We should talk about us a little bit. Due to us having skin, bones, blood, every single thing that makes us live, and helps others live, inside, we are helpful towards others. We want to help one another, and this is sort of reflected in Card Hunter, with cards that make others move X. We are also pretty demanding, we're good generals, hence why we give others orders, but... that's about it. However, there's something that's not reflected about humans in Card Hunter. We want ourselves to be alive. We want to live and be able to protect others. With that in mind, I came up with some ideas for boosts exclusive to human beings in this game. I'm missing names for these possible cards, hence I'm just going to refer to them as ideas. Idea #1: A boost card, that acts in a similar way to Elven Maneuvers. Except, every time the affected unit takes a hit, he draws cards and discards them unless it is an Armor card. Now, this idea can sound like a fast and easy way to make humans draw stuff like Cushion, Reliable Mail and other things like that, so how about only keeping an Armor that requires a roll. Idea #2: A boost card that makes humans able to defend a teammate by taking a potentially deadly hit for him. Something like "if your ally is attacked, the attack damage exceeds your ally's health and you have a vision of the attacker, you can redirect damage that would be dealt to yourself." Of course this would require some limits, probably something like Force Field. Idea #3: A boost card that makes their blocks able to block others from an attack if they're standing 1 space away from you. Pretty straightforward, you have a poor Elf Wizard standing next to you human? They are about to group up against your little guy? Fear not, you can use your Block, Parry, whatever it is, to cover them from possible damage. This could possibly replace all these "Block, Soldier!" cards. Sure, some of the commanding cards are really good, Block, Soldier! and Jump, Soldier! are absolutely usable and in many situations, helpful. However, in comparison to things Dwarves (tankability, increased damage) and Elves (mobility, checking opponent's cards) offer, Human racial skills are more situational than anything.
Okay, your weird take on humans as a race aside: Armor is more dwarf-centric, both in general themes and in current Card Hunter setup. Stalwart Defender stuff is also generally dwarf-themed, but it seems reasonable to consider for humans in CH with their current setup. Though it's really just a more elaborate version of Defender's Block, so I gotta wonder if we can't just slot a skill with 2 of that, ala Aloyzo, perhaps? Same thing for idea 3, but if nothing else, that seems like a great idea for a defensive warrior skillset, which has been sorely lacking from the game, so I'd definitely push it toward that, instead. In fact, all of the things you've mentioned would probably be better suited in developing defensive warrior builds than being applied to humans :X
The thing is, humans lack their reliable niche. Dwarves have some reckless damage boosting cards on racial skills or more of the defensive skills. Elves have all the mobility and scouting abilities this world has seen. Humans... humans lack something that would make me think "I want to do X, I should probably pick a Human!" Possible protection against volcano wizards with moving commands is a very tight niche.
I wasn't arguing against humans getting more love, just the options you provided feeling out of place and imbalancing for humans. :X For example, why play a tanky dwarf if you can get better defensive traits through humans, which again, doesn't really fit the race concept? Now, on the flip sides, humans are made out to be commanders. So why not offer options like - "About face, Soldier!" Cantrip. Change target ally's facing. "Guard up, Soldier!" All allies gain Halt, armor 2, and +1 to all armor and block rolls. Duration 1. "Attack in formation, Soldier!" Cantrip. the next attack an ally plays gains cantrip. "Attack the flank, Soldier!" Cantrip. Next move target ally makes gains cantrip. "Rally, Soldier!" Cantrip. Target ally draws a card and heals 2. "Remember your training, Soldier!" Target ally discards the most recent non-handicap enemy card attached to them. Target ally draws a card. "Counterattack, Soldier!" Each time an ally is attacked this turn and takes no damage, they draw a card. Discard if not an attack card. - The fact is, humans as they are in CH have a rich and bountiful field of possible abilities to work with. There's no need to break from their current design to make them more competitive, or interesting
Just going to put in my 2¢ on humans as a player. I often find myself picking humans because I want a human-only card, be it Jump, Soldier!, Leadership, Forward Thinking, or Advanced Battlefield Training. I also like human blocks, because they often have the undervalued (imho) melee-only blocks which save lives. @DunDunDun's suggestions are more in the direction of the human design space I'd be interested in seeing BM explore (as a player). Brief overview of race skill roles, from BM point of view: • Dwarves: resilience (armor) and berserking (which includes some damage buffs but also charging) • Elves: movement, trickery that primarily affects opponents (scouting, trickery, etc.), resilience (dodging) • Humans: team movement, card manipulation, trickery that primarily affects allies (training, ", soldier!", leadership), resilience (blocks) This isn't set in stone, but it is a rough outline of where we wanted to be after our big race re-work.
