Experience

Pat's Giovanni newsletter contained his ideas on how to change the game to improve the balance between elder and neonate vampires. Whatever the merits of these ideas, the problem is that it involves changing the mechanics of the game and that's unsatisfactory. I'm surprised The Lasombra's minions haven't been sent to chastise him for not following the party line. This is not the first such idea. There's a set of official variant rules to help elder vampires in the WotC Vampire rulebook but these are little used. I myself have worked out some different mechanics but it's not worth writing them down if no-one will use them. There's too much inertia to overcome now - even the NRA amendment to the mechanics hasn't made it into the rulebook yet. The best way of shifting the balance of a CCG is by printing powerful new cards. That's what WW are doing in this area, trying to hose weenies with cards like Free States Rant and help elder vampires with cards like Zillah's Valley. The focus of my idea was to make more of the discipline mix that you get with an elder vampire. This is hard to fully utilize as it stands because you can't keep enough cards for each discipline in your hand so that they are there when you need them. Maybe there should be more cards which increase your hand size like the Elder Library? But I've had another card idea which I worked out in the bath just now. Let's see if I can write it down without too many words: ------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Experience Type: Wild Minion (a new symbol - perhaps an asterisk) Cost: none Text: You may play a minion card from your ash heap as if it had been played from your hand. The card chosen may not be deeper in the ash heap than the capacity or life of the minion playing it and the card stays in that position unless it is put into play. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Example: Gwendolyn is in combat with a Gangrel and it's not going well. She would really like to use her superior Fortitude but, because she's in a Brujah deck, she doesn't have a Fortitude card in hand. Reaching back through her long memory, she goes back into the ash heap to find the Skin Of Night that she remembers using in the past. It's only 7 cards down and her capacity is 11 so she can play it to avoid going to torpor from the Gangrel's aggravated damage. The Skin of Night stays where is and, with the Experience card added to the pile, is now 8 cards down. The Experience card wouldn't be much use to a weenie deck. These typically just use one discipline and their capacity is so low that they might as well just use more copies of the cards they want instead of this one. But a player using a high capacity vampire can get a lot more out of it. That vampire has access to many more minion cards and, the older it is, the more chance it has of finding that special discipline card that it needs. The card is self-limiting. If you play several of them then they will fill up the top of the ash heap and so push the real minion cards deeper into the ash heap. And if you have too many Experience cards in your deck, you'll have trouble finding real minion cards to reuse. It is designed to be a staple like Wake with Evening's Freshness - a card that you'd expect to see in many decks. It would thus shift change the metagame in favour of elder vampires without any change to the game mechanics. One might object to this being a new card type though. I can't see this being a problem - players can react to the card that's being replayed rather than this one. But, if an existing type is needed, you could say that this card has the type of the card that it is replaying, just as Reality Mirror is a combat card whose effect is to replay another combat card. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > > Title: Experience > Type: Wild Minion (a new symbol - perhaps an asterisk) > Cost: none > > Text: You may play a minion card from your ash heap as if it had been > played from your hand. The card chosen may not be deeper in the ash > heap than the capacity or life of the minion playing it and the card > stays in that position unless it is put into play. > > Andrew Might be a problem there. If I recall correctly I'm allowed to reorder my ash-heap any way I like at any time as long as my doing so doesn't prolong the game (tardiness-rule) too much. Sten During -- NetGuide Scandinavia AB http://www.netg.se/ Tankegangen 4 in...@netg.se 417 56 Goteborg Phone:+46 - (0)31 - 50 79 45 Sweden Fax: +46 - (0)31 - 50 79 39

