Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: ackmondual on April 01, 2018, 04:06:37 pm

Title: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ackmondual on April 01, 2018, 04:06:37 pm
I heard one group nerfed Rebuild, but forgot exactly what they did.  IIRC, they removed the +1 Action on it?

Another game, many of the newbies, and even those who've played a few games before bought a lot of Scouts.  They didn't believe that it was THAT bad, or simply didn't care.  One player took some unsolicited pity and suggested to make it so it also generates +1 coin as well, of which everyone agreed to.

Suggested, but never tried... for Embargo, if you buy a pile with Embargo tokens, you take all of the tokens, immediately convert them to Curses, and discard the tokens (which is how Tax works).

One group had good results with making Thief such that trashing is optional.  So if you keep hitting Coppers, just elect NOT to trash them so you can't trim your opponents decks for them.


Laboratory was too powerful, so limit 3 Labs per turn.  Additional ones were just dead cards
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Holunder9 on April 01, 2018, 04:25:21 pm
Scout and Thief got official replacements.
Embargo does not have to be nerfed.
Rebuild is totally broken so why try to fix it at all.
Laboratory (variants) are good but usually cannot compete with a draw engine that is made up of villages and Smithy variants so no need to change this very basic card either.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: LibraryAdventurer on April 01, 2018, 06:56:28 pm
There have been several threads on this exact topic. This is the most recent one I could find (although I thought there was one more recent than this?):
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=9978.0

These are the official cards which I use a modded version of at home:
- Harvest (I use LF's suggested version in the OP of the above linked thread)
- Rebuild (shown here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13690.msg523374#msg523374))
- Harem (just make it cost $5)
- Goons (weaken the attack to discard down to 4 instead of 3, because it's really strong even without the attack.)
- Secret Passage (add a reaction "When another player plays an attack, you may play this from your hand" -because I liked Secret Chamber's reaction and this is similar.)
- Bandit ("gain a treasure from the trash or a gold" -If I'm going to steal treasures, I want to be able to steal kingdom treasures.)

There are a few cards I just don't play with IRL (including Embargo, Tournament, and the removed cards from 1st editions*). I kinda like your idea for Embargo though, but in that case, it wouldn't need to trash itself.

(*There's a fan version of Scout that I use, but it's different enough from the original to consider it a different card. Adding $1 to it is also a fine mod.)

I would never think of modding laboratory.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: cascadestyler on April 01, 2018, 07:22:33 pm
If Laboratory is too powerful for you, then you need to nerf a *lot* of cards, because Lab is barely top 1/3rd of $5 cards.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: King Leon on April 02, 2018, 09:22:02 am
Merchant Ship
I would move the +Buy from Wharf to Merchant Ship. Sure, then it is a Woodcutter+, but it is still more balanced than at the moment.

Harvest
It should allow you to put one of the (up to) four cards back onto the top of your deck. Sure, this is just a slight adjustment, but Harvest is in strong concurrence of Merchant Ship for disappearing +$4, so it also needs a buff.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ackmondual on April 02, 2018, 10:55:35 pm
If Laboratory is too powerful for you, then you need to nerf a *lot* of cards, because Lab is barely top 1/3rd of $5 cards.
I tried telling them that, but they wouldn't have it.  Sometimes, you need to pick and choose your battles.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ackmondual on April 02, 2018, 10:56:58 pm
Scout and Thief got official replacements.
This thread concerns tweaks, not replacements.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Awaclus on April 03, 2018, 02:17:44 am
If Laboratory is too powerful for you, then you need to nerf a *lot* of cards, because Lab is barely top 1/3rd of $5 cards.
I tried telling them that

Then the fix I would suggest is letting them buy labs while you agree to not buy any. Sounds like you should still be able to beat them pretty easily to prove your point.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ackmondual on April 05, 2018, 12:12:20 am
If Laboratory is too powerful for you, then you need to nerf a *lot* of cards, because Lab is barely top 1/3rd of $5 cards.
I tried telling them that

Then the fix I would suggest is letting them buy labs while you agree to not buy any. Sounds like you should still be able to beat them pretty easily to prove your point.
I didn't have anything to prove.  I just wanted to play a game, and the variant on Labs was tolerable.  If I argued with everybody who said something negative about Dominion, that would still leave me with less free time than I'd prefer.  I've got better things to do.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Awaclus on April 05, 2018, 02:06:12 am
I didn't have anything to prove.  I just wanted to play a game, and the variant on Labs was tolerable.  If I argued with everybody who said something negative about Dominion, that would still leave me with less free time than I'd prefer.  I've got better things to do.

>"Labs are too powerful"
>"I don't think they're too powerful"
>"Yes they are"
>"Then how about you're allowed to buy them and I'm not?"
>"Sure"

Took a whole ten seconds to have that conversation.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ackmondual on April 07, 2018, 08:01:45 pm
I didn't have anything to prove.  I just wanted to play a game, and the variant on Labs was tolerable.  If I argued with everybody who said something negative about Dominion, that would still leave me with less free time than I'd prefer.  I've got better things to do.

