Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: Violet CLM on July 06, 2015, 06:17:00 pm
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Welcome welcome. As with many of you, Ideas for custom cards occur to me from time to time, and this is my latest attempt to corral them into some semblance of order. Specifically, we're going to be looking at two nineteen-card-sets, "Harmony" and "Discord," over the next couple weeks or so. (Cards will be posted in groups of 3 or 4 so as to avoid overwhelming.) We're starting with Harmony, which has more price variety and more Victory cards, whereas Discord gravitates toward the $4-$5 mark a lot and arguably messes with the rules more. Both sets have a slight fondness for cards that work well with other copies of themselves, which is to say, I don't personally own Black Market.
The theming is borrowed from a cartoon show to save me the trouble of coming up with sufficient themed names and high-quality illustrations; that said, I largely shied away from names and images that depict any main characters from the show. Some cards are named based on their effects, others have effects based on their names, others are a mixture of both. No hard and fast rules here.
I have no opportunity to playtest this nonsense, be warned ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/3WggbXn.jpg)
Chest of Harmony | Action-Duration | $2
Play an Action card from your hand, then set it aside together with this card.
Any time you would draw a card from your deck to your hand, you may draw the card set aside with this instead. If you do, +1 Action and discard this card.
A Haven variant that plays the card before setting it aside and then keeps it waiting indefinitely, but doesn't result in you starting a later turn with 6 cards instead of 5. If nothing else, you can use this to get rid of a Chapel after it's done its job, or as a poor man's Throne Room if you can contrive to redraw the Action card on the same turn you set it aside. The +1 Action is awesome--possibly too awesome?--if you want to rescue an action-heavy draw from a Hunting Grounds or something.
- This applies to the same set of situations as the -1 Card Token, i.e. whenever you "draw" a card outside of Envoy.
- The -1 Card Token is resolved before choosing to draw any set aside CoH cards.
- CoH and the set aside card are still considered part of your deck at the end of the game.
- To save time when drawing more than one card a time, you should probably draw all but one and then decide whether you want to draw the last one from a CoH. (Or all but two if you have two CoHs in play, etc.)
- If CoH is not used to play any Action card, discard it at/during clean-up at the end of the turn it was played.
- The chosen Action card must be set aside "together with" CoH. If the chosen Action trashes itself (e.g. Feast), it can not be set aside "together with" CoH, so again, discard CoH during clean-up at the end of the turn it was played. Same for cards that set themselves aside (e.g. Island, CoH itself) or banish themselves to the Tavern mat.
- If you play Throne Room on CoH, you may use it to play a third and fourth Action card from your hand (once each, without spending any Actions besides the one spent on Throne Room), but only the third one will be set aside with CoH, because CoH will no longer be available for setting aside by the time the fourth one has been resolved.
- That said, if you play Throne Room-CoH-Feast-whatever, CoH will fail to be set aside with Feast, so it will still be available to be set aside with the other Action card.
- Procession generally fails to trash CoH, because (like Island) it has been set aside by the time Procession tries to trash it, though you still gain a card costing $1 more.
- Playing CoH on a Duration card that does not set itself aside works basically the same as playing Procession on that Duration in terms of what effects are had when/where the Duration card ends up.
- Playing CoH on a card with a while-in-play effect (e.g. Highway) is generally a bad idea, because the card will no longer be in play once it is set aside.
(http://i.imgur.com/xygKOZI.jpg)
Enchanted Comic | Action-Attack | $3
+$2
Each other player reveals the top two cards of his deck. You may trash this card; if you do, each other player trashes one of his revealed cards. They discard the other cards.
Not a terribly exciting card, but I needed a trashing attack and the card name called for a self-trasher. Not too useful in the early game. All standard rules clarifications about revealing n cards apply.
(http://i.imgur.com/SqyY0tn.jpg)
Express Train | Action | $4
+1 Action
Discard any number of cards.
While this is in play, cards cost $ less equal to the number of cards this discarded, but not less than $0.
Look, the train is travelling over a bridge. Without a ready source of Buys, this is not much better than a reactionless Secret Chamber, but it's non-terminal, so you can play Library or Forager or Count or something afterwards without needing to worry about the rest of your hand. With Buys, it can provide a deeper discount than the more expensive Highway (if you discard more than one card), but at the costing of decreasing your hand size instead of keeping it constant.
- If you use Express Train to discard no cards, then all cards' prices are unaffected, except for cards that previously cost less than $0, which now cost $0 instead.
- Playing Throne Room, etc. on Express Train should have no additional effect besides giving you more +Actions, unless one of the cards you discard has an on-discard effect that then adds one or more cards to your hand. The discount will be equal to the total number of cards that Express Train discarded across every time it was played.
- If you trash or set aside Express Train after playing it (e.g. Procession, Chest of Harmony), it will no longer be in play and will therefore provide no discount.
(http://i.imgur.com/yvvdCoG.jpg)
Fruit Bats | Action | $3
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.
+$1 per Fruit Bats in the trash.
Another card in the Forager/Trade Route vein. Its upper limit of $ gained is much higher than either of theirs (in all but the most extreme kingdoms), but the more it's worth, the less it can be used. Next to useless if bought via Black Market, oh well.
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Welcome to the forums! I feel magically attracted to fan card sets that have card mock-ups and a nice introduction so that's a plus. I'll take a wild guess and say that you sets are thematically related to MLP although I'm not very familiar with the franchise. Anyway, some interesting ideas here, let's see...
Chest of Harmony is cute but I'm not sure if it's too strong for $2. Even if it's probably fine, it leaves open questions as to how exactly this works.
If CoH is not used to play any Action card, discard it at/during clean-up at the end of the turn it was played.
This should be clear from the card text. You should not need an FAQ to grasp what a card does. Currently, it is not clear why this is a Duration (it doesn't do anything at the start of any future turn). I will try to change the wording so it becomes self-explanatory:
You may play an Action card from your hand. If you do, set it aside. Otherwise, discard this during Clean-up this turn.
While this is in play, when you would draw a card, instead, you may discard this and play the card set aside with this.
I'm not sure this is sufficient and/or elegant but it should make clear the point that CoH actually needs to be somewhere other than your hand for the bottom-line effect to trigger. I would leave it in play, just like Haven. You could also set it aside but then it's not a Duration card. Also, the top-line effect should be optional in accordance with King's Court, Procession etc. to avoid accountability holes.
Enchanted Comic is swingy but will rarely be devastating (as when it hits two Provinces) and probably much more often whiff and you will wish you had bought a Swindler (or something comparable in power) instead. With that said, the benefit to your own turn or deck should be greater, I think. Maybe "gain 2 Silvers" (in addition to +$2) which doesn't seem good at first but they should help dilute your deck to make it more resilient against Enchanted Comic attacks.
Express Train looks very strong. +buy isn't that uncommon and the fact that it's non-terminal makes it too easy to get more value out of it than highway in a decent engine. $5 seems more appropriate, although I'm not entirely sure.
Fruit Bats seems weak compared to Forager. It should probably cost $2 because it's terminal and so slow to set up. Otherwise, I kinda like it.