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > This is not the first such idea. There's a set of official variant > rules to help elder vampires in the WotC Vampire rulebook but these > are little used. I myself have worked out some different mechanics > but it's not worth writing them down if no-one will use them. There's > too much inertia to overcome now - even the NRA amendment to the > mechanics hasn't made it into the rulebook yet. Neither has the banned list nor the time limit. Some rules are made just for tournaments (time limits) and some just for constructed tournaments (NRA). The rules have changed when good changes were found (contesting cities, aggravated damage, vote pushing, self-contesting, burn-upon-owner-ousting, etc.) Well-reasoned and considered suggestions are always welcomed. > The focus of my idea was to make more of the discipline mix that you > get with an elder vampire. This is hard to fully utilize as it stands > because you can't keep enough cards for each discipline in your hand > so that they are there when you need them. Maybe there should be more > cards which increase your hand size like the Elder Library? But I've > had another card idea which I worked out in the bath just now. Let's > see if I can write it down without too many words: > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > Title: Experience > Type: Wild Minion (a new symbol - perhaps an asterisk) > Cost: none > > Text: You may play a minion card from your ash heap as if it had been > played from your hand. The card chosen may not be deeper in the ash > heap than the capacity or life of the minion playing it and the card > stays in that position unless it is put into play. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately, the ash heap has no order, so "deeper in the ash heap" has no meaning. There is no "top" card of the ash heap. This is necessary to allow the cards to be "played" easily without resorting to a chart of how to stack burned cards in the library. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 08:12:43 -0400, LSJ wrote: >Unfortunately, the ash heap has no order, so "deeper in the ash heap" has >no meaning. There is no "top" card of the ash heap. This is necessary to >allow the cards to be "played" easily without resorting to a chart of >how to stack burned cards in the library. I'm not sure what you mean. If you're talking about the general mechanics of card play, there's no necessity for this - the cards just go into the ash heap as they are played. I don't see anything in the Vampire rules to say that you can reorder your discards and so it is as forbidden as reordering your library or crypt without a game effect. Absent such rules and, as this is a Deckmaster game, I expect it to work like its sire, Magic: "217.4. Graveyard 217.4a A graveyard is a discard pile. Any card that's countered, discarded, destroyed, or sacrificed is put on top of its owner's graveyard. Each player's graveyard starts out empty. 217.4b Each graveyard is kept in a single face-up pile. A player can examine the cards in any graveyard at any time but can't change their order. 217.4c If an effect puts two or more cards into the same graveyard at the same time, the owner of those cards may arrange them in any order." It's best if a CCG is like this because then you can have card effects which are based upon the order of cards in the discard pile, as here. Andrew

[snip Experience card] > It is designed to be a staple like Wake with Evening's Freshness - a > card that you'd expect to see in many decks. Well, a staple like Wake With Evening's Freshness OR Forced Awakening. Just like staples such as Blood Doll OR Minion Tap, something almost every deck will need, not unlike land in Magic[0]. Not every deck, of course, but with the advent of Jake Washington, not every deck needs vampires, either. Surely if the numbers speak the truth, then Wake/Forced is as broken as Blood Doll/Minion Tap, yes? Ergo, you are proposing (under your own standards) a broken card? [0] I don't actually play Magic, so I haven't the foggiest if you can make a truly landless deck or not. -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 08:12:43 -0400, LSJ wrote: > > >Unfortunately, the ash heap has no order, so "deeper in the ash heap" has > >no meaning. There is no "top" card of the ash heap. This is necessary to > >allow the cards to be "played" easily without resorting to a chart of > >how to stack burned cards in the library. > > I'm not sure what you mean. If you're talking about the general > mechanics of card play, there's no necessity for this - the cards just > go into the ash heap as they are played. I don't see anything in the But in practice, they don't - it facilitates play to leave the cards "in effect" in view for the duration of the action/combat whatever. For instance, during an equip action, is the equipment placed above or below the stealth card used to help it succeed if the action is ultimately blocked? In practice, above. By rules, below. And by the rulings - it doesn't matter. The ash heap is unordered. When a vampire with a Secure Haven and a Hawg is burned, in what order are the cards placed in the library? > Vampire rules to say that you can reorder your discards and so it is > as forbidden as reordering your library or crypt without a game > effect. Absent such rules and, as this is a Deckmaster game, I expect > it to work like its sire, Magic: No. The "graveyard" is not a common/inherent item of all deckmaster games - the graveyard is not handled the same way as the ash heap. > It's best if a CCG is like this because then you can have card effects > which are based upon the order of cards in the discard pile, as here. If you say so. The slight improvement there is not worth the additional hassle in play, IMO. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 10:20:49 -0400, LSJ wrote: >For instance, during an equip action, is the equipment placed above >or below the stealth card used to help it succeed if the action is >ultimately blocked? In practice, above. By rules, below. You are mistaken. The equipment card is played into the play area and then burned when the action is resolved (6.2.3). The stealth card is played straight into the ash pile (1.6.1.1). The equipment therefore ends up on top of the stealth card in the ash pile. There is no clash between theory and your practise. >When a vampire with a Secure Haven and a Hawg is burned, in what order >are the cards placed in the library? That's up to the player who is placing them there - the player who owns the cards. >If you say so. The slight improvement there is not worth the additional >hassle in play, IMO. There is no hassle. Magic works fine with an ordered discard. Doomtown likewise. This is not rocket science - you just put cards there as they are discarded, played or burned. The rules already tell you to do this - you just have to follow them. A benefit of doing this is that you maintain a good audit trail - a judge can see what cards were played in what order. And, as far as I can see, you have no rule to back up your opinion. It's a general principle of any card or board game that actions which are not explicitly allowed are forbidden. This is not the RPG, you know <grin>. But I'm curious to know why you are so certain of this. It would only matter if there were game effects which were affected by the order. Are there any such already? If not, then we are entering new territory and can proceed as we please. Andrew

