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MatthewCA

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Astral Events
« on: August 26, 2017, 06:45:43 pm »
+1

As a part of a fan expansion I'm working on (it's had some playtesting, but mostly it's still in the idea phase) I came up with a new mechanic I'd like to introduce to you now. Perks. Simply put, small bonuses or abilities you have bought during the game, and give a small bonus to you for the rest of the game, or until you buy a different one.

Mechanically how it works is when one of my four astral events is in play, you also put out the astral board that corresponds with the event, and players take their token for that event. Each board has 3 perks available for a price. When you buy the astral event, say Solar Eclipse, you place your Solar Eclipse token on the board to immediately get the perk. I've named all the perks, and players just announce when they use them. I've also included brief explanations in parentheses where I think it's appropriate.

I'm looking for feedback, specifically on cost of the astral event, and balance of the perks, and what perks should be grouped together. Thanks for taking a look at this., and without further ado, the events and perks.


Quote
Solar Eclipse $5

Place your Solar Eclipse token on the Solar Eclipse board to select a perk.

Solar Eclipse Board

1. Dewdrops: as an action, +2 Cards
2. Gilded Curse: Your curses are now Curse Treasure cards worth $2 (This works like inheritance, curses are still worth -1vp)
3. Last Stand: After the game ends, take one more turn.


Quote
Constellation $4

Place your Constellation token on the Constellation board to select a perk.

Constellation Board

1. Peer: At the start of your turn, look at the top card of your deck. Either discard it or put it back
2. Retry: as an action, put the top part of your discard pile into your hand
3. Guards Tower: When another player plays an attack, flip your Constellation token (it starts face up) when its face up, you are not affected by that attack.


Quote
Equinox $3

Place your Equinox token on the Equinox board to select a perk.

Equinox Board

1. Recycle: For each card you trash during your action phase, +$1 during your buy
2. Well: As an action, discard up to 3 cards from your hand. +1 card per card discarded.
3. Gentle Breeze: Once per turn, during your action phase, you may reveal and discard an action card for +1 Action


Quote
Falling Star $4

Place your Falling Star token on the Falling Star board to select a perk

Falling Star Board

1. Grow: As an action, trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing exactly $1 more than the trashed card
2. Woodworker: As an action, discard a card then gain a card costing up to $4
3. Clearance: At the start of your turns, +1 buy.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2017, 02:19:13 pm by MatthewCA »
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trivialknot

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Re: Astral Events
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2017, 07:24:51 pm »
+1

Sounds like a neat idea. 

On pairing perks together... I guess you could either have several competing perks of comparable power so that players have to make a difficult choice between them.  Or else you could have different perks that are valuable at different moments of the game.

Solar Eclipse - Last Stand is really powerful, so you basically get it every game, but when to get it is an interesting decision.  It would be a more interesting decision if the competing perks were more powerful.  Gilded Curse is not very good.

Constellation - I guess this is an example of competing powers, where you choose just one and stick with it.  I don't really like Retry, because I don't really like thinking about the order in which I discard cards, especially since you might Retry more than once per turn.  I think Dewdrops is way more powerful than the other perks anyway.  It's like an infinite supply of optional smithies.

Equinox - These perks are neat but I'm not sure they present an interesting decision between them.  If you're trashing, get Recycle.  Then you get Well or Gentle Breeze depending on which engine components are hardest to come by.

Falling Star - I think Grow is much stronger than the others.  Negate is weak, and particularly so when Grow can just trash your cursers.  Clearance is neat though, and there will be some games where you have to decide when to switch.
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MatthewCA

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Re: Astral Events
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2017, 09:38:46 am »
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Sounds like a neat idea. 

On pairing perks together... I guess you could either have several competing perks of comparable power so that players have to make a difficult choice between them.  Or else you could have different perks that are valuable at different moments of the game.

Solar Eclipse - Last Stand is really powerful, so you basically get it every game, but when to get it is an interesting decision.  It would be a more interesting decision if the competing perks were more powerful.  Gilded Curse is not very good.

Constellation - I guess this is an example of competing powers, where you choose just one and stick with it.  I don't really like Retry, because I don't really like thinking about the order in which I discard cards, especially since you might Retry more than once per turn.  I think Dewdrops is way more powerful than the other perks anyway.  It's like an infinite supply of optional smithies.

Equinox - These perks are neat but I'm not sure they present an interesting decision between them.  If you're trashing, get Recycle.  Then you get Well or Gentle Breeze depending on which engine components are hardest to come by.

Falling Star - I think Grow is much stronger than the others.  Negate is weak, and particularly so when Grow can just trash your cursers.  Clearance is neat though, and there will be some games where you have to decide when to switch.

Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like this can be much more interesting by re-arranging the perks so that they are all of competing power levels, and cutting one or two of them. This will have the added benefit of making pricing them easier, and upping the opportunity cost of choosing one perk.

On Gilded Curse, originally they were worth $2. In your opinion, would this fix that perk, or do I need another idea to replace it?

As far as Negate goes, I agree, it is weak. I'm thinking of replacing it with a gainer.

Quote
As an action, discard a card, then gain a card costing up to $4.

I have not named that yet. I'll modify the original post with my changes when I make them.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2017, 09:39:59 am by MatthewCA »
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trivialknot

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Re: Astral Events
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2017, 02:08:30 pm »
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The thing about making curses better, is that curses only show up in a fraction of games.  And in many of those games the best thing to do with curses is to trash them.  In games without trashing, making the curses worth $1 sounds mediocre, and $2 sounds fairly strong.  But that's only occurring in a fraction of games, and as a perk I'm not sure it presents an interesting decision--it's either good or it's not.

You could probably come up with a similar with broader applicability.  Something like, discard a card (which could be a curse) for $2.

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As an action, discard a card, then gain a card costing up to $4.
Sounds strong, blowing most other workshop variants out of the water.
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Asper

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Re: Astral Events
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2017, 04:43:37 pm »
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Gilded Curses are a bit like the curse option of Quest, in that it's one of three options on the same card. In that respect, it's good, as it means even when Curses are irrelevant, the card itself isn't necessarily. However, Quest's other options do the same as the Curse one, and the Event is generally simpler without any setup.
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