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Welcome! Will read cards later.
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Welcome to the forums :)
I don't really like "Chest of Harmony"'s "when you draw" concept. It just seems like something that could have been solved without that complexity, and it's not even that important for what the card does. Also, it's not a variant of Haven, but of Throne Room, and not even much worse, considering you can trigger the second play whenever you like (see Royal Carriage).
Enchanted Comic is weak, but that doesn't change that it's potentially nasty, making the situations where it actually hits something valuable feel even more frustrating.
Of the cards, i like Express Train the most. It stikes me as being worth $5, though.
Fruit Bats compares very, very unfavourably to Forager. You do use Forager to trash your Coppers, and it's nonterminal. But when you use your Fruit Bats to trash other Fruit Bats of yours, you spent an absurd amount of time building AND didn't even build for yourself, as anypony anybody can just get a copy to make use of that. Also, to trash Fruit Bats, you have to forego trashing other junk. I really see no reason to buy this except if there is no other trashing, and then it'll stay coinless.
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+1 for "anypony", and now I'm sure I correctly identified the theme ;)
About Fruit Bats, I guess I just liked how the card looks but Asper is right in that it's very, very weak.
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With that said, the benefit to your own turn or deck should be greater, I think. Maybe "gain 2 Silvers" (in addition to +$2) which doesn't seem good at first but they should help dilute your deck to make it more resilient against Enchanted Comic attacks.
"Gain two Silvers" together with "+$2" is very slightly better than "Gain two Silvers, putting one in your hand" (it works when Silvers are empty), which in turn is quite a bit better than what Explorer usually does (not strictly, but give me a break, you know it's better). So i'd argue this effect on its own would be a 5$ - one that still compares favourably to Explorer, because it's better than Explorer for the majority of the game.
Edit: To make this clear, when i say "usually", i'm referring to the "no Province revealed" case. Explorer is (usually) better than your hypothetical card if you reveal a Province, but that still means it's going to be better for only a small number of cases. It's worse overall, that's what i'm trying to say here, and even though it's a weak 5$, your card without an attack seems reasonable at that price point.
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I hate to be that guy, but
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2455.0
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With that said, the benefit to your own turn or deck should be greater, I think. Maybe "gain 2 Silvers" (in addition to +$2) which doesn't seem good at first but they should help dilute your deck to make it more resilient against Enchanted Comic attacks.
"Gain two Silvers" together with "+$2" is very slightly better than "Gain two Silvers, putting one in your hand" (it works when Silvers are empty), which in turn is quite a bit better than what Explorer usually does (not strictly, but give me a break, you know it's better). So i'd argue this effect on its own would be a 5$ - one that still compares favourably to Explorer, because it's better than Explorer for the majority of the game.
Edit: To make this clear, when i say "usually", i'm referring to the "no Province revealed" case. Explorer is (usually) better than your hypothetical card if you reveal a Province, but that still means it's going to be better for only a small number of cases. It's worse overall, that's what i'm trying to say here, and even though it's a weak 5$, your card without an attack seems reasonable at that price point.
I did not read Enchanted Comic thoroughly. I was assuming you always have to trash it which is why I was in favour of a stronger effect.
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I hate to be that guy, but
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2455.0
I've seen that--it was part of the reason I emphasized that these cards are much less, uh, overtly themed. An earlier draft did include a $2 "Pony Village" action-reaction that gave the standard Village effect but that you had to discard whenever anybody (even you) played an Attack card, but I scrapped that because (among other reasons) it had zero accountability.
Anyhow, thanks for all your thoughtful responses so far! Some very brief thoughts:
* A simpler wording for Chest of Harmony might let you just put the set aside card on top of your deck at any time you would draw, instead of saying that you draw from the CoH. In any case, it's possible that it doesn't need to be labeled Duration as written? Hmm. I suspect that I'm trying to write a Reserve card without actually wanting to label it Reserve.
* I don't personally like having Silvers very much, so I tend not to buy cards that gain them, but I recognize that isn't universal. The idea of Enchanted Comic giving cards to act as a buffer against itself makes some sense, though.
* Fruit Bats does feel weaker than Forager, but honestly so does Trade Route, and I'm not sure how to reconcile that. Maybe if you got a base +$1 in addition to the number of trashed ones, so a range of $1-$10 instead of $0-$9?
(http://i.imgur.com/LqXnPBZ.jpg)
Harmony Stone | Action | $3
For every Harmony Stone in play, choose one: +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, or +$1.
Another card that doesn't work with Black Market. Anyway, this is one of those ideas that seems perfectly obvious but is hard to make feel properly balanced. A previous version counted the number of Harmony Stones in your hand (and gave you a +1 Card on its own), but counting the ones in play feels a bit less time-consuming and bothersome.
- If there is more than one Harmony Stone in play, make all the choices at once before drawing any cards (if you choose +1 Card at least once).
(http://i.imgur.com/h8PwoH2.jpg)
Pawn Shop | Action | $2
+1 Action
Place the Pawn Shop token on top of a supply pile.
You may trash this card; if you do, +$2.
At all times, all cards from the pile with the Pawn Shop token cost an extra $2.
No relation to Pawn; instead, this is totally not Embargo. Specifically, a non-terminal, non-cumulative, not-always-trashing, not-always-undesirable Embargo. Make Coppers more expensive to counteract an opponent's Goons/Merchant Guild, or raise the price on Gold while you pursue an action-based strategy, or prevent Knights from targeting other Knights (except Sir Martin), or buy a lot of Remodels then make them cost $6 each. Pawn Shop keeps working after the Curse pile gets exhausted, and/but the token can be moved around at any time.
(In lieu of an actual Pawn Shop token, whatever that would look like, a penny seems like a perfectly functional substitute.)
(http://i.imgur.com/F7sGNDz.jpg)
Smudged Family Tree | Action | $7
Choose one: set aside an Action from your hand to your Family Tree mat (if adding a third, trash the first); or play this card as if it had the cards on the mat's concatenated descriptions (you may not invoke the effects of Smudged Family Tree), in order of their addition, until it leaves play.
(A Family Tree mat would presumably look similar to the card art, but would have two outlines the size of Dominion cards, labeled 1 and 2.)
Oh boy. Apparently one day I looked at Band of Misfits and thought it was just too straightforward. So, Smudged Family Tree lets you create a composite card with the full text of two combined action cards of your choice, but it's expensive to buy and you need to get it to show up in your hands at the same time as the other two cards first. Like Prince, it may be best to pair it with whatever other cards you can, just so you can play the result as often as possible as the game continues, rather than to wait for the perfect combo. Combinations like Lost City+Hunting Grounds are obviously desirable, but who knows what hidden gems may arise? You could do worse than Mandarin+Lookout, or Explorer+Mine...
- The cards on the Family Tree mat are still considered part of your deck at the end of the game.
- All peculiarities of Band of Misfits and its "play this card as if... until it leaves play" apply here too, except that Smudged Family Tree retains its name, cost, and type (Action) the whole time, unless one or both of the cards on the mat are themselves Band of Misfits or similar.
