I'm quite aware that this card has gotten a lot of scrutiny considering the existence of both Hawlic's Surging Shield and Slippery Shield in the same tier, with Slippery Shield pretty much beating out Surging Shield Block in every single way except perhaps being able to damage someone if they try and hit you with Predictable Stab or something. However, the one thing I've noticed in all of these threads, is that all of them seem to want to simply make Slippery Shield (or in effect, Hard to Pin Down), worse. But why not go the opposite route and try to make Surging Shield Block better? Or at the very least, different enough from Hard to Pin Down so that it's different enough to consider using? I've thought up a few suggestions here. 1) Add 'Draw a Card' to the block portion of the shield. This would essentially make Surging Shield Block a better version of the card Block, and it would give the card a lot more utility, making the player choose between the movement, and potential card draw. If you want to differentiate it from Shield Block, perhaps only have the card draw portion tied to blocking a ranged attack. 2) Reduce the Required Roll to 2, add a penalty Perhaps when you block an attack with this card, your character could be spun around, showing their back to the enemy, or pushed back two squares, or some other fun effects. After all, we've seen the same done with 'Stuck Arrow'. 3) Add a 'Charge' Effect Surging shield block comes on five different weapons, so why not add an offensive element to it? Perhaps if you use the move effect, you could turn it into a charge-like movement, and if you end the movement next to someone, it could cause three damage. Or you could make it similar to bull rush and deal two damage for each square moved towards the opponent. 4) Add a 'Muscle Through' Effect Or more specifically, add the 'slide 1' effect to the movement portion of the block rather than the 'Free Move' portion. I picture this like a shield bash of some kind. 5) Last But Not Least... Just remove Hawlic's Surging Shield from the game, or modify the cards on it to a different Legendary setup. Really, the only reason why this debate keeps popping up is because this shield exists alongside Slippery Shield, and there is virtually little to no reason as to why you'd take the former over the latter. --------- Again, I'd like to point out that I have no problem with Hard to Pin Down or Slippery Shield, but I do think that Surging Shield Block should have a different utility than Hard to Pin Down if they're going to exist side by side at the same Power Token level in the same equipment slot at the same power level.
I've read suggestions like this before. A nice idea was to make SSB block when rolling 3+ and HTPD when rolling 4+ Then these two cards would be of similar usefulness. At the moment, HTPD is pretty much a must on dwarves.
This is what I expected when I first saw the card. Something like the historical shield wall push used by heavy infantry to break enemy lines. Use a directional Slide 1 on 1 (or 2) enemy targets, and move into the targeted square. Note: Immovable on the target should prevent the movement
Well yes, that's possible, but as I've said above, I don't want to make Hard to Pin Down worse, I want to make Surging Shield Block better, different, or more quirky to justify it being an equal to Hard To Pin Down in its current form, not kneecap one and give the other a boost.
Also, the 3+/4+ is NOT what makes HTPD so good. It's the Block Any, Move 3 that makes the difference ridiculous. I do like the way Clancrusher is thinking though.
