Poll: Imbued necessary?

I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, it´s more a totally new game!) Too many new rules at once. Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion are not uncommon). The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from eachother. Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play from vampire decks. As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game?

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) No, it's not. It would be a totally new game if the new set had contained rules for, say, Shadowfist: the Eternal Ass-Whuppin'. > Too many new rules at once. People keep saying this, but I'm having a hard time seeing how there's more of a learning curve for this set than any other set that doesn't contain reprints. Keep in mind that while NoR had more rules than most of the other sets, it had *many* fewer cards. If you consider the total amount of learning involved in remember both new rules and the effects of cards, I don't think NoR is any higher on the curve than most other sets. Hell, people still have questions about how Mata Hari's ability works. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). This has been another common complaint, but in a way it's a bit silly. Once you've figured out what a given imbued can and can't do, you can mostly stop worrying about any surprises coming from him, since most of his cards are in play already. This is actually quite an advantage to opponents of the imbued; while it seems like a pain in the ass now, I think time will show that it's actually more detrimental to the imbued player than anyone else. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. I agree. This is the one thing about the set that I felt could have been handled better. White symbols on a black background (as someone else here had suggested) would have been much more legible. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. That's a choice which is up to players. There's nothing that forces anyone to play Gehenna events with the imbued. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. > > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? Not a necessary one, no. No set is a necessary addition to the game (there is, in fact, no such thing as a necessary addition to the game). But it's a set I'm glad was produced. John Eno

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) Definitely not a new game. It doesn't really make sense to think of it as one. Nearly every card in NoR requires or enables interaction between the imbued and vampires. > Too many new rules at once. There are 5 "pages" of rules, one of which is merely a list of terms and icons. They aren't too hard to learn. I recognize that even people who don't want to learn them have to in order to make sure their buddies are playing by the rules, but they aren't that complicated and the person(s) who play the imbued can be responsible for bringing the rules cards to the table so that everyone can double-check him. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). Only if no one plays intercept in your area. In all seriousness they aren't any *more* problematic than the Una or Mata Hari Freak Drive decks except that the cards are easier to get. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. Not to me, though I suppose I'm not the typical V:tES player. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. In my experience, these don't work terribly well, primarily because they slow down the rest of your deck and generate more table-hate than the imbued can handle. A moderate number of events that support a particular strategy may be workable. Still if this is too much of a problem, you can include anti-event or anti-ally tech in your deck and deal with the problem directly - it's not like the cards you need haven't been printed. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. I totally disagree on all three points. There was at least as much call to print the imbued as there was to print Gehenna events and all the werewolf allies from KMW, or, for that matter, any card that doesn't require a vampire to play. The imbued are quite well balanced, and if you think they're too powerful, try Break the Code and intercept combat. Annoying is a matter of taste, and well, it should be obvious that my tastes run the other way. > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? Only Jyhad was necessary for the game. How useful was this poll question? Witness1 -Inter the Earth

invisibl...@gmail.com wrote: > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > > eachother. > > I agree. This is the one thing about the set that I felt could have > been handled better. White symbols on a black background (as someone > else here had suggested) would have been much more legible. Not in practice. They were white on black at first (thinking that that would be more legible), but that wasn't great, so we tried black on white, and it turned out to be much more legible that way.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yellow on black then, maybe? I hear that's the most distinguishable colour contrast. Or maybe just thicker lines? -- salem http://users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/vtes/ (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it愀 more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. I agree. But then, I am against _any_ new rules. I much prefer new concepts to work within existing rules (ie: all based on card text, like 'gun', 'electronic equipment', 'mortal', 'blackhand', 'seraph'. Just new traits that have no meaning from the rulebook, but only mean something when other cards mention them) > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). This has always happened with decks that utilise permanents to 'tool up' nothing new about that. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. agreed. but thinking about it, I realise it's generally not that important to know what Creed each Imbued is. It's their virtues (also impossible to distinguish from any distance) that are important. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. Was happening already, just with vampire decks. No big deal. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. Well, i seem to recall popular opinion of at least some people on this group calling for it a while back. I was in favour of an expansion based around hunters myself. i just expected them to be library cards. unbalanced? far too early to tell. at the very least, it doesn't seem to be a set full of wallpaper, which people would whine about even more. generally annoying? Only insomuch as you're not prepared. is it any worse than sitting down as prey of a fast KRC deck with no way to deal with it? I doubt it. > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? Necessary? No. No expansion is necessary. Doesn't mean it's not worth it though. (I am still undecided as to whether i like the set overall. I'm going to, you know, take my time, experience is as it gets integrated into the metagame, observe it's interactions, and then have some sort of informed opinion at the end. in maybe 6 months or so. crazy as that may seem.) [ quoted text not captured ]

Salem <salem_ch...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:448a2560$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au... > LSJ wrote: > > invisibl...@gmail.com wrote: > >> as...@hotmail.com wrote: > >> > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > >> > eachother. > >> > >> I agree. This is the one thing about the set that I felt could have > >> been handled better. White symbols on a black background (as someone > >> else here had suggested) would have been much more legible. > > > > Not in practice. They were white on black at first (thinking that that > > would be more legible), but that wasn't great, so we tried black on > > white, and it turned out to be much more legible that way. > I think the virtue and creed symbols should have been swapped. It's not that important to know what creed a vampire is, but it is important to know what abilities they have. From even a couple of feet away, the virtues look like white circles. Neil

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) Not a new game as long as you can play your old deck. > Too many new rules at once. Too many? One new type of minion (imbued), and not entirely new, as they are allies, two new types of cards (Powers and Convictions) with their rules. Nothing to complain about, IMHO. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). This is true, I must admit it. But there already were deck with a lot of cards on their minions - Raven Spies and Blood Dolls, for instance. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. Just take some time to learn them. Defenders, Judges Avengers and Innocent are easy to recognize. Martyrs, Redeemers and Visionaries symbols are more difficult to remember, but there isn't anything impossible. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. There are NO cards that "locks down all constructive play from vampire decks". Your statement is almost the same as if you said "Smiling Jack eats the entire table". Somebody suffers more from the Gehenna events, somebody less. Good Gehenna decks should make alliance with another player. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. As a whole: take your time to learn the new cards :) This set is too distant from the traditional cards, I admit, and if you don't plan to play Imbued, you won't find any usable cards in it (there are few exceptions, like Break the Code, but...) That doesn't mean that it is "annoying" or "unbalanced". > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? Poll: Was Laibon a necessary addition to the game? Was Bloodlines a necessary addition to the game? Such "polls" are just stupid. The game really needs new mechanics, new types of cards, and so on. They make the game more interesting AND help to avoid the "critical mass" problem (the overall quality of existing cards is constantly growing, and without adding new possibilities this is going to FORCE players to buy new cards to remain competitive). Please take a time to learn NoR and you will like it yourself. Yours, Ector

> Too many new rules at once. Disagree. Given the relatively small number of cards for support when compared to vampires, Imbued are actually kind of limted as to what they can do. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). As stated above, the fact that the majority of what they can is on the table already makes for few surprises. I'd consider that another liability. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > each other. This will be less of a problem over time as individual imbued are memorized. Most old-schoolers could tell you the discipline spread and special text, from memory, of any group 1 vampire you care to mention . Exposure will breed familiarity, as with any other card. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. An opinion, perhaps a slightly close-minded one (<---- also an opinion, I realize). > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. There was a call for it, at least from a certain % of the community. I have not seen that they are unbalanced. I'd say there are pre-NoR strategies/possiblities that are much MORE "annoying". If Imbued weren't annoying, then then the set would certainly have been a failure. I have an issue with the fact that many cards already in print cannot effect them, like Disarm, etc. or any card that targets a "vampire" by text but has no thematic reason to not work on an Imbued. What I DO find annoying about them is the Conviction-fishing mechanic, which can slow the game down with shuffle-and-cuts on every turn. This is not an issue with the Imbued directly, but with the mechanic itself. However, I understand that it is needed to 'cost' cards, and must be tolerated. Using a second type of counter or whatever would be far more problematic. Imbued players I have played with usually create a second Ash Heap, to facilitate quicker recycling, which could create a problem when an effect might target/consider a card's position in the Ash HEap (like "the top card of the Ash Heap" or whatever, so a potential problem could exist there). I ordered a box of NoR before the pre-release. It is still in it's cellophane, unopened. From what I have seen of Imbued, I have very little desire to integrate it into my collection. I suppose I will one of these days. > > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? Is the game necessary? I mean, really, couldn't we all be out in the community doing charity work?