- Even if you play SFT twice in one turn, once to put a card on the mat and once to play the descriptions from the mat, they are both named Smudged Family Tree for the purposes of Horn of Plenty or similar.
- Note that the order in which the cards appear on the mat matters. Playing SFT as (the descriptions of) Militia+Council Room will result in each other player having four cards, vs. Council Room+Militia's three.
- Concatenate each section of the description according to when it would come into use. For example, if you play Procession on SFT as (the descriptions of) Hunting Grounds+Cultist, trashing SFT would cause you to gain a Duchy or three Estates before you draw three cards, whereas Cultist+Hunting Grounds would make you draw before gaining.
- SFT is not a form of inheritance. The presence of a card with an on-buy or on-gain effect on the Family Tree mat, for example, does not give SFT those effects.
- SFT cannot play SFT recursively. If a combination of Pawn Shop and Ferry, for example, has made Band of Misfits cost $7 and SFT cost $5, and one of the cards on the Family Tree mat is BoM, you are not allowed to invoke SMT with the BoM, since you would be able to do this an infinite number of times. However, if one of the cards on the mat is Throne Room or Chest of Harmony or something, and you have another card in your hand that happens to be a Smudged Family Tree, you would be allowed to play that separate card.
And some free concerns to get you started:
- SFT is not an attack card and does not seem to become one, even if one of the cards on the mat is. This feels wrong.
- If one of the cards on the mat is Fortress, things can get out of hand. Specific dangerous pairings (the order of cards doesn't matter):
- Raze: Draw your deck/infinite actions.
- Pillage: Draw your deck/infinite actions, gain the entire Spoils deck.
- Death Cart or Mining Village: Infinite money, draw your deck/infinite actions.
- Embargo: Infinite money, draw your deck/infinite actions, infinite number of placed embargo tokens.
- Enchanted Comic: Infinite money, draw your deck/infinite actions, every other player trashes every card in his deck.
- Feast: Infinite money, draw your deck/infinite actions, gain every card in the supply costing up to $5.
This is probably a bad thing (and there's another card coming tomorrow that'll be even worse than Feast), but I'm having trouble specifically disallowing it. Even if there was room, I wouldn't want to forbid Fortress by name, but restricting the concatenation to on-play effects only would make Durations half-worthless.
(http://i.imgur.com/W5aG34F.jpg)
Sonic Rainboom | Action-Duration | $5
Set aside any number of cards from your hand face down.
At the start of your next turn: +1 Card per card so set aside; +1 Action; and discard all cards set aside by this card.
A variable Tactician, no more, no less. If you set aside <5 cards, you get less benefit next turn than with Tactician; >5 cards, more benefit. Also you don't have to discard your entire hand. Note that the cards you draw next turn are specifically not the ones you set aside. Should maybe cost $6 instead.[/list]
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Feels like CoH should be a Reserve. A card that waits until you want to use it. I'd try that.
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Feels like CoH should be a Reserve. A card that waits until you want to use it. I'd try that.
I agree. You might be able to word it something like this:
Chest of Harmony - Action/Reserve
Play an Action card from your hand, then put it and this card together on your Tavern mat.
At any time, you may call this. If you do, +1 Action and put the card you played with this on top of your deck.
I'm suggesting "At any time" mainly to be shorter and to increase the use of the card, although I don't know if that affects the balance.
Harmony Stone | Action | $3
For every Harmony Stone in play, choose one: +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, or +$1.
I feel like this will explode rather quickly. Not quite as much as a hand full of Madmen, but especially if there's a Village around (so you don't have to waste any choices on +Actions) winning the split of this will equal crazy results.
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I like Smudged Familiy Tree, or at least I find it very interesting.
Smudged Family Tree | Action | $7
Choose one: set aside an Action from your hand to your Family Tree mat (if adding a third, trash the first); or play this card as if it had the cards on the mat's concatenated descriptions (you may not invoke the effects of Smudged Family Tree), in order of their addition, until it leaves play.
Even if there was room, I wouldn't want to forbid Fortress by name, but restricting the concatenation to on-play effects only would make Durations half-worthless.
Durations are triggered on play, they just resolve later.
So I guess it would work like that, although on play effects wouldn't work anymore as well:
Smudged Family Tree | Action | $7
Choose one: set aside an Action from your hand to your Family Tree mat (if adding a third, trash the first); or play the cards on your Family Tree mat in order of their addition (they stay set aside).
The price of SFT might be a problem. You need multiples of these to make them really profitable. And $7 is a tough price point, although not too cheap considering the strength of the card. Maybe a potion cost? But wait, then it compares to Golem...
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I should perhaps put Pawn's "the choices must be different" text back on Harmony Stone, or at least "the first four choices."
or play the cards on your Family Tree mat in order of their addition (they stay set aside).
I thought about this, but it differs from the current wording in other ways, too... notably
a) self-trashers like Feast without Fortress. With the current wording, Smudged Family Tree gets trashed. With that wording, either Feast stays on the mat (no reason not to play the card) or Feast gets trashed (why put it on the mat in the first place?).
b) while-in-play effects. With the current wording, if you play SFT with Highway twice in a turn, you get a -2 discount. With that wording, your discount is only -1 and the second play adds nothing but a cantrip.
(http://i.imgur.com/7vxSLE2.jpg)
Staff of Sameness | Action | $3
Gain a Silver into your hand. Discard two cards.
When you buy this card, reveal your hand. Trash any Treasure cards revealed and gain one Silver per trashed card.
The sole impetus for creating this card was that I had no cards based exclusively around Silver and that felt like I was letting down tradition. The on-buy is supposed to be better than the on-play, as happens.
(http://i.imgur.com/KHZfkWH.jpg)
Sun | Action-Duration | $4
At the start of your next turn: +1 Buy; +$2; return this card to your hand.
Moon | Action-Duration | $4
At the start of each of your turns: +2 Cards; discard 2 cards from your hand; you may flip this card 180 degrees.
(Rotated version provided for your convenience. Kindly to be ignoring the typo.)
Apparently a gap in the Dominion corpus I felt needed filling was its lack of two-sided cards. You can play this either as Sun or Moon, depending on how it's oriented relative to you, and it doesn't matter which until the start of your next turn. Moons stay out forever until you turn them into Suns, which give you a good amount of money, but you have to choose to deploy them well before you have any idea what other cards you'll have then.
- For the purposes of Horn of Plenty or similar, Sun and Moon are differently named cards if you have at least one card in play with each orientation.
- For the purposes of Wishing Well or Fairgrounds or similar, this card is always named "Sun" while not in play, no matter how you are holding it in your hand.
- If Black Market or similar is played as Moon, it contains Sun as well, and may be flipped 180 degrees to unlock that effect accordingly.
- Playing this card locks it into being either Sun or Moon; you cannot use Throne Room to play it as both sides at once.
(http://i.imgur.com/meVGPZz.jpg)
Witch Doctor | Action-Attack | $3
Look at the top three cards from your deck and trash up to two of them, drawing the rest into your hand. If you trashed fewer than two, gain a Curse; if exactly two, each other player gains a Curse.
