Expansion Series: Battlegrounds

[stereohelix]

Series based around the creature-to-creature combat. The cards are all centered around the mechanic of "Battling." When a creature battles another creature, they both take damage based on the other creature's attack.

Some cards below include conditions for "winning" a battle, which means that the card's target is destroyed and it is not. Other cards specify that they battle "nearby" creatures. "Nearby" is actually a bit more complex than it sounds, and is defined in the discussion of battle mechanics.

Click images for discussion threads:




Lots of notes about ideas and thought processes:

Spoiler for New card ideas:

Currently I have 28 more card ideas centered around creature-to-creature combat, below. Unless otherwise indicated, all cards are upped. I'll work out the upped/unupped details as I go.

Spoiler for OTHER:

Battleground: Permanent. Cost 4 , Instead of attacking the opposing player, creatures exchange attacks with nearby enemies based on positioning. Lasts one turn.

Spoiler for ENTROPY:

Unstable Anomaly: Creature. 0/10 Cost
Once per turn, can intercept a negative effect targeting an ally. Swaps places with original target.
Inflicts chaos seed when targeted by a creature.


Rampaging Monster: Creature. 3/5 Cost 5
Rancor: Rampaging Monster gains +2|+2 (+1|+1 unupped) whenever it is targeted.
Rampage: Instead of attacking, Rampaging Monster exchanges attacks with a nearby enemy creature every turn.
If the opponent has no creatures, it battles an ally or destroys a random permanent instead.

Spoiler for DEATH:

Grim Lurker|Grave Lurker: Creature. 2/2 Cost 4
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures.
Cold Blood: Deals double damage to creatures.
Ambush: Attack target (deal current attack damage to target).

Spoiler for GRAVITY:

Mag-X10 Armor|Gauss-X12 Armor: Spell. Cost 2
Target creature gains +1|+4 and Battle: Exchange attacks with a nearby enemy creature.

Spoiler for EARTH:

Dwarven Ironsmith: Creature. 2/4 Cost 2
Temper: Target creature gains Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.


Behemoth: Creature. 5/20 Cost 8
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Stomp: Exchange attacks with the nearest enemy creature. 2 other nearby enemies take 3 damage.

Spoiler for LIFE:

Treant Tender|Treant Gardener: Creature. 4/8 Cost 4
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Flourish: Your creatures have Growth: +0|+1 and heal 1 every turn.


Knotted Treant|Gnarled Treant: Creature. 2/16 Cost 3
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Tangle: Target creature battles with Gnarled Treant instead of attacking.


Elven Scout|Elven Ranger: Creature. 3/2 Cost 4
Vigilant: Can target creatures with stealth.
Ranged: Ignores one point of evasion when targeting airborne creatures.
Evasion: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Strike: Attack target (deal current attack damage to target).


Replacement:
Cockatrice: Creature. 5/5 Cost 3
Fearsome gaze: Creatures targeting Cockatrice are stunned for 3 turns (delay 3).

Spoiler for FIRE:

Firestarter|Arsonist: Creature. 2/3 Cost 3
Blaze: Sacrifice a creature to deal 1 damage to enemies, dispelling stealth and invisibility.
(upped only, add text: Sacrifice a permanent to create an Ash.)


Asura|Burning Asura Creature. 5/3 Cost 5
Battle: Exchange attacks with a nearby enemy.
Eternal Battle: If Burning Asura kills an enemy in battle, it takes no damage.


Overheat|Superheat: Permanent. Cost 5
Fire creatures and spells ignore evasion, reflection, and damage reduction.
Drain per turn.

Spoiler for WATER:

Leviathan: Creature. 7/16 Cost 7
Lurch: Enemies in flooded areas take 2 damage. Deal attack damage to opponent. Leviathan does not attack this turn (delay 1).


Riptide: Spell. Cost 2
Creatures in your opponent's middle row are pulled into the top row. Overcrowded creatures are tossed into random vacant positions.


