I'm resurrecting this thread because Elestan offered to playtest these when I saw him a couple months ago. So I want to get at least a first "draft" of each card finalized so I can know what they're like to play with.
For now I think I'll call these cards Afflictions, since that's the closest synonym for "curse" that looked good on Thesaurus.com and a name like "scaling curse" doesn't really sound Dominion-y. The actions that use them specifically would be called Afflictors. If anyone can think up a better name (which I'm sure exists), please tell me.
From now on, any text in
red is an important undecided aspect.
I don't think the base Afflictions need much of a change, apart from how much they scale, so here's what I have:
Plague
$0 - Curse - Affliction
-1VP for every # cards in your deck, rounded down.
Schism
$0 - Curse - Affliction
-1VP for every # Action cards in your deck, rounded down.
Defecit
$0 - Curse - Affliction
-1VP for every # Treasure cards in your deck, rounded down.
Scourge
$0 - Curse - Affliction
-1VP for every # Victory cards in your deck, rounded down.
I haven't come up with any ideas for the six Afflictor cards (though ephesos's ideas are a good start) but this is what the description of that card type would be.
If any Kingdom card has the type Afflictor, replace the Curse pile with the four Affliction piles: Plague, Schism, Defecit, and Scourge. If a card requires a player to gain a Curse, they instead choose an Affliction to gain.
The number of Affliction cards in each pile is # (scaling for players).
So, concerns and stuff I still need:
- Obviously, the Afflictor cards themselves. I want to stick with my plan from the fourth post of this thread unless someone comes up with a better one. So, four Attack-Afflictor cards would distribute each of the individual Afflictions. An additional Attack-Afflictor would let the attacker choose which Affliction each player gains (I know it's political but it's not luck-based like Swindler is). The last Afflictor card would not be an attack but something Death Cart-ish that gives the player Afflictions of their choice (or does something else involving them) in exchange for a sizeable benefit. The power balance is going to be important with these. Afflictions will most likely hurt more than Curses, so Afflictors sort of have to be Looters in reverse (eg. the Afflictor equivalent of Witch would be to Witch what Witch is to Cultist). The attacker's choice Afflictor is definitely going to be $5 or more, no matter how good its bonus is.
- The scaling power of the Afflictions. If they're scaling alt-VP in reverse, then Plague would be 10 cards, Schism would be 3 Action cards, and Scourge would be 4 Victory cards. Though that seems like the easiest option, it might overpower them. And the jury's out on Deficit on that front. It will probably take playtesting to figure out exactly the best point values but I need something to start with.
- The number of Afflictions per pile. The logical default is the same as the Curse count - ie. 10 per player besides the first. The concern for that though is how it would affect 3-pile endings to have 3 additional full-size Curse piles in the supply. For example, if someone was getting cursed normally with an Afflictor on the board, switching from taking Defecits to Plagues with one Defecit left in the pile could prolong the game - is that overpowered or not? The other option is making each Affliction pile smaller than the curse pile (bigger doesn't seem any good), although that makes 3-piling even easier unless there's a rule that the
entire Affliction supply, rather than just one type, counts as a pile.
I'm really excited to get these cards designed and playtested and everything. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how different deck types respond to Afflictions in practice. Add a Scourge to my overdrawn golden deck? No problem! Add a Defecit to my terminal draw big money deck with no trashing? Ouch.