With its effect rather transparently derived from its name, Witch Doctor is basically the full Curse cycle condensed into one card. Give your opponents Curses while trimming your deck of starting junk, then by the time the Curse deck is empty, you're ready to trash <2 cards at a time to get rid of your accumulated Curses, plus you have a cheap Smithy.
(http://i.imgur.com/vnWl51b.jpg)
Wrap Up | Action | $5
+1 Action
You may trash a card from your hand.
When you trash a card while this card is in play, you may gain a card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card.
Wrap Up applies the Remodel effect to every trashing card (or event or token) in the game, including other instances of itself. The +1 Action may be a little too on the nose, though... should a hand of three Wrap Ups and two Golds really give you five Provinces?
(Note that one Wrap Up, paired with Smudged Family Tree:Fortress+self-trasher, grants you every card in the supply costing up to $9, so that's fun.)
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I would suggest implementing Sun/Moon as a normal Duration card that uses a token. I know a two sided card looks fancy and all, but i really see too many downsides and a token solution is quite simple:
Namby pamby Pony Princess, Action-Duration, $4
If there is no Celestial token on this, put one on it. Put the token on this either side up.
At the start of your next turn: If the Celestial token on this is...
...Moon side up: +1 Buy; +$2; Put this card in your hand.
...Sun side up: +2 Cards; discard 2 cards from your hand; Play this again.
Only thing a FAQ would need to clarify is that the token is removed when the card leaves play (such as when you put it into your hand or Process it). Probably it's possible to "set the token aside", though, but that's a bit more complicated if you want to make sure you can only have one token per card. Edit: Worst case, you can just write "(the token is removed when this leaves play)" at the bottom...
Actually, no matter my token suggestion the current version of Sun/Moon doesn't work. The fact that Sun gets turned into another card, leaves play or whetever doesn't change that you once played a card that said "at the start of each of your turns". So even if it changes, it would still technically let you draw and discard two cards.
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Actually, no matter my token suggestion the current version of Sun/Moon doesn't work. The fact that Sun gets turned into another card, leaves play or whetever doesn't change that you once played a card that said "at the start of each of your turns". So even if it changes, it would still technically let you draw and discard two cards.
This is true. I don't see any advantage to the token idea, though, since it seems to add more fiddly bits and be harder to keep track of with no change in function.
(http://i.imgur.com/x5psc27.jpg)
Crystal Castle | Treasure-Duration | $4
When you play this and during each of your later Buy phases, you may set aside a card from your hand face down. If you do not: +$1, +$ equal to the number of cards set aside, and discard this card and all cards set aside by it.
(there was no Treasure-Duration card template image, so just pretend)
Somewhere between Seaside's Native Village and Guilds' coin tokens, Crystal Castle lets you leach one less-helpful card out of your hand each turn. As soon as you stop, all the cards return to your deck, but you get a payoff proportional to how many cards you've set aside.
- The cards set aside by Crystal Castle are still considered part of your deck at the end of the game.
(http://i.imgur.com/5w0CVsG.jpg)
Cottage | Action-Victory | $4
+1 Action
Reveal your hand. For every Victory card in your hand, +1 Card and +1 Action.
1VP
A Crossroads that feeds itself. If you have only one other victory card in hand, this is equivalent to a Village.
(http://i.imgur.com/UcbaZLN.jpg)
Library Tree | Action-Victory | $4
Gain a Library Tree or trash this card. If you do either one: +2 Cards, +2 Actions.
2VP
A card for speeding up the game. Library Tree is there for you at the start, but eventually you have to outgrow it, or else keep it around for sentimental points value without actually playing it anymore.
(http://i.imgur.com/MMyIfo6.jpg)
Rock Farm | Action-Victory | $3
When you gain or play this, trash a card from your hand. Gain a card from the trash costing more than the trashed card.
Worth VP equal to the cost of the most expensive card in the trash.
An earlier version of Rock Farm was basically Distant Lands, but then Adventures came out and I had to start over, and this feels a bit closer to Farmland anyway. Make all interactions with the trash more complicated even if you're not personally the one buying Rock Farms. Unlike some other alt-VPs, though, it's worth the same number of points for all players and that number can be easily determined at any time.
- If there is no card in the trash costing more than the trashed card when you gain or play Rock Farm, you do not gain a card.
- If the trash is empty at the end of the game, Rock Farm is worth 0VP.
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Nice to see you here! I think your expansion has a lot of neat ideas in it, though a bunch of stuff looks problematic. Art and mockups look solid. As for the individual cards...
Chest:
I think the concept is cool. I would change the wording though - this is kind of similar to Co0kieLord's suggestion:
You may play an Action card from your hand. If you do, set it aside.
While this is in play, whenever you would draw a card, instead, you may discard this and play the card set aside with this.
The 'you may' is necessary to not cause tracking problems (like, if you play it without Action cards in hand, there is no way for other players to know if you cheated by not setting one aside. You'd have to add an 'or reveal a hand without Action cards' to fix this). I don't think the 'otherwise, discaird it during Clean-up this turn' which Co0kie suggested is necessary, since the card should discard itself when it is not needed to remind you of something (see Haven; doesn't stay out when it didn't target a card).
Additionally, I'd suggest this change:
You may play an Action card from your hand. If you do, set it aside.
While this is in play, whenever you draw a card, you may discard it. If you do, discard CoH and draw the set aside card.
The reason why is that the 'would' wording is often problematic (more specifically: leads to non distinct and often counter intuitive interactions) and should be avoided whenever possible. This is a significant boost in power, but that should be fine for a support card.
Comic:
This looks much more problematic... honestly, I don't see the concept working. It has 2 issues - first one is that it can be political. In a 3 player game, if A reveals Curse/X and B reveals Province/Duchy, do you help A to hurt B? Not inherently bad, but Dominion is non-political as a design principle.
Second is that it's extremely swingy, very harsh in rare cases, and really bad in most. Since trashing cards is good early game, you'll rarely even use it - if it hits 2 provinces though, it can kill one without giving the player any consolation. Note that most common attackers either give something in return (Swindler, Saboteur) or can't kill cards which are too expensive, like knights.
Express Tain:
Per default this is a non-terminal Secret Chamber, but it has the potential to be one of the strongest cards in the game, in combination with say Council Room and any +Action. Crazy combos aren't a bad thing though, as long as they're not too common and work in a fun way. I think this could be fine. I wouldn't put it at 5$.
Bats:
This looks like it could be fun, but I'm fearful that it wouldn't hold up in practice. I agree with everyone else that it's weak; another problem though is that the thing you're investing on causes all players who use this card to benefit equally. Forager does that too - but Forager is good anyway, plus you'll get at least a copper into the trash without even trying, and the effect of boosting it kicks in faster.
Trashing other bats, though, is almost always bad for your current turn, so whenever you start doing it, your opponents can probably just buy a couple for themselves and then your investment was useless. Most decks are at least fairly flexible, plus decks are often similar, so if your deck is capable of buying them, chances are so is your opponents. I suspect that it'll be the right choice to never trash other bats in the vast majority of games.
