Warlock
Types: Action, Attack
Cost: $5
+3 Cards. Choose a card in the Supply or reveal a card from your hand costing at most $3: Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards a copy of it, or reveals they can't. Each other player who didn't discard a copy of it gains a copy of it.
I'd appreciate help wording this to be clearer and more succinct, if it isn't sufficiently so already.
+3 Cards
Choose a card in the Supply or reveal a card from your hand costing at most $3: Each other player discards a copy of it if they have 5 or more cards in hand, or reveals they can't and gains a copy of it.
changes the functionality a little in that you get to see hands with <5 cards, but is more succinct with the gain clause. should mostly only matter for patron (a benefit for the person revealing) and maybe masquerade (a benefit to see if it's worth it to masq)
Hm. It is shorter, but I'm not feeling that it's clear a player with 4 cards gains a copy of it. Adding additional clauses to it makes it even harder to read.
Here's how I would word it
+3 Cards
Choose a card from the Supply or reveal a card from your hand costing up to $3. Each other player discards a copy of it (or reveals they can't). If they can't, they gain a copy of it.
"Costing up to $3" is fine change. I don't like "or reveals they can't" being a parenthetical (even though it is on
Bad Omens,
Bureaucrat, and
Cutpurse) because parenthetical phrases in game rules are typically reminders of rules rather than rules themselves. Your wording lets Warlock discard a player's entire hand if they are all cards costing up to $3 where the original card can only discard from hands with 5 cards.
Would the following wording make it sufficiently clear that a player with 4 cards in hand reveals their hand and gains a copy of the chosen card? Is allowing the player of Warlock to reveal a card from hand even worth the additional words just to enable hitting cards from empty piles? (I originally had Warlock as "name a card," but that isn't really how the phrase works in Dominion.)
+3 Cards
Choose a card from the Supply or reveal a card from your hand costing up to $3. Each other player discards a copy of it from a hand of at least 5 cards or reveals they can't. If they can't, they gain a copy of it.
Thank you for the assistance.
Warlock is a drawing Curser with extra abilities. I've actually played with this thing before, and it tends to begin by hitting Coppers to try to hold down other players' decks before shifting to Cursing.
Really? That seems counterintuitive. Wouldn't you want to start handing out Curses right away? It's a much stronger attack, after all, and there are a limited number of Curses to hand out.
I was playing in games with little trashing per my recollection. Early decks really need $5 turns, and you don't get them when you're discarding Coppers. You have to respond to the game state, but it often seemed to perform better by choosing Copper for the first 1 or 2 plays. Perhaps because a brainlessly Cursing Warlock in the latter portion of the game limits its own Cursing by players discarding Curses, which, as
Villain shows us by discarding our Estates, is pretty awful.
I imagine it is similar to
Catapult, where you want to trash an Estate (I want to give a Curse), but tracking other players to opportunistically trash a Copper can hold other players down more effectively than the trashing otherwise nets you.
For these cards with player decisions, especially if the receiver is making the decision, it is worth noting
- Resolution time of the card balloons with the number of players. Even Militia pauses the game, and longer in 3-player than 2-player.
- Stacking effects are more troublesome in multiplayer games because it is much more likely to occur with 3 and 4 players than with 2, and occurs less predictably. When the only other player plays a terminal Torturer, you typically know its whole effect, but when another player is going next, you often can't be sure if another Torturer is coming or not.
- Further, if the stacking of an effect changes the decisions of the player of a card, it becomes inherently political. LastFootnote mentioned at one point a "discard any number of cards to make other players discard" effect that died on the vine due to scaling issues: Discarding will hurt the player to my right who has 5 cards in hand, but the player to my left already has 3 cards.
Brazier • $5 • Action - Attack - Duration
Until the start of your next turn, when another player buys a card, they choose: they gain a Copper, or each player that isn't them gets +1 Coffers.
During your next turn, +1 Buy and Copper makes $1 more.
I messed around a bit with a card that can give other players Coffers, and it is bad news in multiplayer. The coins get out of control. By contrast,
Bargain's Horses are not simply harmless until used, making its scaling issues less notable, on top of occurring less frequently than an Attack that gives benefits to all other players. If giving out Coffers is the right move, a 3-player game has Coffers fly 2/1/1 for merely one player using one Brazier, let alone more Braziers and let alone games with more players; that's even more than the cards I've used that directly give Coffers to other players.
Boggart - $5
Action - Attack - Fate - Doom
+1 Card. Reveal the top 2 Hexes and 2 Boons. Pair each Hex with a Boon. Each other player chooses and receives one of the Hexes. Then, receive each Boon paired with a chosen Hex. Discard all revealed Hexes and Boons.
This card has poor scaling (you're much more likely to get the 1 Boon you want if there are multiple players choosing the Hexes, and it creates a weird weight on the second player to choose the same Hex to avoid improving the Boon selection) and absolutely monstrous resolution time. +Cards are an especially bothersome benefit on Fate/Doom cards: The only Fates/Dooms that aren't stop cards only give Boons/Hexes once because the resolution speed of Boons/Hexes themselves are already slow enough.
Sacked Town
Types: Action, Attack
Cost: $4
+1 Card, +1 Action. Choose one: Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a card; or each other player draw until they have 5 cards in hand, gaining a Curse per card drawn.
Being able to combine it with something like
Militia could work out (possibly more for the fun of the theme than actual balance), but it is probably worthwhile to make Sacked Town on its own give out 1 Curse at most. 3 Sacked Towns giving 2 Curses sounds tough.
Ultimately, I don't think this should be a choice to avoid politics in 3-player games.
Dowry
Types: Treasure, Attack
Cost: $3
$1, +1 Buy. Each other player discards a card or pays 1VP to you, their choice. (They may pick an option they can't do.)
Setup: Each player gains 3VP.
...utterly insane 4-6 player...
Slightly harsh but I agree that you need to be slightly insane if you play Dominion with more than 4 players.
Frankly, you have to be a little soft in the head to play in 4-player. The game is at least functional in 4-player, so I agree with BBobb that a card not working at that count is a major problem.