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[Newcomer]

Hey everyone, I haven't posted much here yet, but I love reading what everyone has to say on these forums. If you're up for yet another fan set, these are some custom cards I've been working on for a while. I've only play-tested a couple of them so far. I've culled this down to about 40 cards right now, and I've been editing them a good deal, but without play-testing I'm sure some of them are still way off. I guess I'm looking for some feedback, but also I'm just providing more ideas, because I know it can be fun seeing others' ideas and talking about all the possibilities within the Dominion framework.

Oh, one more note.. I'm gobbling up Dominion and have read a whole lot of the strategy on these forums, but really, I'm still pretty new to the game. I have base set, Prosperity, and Cornucopia, have also played Intrigue in person, and have played with the other sets online. But I met Dominion 2 months ago. For whatever it's worth.

This is Emergence. The gameplay themes of this set:

-a -1 Action mechanic, which is a way to make a card use up 2 Actions instead of 1. This allows some stronger cards, but introduces its own problems. The rule is that if a card says -1 Action and you have any Actions remaining, you now have 1 fewer. If you had none to begin with, then you don't worry about negative Actions, it's just something you tried to do and failed.

-"If you do,… If you do not,…" clauses. This helps with the -Actions, as it can allow an alternate ability to trigger if there are no spare Actions available.

-cards that deal with the discard pile. I was actually expecting I'd do more with that than I ended up doing, but basically there are some cards that let you place the last cards you discarded back into your hand. I imagine you might be thinking, oh boy, he has no clue what he's doing.. I think I've handled this aspect well enough, but feel free to point out flaws with the cards. I want to make it work. I've read rinkworks's guide, but I did play-test this mechanic with one card and I didn't find it to be a big deal at the time. That card never can go more than 2 deep into the discard pile, and you'd rarely go deeper anywhere in the set, considering interactions, so I think it adds more to the game than it takes away. I'm willing to be proven wrong, though.

-more cards that provide +VP. Probably too many of them, but if I cut the set down further that would fix the problem. I think it's okay as-is.

-cards that provide benefits to your opponents. These are very hard to balance, and I'm sure there are some problems I've missed.

-duration cards that stay in play indefinitely.

-and there are a smattering of multi-type cards out there, such as Treasure-Reaction.

Introducing cards by cost seems to be working well for some other sets, so I'll start that with the first reply. :-)

[Newcomer]

The $1 and $2 cards:


Brass
TREASURE   $1
---
Worth 1 coin
---
When you buy this, gain 2 Coppers and put them into your hand.  You may immediately play them.  If you do, +1 Buy, and you may not buy Brass again this turn.

-So buying this lets you buy a card $1 higher than you can afford.. at the price of putting 3 Coppers (2 Coppers and the Brass) into your deck. Probably a worthwhile gamble occasionally, but it'll hurt you quite a bit if you use it rashly.  Some interesting potential interactions with Gardens and Goons.


Bust
ACTION   $2
---
+1 Buy
You may discard a card from your hand.  If you do, +1 VP.

-It goes in a different direction than most of the weak vanilla cards. Painful as a source of +Buy, as it doesn't help you with money, cards, or even actions. But if you have cards to discard, the VP can compensate. Not sure how balanced it is..


Page
ACTION   $2
---
Choose two: +1 Action; +1 Card; place the top card of your discard pile on top of your deck.
(The choices must be different.)

-A specialized Pawn variant. You have freedom in what you discard last, so you can put your Gold on top and hope to draw it back next turn. Or play this after gaining a nice card. I might change it to choose one, and combine the first two choices, if the discard pile benefit feels too strong.


Sorcerer
ACTION   $2
---
-1 Action; if you do, +5 Actions and gain a Curse.  If not, +2 Actions and you may trash a card from your hand.

-This card probably looks ridiculously weak. In conjunction with some of the -Action cards in this set, so many Actions could prove quite useful, and it has a built-in trasher, so the Curses aren't permanent. Most of the time, though, you want to play it when you only have 1 Action left, so that it gives you Actions and optional trashing. Just don't play it if you have 2 Actions left, unless you have a good plan for all of those Actions. I'm very curious how this will play, as it seems like a fairly useful card for the non-terminal trashing aspect, as long as you time it right.


Will
ACTION-DURATION   $2
---
Leave this card in play indefinitely.
---
While this is in play, whenever you draw a Victory card, you may set it aside on your Will mat. If you do, +1 Card. At the end of the game, pass all cards on your mat to the player on your left.

-The first of my indefinite duration cards. It's an effective way to rid yourself of your Estates, at the steep expense of directly aiding your opponent. It could lead to some very interesting strategic decisions in the endgame, as your deck greens up. If you know you're on the brink of a killer game-winning turn, you might be willing to eat a Duchy to get the right card into your hand and buy that Colony. Risky, but for a spare $2 buy, it might be worth having on the table.

[rinkworks]

The -1 Action mechanic is an interesting idea.  I worry, though, that the cards won't be useful in the absence of a board with any source of extra actions.  On the other hand, Sorcerer solves that problem by being its own source of extra actions.  I look forward to seeing what else you have along these lines.

The problem with the discard thing isn't really how deep you go into the discard pile but whether you put a limit on it at all.  What you have in Page isn't broken, I don't think; I just question whether it's worth having to consciously order your discards every turn just in case you draw Page for the next one.  But you're right not to blindly discount anything my guide warns against -- if you test it, and it's fun, great.  I do think Page is probably quite balanced as you have it.

Brass is interesting, but I wonder if I'd ever ever want to use it except in a Gardens game or on the last shuffle through the deck.  It could be really useful on that last shuffle, though; since the effect takes place at buy time, it's not like I have to buy it first, then only reap the benefit after I draw it again, at which point it's taking up a slot in my hand that probably could have been better used with something else.  So, a highly situational card, I think, but the $1 price and the conditional +Buy make it workable when it so easily could have been a never-buy.

I'm not sure I understand Bust.  My worry there is that it would allow the game to degenerate into an infinite state, where the best move for all players is to repeatedly play Bust every turn and never buy anything.  But that's possible with Monument in theory too and never seems to happen.  So maybe this works after all; I'm not sure.

Will is very interesting, but I don't like how it favors only one opponent.  Someone could win the game just because the player to his right uses this card.  Better would be to credit all other players instead of just one.  I'd say you could count VPs as if they all had the set-aside cards in their decks, but since there is only one physical copy of each to go around, this could make calculating Gardens, Vineyards, and Fairgrounds totals quite tedious and error-prone.  So how about a flat +1 VP for all other players per card on your mat?  More simply still, count each card on the mat as -1 VP for you?

I suspect that would be balanced.  Currently, players tend to be happy to use up an Action to trash an Estate in some way, which results in a permanent -1 VP.  Surely it's worth an extra -1 VP to trash them without consuming an Action to get rid of them and without letting them consume a card slot when they're drawn.

I would suggest changing the mechanic to be more consistent with the other duration cards, though:  "At the beginning of your next turn, you may set aside any number of Victory cards from your hand onto your Will mat.  For each card set aside this way, +1 Card."

This is slightly weaker, as Victory cards drawn during the play of your hand won't get to be set aside.  But I think this hazard helps make the card more interesting as well as more consistent.

Great work, and I look forward to seeing what else you've got.

[Newcomer]

Thanks for the feedback! :-)

Re: -1 Action.. I was very aware of that problem, and it was in mind when I designed each of the cards that use it.. I'll wait to see what you think once I start revealing them.

Re: Brass.. yeah, I think the card works for itself. It serves a (small) purpose and has its uses. But I'm not sure if it's worth taking up a kingdom card slot for that.

Re: Bust.. My instinct is that 1 VP per turn wouldn't win the game.. Get two Provinces and that's already 12 VP, which means 12 plays of Bust to catch up. I guess maybe in a KC situation, or with villages it could be dangerous. By no means am I sure of anything yet.

Re: Will.. I like your -1 VP suggestion. That seems pretty balanced. I'm not sure where the problem is with "whenever you draw?" My idea was Will stays in play for the remainder of the game, and any time you draw a Victory card you have the option of getting rid of it. A painful temptation, because you want a better hand, but all the VP will add up. I can change it to only at the beginning of turns, but do you see a problem with the permanent duration aspect? Or do I just need to clarify that intent?

[Newcomer]

And since Will was named based on the idea that you're bequeathing those Estates to another player, I'll need a new name.  So something like this:

Charity
ACTION-DURATION   $2
---
Leave this card in play indefinitely.
---
At the beginning of each subsequent turn, you may set aside any number of Victory cards on your Charity mat. For each card set aside this way, +1 Card.
---
At the end of the game, -1 VP for each card on your mat. Trash the cards.

[timchen]

I like these cards in general. The sorcerer's really cute.

[rinkworks]

Re: Bust.. My instinct is that 1 VP per turn wouldn't win the game.. Get two Provinces and that's already 12 VP, which means 12 plays of Bust to catch up. I guess maybe in a KC situation, or with villages it could be dangerous. By no means am I sure of anything yet.

An example of what I mean is, say you wound up with, by accident or design, a deck consisting only of the cards Throne Room, Bust, Estate, Estate.  And say your opponent wound up with that deck, too.  Every turn, you play TR-Bust, discard two Estates, and earn +2 VP.  Every turn, your opponent does the same thing too.  The reason this is a degenerate game state isn't so much that you can do this infinitely but that it's possibly the optimal play.  Because for either of you to end the game, you'll have to start buying cards, which will quickly ruin your ability to earn 2 VP per turn and thus concede ground to your opponent.  Very likely you'll not be able to build up a Province-buying deck before you've lost too much ground for those Provinces to make up.  Whether that's technically true or not, it's very conceivable that both players will perceive the optimal strategy to be to continue to play TR-Bust ad nauseum.

It's worth pointing out that a degenerate game state is conceivably possible already -- namely, if all players somehow wind up with decks consisting only of Monuments.  Obviously this (and my TR-Bust example above) are  unlikely to occur exactly in a real game, but the examples demonstrate the possibility of such a degenerate deck.  Maybe a more realistic example is a game where inexperienced players buy up Witches and Moneylenders and trash all their Copper before they think to buy Silver.  Add Monuments or Busts to the resulting devastation, and that may well be such a broken game state.

But Monument at least offers an encouragement to buy cards simply by offering some money to spend.  Bust doesn't, and that makes me nervous.  I'm not saying it IS broken, mind you.   It's just a big question mark I have.

