There are a lot of threads out there that glance off of this idea that "It seems silly every time I have a turn where my Fighter has a handful of Run and Armor cards and can't attack at all." So, there's an easy way to solve this: give each class a Default Action. Once per turn, that class can expend a card -- any card -- to perform their Default Action. The Default Action could be as simple as a Simple Strike for everyone, but why stop there? What if the Fighter's default action was Simple Strike, but the Mage's was Zap, and the Cleric's was Heal? Or something? You'd have the opportunity, once per turn, to drag a card over your character's icon and drop it to transform it into the appropriate Default Action and immediately execute it. Maybe with a confirmation, IDK. Thoughts?
Interesting idea. What if the default movement card becomes a combo card based on their class? Dwarf fighter could have Walk/Bludgeon. Elf mage has Dash/Zap. These cards could only be used for one or the other. This would solve the problem of not drawing any attack cards in a round, while having the drawback of possibly not being able to move that round to utilize it.
It seems like mages would get the short end of the stick with these suggestions. For a fighter, even a Weak Strike (power 2) can be turned into a 8+ power attack with various buffs. Cleric being able to spontaneously convert a card to Heal per turn gives you a guaranteed 4 heal per turn on top of what you already draw, seems kind of strong especially with a Talented Healer/Altruism card engine going. As for mages, Zap is only 4 damage at 2 range, not much really. Having a reliable default action appeals to me, but I'm not sure what those actions should be.
No offense intended here, but you do realize you're complaining because the Wizard gets an attack that does more damage and at greater range than the Fighter does, right?
It seems a good idea, so long as the default action is pretty weak by comparison with current gear (it can improve with character level). An alternative might be to have a decent default action that you can trade a card for, but only once per combat. Kind of like a Daily Power in DnD. Of course if that's unrestricted, people won't save it for when they have a bad draw ;-)
Honestly at this level of damage both attacks are kind of useless, not something you would want to put in your deck in the first place. However the usual fighter strategy can make this card into something useful. You've got Unholy Wellspring and Mass Frenzy going and draw no attack cards? You can still hit for 10 with your default action. Compare with a mage, what would happen if you draw no useful card? Well you could use your default action to walk into spear/step cards range and deal 4 damage and then die horribly. Or forget the default action run the hell away. I don't see many situation where dealing 4 damage is worth getting your mage killed. I'd rather have a weaker long range attack that would let me waste enemy block cards at least.
I have been in situations where all I needed to do was draw one attack card between two different characters and it would make the difference between probably losing and turning the round around and being in a strong position, and not drawing one. A single mage zap in this situation is incredibly useful. Also don't underestimate the range of 2 and the fact that it is not a melee attack and can therefore not be normally blocked or parried. I believe the intention of the idea is to have better options throughout the game, not just in end-game scenarios where ones fighter regularly has +8 damage buffs. Even in that situation, if you spent several cards and turns and suffered the drawbacks to get these buffs on your fighter and feel the need to sacrifice your default move to do 10 damage that can still be blocked, parried, or reduced by armor, I don't think that is hugely overpowered at that point. I do see your point, and healers are in the same boat with free heals that would benefit from traits and such. If it really would be overpowered the default attack card could be a unique card that specifically states that it only does the base damage max, and doesn't benefit from traits or other damage increasing cards. Another drawback to my idea of a combo-default-card could be that you can have one at a time. This way you wouldn't be able to save them up and use several in one turn like you currently can with the default movement cards. Not sure if this is a good idea or how it would affect movement across turns as it currently works. Just another thought.
I don't think any of the suggestions are overpowered, just that they're hard to balance correctly. Now that I think about it more, Zap does have an advantage in the single player campaign, as would Simple Strike actually. Zombies with Resistant Hide (immune to Acid, Poison, Electricity, Fire) and skeletons with Only Bones (immune to piercing/slashing melee damage) can catch the player unaware. Zap (Arcane) and Simple Strike (Crushing) can bypass these. It would give a kind of last resort against those enemies for decks not prepared for them. That would require making it a weaker action, but letting choose that option every turn though. Instead of getting an healing holy card to avoid piling on Altruism/Talented Healer synergy, clerics could get a life leech card as default action. Scaling those default actions along character level we could have something like... Fighter: Level 1+: Weak Strike Level 5+: Simple Strike Level 10+: Bludgeon Cleric: Level 1+: Sapping Touch Level 5+: Draining Touch Level 10+: Consuming Touch Mage Level 1+: Little Zap Level 5+: Zap Level 10+: Big Zap The fighter cards are weaker, but they can be buffed. Not sure if that's a decent trade off as far as single player campaign is involved.
What about a card that can't be buffed? The cards would be like Nirvana said but they couldn't be buffed. (I don't know if they are still making cards or even if they can make this)
For the campaign I don't see a problem with this. Multiplier however it would just be another mess IMO. More wasted cards than anything.
Could always replace with new wizard cards that say "ping for 1, 2, 3 Arcane damage at 4 or 6 range". I was thinking the 2, 3, 4 damage sparks since they have range but they're Electric and I wanted it Arcane for Resistant Hide. And the long range Arcane cards seemed too good to be free cards, that's how the zaps ended up there.
Just to add to my own idea: you could give each class a reasonably powerful class-related action that is always available to them, but to use it they must discard two cards (its power would be similar to that of one ordinary card they would typically hold at their character level) . A fighter would get a melee attack, a wizard would get a short-range bolt of some kind, and a priest would get something that gives everyone a small heal. Possibly the attack and bolt would be of a random damage type, to ensure they have some chance of success in most cases even when enemies have immunities. For added interest, improved or alternative versions of this action could be placed on some class skill items. I think this would be a reasonable way of addressing complaints about bad draws when in close quarters to the enemy. It should ameliorate situations when players have no good cards, without harming balance or immersion too much, and it adds a potentially interesting new way to differentiate gear.
A better balance point might be 'discard any two cards' to perform your action. Maybe something like warrior - dmg 3, cleric - heal 2 range 4, wizard dmg 2 range 4. You should have to give up more than one card or blocks will need to be rebalanced around all the cheap ways to get rid of them.