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 10:16:37 -0500, Pat Ricochet wrote: >[snip Experience card] >> It is designed to be a staple like Wake with Evening's Freshness - a >> card that you'd expect to see in many decks. > > Well, a staple like Wake With Evening's Freshness OR Forced Awakening. >Just like staples such as Blood Doll OR Minion Tap, something almost every >deck will need, not unlike land in Magic[0]. Not every deck, of course, but >with the advent of Jake Washington, not every deck needs vampires, either. > > Surely if the numbers speak the truth, then Wake/Forced is as broken as >Blood Doll/Minion Tap, yes? Ergo, you are proposing (under your own >standards) a broken card? I already saw this cheap shot coming and so have my response ready. What makes Minion Tap broken is that it is greatly superior to many other master cards which have the same general effect of providing pool. This is not true of Wake and would not be true of Experience - they are sui generis, not one of many. What Wake and Experience would have in common is a multiplier effect which lets you get more out of a single powerful vampire. That's what's needed to make them more playable as compared with weenies. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 10:20:49 -0400, LSJ wrote: > > >For instance, during an equip action, is the equipment placed above > >or below the stealth card used to help it succeed if the action is > >ultimately blocked? In practice, above. By rules, below. > > You are mistaken. The equipment card is played into the play area and > then burned when the action is resolved (6.2.3). The stealth card is > played straight into the ash pile (1.6.1.1). The equipment therefore > ends up on top of the stealth card in the ash pile. There is no clash > between theory and your practise. Technically it is played to the ash heap to start the action, then if the action succeeds, it is put into play. The only two options are "in play" and "ash heap", and the equipment doesn't enter play until the action succeeds (cf. attempting to equip with a Blood Tears while another Blood Tears is in play). If you prefer, use "Army of Rats" instead of equipment. The card only enters play if the action succeeds. > >When a vampire with a Secure Haven and a Hawg is burned, in what order > >are the cards placed in the library? > > That's up to the player who is placing them there - the player who > owns the cards. Sure. I don't see that in the rules. It seems equally likely that the controller would, and even more likely that the acting Methuselah would. Fortunately, it doesn't matter, so this sort of confusion doesn't arise. > >If you say so. The slight improvement there is not worth the additional > >hassle in play, IMO. > > There is no hassle. Magic works fine with an ordered discard. > Doomtown likewise. This is not rocket science - you just put cards > there as they are discarded, played or burned. The rules already tell > you to do this - you just have to follow them. Yeah, and "it's best if a CCG" maintains an order to the hand as well - that way you can have an effect force a player to discard the most-recently-drawn card or, even better, the least-recently-drawn card. But again, the added hassle of trying to specify/maintain that order is not worth the small gain. > A benefit of doing this is that you maintain a good audit trail - a > judge can see what cards were played in what order. Not hardly - since the order of play has nothing to do with the order of the ash heap. An ally played early in the game could easily be on top of all the cards played after it. > And, as far as I can see, you have no rule to back up your opinion. > It's a general principle of any card or board game that actions which > are not explicitly allowed are forbidden. This is not the RPG, you > know <grin>. The rulebook doesn't allow for an order to the ash heap, so it is forbidden, right. > But I'm curious to know why you are so certain of this. It would only > matter if there were game effects which were affected by the order. > Are there any such already? If not, then we are entering new > territory and can proceed as we please. The ash heap is unordered. [LSJ 27-MAR-2001] (a post to which you followed up) As such, there are no game effects which care about the order. You cannot have such effects when the ash heap is unordered, obviously. The hand and uncontrolled region are unordered. [LSJ 29-JUN-2001] And "we" are pleased to proceed in this fashion. No need complicating the game and adding extra stuff for the players to keep track of needlessly. [ quoted text not captured ]