> Too many new rules at once. Nope, since they are vowen in to the V:tes rule-set and in many cases are similar I don't think this it too big a problem. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). Couldn't agree more. Especially for players that are not too familiar with the NoR cards it can be hard to distinguish what imbued and the cards on them do. I know that this indeed exists in the "Mata-Hari" "Una"-decks already, but the reasoning that "this already exist in the game, so we'll just invent this set where most minions end up with 4-5 cards at least attached to them", is not viable. If you recognize something as bad you should try to avoid ideas that create more of it. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. A Minor problem, but yes I agree, to hard to distinguish > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. I think that the Gehenna-themed imbued decks will wear of eventually, especialy because Gehenna-cards create table hate. > As a whole: Uncalled for, No, > unbalanced No (except for the endgame - can't really figure out if that conviction retrieval thing isn't too good ?) > and generally annoying. sometimes yes - but beating decks that annoy just feels so good ! > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? No, not necessary, not what I would have prefered, but it works and is what I would consider flavour. DJ Mik

On 9 Jun 2006 15:14:20 -0700, <as...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? I think, as many already pointed out, the question is worded imperfectly. Nothing is a necessary addition to the game. Was it a good addition? Time will tell. It certainly brought too much new stuff for my taste, and I still don't dig the idea of having mortals in my crypt. -- Regards, Daneel

We have a rather large community here with some semi-active players. Many of those hasn´t cared much about NoR. When they face imbued at a tournamnet they have to learn a new game and find out that haven uncovered is useless and simling jack is "play to win". Bad (and a huge difference from previous sets). /Mathias

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. Meh. I mean, like, yeah, some new rules, but none of them are that complicated (really, the most difficult to remember is how and when you get Conviction cards), and once you have them down, it isn't really that much to worry about. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). This, I agree, is kind of a pain, as it does slow the game down some. But really, the big problem comes from the Imbued being inspired to play all those Gehenna Events, which really slow the game down as every time you play a card, you have to check for 6 different effects based on the Events. But that isn't specifically the Imbuedes fault. > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. Meh. How much do you really have to do that? Like, you know what is in your deck, and your opponent's don't need to know that much--if they are concerned, they can say "what virtues does that guy have?" > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. This is true. But hopefully, general table hate will convince folks to move away from this sort of Imbued technology soon. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. No more uncalled for than anything else new, it remains to be seen if it is unballanced, and it can be annoying, but it can also not be annoying. And on the flip side, it has a lot of new stuff to mess around with. Which is fun. And everyone likes fun. -Peter

As is usually the case with things advertised as a "poll", it isn't a poll, it's a thinly disguised stab at inciting outrage. In the future, I want you guys to tag your posts more correctly; e.g.: Thinly Disguised Plea For Followers: Imbued Necessary? <as...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1149891259.9...@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it愀 more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. Frankly, I don't think it's matters how many new rules need to be digested by players well-aquainted with the game at one time. The long-term problem is how many _total_ rules need to be learned by newcomers in order to play the game at all. We already know the complexity of the game is a significant barrier to entry. We know that to expand the game and add more depth to it (a good quality), we have to pay the price in terms of additional rules (higher complexity, harder to teach: a bad quality). So the real question is, does the advantage of what the game gained outweigh the downside? In this case, I would say not, as it turns out. I suppose I can't blame anyone for trying, though. After all, you don't know how something's going to turn out until you actually design the thing, playtest and try to tune it, and then release it. By the time you know whether it's good or bad, on balance, it's probably too late to back up and call it off. (And it's not _that_ bad, really, IMHO.) In retrospect, I do fault White Wolf for not putting more time and dedicating a larger expansion to such a radical expansion. I think it probably would have had a better shot if it hadn't been a mini- expansion. That's sort of hindsight, though. (other stuff ellided, either repititious or sort of quibbling, IMO) > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? My reaction to this question is much the same as a lot of other folks: no expansions are ever necessary. So that seems beside the point. Fred

Fred Scott skrev: > As is usually the case with things advertised as a "poll", > it isn't a poll, it's a thinly disguised stab at inciting > outrage. In the future, I want you guys to tag your posts > more correctly; e.g.: > > Thinly Disguised Plea For Followers: Imbued Necessary? > *Gasp* What are these "police"-type replies really? Are you implying that I am not allowed to post and title my posts as I see fit? I posted my views on NoR, and I wanted to know what others think. What is that if not a poll? (Otherwise, excuse me, I am not native in english. But I use stuff like http://www.onelook.com/?w=poll&ls=a for strange words.) And why would I "plea for followers"?! What followers? For what? A crusade against LSJ? We already know that is fruitless. > Frankly, I don't think it's matters how many new rules need to be > digested by players well-aquainted with the game at one time. The > long-term problem is how many _total_ rules need to be learned by > newcomers in order to play the game at all. We already know the > complexity of the game is a significant barrier to entry. This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for newbies. And boring for everybody, as it takes long time to instruct a player who is new to imbued. > In this case, I would say not, as it turns out. I suppose I can't > blame anyone for trying, though. After all, you don't know how > something's going to turn out until you actually design the thing, > playtest and try to tune it, and then release it. No, but if you have playtested NoR even the slightest bit, you would have noticed that, for example a.) There are too many new rules. b.) Imbued mechanics slows down the game aloooooooooot, shuffling. Too much MtG-tech! c.) The table gets very hard to overlook if a player has 3-4 minions with each have 5-6 cards on them. d.) The symbols are hard to tell from each other. > In retrospect, I do fault White Wolf for not putting more time and > dedicating a larger expansion to such a radical expansion. I think > it probably would have had a better shot if it hadn't been a mini- > expansion. That's sort of hindsight, though. I totally agree. > My reaction to this question is much the same as a lot of other > folks: no expansions are ever necessary. So that seems beside the > point. What is this opinion anyway, that so many seem to have? "No expansion is necessary"? Do you actually mean that the game is complete, that no new additions are necessary?

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > What is that if not a poll? Heh. I guess this is a language thing, but generally speaking, a "Poll" tends to refer to collecting data to convince someone of somthing by virtue of the data collected being "proof", rather than just having a discussion. By calling something a "poll", you are implying that you are going to use the information you collect to prove a point or support an argument with data, rather than just have a back and forth discussion. As has been discussed at length in this and most other simialr forums, any data collected by a self selecting internet poll is going to be wildly invalid for most purposes, so generally, it is best to leave the word "Poll" out of any discussion if avoidable. > a.) There are too many new rules. Again, really, there aren't so many new rules. There are 5 card sized pages of new rules, and one of those is a chart of icons. So really, 4 card size pages of new rules. Which isn't a lot. And most of them are pretty simple. I mean, yeah, it is some new rules. But it isn't like it is a whole new fat rulebook or something. > b.) Imbued mechanics slows down the game aloooooooooot, shuffling. Too > much MtG-tech! As mentioned earlier, I have sympathy for this point--but really, it isn't that big of a deal either, assuming the guy playing the Imbued deck knows what he is doing. Keep spent conviction cards in a seperate pile, and figure out what you are going to fish out of your deck for a new Imbued before you put them in play. > c.) The table gets very hard to overlook if a player has 3-4 minions > with each have 5-6 cards on them. Also a sympathetic issue for the set. It does make the table messy and cluttered. But not overwhelming. > d.) The symbols are hard to tell from each other. This one I have little sympathy for. There aren't that many symbols. They do look different (there is, what, sword, manish-woman, olympics, crossy-thing, fish-hook ninja star, less fish-hooky ninja star, and scales of justice), and if you need to know what they do, just ask your opponent. I mean, like, to a new player, they are going to be no more or less confusing than the other 20+ discipline symbols. > What is this opinion anyway, that so many seem to have? "No expansion > is necessary"? Do you actually mean that the game is complete, that no > new additions are necessary? He means that, in reference to the question "is this expansion necessary" that no, it wasn't necessary, but then neither was Legacies of Blood or Gehenna or any expansion. As the game can work fine as it is without any more expansions ever. But that is mostly irelevant, as while no expansion is necessary, people like having them. So no, NoR was not necessary in the same way that LoB was not necessary, but much like people liked LoB 'cause they like expansions, people like NoR, 'cause they like expansions. -Peter

> This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > newbies. And boring for everybody, as it takes long time to instruct a > player who is new to imbued. I don't know what the rest of you guys do, but I know that when we recruit new players, I sort of go around to all of our regulars and request them to play more "straight-forward" decks for a while, so as to not overwhelm new players. The newbies are few and far between, and it's dumb to lose an interested player because a playgroup isn't willing to accomodate them. I've found that most complaints about difficulty of entry into the game are not really a problem in an environment that works to foster new players. Translation: don't play imbued on a table with a newbie for a while. It just ain't right. > b.) Imbued mechanics slows down the game aloooooooooot, shuffling. Too > much MtG-tech! I think b) is the largest complaint. It takes too much time to actually play the deck as intended. > c.) The table gets very hard to overlook if a player has 3-4 minions > with each have 5-6 cards on them. > d.) The symbols are hard to tell from each other. The symbols aren't of critical importance, since most of the imbued tech is actually permanent. Now, remembering all of that stuff is a different matter, but it's not really that much worse than any number of vampire decks I can think of that generate tons of permanents. "Guruhi Get Bling-Bling" for instance, is a deck type that stacks lots of permanents on a number of minions. There is no shortage of examples. Thus, it's not that card stacking is necessarily the problem. It's just easy to point to Imbued since they're new (and also have cards to stack that we're not familiar with). For that, I can't spite the Imbued. I wish, for instance, that untapping after getting a power successfully required you to burn a conviction. To my mind, that alleviates a lot of the "concern" about Imbued, though I don't know if it would marginalize them or not. Ankur Gupta not Imbued with anything

