtest Theatre.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: GeeJo on August 13, 2015, 05:34:07 am
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll work on playtesting it. I'll also playtest Theatre.

Oh, for a lark, here's a mock-up of three versions of Witch Trial:

(http://i.imgur.com/rv8pIIv.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/nZbRnOq.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/zdmJE9q.jpg)
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: popsofctown on August 13, 2015, 03:28:05 pm
I read "cards that are pale are bane cards"
I need more sleep
If I interpret that to banes are any action cards with a white typeline, that's actually interesting rules text lol.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Wrclass on August 22, 2015, 11:49:28 am
Cards with a similar concept:

Farmer's Market $4
Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may reveal a crop card from your hand. If you do, +1 Buy, +$1.
----------------
Setup: Add an extra kingdom card costing $4 or $5 to the supply. Cards from that pile are crop cards.

Fields $5
Victory
Worth 1 VP for every crop card in your deck.
----------------
Setup: Add an extra kingdom card costing $4 or $5 to the supply. Cards from that pile are crop cards.

What do you think think of these?
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Awaclus on August 22, 2015, 12:04:05 pm
Fields $5
Victory
Worth 1 VP for every crop card in your deck.
----------------
Setup: Add an extra kingdom card costing $4 or $5 to the supply. Cards from that pile are crop cards.

What do you think think of these?

This is pretty similar to werothegreat's Artist Guild, and even though this is weaker, it still has the same problem: if the crop card is a good card that both players want to spam (say, Minion or a $4 splitter), the player who wins the split is already at an advantage because his deck is better, and this card makes the advantage even bigger because now his Victory cards are worth more points as well.

Farmer's Market is probably fine, and an interesting idea, but I think it could be cheaper. The original Market wouldn't be crazy at $4, and this is so much weaker than that.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Marcory on August 22, 2015, 12:06:34 pm
One problem with this approach to "Bane" cards is that they're heavily dependent on the strength of the Bane. If the Bane is, say, Governor, then this makes Governor even more overpowered (you can upgrade your Estates into Farmer's Markets, buy them when you only have $4, etc). Similarly, Fields is awesome if the Bane is Duke, Distant Lands, or Rebuild. But if the Bane is Counting House, then the cards you've made are very weak.

Young Witch, after all, doesn't directly interact with the Bane. Sure, if the Bane is Lighthouse, then YW is pretty worthless, and it's also weakened if the bane is a spammable card like Menagerie or Scheme, but normally, YW's strength depends on the rest of the Kingdom more than the strength of the Bane.

Edit: Ninja'd by Awaclus.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Wrclass on August 22, 2015, 12:08:10 pm
Fields $5
Victory
Worth 1 VP for every crop card in your deck.
----------------
Setup: Add an extra kingdom card costing $4 or $5 to the supply. Cards from that pile are crop cards.

What do you think think of these?

This is pretty similar to werothegreat's Artist Guild, and even though this is weaker, it still has the same problem: if the crop card is a good card that both players want to spam (say, Minion or a $4 splitter), the player who wins the split is already at an advantage because his deck is better, and this card makes the advantage even bigger because now his Victory cards are worth more points as well.

Farmer's Market is probably fine, and an interesting idea, but I think it could be cheaper. The original Market wouldn't be crazy at $4, and this is so much weaker than that.

Thank you. I will test Farmer's Market at $3
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: Awaclus on August 22, 2015, 12:23:39 pm
One problem with this approach to "Bane" cards is that they're heavily dependent on the strength of the Bane. If the Bane is, say, Governor, then this makes Governor even more overpowered (you can upgrade your Estates into Farmer's Markets, buy them when you only have $4, etc). Similarly, Fields is awesome if the Bane is Duke, Distant Lands, or Rebuild. But if the Bane is Counting House, then the cards you've made are very weak.

Young Witch, after all, doesn't directly interact with the Bane. Sure, if the Bane is Lighthouse, then YW is pretty worthless, but normally, YW's strength depends on the rest of the Kingdom, not the strength of the Bane. 

Edit: Ninja'd by Awaclus.

I don't think it's inherently a problem that the card's strength depends on the strength of the Bane. It's a problem if the card affects the game in an undesirable way with certain Banes, but I can't immediately think of any problems that Farmer's Market would cause. If you win the crop card split 6-4, then you have a slightly higher chance of connecting them with Farmer's Market for +$1 and +1 buy, but that's not gamebreaking because your opponent still has a very good chance of connecting his Farmer's Markets and crop cards anyway, and it's just $1 and a buy. If it's Governor or another very strong "single-card-strategy" card, the existence of a $3 Market which is just a cantrip in the early game might actually make the game more interesting, since at least that's another kingdom card that you want to include in your strategy, as opposed to just buying Governors and trashing and enough economy to buy the Governors. If it's Counting House, then maybe that +buy is the deciding factor that makes you actually want a Counting House, or maybe you still don't want the Counting House but even then it's not any worse than just having the Counting House in the original kingdom instead.
Title: Re: Cards that use the bane card
Post by: scott_pilgrim on August 22, 2015, 04:29:56 pm
One problem with this approach to "Bane" cards is that they're heavily dependent on the strength of the Bane. If the Bane is, say, Governor, then this makes Governor even more overpowered (you can upgrade your Estates into Farmer's Markets, buy them when you only have $4, etc). Similarly, Fields is awesome if the Bane is Duke, Distant Lands, or Rebuild. But if the Bane is Counting House, then the cards you've made are very weak.

Young Witch, after all, doesn't directly interact with the Bane. Sure, if the Bane is Lighthouse, then YW is pretty worthless, and it's also weakened if the bane is a spammable card like Menagerie or Scheme, but normally, YW's strength depends on the rest of the Kingdom more than the strength of the Bane.

Edit: Ninja'd by Awaclus.

I think not only is this not a problem, but it's actually a good thing about the cards.  One of the great things about Dominion is how much variety there is from game to game.  Cards like this that effectively change what cards do or how they interact with each other adds even more variety.  It only becomes a problem if it makes certain interactions break the game in such a way that it is no longer fun; and even then, it has to happen for a lot of possible bane cards before it's really a problem.  If there's just one broken interaction between Fields and Crop card X, that's probably not enough to justify not making Fields, since that interaction will only come up once out of every 237+ games involving Fields, and Fields only comes up once every 23.7+ games anyway.  If you play with fewer sets it might happen more often, but you get the idea.

I think someone once said something to the effect of "each individual game of Dominion is broken, but Dominion as a whole is not".  If no one said that, then I want credit for it, because it sounds cool, even though it's probably not quite true.  But I think it's fine if there are times when two cards have a crazy strong interaction and other times when they're just bad.  That's the half the fun of the game, figuring out which interactions are the best on each board.