Harmony Stone:
Self-counting cards are tricky; I tried and failed at them before. I don't see an immediate reason why this one wouldn't work though - it's on the strong side at 4$ but can't cost 5$ for sure; cards at 5$ need to do stuff on their own.
Pawn Shop:
I suggest this change:
+2$
You may trash this. If you, +1 Action and place the Pawn Shop token on top of a supply pile.
Cards from the pile with the Pawn Shop token cost 2$ more.
The reason is that a plain '+1 Action' is so bad (and immediate benefit so important) that you would almsot never choose not to trash the current version. This change makes it strong enough at 2$ to warrant a buy even if you don't particularly need the Token part, which will cause it to be used much more often. I also changed the wording; I don't think the 'at all times' is needed.
It's simliar to embargo, but may be different enough to be a legit variant. I also see a cute interaction with Trash for benefit (i.e. put it on Remodel, play Remodel on a second Remodel and gain a Province).
Familiy Tree:
I think this has too many problems. A few you named, others are
- it's super weak (may not look that way but trust me, it is; cards which require build up are generally weaker than intuition suggests (compare it to King's Court)).
- it has tracking problems (Action-less hands)
- referencing the wording or text of cards is often a messy way to go about stuff
- the effect is probably unclear in a bunch of cases
- can probably cause infinite turns somehow
Rainboom:
May be okay, but I suspect that it's almost identical to Tactician in most sets, and much worse in most sets where it's not. Usually, whenver you have a lot of options in Tactician sets, you want to play it with fewer cards than 5 on hand, not more. The biggest difference is that it allows you to integreate a few high value treasure cards into your Tactician deck, which is pretty good... might be enough.
Staff:
Flavor is awesome.
The on-play seems pretty similar to Talisman in early game, which is weak, but that's fine for a 3$ with an on-buy effect. Said effect is pretty neat - if you have say an early gold, you can buy it with a hand of GCCCC and upgrade 4 coppers into silvers and stuff like that. This is actually probably the card I like most.
I'd suggest a different wording though:
Gain a Silver, putting it into your hand. Discard 2 Cards.
When you buy this, reveal your hand and choose any number of Treasure cards in it. Trash the chosen cards and gain one Silver per card trashed this way.
Top half because you want ot stay as close to published cards with your wording as possible (see Explorer and Horse Traders); bottom half because the order of resolution is more distinctly defined this way.
Sun/Moon:
Uh... hm. Not sure how much I can say about the mechanic, whether or not it's good really depends on where you want to go with this expansion. On this subforum, I think we tend to judge all cards as if they try to mimic official cards (which a lot of them do), and as such I'd sagree with Asper that the mechanic is probably not worth it. That's the kind of thing which is likely to cause a ton of problems; you addressed some of them, but your throne room ruling actually seems counter intuitive to me, and the Wishing Well ruling is just kind of arbitrary. If you have different intentions, though, these concerns might not really matter.
Independent of that, Moon seems too strong and Sun a little bit too weak. Sifting 2 cards on every turn for free? That's worth a ton, and the card is very easy to get. If it was just moon, I'd say it has to cost at least 5$. And a delayed woodcutter is... well, worse than a woodcutter, which is already weak. There is a point to be made for flexibility though.
With Doctor:
Im pretty pessmisitic about this one. Firstly, it's crazy strong. Early on, it'll trash 2 cards, draw 1, and hand out curses. That's, like, quite a bit better than witch, which is one of the strongest 5$'s, so I'd put it at 6$+. It's also very swingy... and not realy in a good way. Revealing Gold-Curse-Province is just so much worse than Gold-Curse-Copper, similarly to how hitting Estate compares to hitting Copper with Swindler, which a lot of people complain about.
If you want to keep it, though, I'd suggest this wording:
Look at the top three cards of your deck. Trash any number of them. If you trashed exactly two, each other player gains a Curse. Otherwise, gain a Curse.
Wrap Up:
Self-counting cards are tricky, like I said above, and yes, it seems a little strong with +Action - it also looks a little weak without the +Action though.
I'd suggest this wording:
+1 Action
You may trash a card from your hand.
While this is in play, whenever you trash a card, (you may (?)) gain a card costing up to 2$ more than it.
It might also be worth considering to have the coin difference scale, rather than the number of cards gained. Like, 'gain a card costing up to 2$ more per Wrap Up in play.'
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I don't see any advantage to the token idea, though, since it seems to add more fiddly bits and be harder to keep track of with no change in function.
Well, the only real advantage is that it avoids the problems a card with two possible names introduces, or those that come with a card that can be played as one of two things.
Neither tokens nor a two-sided card are actually necessary, by the way:
"Choose one:
At the start of your next turn: +1 Buy; +$2; return this card to your hand. or:
At the start of your next turn: +2 Cards; discard 2 cards from your hand; Play this again."
You'd still have to track which choice you took, but how you do that in practice would be up to you. Use tokens if you want, or turn the card around. In a way, both the two-sided card and my token variant are nothing but this card above PLUS instructions on how to track your choice.
Obviously, putting the choice later (at the start of your turn) wouldn't only make this card much more simple, but also a bit boring.
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Library Tree | Action-Victory | $4
Gain a Library Tree or trash this card. If you do either one: +2 Cards, +2 Actions.
2VP
A card for speeding up the game. Library Tree is there for you at the start, but eventually you have to outgrow it, or else keep it around for sentimental points value without actually playing it anymore.
With this wording, you can choose to gain a Library Tree (but fail to do so), yet getting +2 Cards, +2 Actions, making this a cheap Lost City that is worth 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/12px-VP.png) and gains copies of itself.
I would change the wording to
Library Tree | Action-Victory | $4
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Choose one: Trash this card; or gain a Library Tree. If you did not, trash this card.
2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/12px-VP.png)
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Library Tree | Action-Victory | $4
Gain a Library Tree or trash this card. If you do either one: +2 Cards, +2 Actions.
2VP
A card for speeding up the game. Library Tree is there for you at the start, but eventually you have to outgrow it, or else keep it around for sentimental points value without actually playing it anymore.
With this wording, you can choose to gain a Library Tree (but fail to do so), yet getting +2 Cards, +2 Actions, making this a cheap Lost City that is worth 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/12px-VP.png) and gains copies of itself.
But it says "if you do". Choosing to do a thing and doing it is not the same.
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But it says "if you do". Choosing to do a thing and doing it is not the same.
yes. you don't always draw a card with soothsayer either, even thoguh you always 'choose' to gain the curse.
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Thanks for many more replies! This is the last set for this week, and I hope to take a more detailed look through people's thoughts over the weekend. (Soothsayer does strike me as the correct card to look at for determining whether you can have gained a card that does not exist; the answer would seem to be no.)
(http://i.imgur.com/IkLkHMB.jpg)
Rodeo | Action-Victory | $4
Discard this card. Starting with the player to your left, give each player chances to discard a Victory card from his hand until all pass consecutively. Whoever discarded the most (but at least one) cards gains a Gold; second, Silver; third, Copper.