Re: Will.. I like your -1 VP suggestion. That seems pretty balanced. I'm not sure where the problem is with "whenever you draw?"

Not a mechanical or balance problem, just an aesthetic one.  It just seems to me like it's better to use existing mechanics and hooks where possible, as it's not always easy to anticipate where broken combos or rules quandaries might result from a new mechanic (including possibly with future official cards).   But I can't think of anything broken with your version off-hand.

...but do you see a problem with the permanent duration aspect? Or do I just need to clarify that intent?

No and no.  Duration cards already only get cleaned up until after their effects are complete.  So if you were to say, for example, "At the beginning of each of your subsequent turns..." (note: clarify that you do mean only YOUR turns), then no further additional clarification that the card stays in play is necessary.

[Newcomer]

timchen: thanks. :-)

An example of what I mean is, say you wound up with, by accident or design, a deck consisting only of the cards Throne Room, Bust, Estate, Estate.  And say your opponent wound up with that deck, too.  Every turn, you play TR-Bust, discard two Estates, and earn +2 VP.  Every turn, your opponent does the same thing too.  The reason this is a degenerate game state isn't so much that you can do this infinitely but that it's possibly the optimal play.

I mostly understood the never ending game issue, I was just hoping Bust would be weak enough to avoid it. I was also looking at the +Buy as encouragement to buy, but it's not very strong. However, I was looking from the perspective of aiming for that kind of deck, not backing into it. I'm going to drop Bust, for the moment, and maybe come up with something else later.

I'm actually going to prematurely introduce one of my $4 cards now to see what you think of it. I wrote this description before your last post, but it captures my thought process a little. This card can play as a weaker Monument, but a) that might be bad, since there's less incentive to buy cards, and b) it enables itself and could work as a never-ending engine. I still like the choice aspect to it, but it might just be too dangerous (because of endless games) to work.

Shrine
ACTION   $4
---
Choose one: +1 Card and +2 Actions; or +$1 and +1 VP

-A village if you need it, and if that's useless to you, there's a consolation benefit. I wanted another village for the set, and I thought a + VP village was an unexplored direction. +1 VP every time you played a village seemed way too strong, but as part of a choice I think this is fun. Thematically, a village sprang up around the shrine to trade with the pilgrims.
Okay, in re-reading rinkworks's guide, I've figured out why this might be bad.. trim your deck down to 3 Shrines and you get +2 VP every turn and don't buy anything. The +$ might make it useful not to do that, but with 6 Shrines you'd get 4 VP. Still, you had to buy 6 Shrines, and a good trasher, and trim your deck down. Hmm..

I think my understanding of the +VP danger was shallow, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Perhaps a simple fix would be to make the second half "trash a card and, if you do, +1 VP." But that seems like a really nice card, a mini-Bishop that reverts to a Village when you're out of starting cards.

Basically I like the idea enough to look for ways to make it work.



And here's the revised text for Will/Charity

Charity
ACTION-DURATION   $2
---
Leave this card in play indefinitely.
---
At the beginning of each of your subsequent turns, you may set aside any number of Victory cards on your Charity mat. For each card set aside this way, +1 Card.
---
At the end of the game, -1 VP for each card on your mat. Trash the cards.

[Newcomer]

The $3 cards:


Bribe
ACTION   $3
---
Pass a Treasure card from your hand to the player on your left. He may either put it into his hand, or trash it.  If he puts it into his hand, +2 VP

-[note: i've seen other cards with the name bribe, most recently ChaosRed's.. this idea has been in my set for a while, and the idea of bribing your opponent just seems to be a common thought among fan designers] Quite literally a bribe attempt. At worst, it's a convoluted way to trash your Coppers. Otherwise, it's a calculated move, where you literally try to buy a few VP off of your opponent. I can foresee the objection that it can benefit one player too strongly if the person to their right keeps handing them Silvers. A possible fix would be to trash a Treasure, any other player may gain a copy, if any do, +2 VP. I'm not sure if I like it as much, but it's a possibility


City-State
ACTION   $3
---
+2 Actions
Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.

-I'm really curious to see how this one plays. From a neutral hand, it acts like a village. If you play it after depleting your hand, it's a more effective card drawer. But if you have any real card draw, it won't get you cards very often. I have a feeling it can be really good in a few situations, but most of the time it'll leave you wishing you could've used it better.


Samaritan
ACTION   $3
---
+1 Action
Gain a Silver and put it into your hand. Each other player may put the top card of his discard pile on top of his deck.

-It makes up for the fact that you didn't buy Silver instead when it puts Silver into your hand the first time you play it. Then it remains as a non-terminal source of Silvers, which will vary in its value depending on the game. But the opponent benefit can be big, since they can put their best card from their last hand on top of the discard pile. I originally had them putting the card in their hand, but that seems way way way too strong.


Sphinx
ACTION   $3
---
+1 Action
+1 Card
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it costs more than 3 coins, place it into your hand. If not, every other player may gain a copy of it.

-I've drastically rewritten this card multiple times. I probably will again. As it is, it's a Lab if it hits, and a free card for your opponents if it misses with anything worth having, which includes Sphinx. I think the penalty and condition are enough to bring it down to $3, and it's a terrible opener anyway.

[Newcomer]

Sphinx should read:
+1 Card
+1 Action

I just added the +1 Card late and shoved it in the wrong spot. It used to not draw any cards unless it hit, but now it's at least a cantrip.

[Jack Rudd]

City-State looks very strong in conjunction with discard-for-benefit cards, or even with non-terminal non-drawing cards such as Pawn.

[rinkworks]

Bribe

This is sort of a kingmaker card, which is to say that a losing player can purposely shift a win from one opponent to the other.  If, in a 3p game, you're so far behind you can't win, while the player to the right has a slight lead, you can shift the victory to the left-hand player by passing him Golds and Platinums.  Worse, you can justify it by saying you're passing those good treasures to earn a nominal amount of VP for yourself.

I also have the question about how much strategy is really opened up by the card.  Although the opponent may accept or trash any card passed, probably these few choices will account for 90+% of all uses of the card:

1. Player passes Copper.  Copper is trashed.
2. Player passes Silver.  Silver is trashed.
3. Player passes Gold.  Gold is gained.  (Early and mid-game.)
4. Player passes Gold.  Gold is trashed.  (Late game.)

Certainly you *might* see a Silver being accepted, but Silver so often doesn't matter enough either way, so you'd probably not want one if it meant someone else getting 2 VP.

Of course when other treasure cards are in play, the possibilities are more interesting, but Copper, Silver, and Gold probably still account for most of the treasures in your deck.  That begs the question:  Why not be able to pass ANY (non-victory) card instead of just a treasure card?  It might be more interesting if a player has to choose to accept or trash a Steward or a Bishop or something.  On the other hand, this worsens the kingmaker problem, as then you could pass Goons and Grand Markets.

City-State

Very interesting card!  You might want to read this thread about WW's Squire card, as a lot of the same issues will apply.  A big one is that the card's power is very variable.  But this slight difference from Squire solves the problem of the card being useless on a good percentage of boards, because if nothing else it's a Village.

Because of the variance, it's a difficult card to cost.  You might have to go to $4, even though on some boards it's weaker than Village, just because on other boards it will be a very dominating card.

Samaritan

Not sure you need the "every other player" penalty.  Silver is usually a pretty neutral card.  Sometimes you want a lot, and sometimes you don't want any, but most of the time the addition (or removal) of a Silver doesn't matter a whole lot.  Which is why it might be most often the worst thing Jester can turn up.  Playtesting, of course, will reveal the ultimate verdict.

Sphinx

Why the cost restriction?  Allowing the player to decide between the two options, regardless of what card is turned up, would expand the strategic space.  I love the idea -- kind of an inverted Jester, which is itself one of my favorite official cards.  I think it needs to go up in price, though, regardless of whether you keep the cost restriction or not.  Each play of the card makes it either a Lab or a junk attack, both of which are too powerful for a $3 card.

[Newcomer]

Bribe: I'm not in love with it. But what do you think about the alternate idea? Or how about...

Bribe
ACTION   $3
---
+$1
Trash a Treasure card. Each other player may gain a copy of it. If any do, +1 VP.

That way it's less targeted, and you don't play kingmaker. Primarily it's a Copper trasher, but a bit more. Now it's starting to look like a whole new card. I'm still not in love with it, but it might be on the way to something better.

City-State: I'll try it at $4 then, and see how it goes. I convinced myself to lower it to $3 because it would be weak too often, but it wouldn't be the only card bought at $4 purely for a village effect.

Samaritan: I originally had it as "Gain a Gold." That seemed strong, so I weakened it, without thinking too much. But then again, I had it as "Gain a Silver and put it into your hand. I thought that benefit was stronger. Would it be balanced as follows?

Samaritan
ACTION   $4
---
Gain a Gold and put it into your hand. Each other player may put the top card of his discard pile into his hand.

I agree, play-testing is the optimal solution, and I hope I find time to do a lot of that soon.

Sphinx: Well it's optional for the other player to gain the card. It's not meant as an attack. It's meant to be a drawback of the card. The card originally had much more swing between the benefit and the penalty. At first it was a compare your top card to the player's on your left. Either you put the card in hand and drew 4, or they gained a copy and your action phase ended. Huge benefit, or substantial loss. I trimmed it down, but I'd like to retain it as a bit of a gamble.. you can get something good, but if you fail, it hurts you.
So, if I changed it to

Sphinx
ACTION   $3
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it costs more than $4, put it into your hand and +1 Card. If not, each other player may gain a copy of it.

what do you think? A stronger Jester-like downside, and a bit of a stronger benefit. I'm willing to raise the price, but first I'm more concerned with finding a balance where you want to play the card, but you might just end up helping your opponent. If I can.

[timchen]

Samaritan: there is a card called explorer. While it benefits others, I still feel that a $4 cost card gaining a gold in hand is too strong.

Sphinx: again, too strong. It is still too strong even without +1 card or +1 action I think. At present form it is a fine $5. Note that giving a card costing less than $5 to an opponent is very seldom a great help: lots of useful $4 and $3 cards are useful terminals and extra copies do not help. One more village is usually marginal; at the beginning it can hit a lot of copper and estates.

I have a general recommendation here: when you think about the power level of a $3 card, you should think about something like wishing well or great hall or village; i.e., if it is a cantrip, it should only be useful with a proper setup. If it is a terminal, Masquerade and ambassador are already pushing the envelope.

[Newcomer]

Good points. These are a couple cards that started out as a name and then I tried to find a fitting purpose for them. I also seem to have a lot of cards at $4 and few at $3, but maybe some of those will drop down.