> What makes Minion Tap broken is that it is greatly superior to many > other master cards which have the same general effect of providing > pool. See Derek's post: relative to all other game effects, while the effect is "greatly superior," it is at the same time "just sufficient." Hamstringing Minion Tap doesn't make the other pool gain cards better -- it makes the pool *removing* cards even better. Your only other option is to not *spend* the pool, which reduced to playing weenies, a necessity I thought this thread was trying to avoid. Alternately, you may attempt to reduce all the pool-removing capability (at the same time you reduce the capability of Minion Tap), but this requires outright banning wholesale of many cards. And, this has been tried: Sabbat was printed playable stand alone, with No Minion Tap, but instead Tribute to the Master. No 5th or 2nd-like cards, even more intercept cards, no KRC or ConAg votes, no Conditioning, Scouting Mission instead of Govern the Unaligned, etc. !Malks had Dementation, not Dominate, so the Power Sneak Bleeders weren't as strong. The !Ventrue have no Princes and no Majesty, so there went the Power Voters. Despite the "strong" cards and vampires in Sabbat, the set by itself appears to be a game with less pool gain AND less pool removal. And sure enough, Short-Term Investment was reprinted, though Minion Tap was not. (Blood Doll was also reprinted, however). However, since the most accepted tournament format allowed cards from all previous sets, all of these changes were moot. Heavy pool loss still has to be countered by heavy pool gain and/or rapid ousting of one's prey. Sabbat, and likewise Sabbat War, *does* make an interesting sealed Draft game, however, since there no KRCs or Conditionings, and few Blood Dolls. You even see Short Term Investment played. > What Wake and Experience would have in common is a multiplier effect > which lets you get more out of a single powerful vampire. That's > what's needed to make them more playable as compared with weenies. Which is why Majesty and Freak Drive are so valuable. Surely, a clan with both Presence and Fortitude would have the easiest go of playing with large vampires. (Second runner up to Cat's Guidance and Earth Meld. A clan with both Animalism and Protean should be able to hold off any number of attackers, if only they can oust their own prey in the mean time.) [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: [snip] >And "we" are pleased to proceed in this fashion. No need complicating >the game and adding extra stuff for the players to keep track of needlessly. How odd. 1) I have no problem with putting cards in the ashheap in the order I play them. It would be more awkward to do something else. 2) Once they're there, it's easiest to keep them that way. If I need to examine an ashheap, looking at the cards in the order they're in is much easier than shuffling. I think you are using complication as a strawman. I think that the rule could be of benefit, and that the proposed card Experience would be a good use of this. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices.

Gene Wirchenko wrote: > 1) I have no problem with putting cards in the ashheap in the order > I play them. It would be more awkward to do something else. When you try to equip with a .44, you play the .44 to the ash heap before asking for blockers? I think you're in a minority there. > 2) Once they're there, it's easiest to keep them that way. If I > need to examine an ashheap, looking at the cards in the order they're > in is much easier than shuffling. > > I think you are using complication as a strawman. Most players I've seen play in tournaments leave action cards on the table until the action resolves. Likewise for "duration of action" cards like Torn Signpost. I do not think it is a strawman. > I think that the rule could be of benefit, and that the proposed > card Experience would be a good use of this. The rule would complicate the natural tendency in the movement of action cards, at the very least. Whether this complication is worth the benefit (and of course there's a benefit) is open to debate, but it doesn't seem worthwhile. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Technically it is played to the ash heap to start the action, then if > the action succeeds, it is put into play. The only two options are "in > play" and "ash heap", and the equipment doesn't enter play until the > action succeeds (cf. attempting to equip with a Blood Tears while > another Blood Tears is in play). Woah, so you can have a Blood Tears on the acting vamp who is attempting to equip another Blood Tears and, before the action is successful, burn the already equipped Blood Tears for the blood and then gain the new Blood Tears (if successful)? Too cool... Sorrow --- If you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.

Sorrow wrote: > > > Technically it is played to the ash heap to start the action, then if > > the action succeeds, it is put into play. The only two options are "in > > play" and "ash heap", and the equipment doesn't enter play until the > > action succeeds (cf. attempting to equip with a Blood Tears while > > another Blood Tears is in play). > > Woah, so you can have a Blood Tears on the acting vamp who is > attempting to equip another Blood Tears and, before the action is > successful, burn the already equipped Blood Tears for the blood > and then gain the new Blood Tears (if successful)? > Too cool... No. You can't play the card that would contest with yourself. (Much like you cannot attempt an action that you cannot pay for, even if you plan to be able to pay for it when it resolves.) But if someone else controls the Blood Tears, she could burn it between the time you play yours to announce the equip action and the time the equip action succeeds. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Neither has the banned list nor the time limit. Some rules are made > just for tournaments (time limits) and some just for constructed > tournaments (NRA). NRA should be in the rulebook for simplicity's sake. I can *NOT* believe it affects sealed deck or even draft enough for anyone to care. It's the only real game mechanics rule that changes in a tournament environment. And people who don't play tournaments but play constructed in a playgroup ought to familiar with the rule because I really think it's a rule that's needed for fairness in constructed, notions about "playing nice with your friends" aside. Fred