2VP
Like Cottage, this is here to make victory cards less inherently undesirable to have in your deck. It's loosely derived from Tournament (hence the name) but without the restriction to only Provinces.
- Since Rodeo discards itself, it is not afterwards in play for such cards as Peddler or Horn of Plenty, though it does count as a played Action for Conspirator.
- Rodeo itself is among the cards discarded for the purposes of determining who discarded the most, unless it is played more than once (e.g. Throne Room), in which case it cannot successfully discard itself the second time.
- All players must pass consecutively to end the Rodeo. In the meantime, a player can pass on one opportunity to discard a card but then take a later one.
- In the event of a tie, each tying player gets the reward. For example, in a four-player game where two players each discard three cards, one player discards two, and one player discards none, the first two players each gain a Gold and the third player gains a Silver.
(http://i.imgur.com/cwhumgb.jpg)
Runway | Victory | $6+
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. If you do, gain two cards each costing up to the amount you overpaid.
3VP
Takes Stonemason's on-buy and makes it less restrictive but attached to a more expensive card. Good for those games where you end up with $14 or more but no buys. Even if you're not quite that wealthy, Runway gives a decent number of VP itself, to make buying it and two other cards a more plausible alternative to a Province.
(http://i.imgur.com/ZjruLHV.jpg)
Weather Factory | Victory-Reaction | $5
2VP
When you trash a card, you may reveal this from your hand and put this on top of your deck. If you do, put the trashed card at the bottom of your deck.
A simple card for saving stuff you don't want trashed, whether it was hit by opponents' attack cards or by trash-for-benefit stuff. Gives some points too.
- If the card being trashed has its own ability that triggers when it is trashed, you choose the order in which to resolve the two cards. For example, with Fortress, you could resolve Fortress first, in which case Fortress would return to your hand and Weather Factory would be put on top of your deck, or you could resolve Weather Factory first, in which case Weather Factory would still be put on top of your deck but Fortress would be put at the bottom of your deck.
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Okay, onto the rest.
Crystal Castle:
It's a pseudo trasher that gets rid of 1 card each turn and puts them all back and produces $ when you can't set stuff aside anymore. I think this might work; it's bad in really slim decks, but that's okay-ish.
The execution seemy a bit wonky though. I don't think it needs to be a treasure card. How about this:
Crystal Castle - Action - Duration - 4$
At the start of each of your buy phases, choose one: Set aside a card from your hand onto your Castle mat; or (+1$ and) discard this and all cards on your castle mat and +1$ per card discarded.
This way it also doesn't have separate 'set aside areas' for each castle, which I think your version does. Is that desirable?
Cottage:
This could be fine as is - althoguh I would consider removing the +Action.
Library Tree:
This I don't think works. For one, it'd almost always be the right choice to open with it, and then it'd rarely ever be in your deck at the end of the game. +2 cards, +2 actions is just that good. You'd have to nerf it significantly, but even then I'm pessimistic about the concept. I have no fixes.
Rock Farm:
This has some fundamental problems. You usually don't want to trash expensive cards, so it'd just be used to trash coppers, curses and estates. Whenever you trash one of the first two, you'd usually gain an estate for it, which is not very fun. But even worse is, if you try to make it worth points by trashing something good, your opponent can just take that away from you, simply by playnig his own rock farm. The only way to avoid this is to get your card into the trash on the turn that you end the game, which is ridiculously swingy and luck dependent and not always possible. It's an interesting idea, but I don't see it working.
Rodeo:
I really don't know about this one. My experience with this concept is bad, but I can't pinpoint a specific problem with this particular effect.
Runway:
The existing base Victory Cards plus Colony follow an implicit pattern of having a cost ascent of 3$ and a value ascent of 1 more than the previous one. If you continued that, the card above colony would cost 14$ and be worth 15 VP (in fact I have seen someone suggesting this exact card, forgot what he called it), which happens to be exactly what Runway does if you use it to buy 2 provinces (does this mean your card is necessarily correctly priced? ... maybe not but isn't it intersting?) The big difference is, your card doesn't slow down the game, at least not in the same way Colony+ does, but it can still make these kinds of investments viable - which is a good thing.
So, yeah, nice one. I can't even really think of any problems!
Weather Factory:
Kudos for not using 'would' here. I've seen quite a lot of cards that 'save' your trashed cards, but I think this is my favorite one. I would suggest to remove the topdecking though - just discard weahter factory. (I know that stops you from being able to use it next turn, but I'd still remove it.) Maybe you can topdeck the trashed card instead?
About your rule clarification: I'm like 70% sure that this actually contradicts pre-existing rules and that the effect of trashed cards have to resolve first. I'm also like 60% sure that, if used on a fortress, the lose track rule would apply and your card thereby fails to put fortress on the bottom of your deck.
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and I hope to take a more detailed look through people's thoughts over the weekend
This didn't happen. Oh well. Time for Discord, then.
(http://i.imgur.com/LJSlyYe.jpg)
Alicorn Amulet | Action | $3
You may gain a Curse into your hand. Reveal your hand; +5CC per Curse in your hand.
Gain any number of differently named non-Victory cards from the supply, paying their costs with CC.
Alicorn Amulet makes curses not so bad to have around, even if they still give you -1VP. It introduces a mechanic that shows up on several of Discord's cards, the Curse Currency. (or Curse Coins. or Curse Credit. whichever you like best.) Like $, you start with 0 CC at the beginning of each turn no matter how much you had last time. Various cards, Alicorn Amulet included, give you the ability to gain cards by spending CC, usually an equal amount to the $ cost of the card. This does not count as buying them for the purposes of on-gain abilities. "Spending" CC (/paying with it) works as you would expect: you can spend an amount of CC on something if (your current CC) minus (the amount of CC you want to spend) is greater than or equal to 0.
- If you play a second Alicorn Amulet in a turn, it may be used to gain cards that the first one already gained. The restriction to "differently-named" cards applies only within a single play of Alicorn Amulet.
- When playing with a supply pile whose individual cards have different names, you may gain multiple cards from that supply pile so long as none of the cards gained are duplicates of one another. For example, you could gain up to five different cards from the Ruins pile, or as many cards from the Knights pile as you could afford.
(http://i.imgur.com/v1RZMLU.jpg)
Assertiveness Seminar | Action-Reaction | $3
You may gain a card costing up to $3.
When you gain a card, you may set this aside from your hand with the gained card. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, play this and take the set aside card into your hand.
Better than Watchtower/Royal Seal at getting cards into your next hand, since you'll end up with 6 cards instead of 5, but only works once at a time.
- Assertiveness Seminar and the card set aside by it are still considered part of your deck at the end of the game.
(http://i.imgur.com/mDOY403.jpg)
Battle of the Bands | Action-Attack | $5
Choose one: each other player gains a Curse; or gain a card, paying its cost with CC; or each player (even you) reveals and discards the top three cards from his deck. If at least one Curse was revealed, +3CC and play this card again.
Fill up your opponents' decks with curses and then capitalize off that to gain expensive cards, or else make good on your own curse-laden deck. Unlike Alicorn Amulet, Battle of the Bands may be used to gain Victory cards, so it takes more work to build up.