Replacement:
Flooding|Inundation: Permanent. Cost 2
Deals 5 damage each turn to creatures along the edges of the field.
Water and neutral creatures are immune.
(Removed Drain)


Replacement:
Deep Crawler|Abyss Crawler: Creature. 6/6 Cost 4
Gain Stealth: can't be targeted by creatures.

Spoiler for LIGHT:

Gryphon Knight|Gryphon Lord: Creature. 4/14 Cost 6
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Guardian: Intercepts targeted damage effects.


Paladin: Creature. 5/7 Cost 5
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Smite: Deal 4 damage to target, 6 if the target is a or creature.


Night Watch|Vigil: Permanent. Cost 2
Dispels invisibility. Your creatures can target creatures with stealth. 
Guardian: Target creature now intercepts targeted damage effects.

Spoiler for DARKNESS:

Shadow Adept|Shadow Master: Creature. 3/3 Cost 4
Stealth: can't be targeted by creatures.
Obscure: Target creature gains Stealth.


Ghoul's Blood: Spell. Cost 2
Target creature gains Feast: Battle a nearby enemy. Damage dealt is drained and added to HP.


Blood Hunt: Permanent. Cost 3
A creature of yours is healed when any creature takes damage from a vampire or life drain.
Note: The heal will target your creature with highest: (max HP - current HP)^2/(damage dealt^2 + current HP)

Spoiler for TIME:

Prescient: Creature. 2/6 Cost 3
Anticipate: Undo the last effect that targeted a creature.


Time Guardian|Time Sentry: Creature. 3/12, Cost 6
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Delay: Creatures that target Time Sentry are returned to their owner's hand after effects resolve.


Providence: Permanent. Cost 4
and creatures gain +1|+1 and Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.

Spoiler for AIR:

Sky Guard|Sky Champion: Creature. 3/12 Cost 4
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Evasion: Second chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Hail: Target enemy battles Sky Champion instead of attacking.


Sylph: Creature. 3/2 Cost 3
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Evasion: Second chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Uplift: Target creature gains Airborne.

Spoiler for AETHER:

Mentat: Creature. 3/5 Cost 8
Mirror Mind: Evades and reflects targeted effects from creatures.

Rift Prowler: Creature. 3/3 Cost 5
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures.
Abduct: Delay target creature and use its active ability.

Spoiler for New skill ideas:

Some new ideas for skills that effect creature-to-creature combat:

New Passive Skills:
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1. (Or more: stacks by adding.)
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures ( icon).
Evasion: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures. ( icon)
Vigilant: Can target stealthed creatures.
Cold Blood: Double damage to creatures.
Growth: +0|+1 and heal 1 each turn.
Guardian: Intercepts targeted damage effects. ( icon).

New Active Skills:
Ambush/Strike/Smite/etc.: Deals attack damage (specifies target).
Battle: Exchanges attacks with a nearby enemy creature.

Stealth, Vigilant, Evasion, and Backstab are passives that apply exclusively to creatures. Damage Reduction and Augmentation are passives that apply universally. Guardian is an activated skill that is a bit like a Gravity Pull, but applies to targeted effects instead of attacks, and is associated with Light instead of Gravity. All of these ideas are free for anyone to use for other Elements cards as well as comment on. I'm especially open to suggestions for including other cards in the series that incorporate these skills.

Spoiler for Skill change ideas:

In order to balance creature-to-creature combat in general, I suggest some changes to the way that evasion stacks. I also thought it would be a neat idea to introduce "airborne" as an evasion skill for creature-to-creature combat only:

Airborne: used here, Airborne also gives a 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures only.
Ranged: allows creatures to ignore the airborne evasion bonus when targeting airborne creatures.