<as...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1150028141.9...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > Fred Scott skrev: > >> As is usually the case with things advertised as a "poll", >> it isn't a poll, it's a thinly disguised stab at inciting >> outrage. In the future, I want you guys to tag your posts >> more correctly; e.g.: >> >> Thinly Disguised Plea For Followers: Imbued Necessary? > > *Gasp* What are these "police"-type replies really? Are you implying > that I am not allowed to post and title my posts as I see fit? No, I'm just implying you should be more honest about what you're trying to accomplish. Honesty is good, right? > I posted my views on NoR, and I wanted to know what others think. What > is that if not a poll? Well, obviously, I think it's a thinly disguised plea for followers. A poll is something you run when you're truly curious how many people believe one thing or the other for the sake of learning the answer. What I believe you are doing is trying to demonstrate to observers that many people agree with you. Granted, the two have a lot in common. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it here on the newsgroup. I do it myself at times, in my own way. I'm just cynical about people calling it a 'poll'. > And why would I "plea for followers"?! What followers? For what? A > crusade against LSJ? We already know that is fruitless. I guess I believe that you're trying to demonstrate that White Wolf made a mistake in printing Nights of Reckoning. >> Frankly, I don't think it's matters how many new rules need to be >> digested by players well-aquainted with the game at one time. The >> long-term problem is how many _total_ rules need to be learned by >> newcomers in order to play the game at all. We already know the >> complexity of the game is a significant barrier to entry. > > This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > newbies. Then the issue is not they added too many new rules at one time. It doesn't matter how many new rules get added at a time. Complexity for newbies is a function of total rules; it doesn't matter when they get added to the game. >> In this case, I would say not, as it turns out. I suppose I can't >> blame anyone for trying, though. After all, you don't know how >> something's going to turn out until you actually design the thing, >> playtest and try to tune it, and then release it. > > No, but if you have playtested NoR even the slightest bit, you would > have noticed that, for example > a.) There are too many new rules. > b.) Imbued mechanics slows down the game aloooooooooot, shuffling. Too > much MtG-tech! > c.) The table gets very hard to overlook if a player has 3-4 minions > with each have 5-6 cards on them. > d.) The symbols are hard to tell from each other. I disagree with the above and with the unspoken implication of how you phrased the above: that it Nights of Reckoning should have been dropped or radically changed as soon as they playtested it "even the slightest bit". I think they tried to do something new, I suspect the design of it was pretty much locked in place by the time it was apparent how difficult these mechanical aspects were, and I suspect it was far too late to fix it by the time anyone realized that - assuming that White Wolf was even prepared to admit that the above things were serious problems. Accepting that a game design didn't turn out as well as you'd hoped is not always an easy leap to make while you're still playtesting the idea. An I bet that radically, suddenly changing the expansion mid-play-test would not have been feasible. Nor dropping or drastically delaying the expansion. So what is supposed to be the answer? Never trying anything the least bit risky? I hope that's not the message they take away from this. Just that these particular mechanics didn't work very well. >> My reaction to this question is much the same as a lot of other >> folks: no expansions are ever necessary. So that seems beside the >> point. > > What is this opinion anyway, that so many seem to have? "No expansion > is necessary"? Do you actually mean that the game is complete, that no > new additions are necessary? No. The point is to ask why you are asking that question. You asked, "Was imbued a necessary addition to the game?" But there were never any expansions that were necessary additions to the game. So why should Nights of Reckoning be any different? Fred

Fred Scott skrev: > <as...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1150028141.9...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > Fred Scott skrev: > > > >> As is usually the case with things advertised as a "poll", > >> it isn't a poll, it's a thinly disguised stab at inciting > >> outrage. In the future, I want you guys to tag your posts > >> more correctly; e.g.: > >> > >> Thinly Disguised Plea For Followers: Imbued Necessary? > > > > *Gasp* What are these "police"-type replies really? Are you implying > > that I am not allowed to post and title my posts as I see fit? > > No, I'm just implying you should be more honest about what you're > trying to accomplish. Honesty is good, right? So you are the one that decides if I am honest, depending on your guess of my intentions? Good to know. > > And why would I "plea for followers"?! What followers? For what? A > > crusade against LSJ? We already know that is fruitless. > > I guess I believe that you're trying to demonstrate that White Wolf > made a mistake in printing Nights of Reckoning. What would that change? WW not making the same mistake again? Yeah, you can always wish. > > This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > > newbies. > > Then the issue is not they added too many new rules at one time. It > doesn't matter how many new rules get added at a time. Complexity > for newbies is a function of total rules; it doesn't matter when they > get added to the game. But please... I don´t understand your point... If you have lots of rules (which for tutorial purposes are bad) and you add lots of new rules (which are radically different from the old rules, as, in my opinion, NoR) you get a hellotta many rules - which is bad. > I disagree with the above and with the unspoken implication of how > you phrased the above: that it Nights of Reckoning should have been > dropped or radically changed as soon as they playtested it "even > the slightest bit". I think they tried to do something new, I suspect > the design of it was pretty much locked in place by the time it was > apparent how difficult these mechanical aspects were, and I suspect > it was far too late to fix it by the time anyone realized that - > assuming that White Wolf was even prepared to admit that the above > things were serious problems. When you try to do something new - be careful. > Accepting that a game design didn't > turn out as well as you'd hoped is not always an easy leap to make > while you're still playtesting the idea. An I bet that radically, > suddenly changing the expansion mid-play-test would not have been > feasible. Nor dropping or drastically delaying the expansion. This is very weird too me. Why playtest if you cannot change your mind? It´s not like you say in january - "hey, lets begin playtesting this radically new set" - and plan to print it in march. Playtesting should be a looong procedure, in my opinion. (Note: What is also very strange is that LSJ and whover else are in the WW R&D-department has been very, very good at designing new cards over the years, until now. They have been careful. Take LoB as an example - very nice expansion, not too drastic changing the game, but still new funny cards. Sure, there are some TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE, UNPLAYABLE things over the years, like Tortured Confession, Masai Blood Milk and Immense Size, but as a whole the new things has worked out good.) > So what is supposed to be the answer? Never trying anything the > least bit risky? I hope that's not the message they take away > from this. Just that these particular mechanics didn't work very > well. No, my "answer" is: 1.) If it ain´t broken - don´t fix it. 2.) If you want to change something anyway - change it is little as possible. 3.) The more radical changes you would like to make - the more you test it. > > What is this opinion anyway, that so many seem to have? "No expansion > > is necessary"? Do you actually mean that the game is complete, that no > > new additions are necessary? > > No. The point is to ask why you are asking that question. You asked, > "Was imbued a necessary addition to the game?" But there were never > any expansions that were necessary additions to the game. So why should > Nights of Reckoning be any different? I still don´t get it. VtES is a collectible card game. The whole point with such games are that new cards gets printed. If thought everyone agreed on that and that the discussion starts at that point. That way expansions are "necessary". Am I wrong?

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I still don´t get it. VtES is a collectible card game. The whole point > with such games are that new cards gets printed. If thought everyone > agreed on that and that the discussion starts at that point. That way > expansions are "necessary". Am I wrong? In an absolute sense, yeah, you are wrong in that expansions are "necessary". That being said, quibbling over the phrasing of your question of "was NoR necessary?" is kind of beside the point. Clearly, you meant "was NoR a good idea to print?" (which is different than "is it necessary"). But then, a lot of folks also seemed to take issue with your use of the word "Poll". So I guess we like quibbling over semantics... -Peter

pd...@lightlink.com skrev: [ quoted text not captured ] OK, so I guess the question should have been something like "As VtES need expansions to stay interesting as a CCG - was NoR a good such an improvement?" But anyway, I hope some of you got my point.