(http://i.imgur.com/xa8pvbS.jpg)
Blue Flu | Action | $2
+3 Actions
Trash a card from the supply whose supply pile would not end the game by being depleted.
There are a lot of terminal actions in Discord, so +3 felt about right. It also can speed up the game a bit by getting you closer to the three-empty-decks point, or at least target things your opponents are buying that you don't want to put in your own deck just so they couldn't have them. Doesn't work to trash Provinces, Colonies, or anything at all once two other decks have been depleted.
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(http://i.imgur.com/F7sGNDz.jpg)
This is a super complicated card. You can get the same idea across, without nearly as many complications, this way:
Choose one: set aside an Action card from your hand, other than Smudged Family Tree, on your Smudged Family Tree mat; or play up to two Actions from your mat, returning them to the mat when you discard them from play.
This doesn't LITERALLY staple the two cards together, but it has most of the same effect (playing SFT gets you the effects of both cards each time you play it), without going completely off the rails with new, super-complex rules interactions. The biggest difference is that you can't play multiple SFT in one turn (and get the effects of the same two cards you set aside, since they're in play). I think the simpler wording (and the minor ability of being able to have more than two cards on the mat to choose from) more than makes up for that, though. Power level is probably different now too, but things can be recosted.
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The "up to two" thing is enticing--another way to get rid of a Chapel past its prime!--but I wouldn't want to be unable to play the card more than once in a turn. I'm currently leaning towards playing invisible copies of the mat cards.
For one, it'd almost always be the right choice to open with it, and then it'd rarely ever be in your deck at the end of the game. +2 cards, +2 actions is just that good.
This is an apt summary, correct.
Rock Farm: honestly, 2VP for $3 is still respectable.
(http://i.imgur.com/w5qObz4.jpg)
Dragon | Action-Attack-Duration | $4
+$3
At the start of your next turn, +$1
At the start of every Buy phase of every player (including you), until this leaves play, that player gets -$2.
A slight boost in $ the turn you play it, a slight decrease the next turn, and everyone else gets hurt worse.
(http://i.imgur.com/OYxYPhv.jpg)
Inspiration Manifestation | Action-Reaction | $5
Put any number of Curses from your discard pile into your hand.
When you buy a card costing up to $4, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, put the Curse token on the supply pile it came from. Thereafter, Curses are -1VP but inherit the types+description (not name or cost) of the card with the Curse token.
This was a much more interesting card before Adventures was announced and did almost exactly the same thing with Estates. :( It uses only a single token, though, unlike all the Adventures stuff, so as with Pawn Shop and Rock Farm, other players can work to screw you out of whatever gimmick you set up. If they're willing to buy a $5 Reaction and then buy a useless card just for that purpose, anyway. Also it puts the token on a pile, so I guess if the pile runs out the inheritance stops working.
(http://i.imgur.com/ki51RWs.jpg)
Miracle Tonic | Action-Duration | $5
Set aside up to five cards from your hand face down with this card.
Each Buy phase this is in play, +$1 per card so set aside, then discard one of those cards at random. If there are none still so set aside, discard this card.
Sort of the inverse of Crystal Castle; a Secret Chamber that keeps working (but deteriorates) over time. If you set aside four cards, for example, that's $4 right away, $3 the next turn, $2 the turn after that, and then finally $1 and Miracle Tonic gets discarded.
(http://i.imgur.com/PyLJFb6.jpg)
Mirror Pool | Action | $4
Play this as if it were any card in your hand (reveal the card) or currently in play that you choose. This is that card until it leaves play.
In the simplest use case, this is weaker than a Throne Room because it takes an extra action to play. It can also be played as a treasure card, though, which Throne Room can't do, or trash/discard the in-hand card it's mirroring, and even mirror cards played earlier in the turn (before Mirror Pool was drawn, say) or any durations floating around. For maximum effect, mirror somebody else's Champion or Hireling.
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(http://i.imgur.com/V44a1bm.jpg)
Unfinished Spell | Action | $4
Trash two cards from your hand. Gain two cards from the supply with the same combined cost as the trashed cards'.
When you trash this card, gain a card costing up to $2 more than the card that trashed it.
A mini-Forge that can grant you a little more flexibility in its output, though it may just stick you with some copper instead.
(http://i.imgur.com/YzrsjZE.jpg)
Vampire Fruit Bats | Action | $5-
Trash any number of Treasure cards from your hand; +2CC per card trashed. Gain a treasure into your hand, paying CC for it.
When you buy this, you may underpay for it (not less than $0). For each $1 you underpaid, gain a Copper.
A card like none other for building up your Coppersmiths/Counting Houses/Gardens, plus a Mine that consumes multiple treasures at a time.
(http://i.imgur.com/mGa6hXG.jpg)
Windigoes | Action-Attack | $5
+5CC
Spend CC freely on these benefits:
4: Each other player gains a Curse.
3: Each other player discards a card.
2: +1$
1: +1 Action
x: Gain a card costing $x-1.
If cards as bought are goods, shouldn't there be a way to buy services instead? Also features an instance of paying a different CC amount for a card than its $ cost. I'm leaning toward the initial allowance being +4CC instead of 5, though, to make a hand of two Windigoes less absurdly powerful.
(http://i.imgur.com/oFo1aC0.jpg)
Quarray Eel | Treasure | $5
While this is in play, Action cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0.
When you take this from the top of your deck (to look at/reveal it or to draw it into your hand), you may put this into play and use the next card from your deck instead.
A sort of treasure cantrip; basically the moment you see the card, you can put it into play at no opportunity cost, and then you pick up another card (for whatever purpose) and pretend Quarray Eel was never there at all. If you play Cartographer and it's one of the top four cards, you can put it into play instantly and then add the fifth card from your deck to the set of four cards you're looking at. If someone plays Spy and it's on top of your deck, your next turn just got that much better. But this is only may -- you can treat it as a normal card if you want to, e.g. if you just want Ironmonger to give you +$1.
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I don't know about all those Curse Currency shenanigans. And the number of cards you post here is quite overwhelming. I'd rather see your reactions to the comments because pretty good points have been made so far and several of your cards probably require adjustment. I'll just say some things that popped into my mind.
Unfinished Spell and Vampire Fruit Bats offer some very cute and original bottom-line mechanics. Unfortunately both cards seem pretty weak to me. Quarrey Eels is also incredibly weak and the bottom-line effect is insignificant because it's a Treasure that you can easily play anyway. Both the bottom and and its active effect depend on other cards to be any good at all. It could cost $2 and still be bad.
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I don't know about all those Curse Currency shenanigans. And the number of cards you post here is quite overwhelming. I'd rather see your reactions to the comments because pretty good points have been made so far and several of your cards probably require adjustment. I'll just say some things that popped into my mind.
I second this. While nice looking mockups are cool, it's always good to see that criticism is actually considered. If it's not, commenting on cards becomes pretty pointless. Unless of course, you consider your cards a present to the community and just want us to stare at them in awe.