My modification to Airborne and Ranged are noted on the cards below as "Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures." and "Ranged: Ignores one point of evasion when targeting airborne creatures." If a creature has both Airborne and also additional Evasion, the card will also read "Evasion: Second chance to evade targeted effects from creatures." and so forth. Note that this evasion is limited to targeted creature effects, and should be on a separate check from Shard of Freedom.

I've created a thread to discuss the design theory of Evasion Mechanics in more depth.

Spoiler for ok, one more just for reference: Battle Mechanics:

• Battle: creatures pair off and deal damage to each other. Each creature deals damage based on its attack, and takes damage to its HP.
• "Targetable" considers skills such as Immaterial and Burrow, but not Evasion.
• The Airborne skill gives a creature a 25% chance to evade battle damage.
• Creatures with status effects such as Delayed and Frozen remove a turn of status effect, but they do not actively battle or deal damage when targeted for battle.

• "Nearest" or "Nearby": If specified, this means that creatures battle the targetable enemy creature nearest to the top row in their column.
• Ties for "nearest" are resolved by reverse slot order: highest first.
• "Top row in their column" refers to the one or two hexes at the top of the column that the creature occupies.
  
  
  Spoiler for example images of target priority:

  These are pictures of the game board. The bottom green slot is a creature targeting the "nearest" enemy. The upper slots show targeting priority: Lighter slots are chosen first, then darker slots if the lighter slots are empty.
  
  Targeting priority for slot 1:
  
  
  Targeting priority for slot 2:
  
  
  Targeting priority for slot 17:
  

See OdinVanguard's Field Based Combat Series for discussion of columns, "nearest" and other related and inspiring ideas.
See OdinVanguard's Contested Bridges for a slightly different mechanic of "battle."

Spoiler for and really last, and probably least, Creature Balance Spreadsheets {for serious nerds only!}:

In case anyone was interested in my mathy stuff, I thought I'd post it. I've been pondering this stuff quite a bit lately and it's pretty fun.

I wanted to measure what happens when there are a bunch of creatures on the field and someone plays a Battleground card, so I put all creatures' attack and HP into a spreadsheet, did some regressions on attack and HP distributions, and calculated the probability that any given creature would survive one or two rounds of battle when Battleground is played.

I'm assuming that this is a good indicator of a certain way that creatures interact. It could also be a good indicator a certain kind of balance, because it takes into account total defenses and attacks. The spreadsheet calculates probable damage dealt and absorbed, and adds three rounds of damage afterwards if it survives -- This is what, on this spreadsheet, I call "Effectiveness." The next interesting column is a calculation of the creature's "Effeciency": assuming that one card is worth *some number* of quanta, where this *some number* is what I've called the Fractal Factor, Efficiency represents the total resources spent to get the card out. Efficiency x Effectiveness is what I'm looking at to balance new creatures designed for creature-to-creature combat.

As you can see there are a few tweaks on most of the creatures that have to do with abilities that don't quite fit into the scheme. These represent special skills and quirks that are always part of any fun game. I try to fudge those a bit and then make sure that the creature still seems to be about where I want it.

Some of you may be thinking: "Why is he making all these overpowered cards? They are so much better than the other cards!" It's because I'm balancing them against a different metric than is normally used. Many of these cards would be the highest cost cards in the game for their attack power. So if you were making a rush deck, you would just skip them. But if certain of these cards start getting used often, I think many other "support" cards listed below will be sought after in special cases, for new reasons, and based on new dynamics.

And yes, I hang out in game stores.

[OdinVanguard]

Since this post is more of a designing brainstorm than a card itself it should probably be moved to the design theory section.

This should be a very interesting series.

One of the tricky things you will have ahead of you is figuring out a way to get the mechanic ideas out to players. Although they make good sense in general, players will still need some way of being informed or else the learning curve will be too high for the average player. This will generally frustrate new players.

If you can get everything together and into a series it should be very good.

There is a lot of information here, so I will keep track of this thread and post again when I've had more of a chance to analyze everything.

