Card Ideas

Diversity
Human skill card
(Use the Good For Us graphic)
Create a Bludgeon and Block card in each ally's hand.

 

Perhaps "Diversity" could be named "Battle, Soldier!" ? $:^ J

 

Diversify, Soldier!

I meant to put something in about requiring a human, elf, and a dwarf but couldn't figure out how to word it. We have cards that check for elves and dwarves. What about one that checks for diversity as a human skill? Suggestions for wording...?

 

I also like Battle, Soldier!, but I think that it's a bit off in the sense that every Do Something, Soldier! card targets a single target, while this one affects every ally. How about Call to Arms or Rally?

On that note, the synergy with Leadership is uncanny! This would also show up on human skills, which limits that somewhat. But what about an item with this card, Leadership, and, say, Vanguard (all right, I certainly am pushing this, aren't I).

As for the diversity part, hard to tell. What about something like...
If you have an ally that's an elf and an ally that's a dwarf, create a Bludgeon and a Block in each ally's hand?
A bit clunky, but I believe it gets the job done.

But in that case, I'd still change the name somewhat. Diversify, Soldier! feels a bit odd for two reasons, one is the reason mentioned above that this does not target a single character, and the other is that as you play the card, you're not diversifying; your group is already diverse, and that's what grants you the advantage (I'm nitpicking, I know, but I'm just trying to explain something rather than just being annoying, if you can believe that). I'd probably go with a name like Strength in Diversity or Cooperation or something like that.

That said, I think there's the important question whether this checks for dead allies. If it doesn't, then this (probably quite high-quality, at least based on the sheer volume of cards it creates) card does absolutely nothing as soon as you're one character down, which could be a serious hit to how powerful it could be. I like the idea, though, and it does seem to encourage diverse deckbuilding so I can definitely get behind that.

I've also had a few ideas recently. I have boring ones and even more boring ones, so everyone can rejoice!

Serendipity
Assist
Discard a card, then draw two cards.
"Quick wit is every bit as useful in the heat of battle as quick hands." - Captain Cedric Cleavehorn

Notes: This certainly feels like a card for human skills. I guess notably, it's card parity compared to the (technical) card disadvantage on Leadership, but the scale is also much smaller and it doesn't help allies, so it feels fair. Obviously this is pretty good with Officer's Harness for example, but that does assume that you're running Officer's Harness. Wind Dancer might be more problematic, but I do think that since Leadership already exists and isn't broken (despite also comboing with Officer's Harness and Wind Dancer), Serendipity definitely shouldn't be a problem. Leadership has Free Draw, but it also has card disadvantage; with Serendipity, I feel that one of its draws should be Free Draw and the other should not (traits aren't free draw, either), so I decided not to go with any.

Clinging Flame
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 1, Range 5
Burning 2, Duration 4.
"You know that little tune that keeps going on in your head no matter what you do? This is like that, except it's also fire." - Adze the Lonely

Notes: Definitely of the even more boring variety. Design-wise it really doesn't have a lot to go for it. It's more of a comment on how similar the fire cards we have are. Single-target burning 3, burst burning 2, and that's basically it. It's especially odd to me how Flame Spit is basically just a worse Flame Jet, as it's the same burning and the same duration, but it trades the ability to hit multiple targets for one more point of initial damage, a trade that I don't think is good. Clinging Flame in a vacuum is worse than Glob of Flame (same amount of damage spread over a longer time) but obviously things change as other synergy cards enter the scene. I wonder how good this would be?

Still the Flames
Utility, Magic Fire
At the start of the next turn, Burning cards you control deal no damage and don't lose duration.
"Of course, many imagine that pyromancy is all about going mad and burning everything in your path without consideration. Some certainly follow that principle, but I believe that forethought and control are as useful as they are on every other field of magic." - Oberlin Ninetower

Notes: This is maybe a little less boring but probably entirely stupid. Still, you know what this is for.

Pyrokinesis
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 1, Range 6
Trigger all Burning cards attached to target, then create a copy of one of them randomly and attach it to another target character.
"My flames will dance with you." - Akon the Pyromonius

Notes: Have I mentioned that I hopelessly like fire cards?

 

How about this?

Brainstorm
Assist, Magic
Draw a card, Free Draw. Draw an additional card (not free) for each ally within 3 squares that is a different race or class than you.

 

Ring of Water
Magic Arcane
All terrain that is adjacent to target square becomes Water Terrain (Water Terrain is impassable). Target square does not become Water Terrain.
"Hope you didn't want to go anywhere." - Rey the Noob

 

How about: "Imagine Venice without a gondola."

 

I was a bit out of it when reading earlier. Whoops! I didn't even register the original "Diversity" dealing with multiple allies. In that case... Lemme merge some ideas...

