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[Multitallented]

Hey everyone! I'm new here. 



Externalize
Action - Reaction - Attack (2)
+1 Card
You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, +(1)
----------------------
When you would gain a card, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a copy of that card instead.

I've only tested this once, and it was fun (Governor, Bank, Peddler, Forager, Ironmonger, Butcher, Advisor, Feast, Taxman, Externalize, Sea Way, Lost Arts). Several times players would Butcher a copper, keep the coin tokens, gain a curse, and then use Externalize. Once a player had only 3 coins, so he bought a curse and used Externalize on that. Most often though, it was used as an action.

I played another game (Swindler, Feodum, Messenger, Baker, Steward, Journeyman, Catacombs, Explorer, Knights, Externalize). This time, Externalize was used a lot more. By the end of the game there was only 1 left in the supply. This did not discourage anyone from buying/attacking with Swindler as often as possible though.

What do you think? I read the Fan Card Guide and tried to avoid the many common problems with Reaction cards. Could I word it more simply? Do you have any improvements?

[LastFootnote]

It shouldn't have the "Attack" type, since all the things that care about Attack cards only care about them being played, and the attack here doesn't happen when Externalize is played. Ill-Gotten Gains doesn't have the Attack type for this same reason.

[Multitallented]

Thanks, I'll remove that pronto.

[AdrianHealey]

It shouldn't have the "Attack" type, since all the things that care about Attack cards only care about them being played, and the attack here doesn't happen when Externalize is played. Ill-Gotten Gains doesn't have the Attack type for this same reason.

Why couldn't it be an attack, then?

It does have self-synergy, which I like.

[Tables]

It shouldn't have the "Attack" type, since all the things that care about Attack cards only care about them being played, and the attack here doesn't happen when Externalize is played. Ill-Gotten Gains doesn't have the Attack type for this same reason.

Why couldn't it be an attack, then?

It does have self-synergy, which I like.

Any card could be an attack, in theory. It's just that most of the time it'd be pointless at best or highly confusing at worst. This card falls squarely into the highly confusing part. You can't Moat a reaction, but you can reveal Moat when someone plays this for the action - to no effect. You can also Secret Chamber when they play this for the action, which is technically not a problem but just very weird.

[tristan]

Thanks, I'll remove that pronto.

There is nothing wrong rule-wise with your card. It is just a fan card so it should be obvious to everybody you play with that a Reaction-Attacks is meant to be a Reaction-Attack, even if the card is not technically being played but only revealed.

I wouldn't worry about this rule-nitpicking nonsense. Whether the card should be an Attack or not depends upon whether you want the other player to be able to play Reactions as a response to this very Reaction-Attack.

About the card itself, I like it. It is not a particularly strong trasher as it is terminal but this is fine for a 2$. As you described it, the card does lead to some fun combos so I wouldn't change a thing.

[Gubump]

This is a really good first card idea, Multitallented! I'm excited to see what else you can think of! Also, welcome to the Dominion forums!

Also, ignore tristan. He seems to think that caring about the rules is the same as nitpicking about them. (You don't have to remove the Attack type, though; it still works, it's just somewhat confusing.)

[tristan]

This is a really good first card idea, Multitallented! I'm excited to see what else you can think of! Also, welcome to the Dominion forums!

Also, ignore tristan. He seems to think that caring about the rules is the same as nitpicking about them. (You don't have to remove the Attack type, though; it still works, it's just somewhat confusing.)

You obviously don't get that the ideal causality chain is from mechanics to rules, no the other way around as rule-lawyers like you wrongly assume. No game designer does it the other way around. You have an idea, you implement it mechanically and only then do you write a rule which formalizes this very mechanic.

If you want the other player to be able to play Reactions to this novel form of Attack, a Reaction-Attack (read the friggin' title of this thread, that's the key point of the card), it should be a Reaction-Attack. If you don't want them to be able to React you don't call it an Attack. In the former case, Reactions can obviously only be played if the Reaction Attack occurs, not if the card is applied "peacefully". That does not match the rules but it is common sensical and most likely how my gaming group would play intuitively with this card.
Rules do exist to clarify how a game is played, not to make it something superrigid which can never be modified.

You certainly do not limit your design ideas to what already exists and has been formalized via the rules. As I already said, nobody does this, especially not DXV. He changes or amends the rules when he implements something new. This is precisely what Multitalented should do, only that there is no need to write an actual rule amendment as he can explain this in 10sec to anybody he plays with.

[Accatitippi]

I like it! I'm not a fan of the art, but when you get this kind of criticism it's because the card mechanics look good.

Removing the Attack type would put it in line with all the canon Dominion cards. Of course, as tristan reminds us, you are free to do what you want with your fan cards.