as...@hotmail.com skrev: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it愀 more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. > > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? > No such thing as necessary, but, well :) Main problem with NoR is, as far as I'm concerned, that it's around 120 cards too small. With 60 cards it's hard to create more than one strong type of deck. In this case it's turned out to be Gehenna madness. More cards makes for more variety, and what NoR lacks are Imbueds and "forward motion" cards. Let me explain: With 3 imbued of each creed (ok, 2 of one) it's difficult to focus a crypt while still having decent number of different crypt minions. 8 imbued of each creed would go a long way towards solving that. The imbued need more cards aimed at acting rather than waiting for the table to die. Unconditional stealth, combat/combat-avoidance and means to deplete preys pool are all incentives to move forward, and even though such cards exist there's simply too few of them to create a viable combination of library and crypt to play aggressively. Sten During -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Sten During wrote: > Main problem with NoR is, as far as I'm concerned, that it's around > 120 cards too small. With 60 cards it's hard to create more than one > strong type of deck. In this case it's turned out to be Gehenna > madness. I'm not convinced this is the case--Gehenna Madness seems to be the most obvious "winning" strategy, but as noted in recent discussion, these decks are very likely to run into significant table hate, and end up getting ousted cross table just to get them off the table. > More cards makes for more variety, and what NoR lacks are Imbueds > and "forward motion" cards. Let me explain: I think they have planet of opportunity for forward momentum. Any Imbued at all can consistiently bleed for 2 at effectively +1 stealth every turn. Get Edge Explosion in there, and they recycle their conviction at the same rate they spend it. There are two Imbued that can bleed for 3 per action, but they have significant flaws when used in pure Imbued decks. > With 3 imbued of each creed (ok, 2 of one) it's difficult to focus > a crypt while still having decent number of different crypt minions. > 8 imbued of each creed would go a long way towards solving that. It isn't really necessary--it isn't difficult at all to build a crypt around 2 or 3 virtues and reliably use the cards you need. And Edge Explosion lets you share powers, to boot. > The imbued need more cards aimed at acting rather than waiting for > the table to die. Unconditional stealth, combat/combat-avoidance > and means to deplete preys pool are all incentives to move forward, > and even though such cards exist there's simply too few of them to > create a viable combination of library and crypt to play aggressively. I dunno--I don't think what we already have has been explored enough yet to be able to say that what we have currently isn't enough. The Imbued have, already: -Pretty good bleed. -Reliable +1 stealth. -Significant intercept. -Healing/Regeneration. They are weakish in combat (clearly a balancing factor). And low in the pool gain department (solved by mixing them with Vampires). But they have a lot of not insignificant abilities. It seems likely that there are an awful lot of Imbued possibilities that have not been discovered yet. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Right on. Good to know that this was considered, at least. John Eno

<as...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1150055381....@m38g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... Fred Scott skrev: > > > <as...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > > news:1150028141.9...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > > Fred Scott skrev: > > > > > >> As is usually the case with things advertised as a "poll", > > >> it isn't a poll, it's a thinly disguised stab at inciting > > >> outrage. In the future, I want you guys to tag your posts > > >> more correctly; e.g.: > > >> > > >> Thinly Disguised Plea For Followers: Imbued Necessary? > > > > > > *Gasp* What are these "police"-type replies really? Are you implying > > > that I am not allowed to post and title my posts as I see fit? > > > > No, I'm just implying you should be more honest about what you're > > trying to accomplish. Honesty is good, right? > > So you are the one that decides if I am honest, depending on your guess > of my intentions? Good to know. I have a right to an opinion on whether you are being totally honest, yes. And it doesn't appear so to me. > > > And why would I "plea for followers"?! What followers? For what? A > > > crusade against LSJ? We already know that is fruitless. > > > > I guess I believe that you're trying to demonstrate that White Wolf > > made a mistake in printing Nights of Reckoning. > > What would that change? WW not making the same mistake again? Yeah, you > can always wish. It wasn't my post that started the thread. Why ask me? I'm just saying I do not believe you started this thread for purposes of pure intellectual curiosity. > > > This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > > > newbies. > > > > Then the issue is not they added too many new rules at one time. It > > doesn't matter how many new rules get added at a time. Complexity > > for newbies is a function of total rules; it doesn't matter when they > > get added to the game. > > But please... I don愒 understand your point... If you have lots of > rules (which for tutorial purposes are bad) and you add lots of new > rules (which are radically different from the old rules, as, in my > opinion, NoR) you get a hellotta many rules - which is bad. I'm saying it doesn't matter whether they add five rules all at once or five rules in five years. Five rules is five rules. But there is a good side to adding rules. So if you add five rules at one time and the gain is better than what you lost, then who cares how quickly they're added? > > I disagree with the above and with the unspoken implication of how > > you phrased the above: that it Nights of Reckoning should have been > > dropped or radically changed as soon as they playtested it "even > > the slightest bit". I think they tried to do something new, I suspect > > the design of it was pretty much locked in place by the time it was > > apparent how difficult these mechanical aspects were, and I suspect > > it was far too late to fix it by the time anyone realized that - > > assuming that White Wolf was even prepared to admit that the above > > things were serious problems. > > When you try to do something new - be careful. And how would you suggest they could have been "more careful"? That's the problem I have with your criticism of White Wolf. Everything you complain about is part of the risk of trying something as radically different as they tried - other than the one thing we agree on, that it shouldn't have been done in a mini-expansion. > > Accepting that a game design didn't > > turn out as well as you'd hoped is not always an easy leap to make > > while you're still playtesting the idea. An I bet that radically, > > suddenly changing the expansion mid-play-test would not have been > > feasible. Nor dropping or drastically delaying the expansion. > > This is very weird too me. Why playtest if you cannot change your mind? > It愀 not like you say in january - "hey, lets begin playtesting this > radically new set" - and plan to print it in march. Playtesting should > be a looong procedure, in my opinion. Um, actually, it's _not_ that long. Maybe longer than two months. But not long enough to completely redesign the whole expansion. I think you are being somewhat naive about how quickly these expansions have to get designed, playtested, printed, and sold. > (Note: What is also very strange > is that LSJ and whover else are in the WW R&D-department has been very, > very good at designing new cards over the years, until now. They have > been careful. Take LoB as an example - very nice expansion, not too > drastic changing the game, but still new funny cards. Huh?!? The Imbued is a _much_ more radically different kind of an expansion than what's happened in the past. Think about it - what's the most "different" thing they've created in the last five years. Event cards? They're a lot like master cards, slightly different. A new sect? The Laibon? We already had two two different sects and the Independents; how hard could adding a third one be? Adding hunters as a new crypt card and giving them conviction cards and powers is the biggest change to the game since non-Camarilla vampires (in Dark Sovereigns), in my opinion. The reason White Wolf and LSJ have done a better job in the past is that it was an easier job to do. Easier job --> done with flying colors. Harder job --> mistakes made. Is that so hard to understand? > > So what is supposed to be the answer? Never trying anything the > > least bit risky? I hope that's not the message they take away > > from this. Just that these particular mechanics didn't work very > > well. > > No, my "answer" is: > 1.) If it ain愒 broken - don愒 fix it. > 2.) If you want to change something anyway - change it is little as > possible. In short, "Never try anything risky." Sorry, I disagree. > 3.) The more radical changes you would like to make - the more you test > it. That's kind of obvious. It just isn't necessarily easy to do. White Wolf doesn't just have to make money. They have to do it fast enough to make their payroll or they go out of business. Expansions have to come out on schedule. > > > What is this opinion anyway, that so many seem to have? "No expansion > > > is necessary"? Do you actually mean that the game is complete, that no > > > new additions are necessary? > > > > No. The point is to ask why you are asking that question. You asked, > > "Was imbued a necessary addition to the game?" But there were never > > any expansions that were necessary additions to the game. So why should > > Nights of Reckoning be any different? > > I still don愒 get it. VtES is a collectible card game. The whole point > with such games are that new cards gets printed. If thought everyone > agreed on that and that the discussion starts at that point. That way > expansions are "necessary". Am I wrong? Not exactly. You're just creating a false dichotomy. For argument's sake, I'll accept the premise that "expansions are necessary". (I agree that most people accept this point, more or less.) That doesn't mean that any *particular* expansion is "necessary". Sabbat War was not necessary. Bloodlines was not necessary. Gehenna was not necessary. None of the individual expansions were by themselves necessary. However, the game needs expansions for the sake of having expansions. There's no contradiction between these points. Fred

I think that the changes to pulled fangs, fame and thoughts betrayed was necessary for example. It all comes down to if the game is fun to play (so boosters will be sold). If we have no game, necessity is irrelevant. /Mathias

Too bad, the formulation of this thread makes it go the wrooooong way, and no one can answer your question (see title). It should have been something along the lines of : "are you glad of the way NoR turned out", "do you like NoR" or "do you find Imbued a nice addition to the game", or even "do you plan to play Imbued on a regular basis". To all those questions I would have answered a big NAY and I don't think I'd be the only one. Now, necessary... Is this game necessary ? No. But it sure helps pass some time in a totally unconstructive but quite pleasant way. ------------ Orpheus, Necromonger

