1
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion: Cults & Creeds (Looking for Feedback!)
« on: May 29, 2018, 03:04:13 pm »What about something like this:QuoteApostateThis would make the card a little more powerful, protect players from spamming of the card in the same round, and hopefully help to keep the distribution of Curses down a little bit.
Action - Attack, $4
+$3?
Each player (including you) may reveal a Curse from their hand. If they didn't, they gain a Curse to their hand.
That's definitely a lot better! The question is if it works at any cost. I mean let's compare it to a hypothetical Action card that costs $4 and gives +$3, since the Curse thing hits everybody and so is a bit of a wash, at least early in the game. I think such a card would be mostly balanced, but I worry that it's bad for the game in that many players will see it as a no-brainer to open with. +$3! It's a cheap Gold! And helps me buy more Gold! I think that's the reason that there's not currently any card like that. I mean Moneylender gives +$3, but you're trashing a Copper from your hand, so you're really only up +$2 for the turn. The closest thing to this hypothetical card is Gladiator, which can give you +$3, but isn't likely to on the first shuffle. It gets more likely to hit as the game goes on. On the other hand, this hypothetical card would be a really weak $5.
But maybe the Curse part of Apostate is more powerful than that. Since you're playing it on your own turn, you'll sometimes have the ability to draw into a Curse before you play this, making it less likely to hit you than to hit the other players. So maybe Apostate would actually work at $5. That cost also means it'll get played less, since not everybody can open with it and it's harder to buy.
I think the card is worth testing, probably first at $4 like you have it, then at $5 if that's too strong.
I really like the "reveal a Curse from hand; if you can't, gain a Curse to hand" part. I think that's very clever. If it were me, I'd abandon the self-Cursing premise and try this:
Apostate: Action - Attack, $4
+$2
Each other player may reveal a card from hand. If they don't, they gain a Curse. If nobody gained a Curse, +$1.
This has the potential for a bell-the-cat problem where players want to stop you from getting the +$1, but nobody wants to gain a Curse to do it. I'm optimistic that in practice, players won't actually do that; they'll all reveal a Curse if they can. Anyway, this is what I'd personally try, but I understand if you don't want to abandon your self-Cursing part. I think your version is worth testing at $4, and then at $5 if the $4 version is too strong or makes games too sloggy.
Having other players take a Curse to hurt the player's buying power is a really interesting idea. I'll definitely try it out.
The self-Cursing would hopefully serve to have the player think twice before playing Apostate, but you're right in that it still might just result in a mad rush that ends up w/ everyone's deck backed up w/ Curses. I'll playtest your idea, mine, and maybe another variant (or two) and see what happens.
Also, interesting point on the player not wanting to play Apostate before someone else... I hadn't thought of that. I'll let you know how that plays out!