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[GeeJo]

How do you believe the following card would interact with cost-reducing cards, Ferry tokens, and Peddler?



Obelisk:
$4 Action
+2 Cards. While this is in play, Action cards without P in their cost cost $4.

[Jimmmmm]

Obviously either always $4, or $4 minus any reductions. I would have no idea which one.

[GendoIkari]

Yeah, there's nothing in the rules to tell you how much a card would cost with Obelisk and Highway in play, so you have to actually change the general rules of Dominion to make it work.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the card... the main thing it does for you is to give you a discount on cards. It also gives you a discount on actions, but there aren't that many of those, same with actions. It also makes cheaper actions more expensive, but you wouldn't buy this card if you plan to buy cheaper actions; because it's a terrible card outside of the cost-setting effect.

So the majority of the time, this card will be the same as "+2 cards. While this is in play, action cards cost less."

[Jimmmmm]

It also makes cheaper actions more expensive, but you wouldn't buy this card if you plan to buy cheaper actions; because it's a terrible card outside of the cost-setting effect.

Combos with TfB, especially against Ruins. Remodelling a Ruins into a King's Court would be nice.

[Haddock]

You could make it a duration.

Something like:
Action-Attack Obelisk, $4
Now and at the start of your next turn, +1 Card.
While this is in play, non-potion actions cost $4.

Then there's something interesting going on, particular on board with lots of cheap actions that people want.  But if there are lots of expensive actions it helps everyone.  I have no idea.  Would this even be called an attack?  Not sure; you couldn't exactly Moat it.

[Asper]

Make it on play. It would still be weird, but at least you'd have a basis to argue that it overwrites Bridges played before it, and should be overwritten by Bridges played later (so now everything costs $3). You know, order of on-play applied. Highways would always be applied to the current state, so after on-play Obelisk, everything should cost $3, no matter from when your Highway in play is.

As your effect can't be throned, it's not an issue balance-wise. The issue of confusion stays, though.

Edit: As Peddler and Ferry both are not on-play, i would argue that they also are applied to the current state, and overwrite Obelisk.

[GeeJo]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the card...

Enabling Trash for Benefit, much like Rats. The +Cards and slight cost reduction on expensive actions is there so that it does something on boards where that isn't a thing (it also comboes extremely well with Prince, but that's neither here nor there). No, it's not going to be worth buying every time, but that's intentional. Not every card has to be a Rebuild.

Edit: Anyway, I'm not really here to sell the card to anyone else - I just wanted to check if I was missing anything in the existing rules that would cover this case before deciding how to use it/improve it.

[Asper]

By the way, why do you exclude Potion costs? It's hardly relevant for balance, isn't problematic rules-wise in a way other than the rest, and just makes the card more complex. So, my suggestion:

+2 Cards
All action cards cost $4 this turn.

[Jimmmmm]

What's the answer??

[Jimmmmm]

By the way, why do you exclude Potion costs? It's hardly relevant for balance, isn't problematic rules-wise in a way other than the rest, and just makes the card more complex. So, my suggestion:

+2 Cards
All action cards cost $4 this turn.

Won't that make it way too easy to get Potion cards?

[LastFootnote]

"While this is in play, you must pay $4 to buy an Action card, regardless of its cost."

[faust]

"While this is in play, you must pay $4 to buy an Action card, regardless of its cost."

This of course annihilates gaining and TfB uses and thus makes the card significantly weaker.

[Awaclus]

What's the answer??

The answer is that the current rules of Dominion don't cover this. I see two different possibilities for a rules addition which would handle this:

• Do it like Magic: first, set the cost to $4 and then reduce it from there
• Do it like Hearthstone: track the order in which the cards were played; the effects of the cards played later are applied later

They both are awful solutions for Dominion. 1) is kind of a crappy solution for Magic, too, but Magic really needs a set order in which static abilities are processed because there are so many of them and a lot of them cause rules issues, but the issues are rare enough that most players never have to learn about this rule so it ends up being fine. None of those redeeming qualities would be true for Dominion, and while the rule for Dominion wouldn't have to be as complicated as it is for Magic, it would still be very much unnecessarily complicated for the sake of one card. 2) is a good solution for Hearthstone because it's a computer game so tracking the order is trivial, and that's obviously not true for Dominion.

[Asper]

By the way, why do you exclude Potion costs? It's hardly relevant for balance, isn't problematic rules-wise in a way other than the rest, and just makes the card more complex. So, my suggestion:

+2 Cards
All action cards cost $4 this turn.

Won't that make it way too easy to get Potion cards?