Gene Wirchenko wrote: > > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > [snip] > > >And "we" are pleased to proceed in this fashion. No need complicating > >the game and adding extra stuff for the players to keep track of needlessly. > > How odd. > > 1) I have no problem with putting cards in the ashheap in the order > I play them. It would be more awkward to do something else. > > 2) Once they're there, it's easiest to keep them that way. If I > need to examine an ashheap, looking at the cards in the order they're > in is much easier than shuffling. > > I think you are using complication as a strawman. > > I think that the rule could be of benefit, and that the proposed > card Experience would be a good use of this. I don't know. This is a classic tradeoff in strategy games. When this issue comes up, it's a simple matter of deciding how much fun can be gotten from the additional complexity of requiring players to maintain order in their ash heaps. And while it's not really that bad, I have to say I like not having to bother with order when looking at my ash heap or anyone else's. Using depth to dig for a card in ash heaps is an interesting concept but I notice Experience would be a new type of card with unexplored interactions with the existing cards so I'm not sure I'd recommend it just due to that point alone. Other uses of depth beg certain types of issues (actions using depth: do action mods in the course of attempting to play the actions count or not?) that are easy to gloss over when proposing cards but have to be addressed at some point. All in all, it doesn't seem worth opening this can of worms to me. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > > LSJ wrote: > > Neither has the banned list nor the time limit. Some rules are made > > just for tournaments (time limits) and some just for constructed > > tournaments (NRA). > > NRA should be in the rulebook for simplicity's sake. Adding NRA does not simplify the game. Quite the contrary. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <C68FDD3F78387B5B.E2C1D6C4...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >I already saw this cheap shot coming and so have my response ready. >What makes Minion Tap broken is that it is greatly superior to many >other master cards which have the same general effect of providing >pool. This may not be a case of Minion Tap being broken. It could be way above by virtue of the others being too weak, rather than the card itself being inherently broken. Proof through blatant assertion is unlikely to help you progress an argument. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D When all the world seemed to sleep, why, why did you go? EBD690ECD7A1F Was it me? Was it you? B457CA213D7E6 Questions in a world of blue. 68C3695D623D5D

LSJ wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > > > > LSJ wrote: > > > Neither has the banned list nor the time limit. Some rules are made > > > just for tournaments (time limits) and some just for constructed > > > tournaments (NRA). > > > > NRA should be in the rulebook for simplicity's sake. > > Adding NRA does not simplify the game. Quite the contrary. Agreed. That wasn't the sense of my comment. What's simpler is that it's simply a game rule, not something that kicks in in a tournament. It's better people read this rule in their rulebook and play by it all the time rather than have to be aware of it as a constructed tournament rule. It should always be used for constructed, whether in a tournament or not, and barely affects the other types of play. You could eliminate lots of rules in the game and say you were making the game "simpler" - then add them back in for tournaments. Why not do the same for the one-per-action named Action Modifier and Reaction rule? That's surely not needed for fairness in sealed deck. I have a pretty strong idea that the only reason is that NRA was not in the original rules and this one was. Fred

Andrew wrote: >>Pat's Giovanni newsletter contained his ideas on how to change the game to improve the balance between elder and neonate vampires. Whatever the merits of these ideas, the problem is that it involves changing the mechanics of the game and that's unsatisfactory.>> They were interesting ides for variant rules, which are often fun to read. >>I'm surprised The Lasombra's minions haven't been sent to chastise him for not following the party line.>> Nah. I'm here to chastise you for being a meddlesome troll who insists on making trouble when you don't even *like* this game. Andrew, why do you post here? Why do you read this stuff? You don't like this game. You find the basic mechanics (players getting removed from the game) distasteful. You don't like the errata. You don't like the art. You don't like the tournament rules. You don't like the non tournament rules. You think all the cards are broken. Why are you here? Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "The Ramones are more important than the Solar System." -Sean Finnerty