And yes, when I think they can gain a card costing less than $5, I was thinking about how useful it is to get those villages and such through a gain, but I didn't really think about all those terminals and such. Still, as an option, I think it's a fine benefit, just not so strong a deterrent as I was thinking. I'll place it at $5 for now, then.

[Newcomer]

The first batch of $4 cards:

Arbitrator
ACTION   $4
---
+2 Cards
Place the top 2 cards of your discard pile into your hand.
Discard 2 cards.
Place 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.

-I play-tested this card with myself a little when I came up with it, and I absolutely loved it and thought it worked well. It wasn't broken but it was fun and useful. Since it's terminal, you usually can't use any Actions you pick up, so I'd always discard my best Treasures on top. The card is net zero card gain, but you can discard your two worst cards and then the Courtyard effect lets you balance this turn and next turn. And sometimes I placed another Arbitrator on top of my deck, knowing I'd be able to re-use my Golds yet again.


Bandit
ACTION-ATTACK   $4
---
+1 Card
+$2
Each other player reveals his hand. If it has 5 or more cards, he places one card with the lowest cost on top of his deck.

-This one was directly inspired by the recent thread about "How much is information worth?" The information is clearly not key to the card, but it grew out of those thoughts. It should often clutter the top of their deck with Copper, which probably weakens their next hand but assures they'll have some coin to spend. If you have multiple cards with the same lowest cost, I mean for the player whose cards they are to choose which one to top-deck, so let me know if I need to word that differently.


Borough
ACTION   $4
---
+1 Card
+3 Actions

-Again, more than 2 Actions will be more useful with some of the stronger cards in this set, which use the -1 Action mechanic to use up 2 Actions at a time. Even in other sets, though, it will sometimes be nice to have more than 2 Actions, and sometimes this will be the only village available. I think this card will be very nice to have within the set, but I agree it's a bit weak outside of it.


Countercurse
ACTION-ATTACK   $4
---
+1 VP
You may gain a Curse. If you do not, each other player gains a Curse.
Put this on the Curse mat.
---
At the end of the game, if there are exactly 1, 4, 7, or 10 Countercurse cards on the mat, each Curse is counted as 2 VP instead of -1 VP.

-I almost cut this card, but in the end I realized I only had one other curser, and that a hard-to-get cost 7 card. This is of course far from a traditional curser. You wouldn't really play the Countercurse strategy, but if you're getting cursed a lot, or if you want to go out on piles, it becomes an interesting tactic. At any rate, it's probably a card you can grab one of and only play near the end if it will help you. Its strongest use is probably trying to outwit the Countercurse junkie who tries to win with all the Curses. It's a little complicated and gimmicky, and I recognize that it's swingy. I imagine it would make one hesitant to buy cursing attacks at all. But maybe it would just sit there a lot.

[rinkworks]

Arbitrator
ACTION   $4
---
+2 Cards
Place the top 2 cards of your discard pile into your hand.
Discard 2 cards.
Place 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.

-I play-tested this card with myself a little when I came up with it, and I absolutely loved it and thought it worked well. It wasn't broken but it was fun and useful.

This reminds me of the I made, which went through several versions but finally wound up being this:

Architect
$3 - Action
+3 Cards, +$2.  Put 3 cards from your hand on top of your deck.

It started out as a $5-cost card with no money bonus, which was obviously very underpowered.  I overestimated how useful setting up your current and next turn really is.  But the final version is a lot of fun and works just fine.  I'm sure yours is as fun as you say.

It's hard to gauge its power because of the ability to pull in cards from your discard pile, though.  I don't like that mechanic, but I won't belabor that point:  I'm just wondering if the extra flexibility there is enough to have a $4 price AND a lack of other bonuses.  No matter how nicely it smooths out your turns, you still wind up down a card and down an action with no money to show for it.  You might try $3 or even $2 for the cost, OR adding a +$2 bonus.  One of those two changes might make what's already a good card into something that really pops.

Bandit
ACTION-ATTACK   $4
---
+1 Card
+$2
Each other player reveals his hand. If it has 5 or more cards, he places one card with the lowest cost on top of his deck.

A touch strong, I think.  Figure that +$1 and +1 Card are of roughly equal power on a terminal.  That means "+1 Card, +$2" is somewhat comparable to Smithy, but then you've got an attack on there, too.  I suspect the attack portion is of similar strength as Militia's attack (for reference, consider how much stronger the Ghost Ship attack is than the Militia attack).  If so, that means Bandit is too strong by approximately the extra card.

Of the remaining cards, Borough seems fine, and Countercurse too difficult for me to envision how it will play.  It definitely seems swingy, but hard to say whether how much strategy vs. luck determines the ultimate outcome.  Playtesting should be particularly revealing on this one.

[Newcomer]

Arbitrator: I liked the way the card worked, but I wasn't as sure on where to cost it, so I'll bump it down to $3 for now.


Bandit: This is a case of me making a quick change at the last second without thinking it through. I added the +1 Card because it seemed a bit weak as I was looking through my cards. I guess I was comparing too much to the top-deck effect of Bureaucrat, rather than thinking about the hand-size reduction. And Ghost Ship is a card I don't think I've played with yet, or maybe once, so while I'm aware of it, it doesn't really come to mind right away.

This card's attack is like half a Militia, and a top-deck attack. So it weakens this turn and probably the next one as well, instead of hitting this turn harder. Which might be even more effective late game. But with Chapel, this would start to put Silvers on top of the deck for next turn.

I'll take out the +1 Card and see how it plays, I guess.  :-)

Bandit
ACTION-ATTACK   $4
---
+$2
Each other player reveals his hand. If it has 5 or more cards, he places one card with the lowest cost on top of his deck.

[Epoch]

Bandit: This is a case of me making a quick change at the last second without thinking it through. I added the +1 Card because it seemed a bit weak as I was looking through my cards. I guess I was comparing too much to the top-deck effect of Bureaucrat, rather than thinking about the hand-size reduction. And Ghost Ship is a card I don't think I've played with yet, or maybe once, so while I'm aware of it, it doesn't really come to mind right away.

This card's attack is like half a Militia, and a top-deck attack. So it weakens this turn and probably the next one as well, instead of hitting this turn harder. Which might be even more effective late game. But with Chapel, this would start to put Silvers on top of the deck for next turn.

I'll take out the +1 Card and see how it plays, I guess.  :-)

I like this attack mechanic, by the way!

So, there are two different "goes back on the deck" attacks presently.

Bureaucrat:  This one doesn't hurt your present hand at all (barring some unusual non-standard Victory card situations), and can miss.

Ghost Ship:  The nasty thing about GS compared to Militia is that often with Militia you can get away with throwing out green cards or, failing that, Coppers, and you don't seriously hurt your present hand.  With GS, if you throw away bad cards, you get to suffer them AGAIN.  If you throw away good cards, then your present hand is probably totally worthless after you've gotten rid of your best cards.  Your only real hope is that you've got an awkward amount of money where you were going to waste some this turn.

Your attack is more like GS than Bureaucrat, in that it never entirely misses and often will hurt both hands pretty badly.  Your lowest-cost card is likely to be a Copper or a Curse.  Getting hit by this with a Copper in your hand as lowest-cost card means that this is worse than Cutpurse.  With Curse, it's a lot like a Bureaucrat.

What are the other possibilities?  Estate?  Not super-likely, since if you've trashed enough Copper that there are no Copper in your hand you've probably also trashed your Estates (but maybe not:  Mint or Moneylender?).  Like a Bureacrat.  Silver?  Knocks $2 out of your hand, but your hand value was probably already pretty high if Silver was the lowest-cost card.

So, yeah, definitely want to get rid of the +1 Card.  Does it need further weakening?  Possibly.  Does it need strengthening?  I REALLY doubt it.

[rinkworks]

Just one thing to add to Epoch's excellent Ghost Ship analysis:  the other big deal is that it slows the cycling of your deck, whereas Militia leaves the cycling rate unchanged.  Get hit by Ghost Ship twice, and that means you won't draw your new purchases until almost a full turn later.  That's a really big deal in addition to the other things Epoch mentioned.

It really took me a while to appreciate Ghost Ship's power.  When I first saw the card (before I knew the game very well), I didn't really see it as anything more than an expensive Militia with a gimmick.  Obviously it's not that at all.

Anyway, Bandit's attack is only half as strong, so I don't think it would lead to grueling games the way Ghost Ship does.  But I think it's competitive with other $4 attacks like Militia and Cutpurse, so that's good.

[Newcomer]

I love all the insight this is bringing to the game for me! Thanks for that! I like how Ghost Ship attacks your hand, slows down your deck, and might hurt your next hand. Bandit slows the deck half as much and will hurt at least one hand or the other. Taking a Copper out is bad when it was already there and that's one less coin, but it's bad to put it into the next hand too because it's probably worse than the other cards you could've drawn. And then there's the deck cycling element. Bandit is a more nuanced card than I realized.

I do think it will probably work at $4, because it is only a one-card attack. It's generally stronger than Cutpurse, but not strictly. And if it hits Silver, that may or may not be good for the next hand, but it's probably not bad. Unless you're about to play Thief next. :-P

[Newcomer]

More $4 cards:

Gargoyle
REACTION   $4
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, discard this, +1 VP, and you may draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
---
When you gain this card, if there are no Attack cards available in the Supply, +2 VP.

-I thought the VP would be a very interesting reaction effect, and restoring your hand size could mean hand size-reducing attacks only help you to weed out weaker cards. In certain circumstances therefore it's a great reaction. But it's a pure Reaction card; if it's not reacting, it's a dead card in the hand. I added the Attacks-in-the-Supply clause to make it buyable in non-Attack games, where it gives you 2 VP like a Victory card but can be trashed afterward. It also makes it a bonus if you buy the Reaction after the Attack cards are bought out.


Haggle
ACTION   $4
---
Each other player may reveal a card from his hand. For each revealed card, you may gain a different card costing up to the cost of that card. If you do, he gains a copy of his revealed card.

-Strategic posturing on both sides. By revealing a card, he's deciding that it's worth you gaining a card for him to copy his own card. And if you decide to gain one, then the trade-off is worth it for you, too. Should I tag on a vanilla bonus? I want there to be enough incentive for people to buy the card, but if it's too even in its benefit for player and opponent, then there's not much point shelling out to be on the player side of it. In multiplayer it might be more useful, though.