Ankur Gupta wrote: > Translation: don't play imbued on a table with a newbie for a while. It > just ain't right. That's pretty much my plan too. Imbued by their nature are a 'module' that can be removed or skipped when learning the game, then introduced later. Would you dump a new player (or one still learning) into a game packed with Trophy wielding advanced vamps, hunting down anarch red-list minions under the shadow of Gehenna events? probably not I hope, so why should more rules be any different.. Personally (yes this is an opinion) I find the NoR rules *easier* to remember as they are constantly in use. I often overlook red-list and that I can turn anarch and other rules that are not constantly active... (thats probably just me tho') Sable

pd...@lightlink.com skrev: > Sten During wrote: >> Main problem with NoR is, as far as I'm concerned, that it's around >> 120 cards too small. With 60 cards it's hard to create more than one >> strong type of deck. In this case it's turned out to be Gehenna >> madness. > > I'm not convinced this is the case--Gehenna Madness seems to be the > most obvious "winning" strategy, but as noted in recent discussion, > these decks are very likely to run into significant table hate, and end > up getting ousted cross table just to get them off the table. Let's just agree upon this strategy being the one currently employed in order to win (with one TWDA deck already listed to boot). > >> More cards makes for more variety, and what NoR lacks are Imbueds >> and "forward motion" cards. Let me explain: > > I think they have planet of opportunity for forward momentum. Any > Imbued at all can consistiently bleed for 2 at effectively +1 stealth > every turn. Get Edge Explosion in there, and they recycle their Every second turn. Burning Second Sight for stealth is not a cost, so it burns. Burning Strike with Conviction happens when bleed goes through, so, ok, every 1.5 turn or something like that. > conviction at the same rate they spend it. There are two Imbued that > can bleed for 3 per action, but they have significant flaws when used > in pure Imbued decks. Yep. > >> With 3 imbued of each creed (ok, 2 of one) it's difficult to focus >> a crypt while still having decent number of different crypt minions. >> 8 imbued of each creed would go a long way towards solving that. > > It isn't really necessary--it isn't difficult at all to build a crypt > around 2 or 3 virtues and reliably use the cards you need. And Edge > Explosion lets you share powers, to boot. 2 is doable but hardly easy, We should compare with diciplines. 3 is more or less out of the question, but hey, trying that stunt with vamps at max capacity 6 isn't easy either. Depending on one single library-card is dangerous, to say the least. > >> The imbued need more cards aimed at acting rather than waiting for >> the table to die. Unconditional stealth, combat/combat-avoidance >> and means to deplete preys pool are all incentives to move forward, >> and even though such cards exist there's simply too few of them to >> create a viable combination of library and crypt to play aggressively. > > I dunno--I don't think what we already have has been explored enough > yet to be able to say that what we have currently isn't enough. I disagree. Compare Anarchs. Now they're pretty playable, but the very release they came with got a very bad reputation for being pointless. Adding variety over time in later releases definitely made Anarchs a viable deck-type, but the bad reputation still clings to their base release. Black Hand still suffers from a similar dilemma, even though new Black Hand vampires have made non-obfuscate decks more viable. Caveat: I'm ONLY referring to mono-solution crypts. No mixing. Start adding vampires to Imbued-decks, non-Black Hand vampires etc and the options increase manyfold. > > The Imbued have, already: > -Pretty good bleed. Second class bleed, I'd say, but ok :) > -Reliable +1 stealth. Agreed. > -Significant intercept. Light intercept only. > -Healing/Regeneration. Distinctly inferior to vampires. One virtue may have regen, but Imbued as such do not. It's like saying vampires have stealth/prevent/intercept/bleed or whatever you want. Those attributes are tied to diciplines. Now, with 60+ Imbueds to chose from I'd agree that it would be easy to pick one or two archetypes to play. With archetypes I mean bleed, combat, intercept, bloat or whatever you'd normally have chosen when building your vampire-based deck. > > They are weakish in combat (clearly a balancing factor). And low in the > pool gain department (solved by mixing them with Vampires). But they > have a lot of not insignificant abilities. It seems likely that there > are an awful lot of Imbued possibilities that have not been discovered > yet. Sure, mixing with vampires opens new venues. I recently won a small tournament with a 50/50 crypt more due to luck with seating and other opponents choise of decks than having a fantastic deck myself. Ripping out my entire Imbued package and concentrating on the "vampiric" part would probably have made a better deck, but being stubborn and all that ... :) [ quoted text not captured ]

>Sten During wrote: > > Let's just agree upon this strategy being the one currently employed > in order to win (with one TWDA deck already listed to boot). > I must say that I don't agree to 100%. The many different powers all give you the possibility of building a unique deck. You can build the gehenna madness. You can build your version of the deck, which I still don't know what it does ;) And you can build more softcore decks using some of the different powers and adding gehenna for support. I can introduce another concept of the deck the next time I have time for a pubgame. > > Every second turn. Burning Second Sight for stealth is not a cost, so > it burns. Burning Strike with Conviction happens when bleed goes > through, so, ok, every 1.5 turn or something like that. > > You have to take edge explosion into account here: Edge Explosion: Requires at least one other Gehenna card in play. Each imbued can have (and use) one power card for which he or she doesn't meet the requirements. AN IMBUED WHO PERFORMS A SUCCESSFUL ACTION MAY GAIN 1 CONVICTION FROM HIS OR HER ASH HEAP. An imbued can only gain 1 conviction this way each turn. > > 2 is doable but hardly easy, We should compare with diciplines. 3 is > more or less out of the question, but hey, trying that stunt with vamps > at max capacity 6 isn't easy either. > Depending on one single library-card is dangerous, to say the least. > The innocence crypt I'm currently using lets you play with approx 6 different imbued not counting beatrice. I think that is pretty good. > > > > The Imbued have, already: > > -Pretty good bleed. > > Second class bleed, I'd say, but ok :) > I can't agree on that. Having 2-3-4 caps that always can bleed for two is very powerful IMO. > > -Significant intercept. > > Light intercept only. > I will never again complain about their intercept after tasting the angel of berlin + sportbike combo in the first game I played against them :D > > -Healing/Regeneration. > > Distinctly inferior to vampires. > One virtue may have regen, but Imbued as such do not. It's like saying > vampires have stealth/prevent/intercept/bleed or whatever you want. > Those attributes are tied to diciplines. > Yeah it's inferior. But they have access to a hunting ground to use whenever they want in the vagabond hippie. So I would say that they do ok. Play leather jacket and you'll be safe ;) > > > > They are weakish in combat (clearly a balancing factor). And low in the > > pool gain department (solved by mixing them with Vampires). But they > > have a lot of not insignificant abilities. It seems likely that there > > are an awful lot of Imbued possibilities that have not been discovered > > yet. > > Sure, mixing with vampires opens new venues. I recently won a small > tournament with a 50/50 crypt more due to luck with seating and other > opponents choise of decks than having a fantastic deck myself. Ripping > out my entire Imbued package and concentrating on the "vampiric" part > would probably have made a better deck, but being stubborn and all > that ... :) > > They have access to powerful bloat with travis, inspire and the curch. Ok, it's not bloat directly to your pool and it costs actions. But still, I think that is ok considering how good their powers are. And considering that you won the last tourney cause you had imbueds that wasn't rushable by alastor. I think you did just fine with your little hunters :) //Alex

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > newbies. And boring for everybody, as it takes long time to instruct a > player who is new to imbued. I can only wonder how you teach newbies the game. Usually after you have teached the newbie the basic rules, you will give him a simple deck and let him play with it. You will comment about the things he has to do. Shortly you can start making real games, because the allies (i.e. grandpredator and -prey) will help him play. So whats the deal? The newbie has to learn his deck not the other decks. If i give the newbie a Nosferatu combat deck, he has to learn when and how to play Carrion Crows, that he can react with Rats Warning and Cats Guidance. Do i tell him anything about the Tremere he got to beat? No. "Attack vampires and beat the crap out of them." is all he has to know. Maybe he will learn, that without an Immortal Grapple he will not be successful against Toreador and Ventrue. Ok. But telling him, what is all possible with the disciplines of his enemies is far beyond his ability. What is different with Imbued. "Beat the crap out of them." is all he has to know about them. "Eat them and nothing bad will happen." is the next thing he can learn. So the difficulty with the Imbued for newbies is not bigger than the difficulty handling any other strange deck he will encounter in his long journey in the world of VTES. Frank

Orpheus wrote: > It should have been something along the lines of : "are you glad of the way > NoR turned out" I havent seen any reasonable ideas what could have done different or better. Hunters as library cards!? Are all hunters recruited by vampires? What would be different except that it would be unplayable, because you first needed a vampire. Counters to fuel the powers!? The pennies are my live, the red counters are conviction and the green countre is a corruption counter from that damned setites deck. Sounds very nice ;-) The same rules like vampires!? The best idea to make the game absolutely silly would be to have hunters going into torpor, using their powers like disciplines and so on. IMO it was the best solution to give another supernatural species of the WOD different rules, so that they are clearly different and not vampires in the mask of hunters. I am not so fond of the imbued because the hunter theme doesnt appeal to me. But i am looking forward for the next mini expansion with supernatural inhabitants of the WOD (werwolve?!).

Wookie813 wrote: > What I DO find annoying about them is the Conviction-fishing mechanic, > which can slow the game down with shuffle-and-cuts on every turn. Not every turn -- just on the turns in which an imbued is influenced out. On the other turns, the imbued player can get Convictions out of only the ash heap (or hand). No shuffle-and-cut involved.