[stereohelix]

Hey OdinVanguard! Good to see your reply. Not that I was hoping for it, or anything like that. =)

Since this post is more of a designing brainstorm than a card itself it should probably be moved to the design theory section.

Design Theory read this first:
"Your topic belongs in the Main Card ideas section if:
 - It states any idea directly
 - It states a direction for a card or group of cards"

I thought this was appropriate since it's about a group of cards related to Battleground.

I was sort of hoping you'd have some ideas, too, though =)

One of the tricky things you will have ahead of you is figuring out a way to get the mechanic ideas out to players. Although they make good sense in general, players will still need some way of being informed or else the learning curve will be too high for the average player. This will generally frustrate new players.

Thanks, I cleaned up some of my terminology. For example:

Evasion +1
Damage Reduction +1

Update: Attempted to standardize skill descriptions to be accurate and concise:

Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures.
Vigilant: Can target stealthed creatures.
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Evasion: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Ranged: Ignores one point of evasion when targeting airborne creatures.
Backstab: Double damage to creatures.
Augmentation/Growth: +0|+1 and heal 1 each turn.
Guardian: Intercepts targeted damage effects. Lasts 3 turns.


Also I filled out the cards in verbose mode so you don't have to keep scrolling around.

[GamerJL]

havent you seen the series section?
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,143.0.html

[stereohelix]

havent you seen the series section?
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,143.0.html

Hey GamerJL,

Yeah, I read all the "read me first" stuff. It looks like that forum is a collection made by the mods. I'll be happy to have this moved to wherever it's appropriate. Like I keep saying, I'm new here, so, thanks for being patient with me.

[stereohelix]

I created two design theory threads, one for discussing Creature-to-Creature Combat Design and Balance, and one on Airborne and Evasion Mechanics, and requested to have this thread moved to the Series section of the Exhibition Hall. Hope this resolves any concerns.

[OdinVanguard]

Nice work with the spoilers. Makes it much easier to find things that way.

I'm still looking over some of the ideas, but my favorite so far is the one. I like the "stealth" mechanic.

Right now, there are only a handful of creature skills, so it might be slightly on the situational side in and of itself... but given that this series is all about adding in creature combat, I think it will be a very useful and sought after ability.

My only criticism to it is that I think you could do with changing the ability to cost since the card seems to share heavily with that element's themes as well.

*Entropy
--For the "rampage" skill will this include all creatures on the field or just enemies?
--For the Unstable Anomaly, will this effect include permanents as well or just creatures?

*Gravity
--This seems like it belongs in a different element. While gravity does have some futuristic feel and qualities to it, healing just doesn't seem to fit under its domain... at least not like this. Perhaps you could make it a creature that has this skill and activates it using one of the common healing elements, , , or . Other than that, I think it would make a pretty cool skill.

I'll add to this post as I read through things more.

[stereohelix]

My only criticism to it is that I think you could do with changing the ability to cost since the card seems to share heavily with that element's themes as well.

Hi OdinVanguard,

Thanks very much for your feedback. I changed  Ambush to  Ambush.

*Entropy
--For the "rampage" skill will this include all creatures on the field or just enemies?
--For the Unstable Anomaly, will this effect include permanents as well or just creatures?

I feel the cards are the weakest, and don't really fulfill the idea that I had yet.

The Unstable Anomaly targets creatures. It is supposed to cause trouble when Battleground is played, by doing a few negative things to opponents' creatures and then blipping out -- Maybe I could integrate a mechanic like your Lemming, if you don't mind -- something like:

Unstable Anomaly: Creature. 0/10 Cost
Once per turn, can intercept a negative effect targeting an ally. Swaps places with original target.
Inflicts chaos seed when targeted by a creature.