Pageant
ACTION-VICTORY   $4
---
+2 Actions
---
2 VP

-Very simple hybrid card. Instead of being a dead card in the hand, it serves a small enabling role.


Patrol
ACTION-DURATION-REACTION   $4
---
+1 Action
+2 VP
Leave this card in play indefinitely.
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from play, once per attack. If you do, +2 cards, his attack does not affect you, and at the start of your next turn, trash Patrol.

-Like Gargoyle, it's a one-time +2 VP if there are no Attacks, but it takes itself out of your deck, making it superior. Its reaction effect is also very strong, but once it activates you have to trash it. You can reveal it multiple times during that round, but then it's gone. Note the "revealing from play." You can decide not to reveal it, saving it for a stronger attack, even though it's already visible by being in play. You need to actually indicate that you're revealing it to use it.


With some of my cards, my implementation sometimes seems a little clunky, but I like the directions I'm branching into. Maybe they'll inspire some better cards in the future.

[rinkworks]

More $4 cards:

Gargoyle
REACTION   $4
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, discard this, +1 VP, and you may draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
---
When you gain this card, if there are no Attack cards available in the Supply, +2 VP.

-I thought the VP would be a very interesting reaction effect, and restoring your hand size could mean hand size-reducing attacks only help you to weed out weaker cards. In certain circumstances therefore it's a great reaction. But it's a pure Reaction card; if it's not reacting, it's a dead card in the hand. I added the Attacks-in-the-Supply clause to make it buyable in non-Attack games, where it gives you 2 VP like a Victory card but can be trashed afterward. It also makes it a bonus if you buy the Reaction after the Attack cards are bought out.

I'm a little nervous about +VP for the reactor.  That seems too much like punishing the attacker for attacking, which has some gameplay problems.  In 2p, it's the logical equivalent of causing the attacker to lose VP, which is absolutely punishment.

However, I *love* the "when you buy this" clause and think that's a brilliant way to keep the card relevant on every board.  It's kind of like two separate cards, based on the kingdom it appears in, but the way you can get both benefits if you buy it when the attack cards are gone gives it just enough unity to hold together.

Haggle
ACTION   $4
---
Each other player may reveal a card from his hand. For each revealed card, you may gain a different card costing up to the cost of that card. If you do, he gains a copy of his revealed card.

-Strategic posturing on both sides. By revealing a card, he's deciding that it's worth you gaining a card for him to copy his own card. And if you decide to gain one, then the trade-off is worth it for you, too. Should I tag on a vanilla bonus? I want there to be enough incentive for people to buy the card, but if it's too even in its benefit for player and opponent, then there's not much point shelling out to be on the player side of it. In multiplayer it might be more useful, though.

I love this idea, too.  I'd give it a vanilla bonus, though:  compare with Jester, another card that allows gains of multiple good cards and which also offers a vanilla bonus.  Even with Jester's +$2 bonus, though, this card is still weaker than Jester, as Jester is (usually) never also good for the opponent.

Add a bonus of some kind, and you've got a very interesting $4 card.

Pageant
ACTION-VICTORY   $4
---
+2 Actions
---
2 VP

Probably balanced and correctly priced, but Nobles covers this ground pretty well.

Patrol
ACTION-DURATION-REACTION   $4
---
+1 Action
+2 VP
Leave this card in play indefinitely.
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from play, once per attack. If you do, +2 cards, his attack does not affect you, and at the start of your next turn, trash Patrol.

-Like Gargoyle, it's a one-time +2 VP if there are no Attacks, but it takes itself out of your deck, making it superior. Its reaction effect is also very strong, but once it activates you have to trash it. You can reveal it multiple times during that round, but then it's gone. Note the "revealing from play." You can decide not to reveal it, saving it for a stronger attack, even though it's already visible by being in play. You need to actually indicate that you're revealing it to use it.

Not a fan of special-casing this to be only revealable once per attack.  I would suggest requiring the reactor to trash the card immediately upon using it in response to an attack.  Something like this:  "When another player plays an attack card, you may trash this from play.  If you do, +2 Cards, and you are unaffected by the attack."

Mechanical wrinkles aside, I also really like the gameplay possibilities this card suggests.  It's a powerful reaction, but it's out there to see, and opponents may judge whether to use their attack cards against it as they see fit.  Unlike Lighthouse, there is a cost to using it to block an attack, so opponents won't necessary just see the card out and automatically discount their attacking opportunities for that turn.

Excellent work.

[Fangz]

I can't see when I'd ever reveal a card to haggle. Far better to refuse and ruin their turn, making their card a turn ruining curse that eats actions, than to dilute my lead in whatever key card by letting him have one as well.

[rinkworks]

Oh, I missed that opponents only "may" reveal a card with Haggle.  I would change it to a requirement AND add a vanilla bonus, for exactly the reason Fangz says he'd never want to participate.  The card has to be worthwhile for the player to play.  A vanilla bonus and mandatory reveals will fix that.

[Newcomer]

Gargoyle

I wish I could make this give 1/2 a VP. I liked the thought, but on reflection it does seem strong. But seeing as I don't think any other reactions even offer + coin, I could do that instead. How's this?

Gargoyle
REACTION   $4
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, discard this, +$1, and you may draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
---
When you gain this card, if there are no Attack cards available in the Supply, +2 VP.

The thing that bothers me about this is the "if there are no Attack cards" clause tagging on VP. It seemed unified enough when the reaction effect also gave you VP, but without that it seems a little random.

The other direction I could go is to make the reaction VP conditional on something. Like "at the start of your next turn, discard this, and you may draw until you have 5 cards in hand. For every 2 cards you draw this way, +1 VP." But against Militia, Goons, etc., it still works the same way. Completely neuters Torturer chains. So, that doesn't quite work, any suggestions?

Haggle

Okay, I can make Haggle require the reveal. There's still strategy in deciding which card to reveal. Also, if it wasn't clear, "you may gain a different card costing up to the cost of the revealed card" is supposed to mean you can't gain the same card that was revealed. Meaning if he reveals Copper you can only gain a Curse.  If he reveals the only $2 action, you can only get Estate, Copper, or Curse. Which is to say, it definitely needs a bonus, as it won't get much.

Haggle
ACTION   $4
---
+$2
Each other player must reveal a card from his hand. For each revealed card, you may gain a different card from the Supply costing up to the cost of that card. If you do, he gains a copy of his revealed card. If you do not, +1 Action.


How's that? I started to realize that maybe it was overpriced, but with a consolation bonus maybe it makes more sense. I can change the bonus if need be.

Pageant

Good point on Nobles. I made this card because I wanted more +Actions cards in the set, especially with the -1 Action mechanic. So I like having it, but I'll think about more interesting ways to get those actions instead.

Patrol

I thought I'd get away with the special case since the card wasn't hidden in your hand, but even so, your suggestion is much cleaner. And it probably doesn't take away much, because once it was revealed, opponents would be avoiding their attacks until it got trashed. So the new version:

Patrol
ACTION-DURATION-REACTION   $4
---
+1 Action
+2 VP
Leave this card in play indefinitely
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may trash this from play. If you do, +2 Cards and you are unaffected by that Attack.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Newcomer]

The last set of $4 cards:

Portrait
ACTION-VICTORY   $4
---
-1 Action; if you do, +1 VP.
---
2 VP

-Here's one of those -Action cards I've been talking about. In the complete absence of +Actions, it is a simple 2 VP card. I'm probably overusing the $4, 2 VP slot. Anyway, if you have spare actions, play this for more VP. -1 Action means that essentially the card uses 2 Actions instead of 1. Now, really, it uses the normal 1, then it tries to use another, and if that's not available, then it doesn't activate the "if you do" clause of the card.

I had this as +2 VP, but I'm changing it to alleviate the never-ending game concerns. Seeing as it requires 2 actions to play this, you need to buy other cards to enable it, and it would be pretty hard to chain up since you'd need a LOT of actions. You could chain with the Sorcerer card, but you'd have to deal with the Curses. Let me know if you're concerned about it, all the same.


Reward
ACTION-DURATION   $4
---
Place the top card of your deck face up on your Reward mat.
---
While Reward is in play, at the start of each turn, you may reveal the top card of your deck. If it matches a card on your Reward mat, place both copies of the card into your hand, gain a Province, and trash this from play. If it does not, discard the revealed card.

-I'm not sure if this is too strong. Essentially, for $4, you get a Province, if you wait around long enough. And if you open with it, chances are you turn up Copper, which will be pretty easy to match. I thought about changing it to a Duchy, but that doesn't seem very worth it, since you paid $4 then you waited around until your cards lined up. Maybe if you discard Reward instead of trashing it, then a Duchy makes sense and it balances better. But I sure like having the Province prize.


Next is Shrine, which I introduced earlier in response to another card's discussion. Since I didn't see any responses, I was guessing it got buried between posts, so I'll re-post what I said then.

I'm actually going to prematurely introduce one of my $4 cards now to see what you think of it. I wrote this description before your last post, but it captures my thought process a little. This card can play as a weaker Monument, but a) that might be bad, since there's less incentive to buy cards, and b) it enables itself and could work as a never-ending engine. I still like the choice aspect to it, but it might just be too dangerous (because of endless games) to work.

Shrine
ACTION   $4
---
Choose one: +1 Card and +2 Actions; or +$1 and +1 VP

-A village if you need it, and if that's useless to you, there's a consolation benefit. I wanted another village for the set, and I thought a + VP village was an unexplored direction. +1 VP every time you played a village seemed way too strong, but as part of a choice I think this is fun. Thematically, a village sprang up around the shrine to trade with the pilgrims.
Okay, in re-reading rinkworks's guide, I've figured out why this might be bad.. trim your deck down to 3 Shrines and you get +2 VP every turn and don't buy anything. The +$ might make it useful not to do that, but with 6 Shrines you'd get 4 VP. Still, you had to buy 6 Shrines, and a good trasher, and trim your deck down. Hmm..

I think my understanding of the +VP danger was shallow, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Perhaps a simple fix would be to make the second half "trash a card and, if you do, +1 VP." But that seems like a really nice card, a mini-Bishop that reverts to a Village when you're out of starting cards.

Basically I like the idea enough to look for ways to make it work.

So that other option would play out like this:

SHRINE 2.0
ACTION   $4
---
Choose one: +1 Card and +2 Actions; or trash a card and, if you do, +1 VP.

[ChaosRed]

First off, I love the names of your cards, they all fit nicely with Dominion as a whole and with what the card actually does.

