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[rinkworks]

Minstrel
ACTION-ATTACK   $6
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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
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+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.
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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