Frenzied Horror is supposed to be a big scary monster that causes lots of trouble, like Godzilla attacking Tokyo or something. Think scientific experiment gone awry, a "big problem" destroying lots of stuff. Right now I don't feel this card really does the trick either. Maybe:

Rampaging Monster: Creature. 3/5 Cost 7
Rancor: Rampaging Monster gains +2|+2 whenever it is targeted.
Rampage: Instead of attacking, Rampaging Monster exchanges attacks with a nearby enemy creature every turn.
If the opponent has no creatures, it battles an ally or destroys a random permanent instead.

"Battle" and "nearby" have the same definition here as in Battleground.

*Gravity
--This seems like it belongs in a different element. While gravity does have some futuristic feel and qualities to it, healing just doesn't seem to fit under its domain... at least not like this. Perhaps you could make it a creature that has this skill and activates it using one of the common healing elements, , , or . Other than that, I think it would make a pretty cool skill.

I agree and will have to think more about this. One problem is that Gravity already has the best stats for battling, so I don't want to just give them another tough creature. (Colossal Dragons are the best if you don't count flying Titan.) So I wanted to add a spell instead of a creature. Maybe replace it with something that lets a target creature battle, since they are so good at it. Something like:

Mag-X10 Armor|Gauss-X12 Armor: Spell. Cost 2
Target creature gains +1|+4 and Battle: Exchange attacks with a nearby enemy creature.


This could be limited in potential abuse by adding "target creature with less than 30 HP" or something. But then, I dunno, a Colossal Dragon in Gauss-X12 Battle Armor is a pretty expensive combo with lots of potential counters, so maybe it's ok. Either way, it's totally awesome.

[stereohelix]

Major update, every card has been tweaked for balance, aesthetics, or both. also added:

Riptide: 2 Spell. Creatures in your opponent's middle row are pulled into the top row. Overcrowded creatures are tossed into random vacant positions.

Ghoul's Blood: 2 Spell. Target creature gains Feast: Battle a nearby enemy. Damage dealt is drained and added to HP.

Blood Hunt: 3 Permanent. A creature of yours is healed when any creature takes damage from a vampire or life drain.


Still need to find art for most of the cards.

Spoiler for ENTROPY:

Unstable Anomaly: Creature. 0/10 Cost
Once per turn, can intercept a negative effect targeting an ally. Swaps places with original target.
Inflicts chaos seed when targeted by a creature.


Rampaging Monster: Creature. 3/5 Cost 5
Rancor: Rampaging Monster gains +2|+2 (+1|+1 unupped) whenever it is targeted.
Rampage: Instead of attacking, Rampaging Monster exchanges attacks with a nearby enemy creature every turn.
If the opponent has no creatures, it battles an ally or destroys a random permanent instead.

Spoiler for DEATH:

Grim Lurker|Grave Lurker: Creature. 2/2 Cost 4
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures.
Cold Blood: Deals double damage to creatures.
Ambush: Attack target (deal current attack damage to target).

Spoiler for GRAVITY:

Mag-X10 Armor|Gauss-X12 Armor: Spell. Cost 2
Target creature gains +1|+4 and Battle: Exchange attacks with a nearby enemy creature.

Spoiler for EARTH:

Dwarven Ironsmith: Creature. 2/4 Cost 2
Temper: Target creature gains Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.


Behemoth: Creature. 5/20 Cost 8
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Stomp: Exchange attacks with the nearest enemy creature. 2 other nearby enemies take 3 damage.

Spoiler for LIFE:

Treant Tender|Treant Gardener: Creature. 4/8 Cost 4
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Flourish: Your creatures have Growth: +0|+1 and heal 1 every turn.


Knotted Treant|Gnarled Treant: Creature. 2/16 Cost 3
Barkskin: Immune to poison, and incoming damage reduced by 1.
Tangle: Target creature battles with Gnarled Treant instead of attacking.


Elven Scout|Elven Ranger: Creature. 3/2 Cost 4
Vigilant: Can target creatures with stealth.
Ranged: Ignores one point of evasion when targeting airborne creatures.
Evasion: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Strike: Attack target (deal current attack damage to target).