I look at cards that are similar to mine and I am jealous, because they are usually cleaner and more interesting than mine. That isn't an accusation of plagiarism by the way, I totally understand how these things are usually conceived well in advance of putting them here, and also, a lot of Dominion cards have similarities with one another.

One rules question I have relates to the card that mentions "the top card in your discard pile". What are the rules of what order cards are discarded during cleanup phase? Do you literally specify which order treasure is played in Dominion? And do the last cards played wind up on top of the discard pile? I was just curious how the actual rule mechanics function here.

[Newcomer]

ChaosRed: thanks for the compliments. I've enjoyed a lot of your card ideas, too. One thing I'd noticed with a lot of custom cards was un-Dominionish names, and so that's something I was striving to make fit. Where you were concerned about the proper proportions of cards and conservative powers, I was concerned about having the right feel and exploring the possibilities to find cards that make you go hmmm. And I downloaded the Dominion Vault app for iPhone, and I'm constantly scrolling through the cards and reading the card texts of any similar cards. I'm almost more concerned that they read right than that they do anything. :-P

According to the Dominion rules, you discard the cards in play and the cards in your hand, and it doesn't matter what order you discard in. I don't intend to change any of those rules. So you can order all of your cards, the ones you played and the ones you kept in hand, however you want to. What this means in person usually is you can hide the cards you didn't play under the cards you did, so your opponents don't know that it was in your hand. This also matters, if I understand correctly, for cards like Alchemist (or Herbalist). If you discard the Potion before the Alchemist, then technically the Potion isn't in play any more and you can't put Alchemist back on your deck. I don't know if people would enforce that in person, but I wonder if it might create interesting interactions with my cards...

The one rule to be careful about is that when you gain a card, it goes immediately on your discard pile. Before the Clean-Up phase. In person people will sometimes grab the card they're buying and mix it in with the cards they played in a big jumble on the discard pile, so that's the only special thing to be careful about with these cards. But again, it's in the rules, just hasn't mattered yet.

However, you DO specify which order you play your Treasure cards in Dominion. This matters for cards like Bank, which only count the cards in play so far, not the ones about to be played, or Horn of Plenty, etc. You should aim to play Contraband first so your opponents don't know how much you can afford to spend on the turn, leaving them to guess which card you'll most want to buy. But none of that matters for discarding.

P.S. In case you couldn't tell from all of that, when I was introduced to Dominion, my friend started to explain it to me. Then I grabbed the rulebook and said I'll be back in 20 minutes or so. I've read the rules straight through several times, just 'cause I enjoy knowing them precisely even when it doesn't matter. When a game feels simple but needs a good rulebook to cover all of the technicalities, my eyes light up. So ask away if you have any more rules questions.

tl;dr: discard order doesn't matter, but as a matter of fact you do play treasure cards in a particular order in dominion, but you can usually ignore that unless there are special cards in play.

[rinkworks]

Portrait
ACTION-VICTORY   $4
---
-1 Action; if you do, +1 VP.
---
2 VP

-Here's one of those -Action cards I've been talking about. In the complete absence of +Actions, it is a simple 2 VP card.  I'm probably overusing the $4, 2 VP slot. Anyway, if you have spare actions, play this for more VP. -1 Action means that essentially the card uses 2 Actions instead of 1. Now, really, it uses the normal 1, then it tries to use another, and if that's not available, then it doesn't activate the "if you do" clause of the card.

I had this as +2 VP, but I'm changing it to alleviate the never-ending game concerns. Seeing as it requires 2 actions to play this, you need to buy other cards to enable it, and it would be pretty hard to chain up since you'd need a LOT of actions. You could chain with the Sorcerer card, but you'd have to deal with the Curses. Let me know if you're concerned about it, all the same.

The infinite game state is as much about the 5-card deck as chaining.  Village-Village-Village-Portrait-Portrait could be played ad nauseum.  I suspect that it's a pretty small risk in this case, but doubling the VP bonus would certainly increase that risk.  But I see what you mean about wanting to reward the user a little better for burning up two full actions.  Whereas Throne Room+Monument offers +$4/+2VP, Village+Portrait offers a mere +1 VP.  Almost any other single action card will do more for you than Portrait does and only use up a single action.  So maybe you could add other stuff?  "If you do, +3 Cards and +1 VP."  Or whatever.

Reward
ACTION-DURATION   $4
---
Place the top card of your deck face up on your Reward mat.
---
While Reward is in play, at the start of each turn, you may reveal the top card of your deck. If it matches a card on your Reward mat, place both copies of the card into your hand, gain a Province, and trash this from play. If it does not, discard the revealed card.

I don't really get this one.  You play this only once, setting aside a single (mostly non-determinable) card when you do?  Playing multiple Rewards would be the only way to get multiple cards on the mat?  Thereafter, each turn you get a free shot at pairing up a (mostly non-determinable) card with whatever is on your mat.

If I understand this correctly, it feels like shuffle luck could win or lose the game for you right away.  Draw a Copper onto the mat, and you've probably got a Province (or whatever the reward will be) in one more turn, maybe two.  Draw the Mountebank you opened with, and you've probably lost the game, because now your critical early purchase is out of play until when and if you can afford a second Mountebank AND have the terribly good fortune of drawing it to pair up.  (Note that if you only have one other copy of a card in your deck, there's only about a one-in-six chance per shuffle that you'll be able to pair it up.)

There are a few ways you can reduce the variance:  Allow the mat card to be chosen from your hand, for example.  You can also simplify the mechanics and make it not a duration; for example:

Reward
$4 - Action
- If there is a card on your Reward mat, reveal a copy of it from your hand.  If you do, place the card from your Reward mat in your hand, gain a Province, and trash this card.
- If there is no card on your Reward mat, choose a card from your hand and place it on your Reward mat.

Then you can choose both cards, but the difficulty is in drawing what you need when the Reward card comes up.  Other tweaks worth considering:  disallowing Copper (and maybe Estates) from being pairable, since otherwise I think you're pretty much always going to want to do this with Copper.  Whereas if you require non-Copper, there's more of a decision to make there.

Finally, if a Province is too great a prize (and it probably depends on the final version of the card to know for sure), consider simply gaining one of the Tournament prizes (or "a Prize or a Duchy").  I really think a great opportunity was missed, only having one official card use the Prize cards.

Shrine

No real comment here.  Seems like a pretty good village-with-a-bonus idea, to have the Village effect as one option of multiple.

[rspeer]

I think cards that depend on the order of cards in your discard pile would have serious problems with playability. Every turn during cleanup, you'll have to make extra decisions that will only matter if you happen to draw an Arbitrator.

Imagine playing that kind of card on Isotropic. It would have to ask you about your discard order every turn. (Not just after you have an Arbitrator: what if someone passes you one in a Masquerade?) Isotropic already plays a slightly modded version of Dominion where your top discard isn't revealed, precisely to avoid the non-fun that this kind of decision would involve.

[Newcomer]

First, to rspeer: I agree this mechanic would implement very poorly on Isotropic, but then again I'm not writing for Isotropic. I also agree there is the potential that it could slow down the game a lot. I'll have to try playing it with more people, but I feel like those decisions won't be as big of a problem as you suspect. Certainly I may be wrong. I feel like the first few games with the cards, that might be the case, but people will quickly figure out their usual discarding strategies and add them to their routine when appropriate. I will say I haven't made any cards that attack the discard pile, so you only have to look at which cards could benefit you and not worry about having those cards attacked.  I respect your concerns, and play-testing will tell me whether that's enough of a problem for me to change things or if it's something I can deal with.

If anyone would like to use some of my cards, they certainly may, and they can always omit or edit the discard-based cards if they wish.

---

Now responding to rinkworks

Portrait

It is an Action-Victory card. A $4, 2 VP card should be bought sometimes just for the VP. So I'm not terribly worried about making it stronger, but I could add a little to it. I think of it like a simple Victory card that increases in value (by adding chips) when you have lots of actions to spare.

+3 Cards in particular I'm not sure about, as if you used up 2 Actions to play it, you'll feel really burned when you draw dead Action cards. Maybe +$2? Then it's a Monument that uses two actions to activate, but it has a 2 VP head start.. I don't really like the feel of mixing in other kinds of benefits. But if it feels weak, I'll keep thinking.

Reward

While I could use the Prizes, that would also tie this to Cornucopia, which I'm not sure I want to do. I have Cornucopia, so it would work, I just envisioned it as an independent set. I know it uses VP chips, but that seemed easy enough to include in another expansion. What did you think about the Duchy/discard alternate idea? A reusable Reward with a lesser prize.

At first I looked at your suggestions for the card mechanics, and wanted to find a compromise position, but after more reflection I'm really starting to like your suggestions better.

Reward
ACTION   $4
---
Choose one: Place a card from your hand costing at least $2 on your Reward mat; or reveal from your hand a copy of any card on your mat. If you do, trash either this or the card from your mat and gain a Duchy. If you trashed this, place the card from your mat into your hand.

How does that sound? I'm not sure yet about that last twist. And I can probably come up with a more elegant wording in time.

[Newcomer]

The first batch of $5 cards:

Banquet
ACTION   $5
---
+1 Action
Choose one: gain a card costing up to $4; or trash a Banquet from your hand and, if you do, gain 2 cards costing up to $6 each.

-Somewhere between Workshop, Ironworks, Feast, and Treasure Map. I've tweaked the benefits and the trash requirement, and I can tweak them again if this doesn't seem properly balanced.

Cavalry
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
-1 Action; if you do, +$3 and each other player discards down to 2 cards in his hand. If not, +2 Actions.

-WW came out with a Cavalry card the other day and it made me think now my card won't sound very original. :-P
In the presence of +Actions, this is a stronger Militia that will really cripple your opponents' hands. And in the absence of +Actions, it enables itself. It would be very inefficient to try to chain them like that, but with a very small deck, or with Golem or Throne Room, it could be more effective.


Convent
ACTION   $5
---
Reveal 2 cards from your hand. Trash one of them. If you do, gain a copy of the other revealed card. If it costs more than $5, trash Convent.

-Seeing this right next to Banquet makes me realize how similar they've become. Not that they're the same card by any means. This combines trashing and gaining in a unique way that should create a lot of interesting choices.

[rinkworks]

Banquet
ACTION   $5
---
+1 Action
Choose one: gain a card costing up to $4; or trash a Banquet from your hand and, if you do, gain 2 cards costing up to $6 each.