[ quoted text not captured ] Ah. Probably true. But the one-per-action-per-minion rule was designed into the game, unlike NRA which is a patch-fix for a problem encountered after the game's released. The patch is only needed for constructed deck tournaments, IMO - the fact that it wouldn't /bother/ a sealed tournament much isn't a compelling reason to add it. Someone playing rulebook/card text rules and then moving to the tournament scene would have plenty to learn - the NRA rule is just one of those things. It's too complicated/subtle to inflict on someone trying to learn the game, I think. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > > I wrote: > > It's better people read this rule in their rulebook and play by it all the > > time rather than have to be aware of it as a constructed tournament rule. > > It should always be used for constructed, whether in a tournament or not, > > and barely affects the other types of play. > > > > You could eliminate lots of rules in the game and say you were making the > > game "simpler" - then add them back in for tournaments. Why not do the same > > for the one-per-action named Action Modifier and Reaction rule? That's surely > > not needed for fairness in sealed deck. I have a pretty strong idea that the > > only reason is that NRA was not in the original rules and this one was. > > Ah. Probably true. But the one-per-action-per-minion rule was designed into > the game, unlike NRA which is a patch-fix for a problem encountered after > the game's released. The patch is only needed for constructed deck > tournaments, IMO - the fact that it wouldn't /bother/ a sealed tournament > much isn't a compelling reason to add it. > > Someone playing rulebook/card text rules and then moving to the tournament > scene would have plenty to learn - the NRA rule is just one of those things. That's true. But the compelling reason to add it (well, "compelling" always sounds so dire...I'll settle for saying I think it's a damn good one) is that I'm tired of having to explain to players who know the rulebook rules but never play tournaments what "NRA" is and why our play group uses it as a house rule. Players who play constructed deck in other environments should use the rule for the same reason it's used in tournaments. Given that, I find the lack of need for it in sealed deck an insufficient reason to keep it _out_ of the rulebook. > It's too complicated/subtle to inflict on someone trying to learn the game, I > think. It's all too complicated and subtle to inflict on someone trying to learn the game. (An incentive, perhaps, to look for ways of simplifying some of NRA's nuances? I don't know; I haven't put any thought into it.) Jyhad is a complex game and unfortunately, that's one of the necessary rules. I guess I look at constructed play as the default, even for rank beginners. So if this is the issue, I think it would be more appropriate to divide the rules into a "basic game", without some of the more complex rules, and an "advanced game" which has all the rules that seal up the holes experts will use to create unfair decks. I guess it disturbs me that such holes are only considered necessary to seal in tournaments. Fred

In message <3BBB7EE8...@white-wolf.com>, LSJ <vtesrep@white- wolf.com> writes >Ah. Probably true. But the one-per-action-per-minion rule was designed into >the game, unlike NRA which is a patch-fix for a problem encountered after >the game's released. The patch is only needed for constructed deck >tournaments, IMO - the fact that it wouldn't /bother/ a sealed tournament >much isn't a compelling reason to add it. Is it, however, "necessary" (for whatever value of necessary) for casual constructed play? [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > > In message <3BBB7EE8...@white-wolf.com>, LSJ <vtesrep@white- > wolf.com> writes > >Ah. Probably true. But the one-per-action-per-minion rule was designed into > >the game, unlike NRA which is a patch-fix for a problem encountered after > >the game's released. The patch is only needed for constructed deck > >tournaments, IMO - the fact that it wouldn't /bother/ a sealed tournament > >much isn't a compelling reason to add it. > > Is it, however, "necessary" (for whatever value of necessary) for casual > constructed play? Are you asking Scott or me? You replied to him but the thrust of your question isn't clear. Obviously, you know about the decks NRA was created to limit. If, OTOH, you're curious about Scott's thinking on the need for balance in casual play, that's my question as well. (Asked much more succinctly than I did.) Fred