Replacement:
Cockatrice: Creature. 5/5 Cost 3
Fearsome gaze: Creatures targeting Cockatrice are stunned for 3 turns (delay 3).

Spoiler for FIRE:

Firestarter|Arsonist: Creature. 2/3 Cost 3
Blaze: Sacrifice a creature to deal 1 damage to enemies, dispelling stealth and invisibility.
(upped only, add text: Sacrifice a permanent to create an Ash.)


Asura|Burning Asura Creature. 5/3 Cost 5
Battle: Exchange attacks with a nearby enemy.
Eternal Battle: If Burning Asura kills an enemy in battle, it takes no damage.


Overheat|Superheat: Permanent. Cost 5
Fire creatures and spells ignore evasion, reflection, and damage reduction.
Drain per turn.

Spoiler for WATER:

Leviathan: Creature. 7/16 Cost 7
Lurch: Enemies in flooded areas take 2 damage. Deal attack damage to opponent. Leviathan does not attack this turn (delay 1).


Riptide: Spell. Cost 2
Creatures in your opponent's middle row are pulled into the top row. Overcrowded creatures are tossed into random vacant positions.


Replacement:
Flooding|Inundation: Permanent. Cost 2
Deals 5 damage each turn to creatures along the edges of the field.
Water and neutral creatures are immune.
(Removed Drain)


Replacement:
Deep Crawler|Abyss Crawler: Creature. 6/6 Cost 4
Gain Stealth: can't be targeted by creatures.

Spoiler for LIGHT:

Gryphon Knight|Gryphon Lord: Creature. 4/14 Cost 6
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Guardian: Intercepts targeted damage effects.


Paladin: Creature. 5/7 Cost 5
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Smite: Deal 4 damage to target, 6 if the target is a or creature.


Night Watch|Vigil: Permanent. Cost 2
Dispels invisibility. Your creatures can target creatures with stealth. 
Guardian: Target creature now intercepts targeted damage effects.

Spoiler for DARKNESS:

Shadow Adept|Shadow Master: Creature. 3/3 Cost 4
Stealth: can't be targeted by creatures.
Obscure: Target creature gains Stealth.


Ghoul's Blood: Spell. Cost 2
Target creature gains Feast: Battle a nearby enemy. Damage dealt is drained and added to HP.


Blood Hunt: Permanent. Cost 3
A creature of yours is healed when any creature takes damage from a vampire or life drain.
Note: The heal will target your creature with highest: (max HP - current HP)^2/(damage dealt^2 + current HP)

Spoiler for TIME:

Prescient: Creature. 2/6 Cost 3
Anticipate: Undo the last effect that targeted a creature.


Time Guardian|Time Sentry: Creature. 3/12, Cost 6
Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.
Delay: Creatures that target Time Sentry are returned to their owner's hand after effects resolve.


Providence: Permanent. Cost 4
and creatures gain +1|+1 and Endurance: Incoming damage reduced by 1.

Spoiler for AIR:

Sky Guard|Sky Champion: Creature. 3/12 Cost 4
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Evasion: Second chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Hail: Target enemy battles Sky Champion instead of attacking.


Sylph: Creature. 3/2 Cost 3
Airborne: 25% chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Evasion: Second chance to evade targeted effects from creatures.
Uplift: Target creature gains Airborne.

Spoiler for AETHER:

Mentat: Creature. 3/5 Cost 8
Mirror Mind: Evades and reflects targeted effects from creatures.

Rift Prowler: Creature. 3/3 Cost 5
Stealth: Can't be targeted by creatures.
Abduct: Delay target creature and use its active ability.

[OdinVanguard]

Lots more to look at now... here are some of my first impressions:
-I like the new idea for a lot. It will definitely work nicely in that element since, as you mentioned, creatures tend to have optimal stats for battling.

