One of my favorite little cards in CH is Toughened Hide Strips. Not because it's particularly powerful or anything, but because I find myself feeling clever when I discard it at end of turn, or with leadership, or when forced to from those darn short perplexing rays. I'd like to see more cards with effects like this. It also might help to mitigate the power of short perplexing rays, which (in my opinion) seem a little too good, but in general I just like the idea of turning discarding into an advantage. More armor cards with discard effects would be nice (especially because armor is generally inferior to mobility in my experience, and could use more motivation to be used), but having some cards that specifically trigger when discarded would be cool too. Some ideas for cool discard trigger cards (and a few misc ideas): Billowing Cloak (Armor): Armor 1. If this card is discarded, Free Move 4. Greased Leather (Armor): Armor 2, Keep. If this card is discarded, move 1. Duelist's Breastplate (Armor): Armor 3, Keep. If this card is discarded, attach to self. Penetrating, Frenzy 1, duration 2. Backpack (Utility): At the end of your turn, draw a card, and then discard a card. Keep. If this card would be discarded, all characters within 1 square of you draw a card, including you. Acid Flask (Magic): Damage 3, burst 1. Range 6. Target terrain squares become acid terrain. If this card would be discarded, it is instead cast targeting yourself. Think Ahead (Utility): Draw a card. If this card is discarded, draw 2. Distracting Thoughts (Drawback): If you would play a card, cancel that card. 3+. If this card is discarded, draw a card. Mind War (Magic): Damage 0. Add 2 damage or each card in target's hand. Range 6. Insanity (Unholy): Move target 1 square for each card in hand. Just some thoughts.
You could also have cards that trigger when an effect controlled by an opponent forces you to discard them. Exploding Plate (Armor): Armor 3, Keep. If this card is discarded by an spell played by an enemy, deal 6 damage to that enemy. Note that the high damage on the trigger would be offset by the fact that an armor would likely be revealed to the opponent.
Being revealed isn't much of an offset. Armor 3 you just NEED to get off of an enemy, unless it has a roll 6 requirement or something. And most armor removal takes it all off. And a person might not have armor removal on multiple characters, so he doesn't get to choose who removes it and takes the hit. Love Acid Flask.
Hmm Acid Flask, opens up all types of Flasks, IE: Fire Freeze Lightning Smoke or even Flasks of Alchemy. Pot of Flame. Icy Shot Glass, someone would have a better name. Lightning in a Bottle. Smoke filled Jar. Flasks of Alchemy could be random effect. Duration could be based in card colour.
I really like the idea of flask cards, however I think positive discard triggers should be added before negative ones are. I especially like the smoke filled jar idea, because then you might actually -want- to discard it to trigger on yourself (Leadership a flask to efficiently protect your team from wizards; that'd be clever!). A potion of healing could also work like that.
Great idea. I personally would love an alchemist class that could throw all sorts of potions around to do damage, change terrain and otherwise be a general nuisance. Poison gas potions? Glue pots? Smoke bombs? Napalm? (does no damage in and of itself but increases burning damage by 2 and burning duration by 1) Of course, you need to balance this with the chance to accidentally drop a potion and have some oops moments. Any type of card that gives players a chance to be sneaky/clever gets a big thumbs up from me. p.s. icy shot glass? Snow Globe....
There we go Snow Globe much better name. And maybe to balance things out they could be Roll based, Fumble and it drops at your feet.
It could be interesting to have a "reversed class" which had roll based attacks, but mostly guaranteed success defenses. The other approach to a roll based class would be fumble possibility on using the attack, balanced not by a high attack value, but rather by a Keep attribute. So he can fling grenades all day long, till his luck runs out...
Some block or attack cards with discard effects would also be cool, because it might make some of the less mitigate-able drawback cards like fumble or dropped guard more useful. I never include them in my decks due to their tendencies to be more of a liability than the cards they come with, but if discarding had more advantages I might consider it. How about: Reserved Strike: Attack 8. If this card would be discarded, instead step 4 and play this card. Focused Stance: Block 4+. If this card would be discarded, instead attach this card to self with Frenzy 3, duration 2. This could also encourage players holding on to more cards so that they can discard certain things at the end of turn, which would be neat.
I would say that Magic cards with discard bonuses should be very rarely created. There are quite a few magic specific discard mechanics, and they are intended to be mage counters for low mobility/control teams IMO. Putting people in the position to be afraid to use that counter doesn't quite feel right. But for warriors, priests and any new class built around the mechanic... go for it!
Not to mention that when you start trying to create magic cards with weird mechanics like discard bonuses, it gets harder to name them, and you wind up with a lot of weird stuff that isn't traditional fantasy. One of my favorite things about Card Hunter is that the cards don't stray too far from traditional dnd items/mechanics. The armor cards aren't "Mindbound Mithril Mage Mail", they're just "Chainmail", or "Heavy Armor". As opposed to MTG, where they long ago ran out of being able to call items standard things, so now everything is "Frizzling Backbolt Barrage" or "Crazed Ur-Berzerker Brawler" or some other outlandish thing. I like how Card Hunter keeps it simple. I think they can take a few more liberties with melee and movement cards, but personally I'd like to see the magic stay close to "classic" dnd fantasy. If I were on the team, I would just go through corebooks and splatbooks looking for cool spells that could work in cardhunter. I really like the unimplemented boost cards that are sort of like metamagic; can't wait to see those in the game!