_angst_ skrev: >> Sten During wrote: >> >> Let's just agree upon this strategy being the one currently employed >> in order to win (with one TWDA deck already listed to boot). >> > > I must say that I don't agree to 100%. The many different powers all > give you the possibility of building a unique deck. You can build the > gehenna madness. You can build your version of the deck, which I still > don't know what it does ;) And you can build more softcore decks using > some of the different powers and adding gehenna for support. I can > introduce another concept of the deck the next time I have time for a > pubgame. My caveat was 100% Imbued crypt. > >> Every second turn. Burning Second Sight for stealth is not a cost, so >> it burns. Burning Strike with Conviction happens when bleed goes >> through, so, ok, every 1.5 turn or something like that. >> >> > > You have to take edge explosion into account here: > Edge Explosion: > Requires at least one other Gehenna card in play. Each imbued can have > (and use) one power card for which he or she doesn't meet the > requirements. AN IMBUED WHO PERFORMS A SUCCESSFUL ACTION MAY GAIN 1 > CONVICTION FROM HIS OR HER ASH HEAP. An imbued can only gain 1 > conviction this way each turn. And relying on one single card is still dangerous. > >> 2 is doable but hardly easy, We should compare with diciplines. 3 is >> more or less out of the question, but hey, trying that stunt with vamps >> at max capacity 6 isn't easy either. >> Depending on one single library-card is dangerous, to say the least. >> > > The innocence crypt I'm currently using lets you play with approx 6 > different imbued not counting beatrice. I think that is pretty good. That's one virtue, which i stated was perfectly doable. > >>> The Imbued have, already: >>> -Pretty good bleed. >> Second class bleed, I'd say, but ok :) >> > > I can't agree on that. Having 2-3-4 caps that always can bleed for two > is very powerful IMO. If bleed is your choise then anything but pre/dom is second class. A good comparision would be how cheap you can get obf/pre or even better, obf/dom. > >>> -Significant intercept. >> Light intercept only. >> > > I will never again complain about their intercept after tasting the > angel of berlin + sportbike combo in the first game I played against > them :D Last tournament I generated just about two intercept whenever I wanted, which was either one more than needed or not enough. This is quite similar to what you expect to do with permanent intercept not backed up by transients, and such deck are usually described as having light intercept. What makes them tedoius for most decks is that the light intercept is permanent. >>> pool gain department (solved by mixing them with Vampires). But they >>> have a lot of not insignificant abilities. It seems likely that there >>> are an awful lot of Imbued possibilities that have not been discovered >>> yet. >> Sure, mixing with vampires opens new venues. I recently won a small >> tournament with a 50/50 crypt more due to luck with seating and other >> opponents choise of decks than having a fantastic deck myself. Ripping >> out my entire Imbued package and concentrating on the "vampiric" part >> would probably have made a better deck, but being stubborn and all >> that ... :) >> >> > > They have access to powerful bloat with travis, inspire and the curch. > Ok, it's not bloat directly to your pool and it costs actions. But > still, I think that is ok considering how good their powers are. And > considering that you won the last tourney cause you had imbueds that > wasn't rushable by alastor. I think you did just fine with your little > hunters :) Well, as I recall I got exactly zero vp when you actually had your Alastors running :) With vamps only I WOULD have included four or five copies of Confusion of the Eye. With a normal amount of stealth/bleed I would most probably never have seen the final, so that's for ifs :) Sure I had powerful bloat (when do I not?). Six vampires, four Procurers, one Palatial and Church backed by 15 Cloak makes for good bloat, but, again, this was a mixed crypt. Zero Imbued and ripping out the Imbued stuff from my library and I wouldn't have had to wait half the game to start making a dent in my prey's pool. This was a second class version of my old OBF bleeder with half the crypt having dom for defence. Sure, it's definitely possible to build a mixed deck that's almost as good as doing whatever it does as a vampire only deck would be, but the keyword is "almost". I can only reliably see one "new" deck-type, and it's a low-intercept and/or bleed-sink type of deck packing just enough cards to reliably play Determine once or possibly twice each table-cycle (your untap to your untap) for defence. That should cost 4 - 6 crypt-minions and about 15 - 25 library-cards, which is fair enough. [ quoted text not captured ]

<x5m...@gmx.de> a écrit dans le message de news: 1150112471....@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Different rules, slightly, I agree. What I dislike is : - a totally different set of rules, how you get the cards, how you use them - the stacking of many cards on a vampire - the undirect consequence of having mass-events decks played by imbued The first two put together have for consequences the frequent "what does this do" and "what does he have on him" questions. Boring, game-slowing, it's all been said already. Finding different, constructive ideas, isn't easy. But it's possible. An example on the top of my head would be that hunters don't have "lives" but just different health states. They could be simulated by tapping the vamp a quarter turn each time (card text wouldn't be much harder to read than normally). Examples : Untapped : healthy 1/4 tapped : tired (either one damage or just one action) 1/2 tapped : wounded 3/4 tapped : seriously wounded upside down : coma More : dead (ash heap). "Healing" would occur with a "normal" 1/4 turn untap, so a tired hunter would be healthy at untap, while a wounded would take 2 turns to heal. Variations on whether a non-comatose wounded hunter could act (and therefore tap one more quarter of a turn, showing that his wound gets worse) would be decided after extensive playtesting. The Convictions would be played as vampiric disciplines are. No special rules of putting cards on Imbued (hate that name) at various moments. See ? Just an idea, you might like it or not, it might give you alternate ideas too, but it's different from the chosen take. And I would have preferred it a lot personnaly. -------- Orpheus

x5m...@gmx.de wrote: > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > This is abolutely my point. The game gets impossible to learn for > > newbies. And boring for everybody, as it takes long time to instruct a > > player who is new to imbued. > > So whats the deal? The newbie has to learn his deck not the other > decks. I'm with you there. Give a newbie the quick guide to the phases and actions, play a few turns, and then give them a nice simple deck and let them learn by playing. They only need to know about the deck they're playing, they'll find out about all the other decks soon enough. So an imbued has a few convictions on them, the newbie only needs to remember that they can get +1 intercept / stealth etc... not too much different to reminding them that a sports bike gives a permanent intercept.

Sten During wrote: > Let's just agree upon this strategy being the one currently employed > in order to win (with one TWDA deck already listed to boot). Oh, absolutely. But I think once more folks run into this sort of thing, it will get severely Nergalized. > Every second turn. Burning Second Sight for stealth is not a cost, so > it burns. Burning Strike with Conviction happens when bleed goes > through, so, ok, every 1.5 turn or something like that. The effect of Edge Explosion has already been pointed out, so I'll leave that there.> > 2 is doable but hardly easy, We should compare with diciplines. I dunno--my first deck attempt was Defender/Judgement, and there are two guys who have both. That is half the crypt. Then a couple guys with Def and a couple guys with Jud, and I never had any problem at all playing all the cards I had. Seems likely most dual virtues can do the same thing. > I disagree. Compare Anarchs. Now they're pretty playable, but the very > release they came with got a very bad reputation for being pointless. > Adding variety over time in later releases definitely made Anarchs a > viable deck-type, but the bad reputation still clings to their base > release. Sure. But it took a long time to discover that the Anarchs were difficult to maximize. And even then, people started winning events with Anarch decks a while after they came out and before new cards had been printed for them, just through constant experimentation. And I think it is safe to say that the Imbued, from the get go, are more capable than the Anarchs. > Caveat: I'm ONLY referring to mono-solution crypts. No mixing. Start > adding vampires to Imbued-decks, non-Black Hand vampires etc and the > options increase manyfold. Uhh, why would you make such a caveat? Nothing says you have to play mono Imbued. And doing so totally limits the possibilities. Like, if your argument is "The Imbued are incredibly limited when played just by themselves...", the solution to that dilemma is incredibly obvious. :-) > Light intercept only. They can get +3 intercept reliably and easily (The Unmaskening, Second Sight, Discern/Iluminate/Sport Bike/KRCG/Whatever). > Distinctly inferior to vampires. > One virtue may have regen, but Imbued as such do not. It's like saying > vampires have stealth/prevent/intercept/bleed or whatever you want. > Those attributes are tied to diciplines. There are actually a few powers that heal the Imbued (check them out--I was surprised myself), plus Mr. Mystic. So, like, they don't have Taste or anything, but a group of the Defenders with Rejuvinate (?) are going to generate a lot of life really fast. > Now, with 60+ Imbueds to chose from I'd agree that it would be easy to > pick one or two archetypes to play. With archetypes I mean bleed, > combat, intercept, bloat or whatever you'd normally have chosen when > building your vampire-based deck. Sure. But there is currently, again, an awful lot of unexplored strategy for this set, and think it is premature to think that there isn't *enough* new stuff when we don't actually understand the new stuff we already have. -Peter

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. > > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? To understand if imbued was a necessary addition to the game, one must first understand the retro encabulator, only then is the way clear, grasshopper. To find out more about the retro encabulator look it up at google.com. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