So if this is the issue, > I think it would be more appropriate to divide the rules into a "basic game", > without some of the more complex rules, and an "advanced game" which has all > the rules that seal up the holes experts will use to create unfair decks. I > guess it disturbs me that such holes are only considered necessary to seal in > tournaments. Fred, If you want to inflict some pain on the players, then put contradicting rules in the rulebook, like they did when VTES came out. "Oo, oo, oo your vampire burns" "No, it doesn't" "yes, it does it sez so right here" "that's the basic rules, we are playing by the advanced rules" "...but I just learned how to play" "No, you didn't. You learned the basic game." Does anyone remember this nightmare? Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 20:03:51 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >Gene Wirchenko wrote: >> I think that the rule could be of benefit, and that the proposed >> card Experience would be a good use of this. > >I don't know. This is a classic tradeoff in strategy games. When this issue >comes up, it's a simple matter of deciding how much fun can be gotten from the >additional complexity of requiring players to maintain order in their ash heaps. >And while it's not really that bad, I have to say I like not having to bother >with order when looking at my ash heap or anyone else's. Using depth to dig >for a card in ash heaps is an interesting concept but I notice Experience would >be a new type of card with unexplored interactions with the existing cards so I'm >not sure I'd recommend it just due to that point alone. I concur with Fred and Scott that ordering the ash-heap is probably a poor tradeoff for getting the Experience effect. However, I like the effect. How can something similar be accomplished within the existing rules? I think I can see something - can anyone pick it apart for me? Experience Master 1 pool Take a minion card from the ash heap and place it on a minion you control who is eligible to play that card. That minion may play the card as if it were played from your hand. When it is used, remove it from the game. Each time you play a card from your hand, place a counter on the card. If the number of counters equals or exceeds the capacity of the chosen minion, burn the card. Aside from the general case, doesn't this SCREAM "Temporis action card" at y'all? Mark Woodhouse Incorrigible amateur card-designer

>You could eliminate lots of rules in the game and say you were making the >game "simpler" - then add them back in for tournaments. Why not do the same >for the one-per-action named Action Modifier and Reaction rule? That's >surely >not needed for fairness in sealed deck. I have a pretty strong idea that the >only reason is that NRA was not in the original rules and this one was. Ack! Reminds of when they tried to "dumb down" Jyhad/VTES to make it more player-friendly ("the basic game"). Got rid of stealth, intercept, aggravated damage, and more. How's that for "simpler?" Halcyan 2

>[0] I don't actually play Magic, so I haven't the foggiest if you can make a >truly landless deck or not. Actually you probably could (in Type I, if that's still around). Black Lotus and the Moxes all come out for free and they can provide the mana to put out cards (and other mana sources). I stopped keeping track of the game long ago, but later on they began to print more and more cards whose costs could be payed through other means (paying life, removing cards from your hand, etc.). Halcyan 2

"W. Mark Woodhouse" wrote: > I concur with Fred and Scott that ordering the ash-heap is probably a > poor tradeoff for getting the Experience effect. However, I like the > effect. How can something similar be accomplished within the existing > rules? I think I can see something - can anyone pick it apart for me? > > Experience > Master > 1 pool > > Take a minion card from the ash heap and place it on a minion you > control who is eligible to play that card. That minion may play the > card as if it were played from your hand. When it is used, remove it > from the game. Each time you play a card from your hand, place a > counter on the card. If the number of counters equals or exceeds the > capacity of the chosen minion, burn the card. Heh. Don't get me started on the problems of defining the term, "playing a card". }:-) (For the uninitiated, LSJ, James Coupe, and maybe one or two others and I had a long thread about how obvious - or not - the Jyhad definition of what it means to "play a card" actually is.) Fred

In message <3BBBB28A...@netcom.com>, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> writes <Re: NRA> >> Is it, however, "necessary" (for whatever value of necessary) for casual >> constructed play? > >Are you asking Scott or me? The ether in general, mostly. Scott's post - referencing only two styles of tournament play and not casual play - seemed a good hook for it, however. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <20011004002304...@mb-mv.aol.com>, Halcyan 2 <halc...@aol.com> writes >>[0] I don't actually play Magic, so I haven't the foggiest if you can make a >>truly landless deck or not. > >Actually you probably could (in Type I, if that's still around). Black Lotus >and the Moxes all come out for free and they can provide the mana to put out >cards (and other mana sources). The restricted nature (I think) would make them difficult to build a whole deck round. Though I do recall that Type I just recently (within the last twelve months-ish) unbanned/unrestricted a number of cards because of later advances in the card set countering the need, in their opinion. Though, just checking, the Lotus and the Moxes are all still on the restricted list for Type I. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:32:50 -0400, LSJ wrote: >> You are mistaken. The equipment card is played into the play area and >> then burned when the action is resolved (6.2.3). The stealth card is >> played straight into the ash pile (1.6.1.1). The equipment therefore >> ends up on top of the stealth card in the ash pile. There is no clash >> between theory and your practise. > >Technically it is played to the ash heap to start the action, then if >the action succeeds, it is put into play. Where are you getting this from? Does anyone at all actually do this? If not, I suggest that you amend the rules so that they reflect reality. >The only two options are "in play" and "ash heap" In Shadowfist you play equipment directly onto a character but it does not have its effects until it "resolves". Obviously players are intuitively doing something of the sort here. >> That's up to the player who is placing them there - the player who >> owns the cards. > >Sure. I don't see that in the rules. I agree, the rules aren't comprehensive. That's why one has to fall back on the general rules of card play. >The rulebook doesn't allow for an order to the ash heap, >so it is forbidden, right. The rulebook doesn't allow for an order to the library or crypt either. When you draw a card, it could be any card, if you take that line. >The ash heap is unordered. [LSJ 27-MAR-2001] (a post to which you followed up) >The hand and uncontrolled region are unordered. [LSJ 29-JUN-2001] So far as I can see, you just made that stuff up. It seems your concept is that the ash heap is literally a heap. If, as you say, it has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what they were, let 'em figure it out. Andrew

