I really like Davio's suggestion of making it a one-shot top-half, especially one that benefits you late in the game. The theme of your set is one-shots, and having a useful reaction on a one-shot top half seems like a really cool, unique way of doing a one-shot. You use it just as a reaction early on, and then later when the reaction is not so useful any more and the top half is useful, you trash it to get the most out of it. The +$2 per victory card thing is one way you could go. Something else I've been thinking of is "Trash this and gain a Duchy". You use it to gain Conscripts until you think it's getting close to the end of the game, and then turn it into VP. If you hang onto it too long you may not have time to get the Duchy, but if you trash it too soon you might miss out on some Conscripts.
I voted for discard pile in the poll, but I think if you do end up making it a one-shot, it should probably gain the Conscripts to top-deck to make sure that the bottom half doesn't go unused (otherwise it might be the norm to pick it up for the top half and trash it without ever using the reaction).
I appreciate the thought, and while my set does have a one-shot theme, not all the cards can be one-shots and a Reaction seems like a poor fit (unless the reaction portion itself is a one-shot à la Fool's Gold). If you get to use the reaction every time it comes up in your hand until the endgame when you're ready to trash it, great! If you don't, you have a dead card in your hand. And although I've often bought cards simply for their reaction ability, it's nice to at least have the
option to play them (on those turns where there's nothing better to do) without them leaving my deck. If it's a one-shot, that also means that if you draw into it during your turn, it's completely dead (unless you're ready to trash it).
If you opt not to make it a one-shot (it looks like that's what you're leaning towards right now), here are a few ideas for top halves that are stronger in kingdoms without attacks:
"Each other player reveals his hand. If no other player revealed an attack card, gain a Conscripts." This is explicit about attack cards, which I kind of don't like, but I think it's cool that it gives you attack cards to block other plays of itself. Maybe this creates a positive feedback loop though which is bad.
"+1 card/+$1/Gain a card costing up to $1/(some other benefit) per card in your hand." Specifically interacts with discarding attacks, but as long as there's any attack in the kingdom, discarding attacks are available via Conscripts, so the interaction will often be there. If there's no attacks, the reaction is irrelevant, but the top-half becomes a strong card by itself. Possibly you could do "Each other player draws a card", and then it feeds off itself and also combos with the Conscripts it gains.
Cool ideas. Again, I'd prefer an Action that doesn't gain Conscripts, but your second suggestion is along the lines of what I'm thinking.
What if you didn't make them chose between using the reaction and using the action? Do the Horse Trader thing.
This is certainly something I could do, but I'd rather not for a couple of reasons. First, the wording necessary for setting the card aside and returning it to your hand at the start of your next turn is extremely long. It takes up five lines on Horse Traders and there the actual effect is just "+1 Card". If the effect is "Gain a Conscripts from the Conscripts pile", we're looking at at least another line of text. More importantly, it's an awkward effect that's necessary on Horse Traders but not here. With Horse Traders you have to wait until the start of your next turn to draw the extra card or it's useless against discard attacks. With this card (and Beggar), it's simpler just to make sure that the reaction effect is good enough to be worth forgoing the Action effect.
Concept-wise, I think that "into the discard pile" does not fit. Gaining an attack card is already an abstraction away from "reaction that attacks back". Gaining Conscripts into the discard pile feels, to me, not much different than Tunnel. Yeah you gain an attack instead of Gold, but it doesn't feel like the reaction especially hurt the attacker. It's not immediate enough.
I agree. If it turns out that the discard pile option is the most balanced, I'll stick with it, but it will be pretty far from the original concept.
Granted, maybe it fits the bill because there is no other way to gain Conscripts... but still.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but there definitely could be another way of gaining Conscripts depending on what other cards from the set are on the table.
I voted for top of deck so that there is some immediacy, but it takes a little bit of extra work to get it in play. It's still pretty far removed though.
I've been thinking about it more, and I'm liking "top of your deck" less and less. One big reason is that the Conscripts is often not going to end up on the top of your deck after the Attack resolves. If the Attack card being played is Spy, Thief, Saboteur, Pirate Ship, Scrying Pool, Rabble, Fortune Teller, Jester, Noble Brigand, Oracle, Rogue, or a Knight, that Conscripts you gained is probably going to be in your discard pile by the time your turn comes up. If the card being played is Ghost Ship, Bureaucrat, or Sea Hag, it might be close to the top, but not there. And if it's Swindler, you're better off not using (or buying) the Reaction. As mentioned before, it would also completely foil any Attack that misses when you have 4 or fewer cards in hand.
Now you could argue that the fact that it protects against some Attacks this way is a positive trait. That's what most Reactions that react to Attacks are meant to do. And you'd have a good argument there. Beggar's the closest example. With Beggar, the Silver on your deck actually protects against many of these attacks. Sometimes it means your opponent is gaining a Silver, but whatever. But for some reason, the way topdecking the Conscripts would affect all these Attacks seems very scattershot to me and it doesn't really fit the concept of the card. I believe Beggar is
meant to defend you against some attacks. This isn't. It's more like Fool's Gold's reaction. It's meant to give your deck a boost based on what your opponents are doing.
Anyway, that's how I feel about it right now. Maybe I'll change my mind, but currently I like both "discard pile" and "hand" better than "top of your deck".
Also, if the top of the card is good enough, a player will hesitate before discarding it. Making it a one-shot cantrip could do something like that. I also really like Davio's idea, which synergizes well with kingdoms without attacks. Think about it : if someone plays a militia, which card are you going to discard ? Victory cards.
Sure. But again, I don't usually want the player to hesitate before discarding it. The Reaction should be better enough than the Action that you usually want to do it. Otherwise why even have the Reaction? You could use that below-line space to spice up the Action instead.
Another idea I got by looking at Beggar is that you could gain two cards. One of them could be pretty bad (an estate maybe) and the other could be a Conscripts. I think my idea is better but if it's too strong, that could help balance it.
This had occurred to me as well and it's definitely on my list of possible tweaks. Although it's more likely that I'll have it gain another
good card if it ends up being too weak. As Donald X. has said, people like bonuses more than penalties. I'm not worried about the weakest option (gaining a Conscripts to your discard pile) being too strong. The set has a $5 card that can gain 2 Conscripts at once and although that's powerful (like $5 cards should be), it's not crazy.
I also just realized that having many lands of war in one hand is actually really good (use one for conscripts, the other one for money + pulling conscripts). It's cool ! The more your country is war-like, the more you profit form entering a war... It needs testing though.
Hm, could be. I'll have to think about a cantrip option if the Reaction ends up top-decking the Conscripts. I'm worried that if the Action portion is a cantrip, people will load up on the card just because they can. Although if it's also a one-shot, that's obviously less of a concern.
Thanks for the responses, everyone!