[ quoted text not captured ] Anyway this is chewing up too much time. In most of the games I have played where one was using the Imbueds he had about 4-5 of them. So each untap phase he is regaining about 4-5 cards from the ash heap, probably also considering which should be recovered. Takes definitely too long. And every acting "vampire player" has to consider each of his moves forever because you have to check out all the permanents on the imbued. Of course there were tool-up decks before, but most of them tool up only one vampire, often enough with the same card (e.g 7 raptors). Considering this I find Imbued non-suited for tournament play because they take too much time of the allready scarce 2h. And they don´t even have a chance against any dedicated deck. -- johannes

pd...@lightlink.com wrote: > Keep spent conviction cards in a seperate > pile, and figure out what you are going to fish out of your deck for a > new Imbued before you put them in play. Isn´t this against the rules? One graveyard=one pile of cards, no? -- johannes

pd...@lightlink.com skrev: > Sten During wrote: >> 2 is doable but hardly easy, We should compare with diciplines. > > I dunno--my first deck attempt was Defender/Judgement, and there are > two guys who have both. That is half the crypt. Then a couple guys with > Def and a couple guys with Jud, and I never had any problem at all > playing all the cards I had. Seems likely most dual virtues can do the > same thing. Had you gone for vampires cap 4 - 6 with the bulk cap 4 you would most probably not accept that in order to play a two-discipline deck you'd need three copies each of two vampires and as added insult be forced to dish out minimum 4 pool each for six vampires with only one of the two disciplines you wanted to play. This is what I mean with comparision. > >> I disagree. Compare Anarchs. Now they're pretty playable, but the very >> release they came with got a very bad reputation for being pointless. >> Adding variety over time in later releases definitely made Anarchs a >> viable deck-type, but the bad reputation still clings to their base >> release. > > Sure. But it took a long time to discover that the Anarchs were > difficult to maximize. And even then, people started winning events > with Anarch decks a while after they came out and before new cards had > been printed for them, just through constant experimentation. And I > think it is safe to say that the Imbued, from the get go, are more > capable than the Anarchs. Te Anarchs were quite capable from the beginning -- if all you ever wanted to do was to vote with midcaps. The Imbued are quite capable now -- if all you ever want to do is to cover the table with events. > >> Caveat: I'm ONLY referring to mono-solution crypts. No mixing. Start >> adding vampires to Imbued-decks, non-Black Hand vampires etc and the >> options increase manyfold. > > Uhh, why would you make such a caveat? Nothing says you have to play > mono Imbued. And doing so totally limits the possibilities. The reason is for pointing out the inherent lack of variation available for the imbued as of now, ie the very basis of this subthread. > > Like, if your argument is "The Imbued are incredibly limited when > played just by themselves...", the solution to that dilemma is > incredibly obvious. > > :-) > >> Light intercept only. > > They can get +3 intercept reliably and easily (The Unmaskening, Second > Sight, Discern/Iluminate/Sport Bike/KRCG/Whatever). When you build an Imbued-deck, do you always put in six copies each of Edge Explosion and The Unmasking? You keep returning to specific Events during your argumentation. > >> Distinctly inferior to vampires. >> One virtue may have regen, but Imbued as such do not. It's like saying >> vampires have stealth/prevent/intercept/bleed or whatever you want. >> Those attributes are tied to diciplines. > > There are actually a few powers that heal the Imbued (check them out--I > was surprised myself), plus Mr. Mystic. So, like, they don't have Taste > or anything, but a group of the Defenders with Rejuvinate (?) are going > to generate a lot of life really fast. I know. That's what I said. Virtues -> Powers, in difference from Imbued -> Powers, which isn't true. > >> Now, with 60+ Imbueds to chose from I'd agree that it would be easy to >> pick one or two archetypes to play. With archetypes I mean bleed, >> combat, intercept, bloat or whatever you'd normally have chosen when >> building your vampire-based deck. > > Sure. But there is currently, again, an awful lot of unexplored > strategy for this set, and think it is premature to think that there > isn't *enough* new stuff when we don't actually understand the new > stuff we already have. Well, here we simply differ in opinion :) [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Of course it's not against the rules. No more than putting Blood Doll under the vampire (rather than "on" as stated in card text) is against the rules. And for the people who get riled over such things, your can always stack the two piles into one (Convictions on top, rest underneath; or vice versa).

Sten During wrote: > Had you gone for vampires cap 4 - 6 with the bulk cap 4 you would most > probably not accept that in order to play a two-discipline deck you'd > need three copies each of two vampires and as added insult be forced to > dish out minimum 4 pool each for six vampires with only one of the two > disciplines you wanted to play. > This is what I mean with comparision. Sure. But again, I think looking at this set and saying "there aren't enough Imbued!" is kind of giving a short shrift to what *is* there. I mean, yeah, if there were twice as many Imbued, it would be easier to make different decks, you are correct. But there aren't. Although there is still plenty of possibility available with what is there, and if it turns out that the set is balanced, people are positive about it, and there is support for more Imbued stuff, then they'll probably make more Imbued stuff. But then it is also possible that the limited number of Imbued available is a specific balancing measure. > The Imbued are quite capable now -- if all you ever want to do is to > cover the table with events. See, I totally see where you are coming from, but this is where I disagree, mostly. I don't think that all the Imbued are good for is playing Event decks. And I don't think the Event decks are actually even that good, as while they tend to benfit the Imbued, they also muck up the rest of the table, often leading to a random win. That, and they generate a great deal of table hate. I just don't think enough people have developed the non Event Madness Imbued decks yet. > The reason is for pointing out the inherent lack of variation available > for the imbued as of now, ie the very basis of this subthread. Inherrent lack of variation if you saddle yourself with an unecessary limitation. Like, when Bloodlines came out, a great deal of critisizm of the various BL clans was that there weren't enough of them to build a good single clan deck out of. Which was true. By design. > When you build an Imbued-deck, do you always put in six copies each of > Edge Explosion and The Unmasking? You keep returning to specific Events > during your argumentation. That is 'cause they are important for Imbued decks. Like Deflection is important for Dominate decks. But 6 is probably unecessary. 2 or 3 of each and a Forschrit Library or two, and you are set. > Well, here we simply differ in opinion :) Fair enough :-) -Peter

Johannes Walch wrote: > Isn´t this against the rules? One graveyard=one pile of cards, no? LSJ already answered already, but really, why would you think this? There aren't any rules for the order of your ash heap, and as far as I know, there are no cards that depend on the order of your ash heap. So it doesn't really matter how you keep your ash heap. And when playing with Imbued, it makes a huge amount of sense to keep spent conviction in a seperate pile, simply to make the game easier to manage. -Peter

pd...@lightlink.com wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] ...unless your predator is playing Victim of Habit, in which case it's to your advantage to keep your ash heap jumbled until he asks :)

Jozxyqk wrote: > ...unless your predator is playing Victim of Habit, in which case it's > to your advantage to keep your ash heap jumbled until he asks :) Victim of Habit will be a good imbued hoser since the convictions will be removed from the game slowing the whole recursion thing and doing pool damage...

[ quoted text not captured ] You might think so, but in my experience I rarely have three copies of a Conviction in my ash heap. Sometimes I do as I lunge forward, but they don't stay there for long. But come to think of it, is the tapping of my predator's Victim of Habit something that can be ordered in my untap phase? In other words, do I get to place all the named Convictions before my predator can tap it or can he quickly tap it at the start of my untap phase? We can assume VoH was played on my predator's last turn so my untap phase is the first chance he gets to tap it. Matt Morgan

Matthew T. Morgan wrote: > On Tue, 13 Jun 2006, Shade wrote: > > Victim of Habit will be a good imbued hoser since the convictions will > > be removed from the game slowing the whole recursion thing and doing > > pool damage... > > You might think so, but in my experience I rarely have three copies of a > Conviction in my ash heap. Sometimes I do as I lunge forward, but they > don't stay there for long. > > But come to think of it, is the tapping of my predator's Victim of Habit > something that can be ordered in my untap phase? In other words, do I get > to place all the named Convictions before my predator can tap it or can he > quickly tap it at the start of my untap phase? The former, yes. > We can assume VoH was > played on my predator's last turn so my untap phase is the first chance he > gets to tap it. Right. Or he can wait and tap it on his own subsequent untap phase whenever you spend the appropriate combination of Conviction cards.