You still need to play a specific card to get them. And even if, removing a rare and tolerably strong synergy isn't worth the extra words as far as i'm concerned.

[Jimmmmm]

What's the answer??

The answer is that the current rules of Dominion don't cover this.

I know that answer. I figured GeeJo had a way in mind for it to work.

[Drab Emordnilap]

If you want it to come before cost reduction, you could say something like "base cost" to make it clear it should be applied before modifiers. This still involves writing rules that don't exist currently to define what that means, but it would help people make the right assumption about the interaction without access to the rules.

[Haddock]

Just to confuse people even more, how's this?

For each action card, let n be its base cost.  If n is between 0 and 3, increase the cost of the action card by 4-n.  If n is more than 4, decrease the cost of the action card by n-4 to a minimum of 0.

Hooray, now it's bonkers. 

Just to clarify, I am definitely not proposing this as a serious solution. Edit:  But at least it's unambiguous.

[Haddock]

OK wait, I've thought about this more and it actually kinda works.  It's only super crazy if you can play multiples.  So add a crossroads style thing to it.  If this is the first time you played an Obelisk this turn...

[popsofctown]

"While this is in play, you must pay $4 to buy an Action card, regardless of its cost."

I think this is similar to MtG's solution to make Trinisphere work unambiguously.

[XerxesPraelor]

Why not just let the player decide which happens first? That's what Netrunner does, and Dominion has some traces of it.

[ConMan]

What's the answer??

The answer is that the current rules of Dominion don't cover this. I see two different possibilities for a rules addition which would handle this:

• Do it like Magic: first, set the cost to $4 and then reduce it from there
• Do it like Hearthstone: track the order in which the cards were played; the effects of the cards played later are applied later

They both are awful solutions for Dominion. 1) is kind of a crappy solution for Magic, too, but Magic really needs a set order in which static abilities are processed because there are so many of them and a lot of them cause rules issues, but the issues are rare enough that most players never have to learn about this rule so it ends up being fine. None of those redeeming qualities would be true for Dominion, and while the rule for Dominion wouldn't have to be as complicated as it is for Magic, it would still be very much unnecessarily complicated for the sake of one card. 2) is a good solution for Hearthstone because it's a computer game so tracking the order is trivial, and that's obviously not true for Dominion.

3. Do it like the Star Wars: Customizable Card Game, and any property that is "set" to a particular value by a card keeps that value and cannot be modified. Which is weird, but would make tracking easier.

[Trustworthy]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the card...

Enabling Trash for Benefit, much like Rats. The +Cards and slight cost reduction on expensive actions is there so that it does something on boards where that isn't a thing (it also comboes extremely well with Prince, but that's neither here nor there). No, it's not going to be worth buying every time, but that's intentional. Not every card has to be a Rebuild.

If that's your intent, then the card really needs to be changed. Except for corner-cases like Farmland, to TfB with a bonus you need a hand with

• Obelisk
• A Village
• A TfB card
• A cheap action to trash

This seems...unlikely to happen often. *If* that's primarily what you're after here, I'd change the top half of the card to either: be a cantrip rather than straight draw, to drop the need for a village; or let it trash things itself.

So:
£4 Action - +1 Card/+1 Action. While this is in play, Action cards cost £4. This cost cannot be modified further.

or

£4 Action - When you play this, Action cards cost £4 for the rest of the turn. This cost cannot be modified further. You may trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing exactly the same.

I changed the cost-setting to an on-play effect for that case as I'm a little unsure on how the timing rules would affect the second part otherwise - would it be in play when an on-play trashing happens?

I'm not sure I like either, though. The first makes Potions irrelevant except for Vineyards, Philosopher's Stones, and Alchemists as every other Potion card would prefer an Obelisk. The second is just a more complicated version of "trash an action card, gain an action card" with some random-seeming side-effects. I'm not being mean here, but I suspect that Obelisk is going to end up in your "Failures and Mediocrities" thread at some point down the line.
[/quote]

[ancientcampus]

Make it on play. It would still be weird, but at least you'd have a basis to argue that it overwrites Bridges played before it, and should be overwritten by Bridges played later (so now everything costs $3). You know, order of on-play applied. Highways would always be applied to the current state, so after on-play Obelisk, everything should cost $3, no matter from when your Highway in play is.

As your effect can't be throned, it's not an issue balance-wise. The issue of confusion stays, though.

Edit: As Peddler and Ferry both are not on-play, i would argue that they also are applied to the current state, and overwrite Obelisk.

I think that's a great idea. It would allow for intricate and rarely-viable strategies, which are always fun.