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[Rush_Clasic]

Inventor (4)
Action - Looter
$2
Gain a Ruins and attach it to the Randomizer card of any Action in the Supply. Trash any other Ruins already attached to that card. Whenever a player plays a copy of that card, he also gets the effects of the attached Ruins.

• This came up when I was brainstorming reactions for reaction week. I sort of became fixated with the idea, and finally decided to strip it down to the basics of what I wanted it to do. I have more reaction ideas, but this thing has been nagging me and I needed to get it out.
• Originally, this started out with "Modifier cards" that were mostly the same as the Ruins, except instead of Survivors I had a trashing card. I went through a lot of versions of this design. I think it's potentially harmful: making Smithy into a super-Laboratory seems scary, for instance. But the duality and the ability to change what Ruins is attached makes me think it could possibly work. There was also a time where the Modifiers had a postive and negative ability, and another instance where there were just two piles of Modifiers, postitive and negative, and where you chose the good affect to attach and the player on your left chose the bad one. That idea had some merit, but was difficult to do simplistically. Stumbling onto using Ruins was a nice idea that solved a lot of problems (though I'm not sure it solves all of them).
• The trigger effect gets you the Ruins benefits before the card you played resolves. That is, you do the Ruins first. If that isn't clear, I'll need to weasel out just why.

[One Armed Man]

This actually seems silly and fun. In the midgame, you can make any card you have more of than your opponent into a super card. It has a good cost and effect, as well. This treats the various Ruins strengths in a fair way.

[Rush_Clasic]

I should also mention that I'm posting this now because I really like the concept and really want help finding a balanced way to do it. As is, I'm afraid it gets too swingy. Imagine turning all your Pawns into Laboratories... just... eek!

[rinkworks]

I loved the Dark Ages outtake Donald described:  Play the top 4 Ruins, or +$3 if the Ruins supply pile is empty.  So much so that I implemented it in my Dominion A.I. and tried it out.  In real life, I imagine the tedium of manipulating the Ruins pile every play was prohibitive, but I don't know.

Anyway, I like the idea of using Ruinses this way.  They're all single units of functionality that can be easily tacked onto things and mixed and matched.

[rinkworks]

I should also mention that I'm posting this now because I really like the concept and really want help finding a balanced way to do it. As is, I'm afraid it gets too swingy. Imagine turning all your Pawns into Laboratories... just... eek!

This thread might be of interest to you:  http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2665.msg90837#msg90837

Essentially it's the same idea, only it's limited to just adding +$1 to a card and only does it for one particular player.  It's a strong effect, though at first I underestimated just how punishing the opportunity/setup costs are.  Taking those critical differences into account, that idea and your idea are not very comparable.  Still, it may help to see another incarnation of that basic idea.

[Rush_Clasic]

I should also mention that I'm posting this now because I really like the concept and really want help finding a balanced way to do it. As is, I'm afraid it gets too swingy. Imagine turning all your Pawns into Laboratories... just... eek!

This thread might be of interest to you:  http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2665.msg90837#msg90837

Essentially it's the same idea, only it's limited to just adding +$1 to a card and only does it for one particular player.  It's a strong effect, though at first I underestimated just how punishing the opportunity/setup costs are.  Taking those critical differences into account, that idea and your idea are not very comparable.  Still, it may help to see another incarnation of that basic idea.

Very useful read-through. Your final summation gives some credence to the power concerns, although they are rather different in this case. I'll have to playtest this some over the weekend.