Interestingly, I believe that Donald has never changed any existing rule of Dominion, limiting himself to writing new rules to add mechanics or to make rulings on specific scenarios that were yet unregulated. And that's why some Reactions only work against played attacks, and not against on-buy/on-gain effects and whatnot. On-buys/on-gains and whatnot came later, and then it was too late to have "Attack effects" rather than simply Attack cards. (and anyway, the rule burden to have such a system probably overweighted the benefits)

And now I'll preemptively explain the incoming joke:
Once upon a time, before my time, there was a user who posted a frankly terrible expansion here on the Variants board. He got a lot of constructive criticism, but unfortunately he didn't take it well and ended up attacking everybody and being banned.
The poster child of the expansion was the Bomb, a one shot card that you could buy with a one-shot Potion clone ("Gunpowder") and that trashed itself and another card when you played it. He considered it to be an extremely powerful card.

[Multitallented]

Thanks for all the advice! I took all of it into consideration and came up with this:



Plague Doctor
Action - Reaction (2)
+1 Card
You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, +(1)
---------------
When you would gain a card, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a copy of that card instead.
(This counts as playing an Attack card.)

I didn't like the art or the name either. I added italic text at the bottom to clear up the whole Reaction - Attack thing.

I did another test today (Altar, Wine Merchant, Stash, Artificer, Monument, Wandering Minstrel, Young Witch, Amulet, Fortuneteller, Squire (Bane for Young Witch), Plague Doctor, Plan, Bonfire). Only once did someone forgo buying a Young Witch because of Plague Doctor. So long as there were curses left, Young Witch was always played when it showed up in a player's hand. A lot of people picked up Plague Doctor using Artificer. The curse pile ran out, and the person who won also had the most curses.

I look forward to coming up with more of these!

[Marcory]

OK, the main action on this is fine--it's a trasher along the lines of a weaker Forager or Raze, so it's fine for a $2 card.

But the Reaction is not good, because in games using this, no one will buy a Witch, because of the high probability that they'll get Cursed instead. And in multiplayer, the reverse cursing would be crazy.

Because of this, in games using Plague Doctor, no one will buy Cursers, and thus no one will buy Plague Doctor for the reaction.

That's why the DXV has advised against using Reactions that are too strong, because they make Attacks not worth buying.

[Tables]

The wording of the reaction seems vague to me. Does "that card" mean the "would gain" card or the card you chose to trash?

[Multitallented]

...But the Reaction is not good, because in games using this, no one will buy a Witch, because of the high probability that they'll get Cursed instead. And in multiplayer, the reverse cursing would be crazy.

Because of this, in games using Plague Doctor, no one will buy Cursers, and thus no one will buy Plague Doctor for the reaction.

That's why the DXV has advised against using Reactions that are too strong, because they make Attacks not worth buying.

I read what DXV said, and I followed his advice on this. After testing this, I found that it did not suffer from the problems you mentioned. No one was discouraged from playing cursers. Also, players were only mildly discouraged from buying cursers. The amount of curses flying around was a bit higher, but it was helped by the fact that Plague Doctor trashes itself. The fact that it is a terminal action also helped it's scarcity.

As for the reaction being too strong, I think you're right. How's this?

The wording of the reaction seems vague to me. Does "that card" mean the "would gain" card or the card you chose to trash?

How's this?

When you would gain a card, you may
trash this and another card from your hand.
If you do, each other player gains a copy
of the card you would have gained instead.

[Nflickner]

Digging your first card!!!  I also really like the new art.  What program do you use to make your cards?

[GendoIkari]

This is a really good first card idea, Multitallented! I'm excited to see what else you can think of! Also, welcome to the Dominion forums!

Also, ignore tristan. He seems to think that caring about the rules is the same as nitpicking about them. (You don't have to remove the Attack type, though; it still works, it's just somewhat confusing.)

You obviously don't get that the ideal causality chain is from mechanics to rules, no the other way around as rule-lawyers like you wrongly assume. No game designer does it the other way around. You have an idea, you implement it mechanically and only then do you write a rule which formalizes this very mechanic.

If you want the other player to be able to play Reactions to this novel form of Attack, a Reaction-Attack (read the friggin' title of this thread, that's the key point of the card), it should be a Reaction-Attack. If you don't want them to be able to React you don't call it an Attack. In the former case, Reactions can obviously only be played if the Reaction Attack occurs, not if the card is applied "peacefully". That does not match the rules but it is common sensical and most likely how my gaming group would play intuitively with this card.
Rules do exist to clarify how a game is played, not to make it something superrigid which can never be modified.

You certainly do not limit your design ideas to what already exists and has been formalized via the rules. As I already said, nobody does this, especially not DXV. He changes or amends the rules when he implements something new. This is precisely what Multitalented should do, only that there is no need to write an actual rule amendment as he can explain this in 10sec to anybody he plays with.

You just don't get it. If someone reveals this card, and you have a moat in hand you CANNOT reveal the most to protect yourself. This is NOT being nitpicky about wording or about rules. This is part of a basic rule of Diminion, that exists and matters for real cards like IGG and Noble Brigand. You can say it's common sense all you want, but if someone buys an IGG and you try to reveal moat to avoid the Curse, then you will be unable to do so if playing online, and told that you aren't allowed to do so if playing IRL, unless you have previously agreed to use different house rules.

[Thanar]

Great idea for a card, Multitalented. Would you be able to post the full-sized image? If you put width=400 after the "img" in the image tag, it will show up smaller, but we can still download the full-sized version.

[Roadrunner7671]

Also, ignore tristan.