Too much going on here for me to be able to predict how it will play.  It sounds very possibly balanced as is, however.  I'd be curious to hear what you think after you've tried it.  It's a very interesting idea, having a sort-of Treasure Map mechanic on a card that isn't totally useless if you don't draw it with a copy.

Cavalry
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
-1 Action; if you do, +$3 and each other player discards down to 2 cards in his hand. If not, +2 Actions.

Another good idea that I suspect the parameters are wrong on.  Since it costs you two actions, it really ought to be powerful, but +$3 AND discarding down to 2 cards is probably too much.  Down to 2 cards is an ugly attack, exponentially worse than down to 3.  I would suggest a down-to-3 attack and see how that plays.  I suspect the card will still be plenty powerful enough.

The +$3 makes me nervous, but since Cavalries would be hard to spam even when Villages are plentiful, that part might be fine.

Convent
ACTION   $5
---
Reveal 2 cards from your hand. Trash one of them. If you do, gain a copy of the other revealed card. If it costs more than $5, trash Convent.

Also a neat idea.  You could trash a Copper and gain a Gold, though that would rely on drawing your Convent with both of those cards.  Usually, however, you'll have a hand with a strong card and a weak card, so it will work out.

I wonder if it's too strong for $5, though.  Compare with Mint, which costs $5 and is (1) very constrained on what trashing it can provide, although, admittedly, it does trash earlier; (2) only duplicates Treasure cards.

This can duplicate anything, trash anything, and is more flexible about the cards it trashes.

The self-trashing constraint is significant, though.  I'm not sure if it's enough to counterbalance its strength, but certainly it might be.   The likelihood of being able to duplicate a Province with it makes me nervous, but as you could only do that once, maybe it's fine?  Playtesting will be particularly important with this one.

[Newcomer]

Cavalry

Well, if I lowered both the +$3 and the discard to 2 cards, then it obviously becomes worse than Militia. If I weaken the attack but keep it at +$3, then basically it has a Diadem-like Action-into-coin mechanic built into a Militia, but you need to pull it off in order to attack. I want this attack to be worthy of a $5 cost and stronger than Militia.

In previous versions of the card, I toyed with the idea of having a lesser benefit at the top of the card, before the -1 Action. I'm not sure if that would improve it, though. Here's one possibility:

Cavalry
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
+$2
-1 Action; if you do, +1 Card and each other player discards down to 3 cards in his hand. If not, +2 Actions.

What do you think? It's hard to judge the strength with the -1 Action in there. Right now it would kind of bounce back and forth between a buyless Festival and a Militia plus a Moat (you use 2 actions, but only 1 card from your hand, so the extra spot in your hand and the +1 Card act like a Moat played after a Militia). Does that sound reasonable? I could switch the coins and cards.

Convent

I thought about adding restrictions to Convent, but I like being able to gain a Province with it. And even if you gain a single Gold, you'd have to trash Convent, so that makes it a little weaker in comparison to Mint. While it might be really easy to trash for a Province sometimes, often you'll have to give up something useful AND trash the Convent to get a Province. I'll leave it as is for now, and see if I want to change it later.

[rinkworks]

Cavalry

What do you think? It's hard to judge the strength with the -1 Action in there. Right now it would kind of bounce back and forth between a buyless Festival and a Militia plus a Moat (you use 2 actions, but only 1 card from your hand, so the extra spot in your hand and the +1 Card act like a Moat played after a Militia). Does that sound reasonable? I could switch the coins and cards.

As you say, it's hard to judge the strength with the -1 Action in there.  I see what you're saying about wanting a stronger attack than Militia; I just think down to 2 cards is SO much better as to be mostly broken.  Your new version shows promise.  Another way to make a stronger discard attack would be to use Ghost Ship's attack and return cards to the top of the deck.  You can also take a cue from Followers and try to combine a cursing attack with a discard attack, though I suspect the specific Followers mix is too strong.  Maybe the Minion attack with a curse?

But again, who knows.  I'm very interested in hearing how variations of this card actually play out.  Maybe all these ideas are workable, or maybe they're all slightly off the mark.

[Newcomer]

The remaining $5 cards (after I culled a couple):

Patron
ACTION   $5
---
+2 Coins
-1 Action; if you do, + 3 coins and +1 Buy. If not, +1 Action.

-It's either a Silver or a doubly-terminal Platinum with a Buy. I can bump it down a few ways, or bump the cost up to $6.


Portfolio
ACTION-DURATION   $5
---
Now and at the start of each of your subsequent turns: +$1.

-I talked about this card on another thread, in response to a nearly identical card. The price is the difficult point on this card. One of them would be a nice little benefit, but if you take the time to collect several, then your buying power will explode. Which is why it might need to be more expensive than I thought. How much should this cost?

And I just realized that I hadn't considered what happens with Throne Room or King's Court on an indefinite duration. Seems like a relatively fair trade, though: triple the benefit every turn, but now your KC is out of the game.


Tax Collector
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand reveals 3 cards from his hand and discards one of them that you choose. If they discarded any Treasure cards, you gain a copy of each and put them into your hand.

-Not much to say, except maybe gaining each Treasure in hand is too strong? How about this: "If they discarded any Treasure cards, you gain a copy of one of them and put it into your hand."?

[spoiler: this next card is more of a jokethought experiment than anything, but I'm curious if it is viable. I tried to make it so.]

Viceroy
ACTION-ATTACK-REACTION-TREASURE-VICTORY   $5
---
When played as an Action-Attack, each other player reveals his hand, discards one card that you choose, then draws 2 cards.
---
When played as a Treasure, $1.
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal and discard this from your hand. If you do, +2 Cards.
---
1 VP

-Another card name that WW presented shortly before me. I really thought this name was original. :-P
A few notes on how the card works. a) In the FAQ, I'd love to special-case it so that playing Viceroy only counts as playing an Attack card when played during the Action phase, since that's the only time it can be an Attack card. But it still is an Attack type card, no matter how you play it, so no, that won't work. Which means you can react to it. b) The Attack will vary in strength. You'll try to break up their turn, but they'll end up with a bigger hand. It's meant not to be the strongest attack; in fact, since the card has so many functions, I tried to make each of them pretty weak. c) The Treasure, due to the card type, is a Copper that other players can react to. Not very good. But realize that it will only be used as a Treasure when you didn't have an Action to spend on the attack, or you really needed that $1. d) The Reaction effect is nice if you're being cursed, but a rather small bonus for a hand-size attack. You'll beef up your hand just in time to discard down to 3 or something. It'll give you a wider choice of cards to keep, but that might not mean much. e) 1 VP. Woohoo.

[rinkworks]

Patron
ACTION   $5
---
+2 Coins
-1 Action; if you do, + 3 coins and +1 Buy. If not, +1 Action.

-It's either a Silver or a doubly-terminal Platinum with a Buy. I can bump it down a few ways, or bump the cost up to $6.

Might be too much.  +$4 and +$1 buy is probably stupendous enough, especially since Silver is a pretty decent consolation prize.  (Compare with Royal Seal and Stash, which are Silver-with-a-bonus cards.  The bonus on this one is much much stronger, though admittedly not one you can always use.)  But net +$5 seems crazy, even on something difficult to enable.

Another note on this is that it's impossible to activate on a good percentage of boards.

Portfolio
ACTION-DURATION   $5
---
Now and at the start of each of your subsequent turns: +$1.

This is strictly superior to Treasury, which has the same effect until you buy a Victory card, at which point Treasury gets reshuffled, while Portfolio stays out.  So I think it needs a cost increase to $6, but it's probably fine at that price.  I don't think TR/KC will be a problem, either:  as you say, there's a significant downside to using them on this card that balances it out.  I like how that works.

There are probably a lot of nice, simple cards of this sort you could make:  Now, and at the start of each of your subsequent turns...

* +1 Buy
* +1 Action
* You may discard a card; if you do, +1 Card.
* Look at the bottom card of your deck.  You may move it to the top of your deck.
* +1 Card.  Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.

Tax Collector
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand reveals 3 cards from his hand and discards one of them that you choose. If they discarded any Treasure cards, you gain a copy of each and put them into your hand.

-Not much to say, except maybe gaining each Treasure in hand is too strong? How about this: "If they discarded any Treasure cards, you gain a copy of one of them and put it into your hand."?

I made and playtested a card that's exactly like this except that the opponent revealed all but one card, rather than any three, and instead of the "If they discarded..." clause, the card offered a flat +$2.  I think I'm happy with that card, although I want to playtest a version that requires 5+ cards to be vulnerable to attack, rather than merely 4+.

Despite the similarities, I think this would play very differently, mostly being weaker.  The attack portion is weaker, because opponents will usually be able to save 2 cards rather than just 1.  And the benefit to the player will often be weaker, since (1) it would be unusual to ever get a Gold from this; (2) it would be common not to even get a Silver from this; and (3) there's a real danger, especially early on, of being forced to gain Coppers, as sometimes a player will reveal 3 Coppers from his hand.

In fact, on average the benefit to the player is probably weaker than Thief.  It's hard to compare the success rates, since (1) with Tax Collector, the opponent gets to choose which cards are offered up as candidates for the attack, but (2) the opponent may well prefer to offer up good Treasure than risk a good Action card being discarded from his hand.

However, unless the success rate turns out to be dramatically better in playtesting, there is still the matter of Tax Collector hitting weaker treasure cards.  Additionally, the attacker must gain copies of the Treasure instead of optionally gaining them.

All told, I think this needs some serious strengthening.  Offhand, I'm not sure how to make a "gain a copy" effect work with this attack, since you'll frequently (perhaps usually) only have the opportunity to gain a junky card.  You could try "You may gain a copy of any non-victory card discarded this way."  That might work, but I still suspect the card won't be worth playing without a more certain benefit for the player.  Like the +$2 I put on my own card.

[spoiler: this next card is more of a jokethought experiment than anything, but I'm curious if it is viable. I tried to make it so.]

Viceroy
ACTION-ATTACK-REACTION-TREASURE-VICTORY   $5
---
When played as an Action-Attack, each other player reveals his hand, discards one card that you choose, then draws 2 cards.
---
When played as a Treasure, $1.
---
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal and discard this from your hand. If you do, +2 Cards.
---
1 VP

LOL.  Excellent.

You've thought more about this than I have, so consider these thoughts as merely first impressions.  But I think that having lots of weak things still adds up to a weak card.  It's kind of a Dominion principle, that one good thing is better than two mediocre things.  That's why one Gold is better than two Silvers, and Tactician is a great card.  So my fear here is that even though this card does a lot, it's still not much more than a very marginal improvement on its strongest single effect.  I think that makes this a $4, maybe even just a $3 card.