[ quoted text not captured ] One Ash Heap, which can be ordered however you choose. For example, most people choose to put their library cards in one stack and their crypt cards in another. -- - Gregory Stuart Pettigrew

[ quoted text not captured ] <tangent> You're right. There's just one ash heap.. which means you can use Victim of Habit and name "Tupdog"! That's pretty awesome. </tangent>

[ quoted text not captured ] And for those of you who are semantic-happy, it is an "ash heap" rather than an "ash pile". Heaps can be messy, or all spread around. Piles are neatly stacked. How would you have a pile of ashes anyway? That would take some truly dedicated work. . . :) Ankur always a heap, never a pile

pd...@lightlink.com skrev: > Sten During wrote: >> The Imbued are quite capable now -- if all you ever want to do is to >> cover the table with events. > > See, I totally see where you are coming from, but this is where I > disagree, mostly. I don't think that all the Imbued are good for is Ah, when writing quite capable I actually meant that the Imbued, on average, is actually better than vampires for playing Gehenna madness. Ie, if you're going to invoke table-hate you should hang on to every little advantage you can get. My complaints about too few cards should of course be seen as my support of the Imbued as such, ie want more. >> The reason is for pointing out the inherent lack of variation available >> for the imbued as of now, ie the very basis of this subthread. > > Inherrent lack of variation if you saddle yourself with an unecessary > limitation. Like, when Bloodlines came out, a great deal of critisizm > of the various BL clans was that there weren't enough of them to build > a good single clan deck out of. Which was true. By design. Well, remains to see if this is by design or simply fear of investing too much money in a concept which could be reecived by hostility. > >> When you build an Imbued-deck, do you always put in six copies each of >> Edge Explosion and The Unmasking? You keep returning to specific Events >> during your argumentation. > > That is 'cause they are important for Imbued decks. Like Deflection is > important for Dominate decks. But 6 is probably unecessary. 2 or 3 of > each and a Forschrit Library or two, and you are set. > Hmm, if I rely on Tor Grand Ball I have five or six. Master decks would normally have some 5 - 6 each of Parthenon and possibly even Information Highway. But hey, if you can convince me that 2 - 3 is enough, plus the Forschritt of course :) Same with my, admittedly stupid, Faithful Servant deck. 5 or 6 Carver's and as many Consecration Rites. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sten During wrote: > Well, remains to see if this is by design or simply fear of investing > too much money in a concept which could be reecived by hostility. Certainly. I think it was probably a good idea, balance factor or no, to start out with a small expansion worth of Imbued. I know a lot of other folks chimed in about this and how they thought it was bad that the set was small, but I think there is certainly enough possibility in what is there to see if the idea is sound without anyone needing to invest too much in seeing if this is the case. Like, I'd be perfectly happy with more Imbued stuff in the future (i.e. I'm not arguing that the Imbued don't need more stuff 'cause I think in the long run that they don't--the certainly can benefit from more stuff, and I don't think it would necessarily be bad for the game), I just don't think the set is flawed in that it is small, as again, I don't think we have even remotely begun to discover all the possibilities of what is already out there. > Hmm, if I rely on Tor Grand Ball I have five or six. Master decks would > normally have some 5 - 6 each of Parthenon and possibly even Information > Highway. But hey, if you can convince me that 2 - 3 is enough, plus the > Forschritt of course :) > Same with my, admittedly stupid, Faithful Servant deck. 5 or 6 Carver's > and as many Consecration Rites. If you are a heavily defensive deck, 3 Unmaskening is not out of the question. If you are a heavily forward deck, 3 of Edge Explosion is not out of the question. But in a general utility sense, say, 2 of each a 2 Forschrit is probably perfectly reasonable. -Peter

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 pd...@lightlink.com wrote: > If you are a heavily defensive deck, 3 Unmaskening is not out of the > question. If you are a heavily forward deck, 3 of Edge Explosion is not > out of the question. But in a general utility sense, say, 2 of each a 2 > Forschrit is probably perfectly reasonable. Maybe I'm just extremely lucky, but at the DC qualifier over the weekend I got Unmasking in the first few turns of 3 of the 4 rounds I played in. I got it about halfway through the game in the other round. My deck is 90 cards and has 2 Unmasking and 1 Fortschritt Library (which I don't think I ever used). I can't recall when Edge Explosion tended to show up, but I think I had it earlish in every game. My deck has 2 Edge Explosion. I've probably played this deck 10 times or so and it's pretty typical for me to get both Unmasking and Edge Explosion in the early game. Matt Morgan

pd...@lightlink.com wrote: > There aren't any rules for the order of your ash heap, and as far as I > know, there are no cards that depend on the order of your ash heap. Dis Pater. But since you can rearrange your ash heap right before you tap it, I don't think it effectively matters. John Eno

as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I think imbued was a too drastical change to the VtES game (In fact, > it´s more a totally new game!) > Too many new rules at once. > Too many cards/effects in play at once (5-6 cards on each imbued minion > are not uncommon). > The symbols of the imbued "clans" is very hard to distinguish from > eachother. > Tempts to play the Gehenna events that locks down all constructive play > from vampire decks. > As a whole: Uncalled for, unbalanced and generally annoying. > > Poll: Was imbued a necessary addition to the game? IMO? Yes, and 1000 times yes. i bloody hate vampires, me, i think they are the epitome of wicked, exploitative evil and so i am TOTALLY on the side of the anti-vampire geezers, pretty much whomsever they be. Accordingly i bought two boxes of boosters just to put my money where my mouth is. Was the expansion well done? Yes and no, IMO. Great new mechanics = Good. Extra complexity = Bad. Artwork = among the best for the whole game [Strike with Conviction being among our personal favourites]. Imbued names = doubleplus bad and then some. Giving VTES players EXTRA incentives to play dumbass multiple Gehenna event crap = badder than Harry Bad on Bad Day in Badtown.

Johannes Walch wrote: > Anyway this is chewing up too much time. In most of the games I have > played where one was using the Imbueds he had about 4-5 of them. So each > untap phase he is regaining about 4-5 cards from the ash heap, probably > also considering which should be recovered. Takes definitely too long. Sounds to me like a lack of familiarity with the cards. Really, there are only three convictions, and one of them is so narrow in focus that you'll generally know right away whether or not it's the one you want. And the other two are simple enough that it shouldn't take any longer to finish your untap phase than the normal hunting ground, Fame damage, etc. > And every acting "vampire player" has to consider each of his moves > forever because you have to check out all the permanents on the imbued. > Of course there were tool-up decks before, but most of them tool up only > one vampire, often enough with the same card (e.g 7 raptors). Heh. You should play against one of Ben Peal's Magic of the Smith decks some time. Those things take WAY longer than any of the imbued decks I've seen. > Considering this I find Imbued non-suited for tournament play because > they take too much time of the allready scarce 2h. And they don´t even > have a chance against any dedicated deck. History seems to disagree with you, as demonstrated by this tournament-winning deck: http://tinyurl.com/pnug3 But if you were correct, then imbued wouldn't generally be a problem, as people would figure out that they don't win and would soon stop playing them competitively. John Eno

invisibl...@gmail.com skrev: [ quoted text not captured ] Huh??? Remove seven cards to get +1 bleed. Nothing about order. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sten During wrote: > invisibl...@gmail.com skrev: > > Dis Pater. But since you can rearrange your ash heap right before you > > tap it, I don't think it effectively matters. > > Huh??? > > Remove seven cards to get +1 bleed. Nothing about order. Whoops! I'd gotten so used to moving the cards that I wanted to remove to the top of the ash heap to save time that I guess I started thinking that this is how the card works. My mistake. John Eno

<invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1150237812....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Um, there's also nothing about which seven cards you have to remove. It doesn't say "the top seven cards" or anything. Fred

<pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:1150200475.0...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] -Peter <<<<<<<<<< I do the same thing with my burned Hordes when I'm playing Shamblers, just as a reminder to myself to make sure there's one available to burn before I play a fresh one. Though, of course, this requires the use of yet another RFG pile in another spot. :) - Pat

Fred Scott wrote: > <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message > > Whoops! I'd gotten so used to moving the cards that I wanted to remove > > to the top of the ash heap to save time that I guess I started thinking > > that this is how the card works. My mistake. > > Um, there's also nothing about which seven cards you have to remove. > It doesn't say "the top seven cards" or anything. Yeah, I know. But it can really slow down the game to figure out which seven cards to remove every time I use Dis Pater, which can be several times a turn. Or I can pick through my ash heap during my grandprey's or grandpredator's turns, figure out which cards I want to remove, and pile them on top of the ash heap so that when I use Dis Pater I can just count seven (or fourteen, or whatever) off the top and be done with it. Really, it doesn't come up very often that it even matters. But why slow down the game unnecessarily? Timeouts suck. John Eno

Wookie813 wrote: > Imbued players I have played with usually create a second Ash Heap, to > facilitate quicker recycling, which could create a problem when an > effect might target/consider a card's position in the Ash HEap (like > "the top card of the Ash Heap" or whatever, so a potential problem > could exist there). I'm no LSJ, but i am pretty sure the ash heap has no order. So laying it out in two piles, as long as it's blindingly clear they are both the same ash heap, should be no problem. -- salem http://users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/vtes/ (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, *I* think having more than one graveyard is against the rules. Heck, I think having _one_ graveyard is against the rules. You should all be playing with Ash Heaps, instead. :P [ quoted text not captured ]