That's not nice

[LastFootnote]

Also, ignore tristan.

That's not nice

But it is good advice.

[Roadrunner7671]

Also, ignore tristan.

That's not nice

But it is good advice.

Okay, I'll derail this thread. But it's your fault, LFN.

When tristan first appeared, I thought he was too mean. Then I realized he may not chastise gently, but his criticism is constructive. He doesn't present it in the nicest way ever, but not everyone can say 'OMG! Your card is amazing and I love it for life!' We need some people like tristan who say 'Hold on, you have this problem and this problem and this problem.' And he'll be right.

[Marcory]

Also, pity Tristan, who's missing his Isolde-tropic. [runs and hides]

[eHalcyon]

Also, ignore tristan.

That's not nice

But it is good advice.

Okay, I'll derail this thread. But it's your fault, LFN.

When tristan first appeared, I thought he was too mean. Then I realized he may not chastise gently, but his criticism is constructive. He doesn't present it in the nicest way ever, but not everyone can say 'OMG! Your card is amazing and I love it for life!' We need some people like tristan who say 'Hold on, you have this problem and this problem and this problem.' And he'll be right.

It's great when he gives constructive criticism.  That's not what people are against.

What's happening is that other people are giving constructive criticism to clarify and follow Dominion rules, and then tristan drops in to say, "ignore the rules lawyers, rules are for suckers".  That's the opposite of constructive.

[Roadrunner7671]

Also, ignore tristan.

That's not nice

But it is good advice.

Okay, I'll derail this thread. But it's your fault, LFN.

When tristan first appeared, I thought he was too mean. Then I realized he may not chastise gently, but his criticism is constructive. He doesn't present it in the nicest way ever, but not everyone can say 'OMG! Your card is amazing and I love it for life!' We need some people like tristan who say 'Hold on, you have this problem and this problem and this problem.' And he'll be right.

It's great when he gives constructive criticism.  That's not what people are against.

What's happening is that other people are giving constructive criticism to clarify and follow Dominion rules, and then tristan drops in to say, "ignore the rules lawyers, rules are for suckers".  That's the opposite of constructive.

We're reading the same thing, and that's not what I see. Tristan appears to be wrong. The card is supposed to be blocked by Moat and stuff, but making it an Attack isn't the way to go. Tristan was wrong, but you may be right.

[eHalcyon]

Regarding Plague Doctor (the newest version), it's pretty interesting.  I like the way that the bottom clause implements the attack-reaction concept.  I expect that you'll want to buy it more often for the trashing than for the pseudo-Attack.  I wonder how often it would be good to buy multiples just to attack.  That strategy would be better when there is a lot of +Buy available.  Otherwise, you can save it as a deterrence against junkers.

Marcory noted possible issues with it discouraging junkers. It's worth keeping in mind that the effect will multiply with 3+ players.  Example:

Alice plays Witch.  Brian and Carol each gain a Curse... except Carol reveals Plague Doctor.  Now Alice gains a Curse instead, and Brian gains a second Curse.  But Alice has a Plague Doctor too, which she reveals!  Maybe this goes back and forth a couple times.  In the end, either Alice or Carol gets one Curse... and Brian gets a bunch of Curses.  Sorry, Brian.

Or maybe Brian plays Witch, and Alice and Carol both reveal a Plague Doctor.  Alice and Carol both still get a Curse, but Brian gets two when he was the one who played the attack to start... That's just bad luck, Brian.

That said, I see the mitigating aspects.  It trashes itself when reacting, so that limits it already.  It's also useful on its own as a trasher, which means it's not just totally dead even if nobody buys junkers.  Moreover, it can act as the junker itself if you are willing to give up a Buy for it.  You said there weren't any problems with your early tests though, which is encouraging.

[trivialknot]

I like the card.  Usually you don't want reactions that retaliate against attacks, but this implements it in the right way by not targeting the player who attacked you.

The on-play effect is similar Masquerade.  Masquerade draws two cards and trashes one.  Plague Doctor gives $1, draws a card, and trashes one.  It's probably slightly weaker than Masquerade, but Masquerade is considered pretty good.

The reaction appears quite strong.  If someone curses you, not only do you not get the curse, you also get to curse everyone else.  That's a 2 curse swing!  I don't think it becomes weaker if you're required to trash another card in your hand--trashing is usually a good thing in junking games.

Another way to use Plague Doctor is to buy a curse, and then hand it out to everyone else.  It's like a one-time witch that costs you a buy.  This is interesting.

One idea to nerf the card: when you trash Plague Doctor, it does not prevent you from gaining the card.  So if you buy a curse, you can hand out curses, but you're stuck with the curse you bought.

[Accatitippi]

One idea to nerf the card: when you trash Plague Doctor, it does not prevent you from gaining the card.  So if you buy a curse, you can hand out curses, but you're stuck with the curse you bought.

I like this. It makes it less of a "mirror the attack back - reaction", and it also makes it more fair in multiplayer.
You can still use it to curse your opponents, but you'll need to trash several copies of this on a single Curse buy. (might lend itself to rush games where you empty Plague doctors, Curses, and another pile).