[Newcomer]

Okay, it's been a busy week. Now right back to it..

Patron

Balancing this -1 Action dynamic is not easy, I can see. Sometimes actions are abundant and the ability will trigger easily. Other times there are no plus actions and so the "if not" ability is the only one that's relevant. So I guess I should weaken the big ability and make the lesser one more unique, at least, so there will be reasons to consider buying it without + Actions. And I didn't want to overuse the Cavalry mechanic of "if not, +2 Actions" to ensure Actions on the board.

My justification to myself for the +$5 was that since you're using 2 actions, it's not that unusual to get $4 out of those actions, if you played 2 terminal Silvers. True, this is just one card that you have to buy, but since it's weaker when it doesn't hit, I felt like that would work. Maybe net +$4 is good.

Okay, how does this version sound?

Patron
ACTION   $5
---
+$2
-1 Action; if you do, +$2 and +1 Buy. If not, +1 Card and +1 Action.

Now it becomes a Market variant. And it seems like most of the expansions have one, so why not this set?

Portfolio

I keep forgetting about Treasury. Oh well. I guess I'll just up Portfolio to $6 and leave it at that for now.

Tax Collector

I meant to have a "you may" in there. You don't have to gain a Copper with this card.

I originally had Tax Collector make you reveal 3 cards, or all but one card. So it had a a de facto restriction of anyone with 2 or more cards, but that was it. But I think that makes it too strong of an attack, so I'll leave it as is there.

The other thing I thought about was "if they discarded any Treasure cards, you may gain a copy of one of them and put it into your hand." Or, and I'm thinking this might be best, "if they discarded any Treasure cards, gain a Gold and put it into your hand." Or maybe you may gain a Silver in hand.

Orrr..:

Tax Collector
ACTION-ATTACK   $5
---
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand reveals 3 cards from his hand and discards one of them that you choose. If they discarded any Treasure cards, choose one: gain a Silver and put it into your hand, or gain a Gold.

That almost seems too convoluted, though.  Let me know what you think.

Viceroy

I think the attack is weak enough that this card will usually be used more for its Treasure, Victory, and Reaction components. The attack may be worth playing when you have no other action cards, but even then you'll want the $1 instead as often as not. Though it would be a nice counter to Tournament.

So, it's typically an Estate/Copper hybrid with a Reaction ability. I'm comfortable calling it $3. I don't see it being brokenly powerful no matter how cheap it is.

Thanks for all of your feedback. Anyone who wants to, chime in. I don't take offense easily. :-)

[Newcomer]

The first set of $6 cards:

Accession
ACTION   $6
---
Trash 2 Victory cards from your hand. If you do, for each card trashed, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 higher.

-A familiar mechanic. Perhaps it's too difficult to trigger to be feasible at $6, but I don't want to make this power too cheap. Load up on Estates and Duchies and churn them into Provinces instead of choking on them. Games could end very quickly when this card gets going.

Blackmail
TREASURE   $6
---
$2
When you play this, the player to your left names a type of card: Action, Treasure, or Victory. Cards of that type cost $2 less, but not less than $0.

-A Quarry effect on whichever card type your opponent thinks is least useful. But when it stacks, they have to decide whether to make that type super-cheap or spread the effect around. And it's on a Silver, to boot.

Blight
ACTION-ATTACK   $6
---
+3 Cards
Trash a card from your hand. If you do, each other player must trash a non-Victory card of equal or greater cost from their hand, or reveal a hand with no such cards.

-Is this too much? I built in some nerfs-they can't trash Victory cards (though you can), and if they don't have as expensive a card, they don't have to trash anything. Of course, that means they can't use the chance to trash a Copper, but still. If you trash a cheap card, they won't miss what they trash as much. If you trash an expensive card, a) it is less likely to hit and b) you're trashing a pretty good card to make this work. It's a very interesting combination card-drawer and trasher, with varying interactions. It will be somewhat swingy, though.

[ChaosRed]

I like Blackmail a lot, both in its mechanics and its name/theme.

[Newcomer]

More $6 cards, including my favorite. I probably built too many cards at the $6 level (assuming they stay there), but oh well. I can always cut the least popular ones or add some more cheaper cards later.


Credit
TREASURE-DURATION   $6
---
$1
---
While this is in play, you have an additional 2 coins of credit. If you buy a card on credit, place it face up on your Credit mat. Then, on your next turn, -$2. If you do, gain the card from your mat. If not, return it to the Supply.

-This is a card that requires a full FAQ section to clarify, but I think it's easy enough to grasp once you see how it works. Basically, each Credit card gives you $1 and $2 credit. You can buy cards that cost more than the actual money you have, using the coins of credit. If you use $3 more than you have in "real" coins, you need to leave out 2 Credit cards. If you play multiple Credit cards, but only use $2 of credit, then you only need to leave out one. I would state in the rules for the card that you buy the card on the first turn, but don't gain it then (for "when you buy," "when you gain" effects.) So with Possession, it goes on the Possessed player's mat. I also decided that the pile is not empty for game-ending and City purposes while there are cards from it on Credit mats. Those cards haven't been gained yet and may still be placed back in their piles. It feels right that way, but I could be convinced to change that I suppose.

I previously wrote out a lot more than that, but the card changed since then. Buuuut, the biggest question is.. is it worth it? Does this card pique anyone else's interest? I think it would be fun, and the rules issues don't bother me. If a future expansion makes these rules even less viable, then fine, I have no problem dropping the card. But it's an interesting idea, and that's why I made most of these cards.


Enchanted Treasure
TREASURE-REACTION   $6
---
$2
When you play this you may trash a Copper from play or a Curse from your hand.
---
If another player plays an Attack card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, return this to your hand and choose one: +1 Card, +1 Action, and +1 Buy; or place the top 2 cards of your discard pile into your hand.

-I think this is my favorite of my custom cards. I've changed it a bit to make it valuable when there are no attacks. Originally the trashing was part of the Reaction choice, but I like the changes. Note that you can trash a Copper AFTER you play it, so you keep the $1 this turn. It's magic! :-P


Healer
ACTION   $6
---
+1 Action
+1 Card
You may look through your discard pile and reveal exactly 3 cards costing no more than $2 each. If you do, trash them.

-Very simple idea. A great deck-cleaning trasher when it works. A cantrip when it doesn't. Perhaps it's overpriced, but in a heavy cursing game it can gain you back 2-3 VP at a time while cleaning your deck.

[Deadlock39]

Unless I am not understanding something correctly, Credit is strictly inferior to Gold.  (and significantly inferior to Gold at that.)  It gives you a total of 3 coins to spend, but then you have to pay two of them back on your next turn, and it delays the acquisition of your card.  You could just buy Gold for the same price and have your 3 coins with no penalty.  I would say it needs to give you significantly more credit, more coins or both.  (I would say $4 or $5 total with $2 or $3 being credit.)  Either that, or it needs to be cheaper.  It might work at $5.  I think it might be better at $4.  $3 for 5 is strong, but I would say the $2 pay back is a heavier penalty than the ones on Contraband or Cache.  (Possibly put it at $5 and only have $1 of credit.)

[Newcomer]

Good call. This is what happens when I shift prices and benefits around; I miss out on the obvious things, like $6 needs to be comparable to Gold, etc. :-P Thanks.

Credit
TREASURE-DURATION   $5
---
$2
---
While this is in play, you have an additional $2 of credit. If you buy a card on credit, place it face up on your Credit mat. Then, on your next turn, -$2. If you do, gain the card from your mat. If not, return it to the Supply.

How does that sound? $4 might seem like a lot, but really it's not that it's giving you $4. It's giving you $2 and letting you use money from next turn now to secure a card you might not afford in either turn alone. It lets you put a down payment on a more expensive card.

[ChaosRed]

I like the idea of Credit, but it seems to be both expensive and slow.

I draw 3$ and Credit, I get to buy a Nobles. But I have to put Nobles to the side, wait a turn and then take a -2 penalty to actually gain it or I lose it. So my next turn of a Silver and a Credit, gains me actually 1$ ((2+1)-2) + 2$ possible Credit.

It's literally like a credit card, in that the more you buy with it, the more you kind of lose, but in-game I just wouldn't bargain this way. The concept is cool, I just think the penalty is too steep to warrant a 5$ purchase.

[Newcomer]

Yeah, I see that now. It is a slow card. It's more a card that would help you when your deck starts to green, or your deck is full of curses, and you can't seem to piece together $8 turns. And delaying the acquisition of a Victory card isn't a bad thing, as long as the game doesn't end in between, but that's part of why the pile isn't considered empty until its cards are off of Credit mats.

With the new version, you'd have a straight $2 to start with. So it's a Silver, and if you want you can borrow a Silver from your next hand. Makes the $7 hand less annoying. You can grab that last Province and hope you still have enough to buy a Duchy when you end the game next turn.

Does the newer version work better for you? I want to make the card worth buying.

[ChaosRed]

Yeah that works, it is useful to buy Victory cards with, I assume if the game ends, any cards on the Credit mat don't count, but that's something you could add to a supplementary rule that doesn't have to be on the card itself.

[Newcomer]

Right, cards on your Credit mat do not go into your deck at the end of the game, as you haven't gained them yet. But if you used it to buy a Province, then the game won't end on Provinces until you've gained your Province. It could only end on piles.

[rinkworks]

Catching up after a week away.  Just wanted to note that if you don't reshuffle between the turn you buy a non-victory card on credit and the turn you actually gain it, then it still enters your deck just as quickly -- it still gets shuffled in at the same time.

Now, if you do miss a shuffle, it enters your deck potentially much later than a single turn later.  But this timing can usually be determined and considered at the time you first play the card.

[Newcomer]

The last of the cards, $6, 7$ and $?:

Minstrel
ACTION-ATTACK   $6
---
Each other player must reveal and discard either a Treasure card or a Victory card from his hand, or reveal a hand with no Treasure or Victory cards. If they discard any Treasure cards, +$1. If they discard any Victory cards, +$2.
You may discard at least 2 cards from your hand. If you do, +$2.

-That ending effect can be changed to +$1, or made conditional on the other players' discards, if that seems too strong. Originally I just had it as "For each Treasure card thus discarded, +$1." etc. But that seemed too much.
Here's another version:
"Each other player must reveal and discard either a Treasure card or a Victory card from his hand, or reveal a hand with no Treasure or Victory cards. For each Victory card thus discarded, +$2." Either way, the idea is to give your opponents a reason to discard their Treasure instead of Victory cards. You'll either hurt their hand or help yours.