Also, Quarray Eal is a Treasure worth $0 and should reflect that on both its upper edges and a big coin in the description. Compare Horn of Plenty, which is worth $0, and Quarry, where the value written on the edges equals the big coin in its center and ignores its cost reduction completely.
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I think the general consensus on cards which use Curses was always that one of two things must be true:
A: Curses are now good cards -> every card which deals out curses is now useless
B: Curses are still bad cards -> you won't buy curses, so you can only use those cards if there is a junker in the set
Neither one is necessarily a death sentence, but both are pretty bad.
Maybe with the currency instead of plain curses it's different, I'm not sure - haven't taken a closer look at them yet. It might also be different if the card also deals out curses itself.
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And the number of cards you post here is quite overwhelming.
That's why I've been spreading them out over multiple days... posts in other threads have mentioned that three or four cards is a good number to have in a post. I apologize if you feel that 24 hour intervals were too small, but I've had a feeling of wanting to get this over with.
I'd rather see your reactions to the comments because pretty good points have been made so far and several of your cards probably require adjustment.
I have been responding to comments, if not every single one, if only because some of my responses would be "hmm, that's an interesting point, I'll think about it" or something appropriately synonymous and that doesn't really add anything. And a few comments have been little more than "I don't think this works" and there's just not much to say in response to that, is there? "I disagree"? Again, not really worth the words.
But to take some more positive examples... Some of the comments on Fruit Bats in particular were quite helpful. I'm currently thinking of borrowing a trick from Raze:
Fruit Bats | Action | $3
+1 Buy
+$1
Trash this card or a card from your hand. +$1 per Fruit Bats in the trash.
I've responded to the discussion around Smudged Family Tree. Here's another draft (not yet edited to make sure it'd fit on a card), taking into account people's thoughts about its buildup speed and its ease of implementation:
Smudged Family Tree | Action | 7
You may play invisible copies of up to two cards from your Family Tree mat. They will cease to exist when they leave play.
When you gain an Action card while Smudged Family Tree is in play, you may place it on your Family Tree mat.
I'm pretty much okay with removing the base +1 Action from Cottage. I like that it's a Village if you have only one other victory card, but that's not really necessary for it to function. I've been thinking about alternate Library Tree approaches but haven't come to any conclusions yet.
I am also wary of being perceived as overly defensive, or else "threadsitting" by talking too much instead of letting other people present their thoughts. If I am erring too much on the side of caution, however, I can definitely go into responses a bit more later today.
Vampire Fruit Bats offer some very cute and original bottom-line mechanics. Unfortunately both cards seem pretty weak to me.
I think being able to trash three Coppers at once and get a Gold into your hand in exchange is quite useful, particularly if you can gain some extra Coppers while buying the card to make it more likely to draw that hand more than once, and it's a card you can buy in the very first turn of the game. You would disagree?
Quarrey Eels is also incredibly weak and the bottom-line effect is insignificant because it's a Treasure that you can easily play anyway. Both the bottom and and its active effect depend on other cards to be any good at all. It could cost $2 and still be bad.
I think you are missing the words "or to draw it into your hand"? Even if you have nothing for specifically looking or revealing at cards, it's still a cantrip that works even with terminal drawers.
Unless of course, you consider your cards a present to the community and just want us to stare at them in awe.
Really?
Also, Quarray Eal is a Treasure worth $0 and should reflect that on both its upper edges and a big coin in the description
Yes, this was my mistake, thanks. I forgot to change those to $0 from a previous version.
It might also be different if the card also deals out curses itself.
One of them does, yes. Alicorn Amulet lets you give yourself curses but gets you expensive cards to compensate, and Battle of the Bands makes use of other people having curses (and lets you give them those curses in the first place). Only Inspiration Manifestation wanders in the "Curses are now good cards" approach, but they're still worth -1 point to you; it's more of an alternative to trashing the things.
Almost done; weird stuff tomorrow.
(http://i.imgur.com/6J7eipc.jpg)
Rusty Horseshoe | Treasure | $4
-1 Buy (not less than 0)
+3CC
You may gain a card, paying its cost with CC. If you do, +2 Cards.
It didn't feel right having every CC card being an action, since normally you gain other cards using treasure. Rusty Horseshoe gives you a good bit of cursed money and a decent bump for gaining something, but leans you away from using normal treasures, at least unless you have one of the various treasure cards that give a +1 Buy to play afterwards.
(http://i.imgur.com/6SkUjti.jpg)
Traders Exchange | Treasure | $5
+1 Buy
When you play this, exchange $, CC, Potions, and Buys freely at 1:1 rates. However, a total may not change from 0 to 1, nor vice versa.
Convert everything into money, or else fill yourself up with extra buys to gorge yourself on copper or something. The 0-1 boundary restriction is in place to keep the card from being strictly superior to Potion cards.
(http://i.imgur.com/434P47l.jpg)
Crystal Heart | Victory | $8*
During your Buy phase, this card costs $2 less for every face up Attack card you have in play, but not less than $0
Worth 6VP minus 1VP for every Attack card in your deck, but not less than 0VP.
An early idea was that a pony world would probably have some strong thoughts about Attack cards, but it's hard to refer to specific types of cards if you can't guarantee they'll be present in the kingdom. (Squire is weird.) An earlier version of Windigoes did try, but it read as too similar to Battle of the Bands and then Soldier came along with a similar concept. So this was the only such card that really made it through, by encouraging you to build up an attack force early but then disband it before the game ends. Or in the simplest possible kingdom, it pretty much doubles the number of provinces in the game, which could have an interesting effect on strategy.
(http://i.imgur.com/WHPJqLr.jpg)
Poison Joke | Victory-Reaction | $1
Worth 6VP minus 2VP per Poison Joke in your deck (no lower limit).
When another player plays an Attack, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do: he gains a card from your hand; discard this card; you are unaffected by the Attack.
Immunity from an attack at the cost of a card you hopefully don't want. Naturally, if the card you give the other player is the Poison Joke itself, you can ignore the instruction to discard it. In a perfect world you want only one of these in your deck; two is fine; and anything more than that starts being a problem.
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Unless of course, you consider your cards a present to the community and just want us to stare at them in awe.
Really?
I might have applied a bit too much cynicism. So, sorry for that. Nevertheless, your posts seem to focus much more on presenting new cards than on considering or commenting feedback. It gives me the impression that this thread is more about "How do you like this?" than about "Help me with this". Which is fine, i guess, but i'm not sure it makes sense for me to give much feedback, then. I can say "I like" or "I don't like", but that's not exactly what you want to hear either, i guess.
A try though: I think Quarray Eel's main probem is that it's not sufficiently different from Highway. Sure, it can't be drawn dead, and on the other hand every Eel in your turn's starting hand lacks the cantrip part; and yes, you can get it by revealing it or looking at it (thanks, Hunting Party), and it works only for Actions. But i feel those things together are not enough, especially considering how complex and wordy it is. And then there's the fact that, with the current wording you can put the card in play as you draw cards for next turn, making it reduce costs for everyone until you discard it next turn. Cool for Possession and Outpost, i guess, but that's it. Apart from those, it's just another reason to go with the simpler Highway (or the also simpler Quarry).