>"Labs are too powerful"
>"I don't think they're too powerful"
>"Yes they are"
>"Then how about you're allowed to buy them and I'm not?"
>"Sure"

Took a whole ten seconds to have that conversation.
The argument is concerning spamming more than 3 copies per turn.
Given how I've only played with these people exactly once and then never after that (they lived close enough to try out that group, but not close enough to be close to regulars), I think I made exactly the correct call by not getting into a drawn out argument with them.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Holunder9 on April 08, 2018, 07:37:05 am
The argument is concerning spamming more than 3 copies per turn.
Given how I've only played with these people exactly once and then never after that (they lived close enough to try out that group, but not close enough to be close to regulars), I think I made exactly the correct call by not getting into a drawn out argument with them.
That's simply how non-terminal draw works, you play several copies of the same card. As already pointed out, if there are villages and Smithy variants on the board the Lab (variant) might be inferior.
Dominion does feature quite some weak cards (some of which were changed or deleted in the 2nd versions) or overpowered cards like Rebuild, Cultist, Scrying Pool and so on. Laboratory is not one of them.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 20, 2018, 12:40:36 am
Sometimes I think that sea hag should at least give +1 action or at least draw a card
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: ClouduHieh on April 20, 2018, 12:42:57 am
Or how about to gain another rats optional. So that way you can get a couple without it getting to crazy. Aww rats!
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: faust on April 20, 2018, 12:48:49 am
Or how about to gain another rats optional. So that way you can get a couple without it getting to crazy. Aww rats!
That would make it stronger than Junk Dealer, one of the top $5 cards.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Holunder9 on April 20, 2018, 02:48:16 am
Sometimes I think that sea hag should at least give +1 action or at least draw a card
In the absence of sifting (or other top deck interaction like Lookout) Sea Hag is roughly the same as: "Each other player gains a Curse and puts their –1 Card token on their deck." which is a powerful attack that doesn't have to be buffed in any way, especially not via +1 Card which seems weird on a terminal and especially not via making the attack non-terminal.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: NoMoreFun on April 20, 2018, 07:33:44 pm
Rats should be able to trash a hand of all Rats (thematically representing overpopulation, but also making it more interesting in games without another trasher)

I'd give Caravan Guard's reaction to another card. Secret Cave would be able handle Militia style attacks and work even better in junking games, so that would be a good choice.

Royal Seal could really do with a +buy.
Title: Re: What existing cards do you tweak/modify, and what are those changes?
Post by: Erick648 on April 21, 2018, 03:43:14 pm
Here's the ones that I can think of offhand:

Feast: Added +1 Action.

Scout: Added +1 Card and reduced the deck inspection to 3 cards (so basically, the first card's free).

Masquerade & Throne Room: I was applying the 2e versions before 2e made them official.   8)

Tribute: Made it discard the bottom card of the player to your left and the player to your right (in 2p, your opponent is both to your left and your right and so discards the bottom two cards).  This wasn't really for balance purposes so much as to make it feel like less of a "single-target attack" (it's not, but tell that to someone who keeps getting good cards discarded; it was either make this change or have the card vetoed entirely).

Scrying Pool: Removed the attack (but kept the self-spying).  It speeds things up, and the card's plenty powerful without the attack.

Pearl Diver: Added the option of discarding the revealed card so you don't get stuck repeatedly revealing the same Province.

Smugglers: Let it copy any opponent, not just the player to your right.  This was because of a game where two experienced players both went for a strategy where winning the split of a certain 5-cost card was crucial, and the third, less-experienced player, messed around with cards that weren't that helpful.  Needless to say, the mirror player on the left won the split by a large margin due to Smuggling from the other mirror player, leading to the realization that the next time this situation happened, we'd know that whoever sat to the left of the newbie would be at a disadvantage, and no one would want to sit there.  Letting it copy everyone means that no one's stuck with an inferior Smuggling target.

Black Market: Replaced the Black Market deck with 5 Events; each Black Market gives you a Buy that can only be spent on one of those Events (and all of those Events are available for every Black Market play).  This was designed primarily to ease setup/cleanup (so I didn't have to keep fishing single cards out of my binders), but also serves to remove a lot of the weirdness associated with Black Market (i.e., random selections with potential unfairness where one player gets access to a vital card and the others don't; it also eliminates playing Treasures and buying stuff in the Action phase, which wasn't really a problem IMO, but it does simplify things to avoid it).

Walled Village: Changed the below-line text to "At the start of Clean-up, you may spend an Action to put this onto your deck."  Since it's a card I paid for specifically, I wanted it to actually be relevant.

Boons in general: I replaced the random deck with a semi-randomly generated "Boon map" that you maneuver around, removing the unpredictability and potential unfairness.  I also tweaked Sacred Grove (Boons that provide money are no longer excluded, since we use markers to track it anyway) and Druid (can now grant any Boon without moving around the map; we don't even use the map if Druid is the only Fate card) to fit the new system.