Mage
ACTION-ATTACK   $7
---
+3 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse card.
-1 Action; if you do, each other player gains another Curse card. If no Curses remain in the Supply, they gain a Copper instead.

-Stronger than Witch even without excess Actions, though then it's probably a bit expensive. Still, if it's the only Curser on a board without +Actions, it will probably be bought, especially if there's not much card-draw.
With +Actions, it becomes a beast of an attack. A double-curser, that still gives out 1 Copper when the Curses are out. When there are +Actions available, Mage is meant to be a power card. It's hard to activate on TR or KC, but it's still potent enough. +9 Cards, each opponent gains 3 Curses? Sounds tasty. And it creates the sidequest on the right boards of trying to pull off +9 Cards, each opponent gains 6 Curses. I'm willing to bet that would be difficult enough to not be a problem, and at any rate the Curses will run out super quickly if you're trying that.


Gemstone
TREASURE   $0*
---
When you play this, $1 for each Gemstone in the Supply, but at least $1.
---
This costs $1 for each Gemstone in the Supply, minus $1, but not less than $0.

-This is one of 2 variable-cost cards I designed, and the only one to make the cut for the current version of the set. Okay, so it sounds complicated. It's a card whose cost and power depend on how many are left. So it starts out super expensive, as the first one costs $9. But it'll be a $9 Treasure until someone else gets one, way better than Platinum. Then it's still at $8, then $7, until when the pile's half-depleted it still functions as a Platinum. The later you buy it, the less it's worth to you, but it depletes the value of your opponents' copies. The last one's free, but then it's only a Copper. Buy it if your opponent has lots of Gemstones.
The goal is to strike as early as possible and wield it as often as possible before it diminishes in power.

[rinkworks]

Minstrel
ACTION-ATTACK   $6
---
Each other player must reveal and discard either a Treasure card or a Victory card from his hand, or reveal a hand with no Treasure or Victory cards. If they discard any Treasure cards, +$1. If they discard any Victory cards, +$2.
You may discard at least 2 cards from your hand. If you do, +$2.

-That ending effect can be changed to +$1, or made conditional on the other players' discards, if that seems too strong. Originally I just had it as "For each Treasure card thus discarded, +$1." etc. But that seemed too much.
Here's another version:
"Each other player must reveal and discard either a Treasure card or a Victory card from his hand, or reveal a hand with no Treasure or Victory cards. For each Victory card thus discarded, +$2." Either way, the idea is to give your opponents a reason to discard their Treasure instead of Victory cards. You'll either hurt their hand or help yours.

This is a good idea, but it doesn't seem like it would scale very well.  In a 2-player game, maybe you get +$1 and can't do better than +$2 (barring discards).  In a 4-player game, your usual minimum is +$3 with a shot at +$6.  That's extremely swingy.  In 2-player, it's a never-buy; in 4-player, it's probably an always-buy.

Other cards that scale in this way aren't quite so bad:  you get different numbers of Treasure cards with Thief, which certainly makes it stronger with more players, but you still only get to draw your cards in 5-card batches, so it doesn't necessarily or immediately change what you can spend on any one turn.  Pirate Ship is also better with more than one player, but only in increasing the odds that it will hit, not its effectiveness when it does.

My impulse was to suggest "If any player discards a Victory card, +$something."  But then you'd have a weird situation where one player's discard may depend on what a previous player discards.  I guess that would still work, but it feels a little weird and might slow the game down a lot.  Not sure.

Mage
ACTION-ATTACK   $7
---
+3 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse card.
-1 Action; if you do, each other player gains another Curse card. If no Curses remain in the Supply, they gain a Copper instead.

-Stronger than Witch even without excess Actions, though then it's probably a bit expensive.

I'd say that a Witch drawing a single extra card is probably a bargain at $7, though probably not brokenly so.  Figure adding +1 Card to any terminal should usually increase its price by $2 or $3 (for reference, compare Moat and Smithy, among other more complicated comparisons), and then consider that Witch is an exceptionally strong $5 card anyhow.

That said, when you're up in the $7 neighborhood, the differences between the costs are a lot wider than they are when you're below $5.  So I think you have some wiggle room about what kind of power you put there.  I worry that turning the card into a double-curser is (way) more than your wiggle room allows; on the other hand, the difficulty of activating it and the quickness with which the Curses may run out (even though you've compensated for this somewhat) makes me think it might be okay after all.  I'd want to test this carefully, but regardless I think a double-curser that's tricky to activate is actually a really cool idea.  If you have to nerf the card at all, I'd change the bonus from +3 Cards to something weaker.  The attack portion seems really cool.

I like how it switches to Coppers when the Curses run out but can only dish out one, not two, and that the substitution happens on the harder piece to activate.  I think that's a great way to keep the card relevant after the Curses run out while still causing it to weaken severely.

Gemstone
TREASURE   $0*
---
When you play this, $1 for each Gemstone in the Supply, but at least $1.
---
This costs $1 for each Gemstone in the Supply, minus $1, but not less than $0.

This is another really cool idea.  I've seen (and had) a similar idea for Victory cards; the problem is that the value of Victory cards only matters at the end of the game, so it doesn't matter how their value fluctuates during it.  But using this idea on a Treasure makes a lot more sense.  My concern here is that the game might be decided on simply whoever gets $9 first (which is a more luck-based affair than whoever can sustain $8 hands over the long term, say), but since you can't play a Gemstone immediately upon buying it -- which means your opponents have a chance to buy a Gemstone before you ever get to play yours -- that concern is probably moot.  Definitely interested in hearing how this turns out.

[Newcomer]

Minstrel

Actually, I meant for the card to work the way you wanted to suggest. "They" in my wording meant "the other players, as a group." If they discard any Treasure cards, you gain one and only one coin. Maybe a better wording would be "If any Treasure cards are discarded, +$1. If any Victory cards are discarded, +$2." Or, "If at least one Treasure card is discarded..."

So in a 2-player game you get $0-$2, and in a 4-player game, it's $0-$3. $0 is still more likely in a 2P game though.  And it does have that weird situation of, well he already discarded Victory, so there's no reason I shouldn't. It's not always a balanced attack. I don't particularly mind that, though, but I can see why it might not be ideal.

The original card idea DID have +$ for each card discarded, but I realized that wouldn't scale well. Still, it might be a little weak as is. With good trashing, you can clear out your Treasures and Estates and rely on +$ Actions. Then Minstrel is almost useless until the endgame. Discarding 2 cards for +$2 is a significantly weaker Vault-like benefit, and really works best with a bloated deck.

Mage

I'm glad to see you like it!  Another reason the Copper applies to the second half is that the -1 Action is not optional. So playing it when you have more than 1 Action left will burn 2 Actions. The Copper part guarantees you still get something for that after the Curses are out, so long as Coppers remain.

If I do change the bonus to something weaker, then I think I'd need to add an "If not" benefit for if the -1 Action fails. Otherwise, in a game without + Actions, the card would be about equal to Witch but $2 more expensive. I guess I'll see how it plays and go from there.

Gemstone

Yes, I imagine this card will be rather swingy. It very much encourages everyone to aim to get up to $9, or $8 at least, as quickly as possible. Building up an engine that takes time to get going might leave you in the dust. On the other hand, in order to play it, you'll want more than one. I wonder what the optimum number to buy is. Is it better to have 1 $9 Gemstone or 3 $7 Gemstones? Especially since each one you buy makes it easier for your opponents to buy in, which both helps their deck and hurts yours. I could see an eventual change basing things on how many cards are left divided by 2, giving it a narrower range of costs and benefits and slowing down the change. But that's only if this doesn't work out.

[rinkworks]

Minstrel

Actually, I meant for the card to work the way you wanted to suggest. "They" in my wording meant "the other players, as a group." If they discard any Treasure cards, you gain one and only one coin. Maybe a better wording would be "If any Treasure cards are discarded, +$1. If any Victory cards are discarded, +$2." Or, "If at least one Treasure card is discarded..."

Ah, that was my fault.  I think the wording you had was clear enough; I just misread it.

I think it's probably fine if more players increase the average return of the card.  I'm less confident about more players increasing the total range of the card.  What about a flat +$1 all the time, and an additional +$2 if anybody discards any Victory cards?  I don't think you need to tie anything specifically to Treasure cards, since opponents discarding of Treasure cards is itself a benefit to you.  Still, terminal-copper is pretty poor, even on an attack.  +$1 with your opponents discarding Treasure is a lot worse than Noble Brigand, priced at $4.

So I wonder if you could get away with a flat +$2, with the discarding of Victory cards only giving you an extra +$1.  The difference between +$2 and +$3 is actually pretty huge, so I think that works:  either the card is a terminal-silver discard attack, or it's a terminal-gold that doesn't hurt your opponent too much.  That seems like a reasonable $5-cost card.  It wouldn't even be that strong a $5 card.  You could probably add the mini-Vault piece back in and still keep it at $5.

[Newcomer]

Re: Minstrel

Sorry rinkworks, i thought I already responded with this, but yes I will go ahead and use your suggestion. So the card looks like this:

Minstrel
ACTION-ATTACK   $6
---
+$2
Each other player must discard a Treasure card or a Victory card from his hand, or reveal a hand with no Treasure or Victory cards. If at least one Victory card is discarded, +$1.
You may discard at least 2 cards from your hand. If you do, +$2.

[Newcomer]

Play-testing will go somewhat slowly on this set, but after a while I will bring back some feedback and changes and let everyone know what the cards are playing like. Thanks for all of the help at this stage. This is fun. :-)

[ChaosRed]

Play-testing will go somewhat slowly on this set, but after a while I will bring back some feedback and changes and let everyone know what the cards are playing like. Thanks for all of the help at this stage. This is fun. :-)

I'd be really eager to read how your play-testing goes. Not just what you learn about a card's abilities, but how you went about actually testing them. We know very little about how Donald tests his actual cards (other than its iterative, cards start out at one place and often arrive differently than originally conceived after play-testing). So the more we can share about HOW to test and what to look for while testing, I'd really enjoy reading.

And I'm glad the Variant bug has bitten you. It's a superb way to enjoy the game. Of course, it can't come at the expense of actually supporting the game. In other words, we must continue to feed the mothership with revenue, despite our little side hobby.

[Newcomer]

Oh, of course. I've been planning to get Hinterlands as my next set. That's one reason play-testing will be slow. :-D