I will try to be gentle but will rip on a bunch of cards, and praise others. Overall I echo what Aquila said: this is a well-themed set that has had a lot of thought given to it.
Almoner - The wording of this card puts it all over the place. I can see that the design of this card is: if you don't have a thing, get some! But I can't necessarily read it and know what I'm doing. For instance, I
think the intent is:
--> If you have one or less cards in your hand after you play this, +2 Cards.
--> If you have spent all of your intangible actions by playing this, +2 Actions.
--> If you reveal your hand and it contains a 0 cost card, + 1 Buy.
--> If you do not have any +$ from Actions in play, +$1
--> If you do not have any Treasures in your hand, receive a Boon.
But this is up for interpretation, for instance it could start by making me reveal my hand, then give me cards if I only reveal 1 or less cards, actions if I reveal no actions, buy if I reveal a $0, $1 if I reveal no Actions with +$1 in my hand, and a Boon if I reveal no Treasures. Which one is it?
In either case I think the text can be streamlined to make the card more clear. Once I have a better understanding of the card, I can comment on power level.
Assassin - hot take: this card needs to die. Nicer take, well, if you're not going to kill it, here's how I'd redesign it:
The two issues I take with it is, 1) "Each other player reveals a copy of the named card,
if they can" -- Dominion doesn't work that way, instead Each other player reveals a copy of the named card, or reveals they can't. In which case this messes with the final line, which is that if no-one reveals, you shuffle this card back into your deck. So everyone must reveal, and you're always going to shuffle this card back into your deck... semantics, I know.
2) it does different things at different payments, which I dislike, since you have to balance each payment at powerlevels.... and wordy... and... such.
Here's my thought: why not instead, make it do something like....
Name a non-Victory card. Then, pay any amount of $. For each $ you paid, look at the top card of the Hexes, and choose one. Each other player may discard a copy of the card you named. If they don't, they receive the Hex you chose. If anyone discarded a card, shuffle this into your deck.
It's different, maybe it's bad, maybe I'm bad for disliking this card
It's your expack, do what you want
Audience - I think Audience is great. I think it's probably perfect as-is, unless it should cost $1, not sure. The quibble I have is that it quickly becomes very costly for a small reward; you're only ever going to want to spend more than $1 on it if you KNOW that the payoff is going to worth it. Because a Laboratory with $-1 for $2 is probably good, but a cantrip for $-1 for $2 is not. And a Laboratory with $-2 for $2 is not good, I'd say. So maybe even making Audience give +$2 baseline is okay? But then what's the price value for a +1 Action +$2? Basically a Silver at that point... hmm. Maybe it's not perfect-as-is? It's still a great idea, I just wonder if it's a tad on the weak side right now.
Burgrave - Should probably be recast to use "set aside" wording, i.e., "..gain a card costing $4 or less, setting it aside. Put it in your hand after the attack resolves."
Camarilla - I echo Aquila, this card is nice, I like it a lot. It's a nice variant to Contraband. I assume if you gave it a +1 Buy, however, you have to let someone else dictate your buys
twice. Now at that point I assume you go, I have $16, do I buy Colony or Province? They say, Province. You say, I now have $8, do I buy Province or Duchy? etc.
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I'll try to get to 5 more cards later. I tend to do this in batches so I don't get overwhelmed. Or fired.