Three basic human goals: 1. Crush your enemies 2. Drive them before you 3. Hear the lamentations of their women #3 isn't a biggie to me because I play with the sound turned off, but something for the first two would be cool.
Humans are only for support purposes at the moment. Fresh meat for dwarves and frenzied elves. That's why i recommend to incorporate this human racial skill, to make them good warriors too: Aloyzo's Arsenal #2: Custom Item Submissions!
Hmmm. http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills lists the existing tracks. http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills/Command -- very fleshed out. Fair bit of team movement and some grant-specific-card cards; there are a couple of oddballs (like one with 2x Subtle_Parry, and another that has All_Out_Attack and Parry, which feels more like a warrior skill). The team movement cards can be very, very useful. http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills/Flexibility -- fewer, but still several; teammate card replacement, card transferring, retreating mostly. Leadership can definitely help if you have a dubious draw; spending a card to send a card is expensive, but it's a cantrip meaning that you might e.g. send an All_Out_Attack or Force_Field to somebody in immediate need and take advantage. http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills/Guidance -- is Foo, Soldier! (attack, block, jump); one unusually has team movement Walk,_Team! that you might expect from the Command track; and Jump,_Soldier! is unusual because it's a Cantrip card that also affects enemies, meaning that you can order one to take a step to expose his back to a warrior and then clobber him with an unblockable all-out-attack (well, unless there's a Defender%27s_Block in play). http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills/Tactics -- Forward_Thinking, Lateral_Thinking feature very heavily. AFAICT, it's pretty rare to see Lateral_Thinking used, even when the radioactivity items give you a higher chance of being surprise-handicapped these days. Forward_Thinking doesn't seem to be super common, either; I suspect that most would prefer to draw an additional card ala Unholy_Energy (at the risk of damage) than have the option of retaining more. http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Human_Skills/Thinker -- is the real dog of all the lineups; there are only two skills, one of which is triple Lateral_Thinking (which are all not terribly useful unless you're expecting to be seriously handicapped) while the other has a single copy and a Walk,_Team! that for the same price you could pair with, say, Dash,_Team! and Attack,_Soldier!. If we wanted the tracks to not be terribly skewed, Thinker is the one that most obviously deserves attention. One could imagine possible mechanics like, say, Foresight -- getting forewarning of what cards you'll be drawing soon, or Practiced Perfection (terrible name...) -- immediately reshuffling all discards back in your deck, which could be very nice if you've just played some strong cards, or Concentration -- moderately long duration trait, lets you draw an extra card at beginning of turn; immediately canceled if you take any damage for any reason
I agree with @BlackSabbath that humans only really see top-level play in the support role (support wiz with telekinesis too). I think what humans need right now are some skills that promote their independence a bit more. Adding an OP tokenless support skill would make Human warriors and wizards more powerful, but it would also buff human support priests, who are already -really- powerful. They need some powerful skills that aren't focused on team support, so probably stuff that focuses on blocks/personal card manipulation. I'm not sure if humans are the right race to get a card like that, but I would really like to see some sort of armor tutor card available to players. Either along the lines of Elven Maneuvers or Pathfinding.