(use the Good For Us graphic)
(silver-ish quality? gold-ish quality? emerald-ish quality? it's solid, but it's not Delegate by any means)
(worded for forward-compatibility with monsters in Campaign, Mauve Manticore, League, etc.)
(intended for Human Skills)​

The word serendipity carries a meaning of "good luck." We all know from Leadership that sometimes a discard->draw can grant no such luck at all. Lol. $X^ D
Hey hey! Maybe this!! $:^ D

​

These then come to mind...

human skill item:
Diverse Flexibility
- Leadership
- Unite, Team!
- ??? (depends on Unite's value - if silver-ish, then maybe Battlefield Training or Retreat - if much higher, then maybe a black or paper card that stays in hand, like Ill-fitting Armor or Wounded Block, I dunno)

Trained Guidance
Uncommon, Level 12-ish
- Leadership
- Block, Soldier!
- Attack, Soldier!

Meanwhile, all this Human, Soldier! discussion made me realize we're missing something, and then while I gathered stuff to put it together, I realized .. it could be made more flavorful, universe-consistent, and just plain interesting.

Zap, Soldier!
Assist, Paper quality, Uncommon
Projectile Sonic
Range 5
If target is a Wizard, create and put a Zap card in target's hand. If target is not a Wizard, create and put an Arcane Feedback card in target's hand.
"This will probably help!" - Aloyzo the wizard

It could be funny to do the same with healing, but 1. there's at least precedent for non-Wizards getting Arcane Feedbacks, and 2. is there any "bad" heal besides Misguided Heal which is often better than Heal and lower anyway. (And yes, I know Arcane Feedback has double the range of Zap. But still.)

Fun discussions, folks. $:^ ]

 

Ring of Water definitely needs to specify that unoccupied squares around the target square become Water terrain, unless you want to drown people. Which is I guess acceptable, but doesn't have a precedent in the game thus far, sadly.

Brainstorm seems good to me, but in fact a bit too generous. Unless you're running one of those parties with three identical characters (regarding race and class), this is going to net you at least one card (provided the distance requirement is met), and even a triple warrior team with three different races draws two cards off of this. I actually wouldn't mind it without the race/class clause, either, at an appropriately high quality, though with the name Brainstorm it really could go either way. Well done!

As far as I remember, serendipity could have connotations of good luck but usually what I associated it with is looking for something and finding something completely different (but not bad), which is what I had in mind when I named the card. A quick look on Wiktionary confirms as much. Revised Thinking is also a good name, if Serendipity is still not acceptable I'd probably go with something like Improvise.

It's only tangentially related to the discussion, but while there are cases of bad luck with Leadership, my opinion is that the card is badly underrated in general and is much better than it gets credit for, and especially good when looking for specific cards that are only needed temporarily (I wonder when that could happen). On the other hand, we have Delegate these days, which makes just about everything moot.

I quite like Zap, Soldier!, but I was thinking about the healing part too. How do we make that? Maybe I'm just overdoing the whole thing, but here's an idea.

First Aid
Assist, Range 1
Heal 2.
"You won't always have a priest or a healer at your beck and call. If you want to survive your first battle, it's a good idea to learn the basics of how to stem bleeding and stop wounds from getting worse until you can get the assistance you need." - Captain Cedric Cleavehorn

Notes: I'm in trouble regarding card types. It's definitely not Magic (that's the point), but would it feel right to classify this as either Melee or Projectile? Melee is closest to truth but still feels silly, and this should definitely not be Holy - so what should it be? I just left it blank. We have cards like that, such as Push the Button. Misguided Heal would work here so well for one reason, but not really for a bunch of others, unfortunately.

Heal, Soldier!
Assist, Projectile Sonic, Range 5
Create a First Aid card and put it into the target's hand.
"We're stopping here to set up a camp, but if I see just one soldier running around with untended wounds, you don't want to know what's going to happen."

All of this just gave me an idea.

Sonorous
Boost
Trait. Attach this card to yourself. Increase the range of Sonic cards you play by two. Duration 3.
"When he speaks, the whole world listens, mainly because it has no other choice."

 

Sonorous is awesome. $E^ b

First Aid looks good to me. I wonder if Heal 3 (or 4?) would be okay since it's range 1. Melee Holy might look a touch weird, but it's appropriate. Range 1 Projectile Holy? ~shrug~ We have Range 1 Magic cards after all - not to mention Everybody Drink!

 

In Dungeons and Dragons there are healing potions that cross classes.

Health Potion
Assist
Projectile Holy
You heal 4.

Magic Potion
Assist
Projectile Arcane
Damage 4. Range 3

Energy Potion
Assist (doesn't count as a move card)
Projectile Sonic
Move 4.

 

Potions may take time to drink. How about using them between rounds?