-I also like the ability you gave to cockatrice. Its been in need of a slight buff for a while... Though maybe not as much as antlion.

-Burning Asura is my favorite of the suggestions. It will definitely help promote the value of high hp creatures.

-I'm not sure how to feel on the mod to flooding. I like that it doesn't auto-kill everything instantly, but 5 damage is still very high… You could change flooding to only have a % chance to kill creatures. Perhaps you could make the chance to die from flood scale based on HP.

-The stomp ability (under earth) seems a little to powerful to me since it could easily dish out 6+ damage for . The difficulty in targeting and potential for taking retaliatory damage in the battle helps, but I'm not sure its enough given that this card will also deal 5 damage of its own and has 20 hp... Thats a total of 11 damage for 2 ! At the least, maybe it should take some kind of off element quanta to activate.


Lastly, I have a couple of spell card and / or creature mechanic idea for you, though not sure exactly what to title it or what element to put them under.

1) "Savagery: Target creature will now battle any creature or player that targets it"

So if a squid goes to freeze it, it will try to beat up the squid first. If you shoot it with an Owl's Eye, it gets to pop you in the nose for doing so...

Of course it would also make the target grouchy enough bite the hand that buffs it as well . I think that makes for a nice balance.

2) "Vindicator: Target creature will attack any enemy creature or player that targets an ally"

This is a much more powerful version of savagery since it lacks the double edge effect.

[stereohelix]

Hey OdinVanguard,

Thanks again for the insightful feedback, as usual.

-Burning Asura is my favorite of the suggestions. It will definitely help promote the value of high hp creatures.

It's really interesting that you said this, because the value of high HP and whether or not creatures get to respond if killed in battle could go both ways. In this case, it's good for other creatures' to have high HP, and the Asura's HP matters less. The way I've done battles by default, both creatures HP matter only for survival, and not for the chance to return damage (opposite from Contested Bridges.) The Asura way makes HP more of an "offensive" trait. I wonder if you thought about these things while you were designing Contested Bridges. Not saying that one is better than the other. I'm really not sure. Just thought it was interesting.

-I'm not sure how to feel on the mod to flooding. I like that it doesn't auto-kill everything instantly, but 5 damage is still very high… You could change flooding to only have a % chance to kill creatures. Perhaps you could make the chance to die from flood scale based on HP.

-The stomp ability (under earth) seems a little to powerful to me since it could easily dish out 6+ damage for . The difficulty in targeting and potential for taking retaliatory damage in the battle helps, but I'm not sure its enough given that this card will also deal 5 damage of its own and has 20 hp... Thats a total of 11 damage for 2 ! At the least, maybe it should take some kind of off element quanta to activate.

The "Leviathan" and "Behemoth" thing is supposed to be something like the Rampaging Monster for Entropy (but not as silly and random.)

My concept is to have a somewhat expensive crowd control beast that doesn't do a lot of damage itself, but prevents other creatures from doing damage and is hard to kill. The "feel" should be something like a big, scary monster that other creatures get kicked around by and can't really do a lot about, but other than that is has very limited advantages. I also thought the Leviathan could have some synergy with flooding, and that this could help make the card more usable in other ways. (Also, by removing the attack on Leviathan, it synergizes with SoPa.) Maybe something like:

Behemoth: Creature. 5/20 Cost 8
Savagery: Battle any creature that targets Behemoth.
: Tremors: Instead of attacking this turn, Behemoth deals 2 damage to nearby non-airborne enemies and reduces their attack by half for one turn.


Leviathan: Creature. 7/16 Cost 8
Savagery: Battle any creature that targets Leviathan.
Lurch: Instead of attacking this turn, Leviathan knocks down nearby non-airborne enemies and tosses them into random locations.



Didn't really think about the costs yet.

[stereohelix]

Bump for updates. Added Valkyrie based on OdinVanguard's "vindicator" idea.