Healing Potion
Projectile Poison
Range 1. Give the Healing Potion to target.
At the start of round, if you are injured, heal 4. Free card.

 

First, I'm limiting the card to Human Skills, so choosing this means not choosing Delegate or Leadership. Also, to get three in your party you need to play an all human 1/1/1 team. Is anyone doing this now?

Sounds more like Potion of Stalling. How about the much simpler:
Attach to target, duration 1. At the start of the round, Heal 4.

What kinds of items would have these potion cards?

 

This is for when we turn treasure into a slot on the player sheet that adds one card to your deck. =^}

 

That idea intrigues me. How do you propose that it would work?

 

Profane Power
(Divine skill, armor, and weapon only)
Boost
When any other character dies draw 2 cards and create a racial move card in your hand.
(Should this be an attaching trait?)
(Use the unused heart graphic.)

 

@fatcat__25: It was probably an old-hat reference to a now-obscure blog post from years ago. Enjoy. $;^ J

 

Some old designs from 2016:

Spoiler: Expansion logo

 

Fireblast
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 2, Range 6
Burning 2. Affected square becomes Lava terrain (at the start of each round, occupant takes 8 Fire damage). Duration 2.
A blaze so violent and intense that it turns the very stone beneath your feet into molten slag.

Scorch
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 2, Range 4
Burning 2. Affected square becomes Burning terrain (at the start of each round, occupant takes 4 Fire damage, then attach a copy of Scorch to occupant). Duration 2.
"One of the best things about fire is that when you light it, it stays lit." - Adze the Lonely
Note: Just a variation on the one above.

Darkfire Bolt
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 3, Range 6
Burning 2, Duration 1.
Damage dealt by Darkfire Bolt is unpreventable.
There is no flame that does not hunger, but the Black Flame of the Abyss is voracious beyond compare.
Note: The original idea that if any Fire damage dealt by Darkfire Bolt is prevented, affected character takes that much Unholy damage. But it felt pretty narrow and not very useful in general.

Fragment
Attack, Magic Piercing, Damage 0, Range 6
Target Immediately discards their oldest Armor card. Target character and each adjacent character takes damage equal to the Armor value of the Armor card discarded this way.
"Sure, I could pack a metal shell with explosives and ignite that... Or I could improvise."
Note: I really wasn't sure how to word it properly, so I just went with a way that explains what this is supposed to do. I guess the whole burst part is not necessary (and omitting it would've made the wording a lot simpler), but I left it in for flavor.

Chaos Bolt
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 0, Range 6
Burning 0, Duration 3. Whenever Chaos Bolt deals damage, roll a die and add half that much damage, rounded up.
"The charm of this spell is that you know what's going to happen exactly as much as your target does." - Oberlin Ninetower
Note: I didn't go with Minor Erratic Damage for two reasons - one is that I didn't want the malfunctions here as that'd be dumb, and the other is that as far as I could notice, the die roll happens when a card with it is played and before blocks are triggered, which leads me to think that if a laser attack had burning, it would not trigger Minor Erratic Damage.

Replicating Bolt
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 1, Range 6
Burning 1, Duration 1.
At the start of each round, if this card expires this round, take it back into your hand as it is discarded.
"It may not be the most spectacular spell you'll ever see, but let no one say it's not nifty."

Eternal Flame
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 2, Range 6
Burning 2, Duration 3.
When affected character dies, attach a copy of Eternal Flame to the closest character. (Resolve ties randomly.)
"It will only die when the whole world is ash."

Terrifying Flames
Boost
Trait. Attach this card to yourself. Duration 2.
Whenever an enemy with a Burning card you control attached to it plays a Move card or moves itself, that character Immediately Moves 1. Reduce the Move Points of that card or effect by one.
"Everybody knows that running around just makes it worse. Everyone is running around anyway." - Akon the Pyromonius

Agonizing Flames
Attack, Magic Fire, Damage 2, Range 4
Burning 3, Duration 3.
Whenever target rolls a die, subtract one from it.
"Have you tried to dodge while on fire?!"
Note: Originally I also wanted this one to be a trait that causes all burning cards you have to have this effect but the wording was just too clunky.

Bulwark
Boost, 4+
Trait. Attach this card to yourself. Duration 2.
Whenever an enemy adjacent to you plays an Attack card targeting an ally other than you, cancel that card. Keep Unless 4.
"We struck at him, and then struck at him again, and he just laughed it off. But as soon as one of us tried to hit one of his friends, he turned upon us with a blazing fury that left us barely able to escape, let alone strike again."

 

Fun stuff! Except…

How is Terrifying Flames a Boost? It's a Trait, yay, with potential to decrease a Charge's maximum damage, yay – but otherwise, it comes off more to me as a terrible Handicap…