On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:20:35 -0500, Pat Ricochet wrote: > And, this has been tried: Sabbat was printed playable stand alone, with >No Minion Tap, but instead Tribute to the Master. No 5th or 2nd-like cards, >even more intercept cards, no KRC or ConAg votes, no Conditioning, Scouting >Mission instead of Govern the Unaligned, etc. !Malks had Dementation, not >Dominate, so the Power Sneak Bleeders weren't as strong. The !Ventrue have >no Princes and no Majesty, so there went the Power Voters. That's an interesting point. Was this by accident or design? Was Sabbat intended to be an improved revision of the game, correcting known faults of the Camarilla editions? And have there been any Sabbat-only constructed events to see if the redesign was successful? Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:32:50 -0400, LSJ wrote: > > >> You are mistaken. The equipment card is played into the play area and > >> then burned when the action is resolved (6.2.3). The stealth card is > >> played straight into the ash pile (1.6.1.1). The equipment therefore > >> ends up on top of the stealth card in the ash pile. There is no clash > >> between theory and your practise. > > > >Technically it is played to the ash heap to start the action, then if > >the action succeeds, it is put into play. > > Where are you getting this from? Does anyone at all actually do this? 1.6.1.1. Someone on this thread suggested that they do this. I don't think it's common, no. > If not, I suggest that you amend the rules so that they reflect > reality. This is the proper rule. Changing it produces problems with the interaction with contesting rules. > >The only two options are "in play" and "ash heap" > > In Shadowfist you play equipment directly onto a character but it does > not have its effects until it "resolves". Obviously players are > intuitively doing something of the sort here. Right. So there's no need complicating the rules to spell this sort of thing out. > >> That's up to the player who is placing them there - the player who > >> owns the cards. > > > >Sure. I don't see that in the rules. > > I agree, the rules aren't comprehensive. That's why one has to fall > back on the general rules of card play. You snipped the rest - the part that indicated where the rules are comprehensive enough to suggest that your spurious ruling isn't correct. > >The rulebook doesn't allow for an order to the ash heap, > >so it is forbidden, right. > > The rulebook doesn't allow for an order to the library or crypt > either. When you draw a card, it could be any card, if you take that > line. Yes, it does. [2.3] For someone so gung ho to change the rules, you may want to ensure you have a proper understanding of them first. > >The ash heap is unordered. [LSJ 27-MAR-2001] (a post to which you followed up) > >The hand and uncontrolled region are unordered. [LSJ 29-JUN-2001] > > So far as I can see, you just made that stuff up. It seems your Yeah. Official rules are like that. Someone has to make them up. > concept is that the ash heap is literally a heap. If, as you say, it That's the official concept, yes. > has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the > pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my > discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what > they were, let 'em figure it out. Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 04 Oct 2001 05:16:27 GMT, W. Mark Woodhouse wrote: >Experience >Master >1 pool > >Take a minion card from the ash heap and place it on a minion you >control who is eligible to play that card. That minion may play the >card as if it were played from your hand. When it is used, remove it >from the game. Each time you play a card from your hand, place a >counter on the card. If the number of counters equals or exceeds the >capacity of the chosen minion, burn the card. Placing a counter when you play a card from your hand doesn't seem right. Perhaps you mean that a counter gets put on the Experience master card when it is used. It would be similar in strength to Elder Library. That may make it playable but it's not enough to significantly shift the balance of power between weenies and elders. >Aside from the general case, doesn't this SCREAM "Temporis action >card" at y'all? There's already Whispers of the Dead but that doesn't seem strong enough to be worth bothering with. Andrew

> So far as I can see, you just made that stuff up. It seems your > concept is that the ash heap is literally a heap. If, as you say, it > has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the > pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my > discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what > they were, let 'em figure it out. New home work assignment: When playing against Andrew be sure to look carefully at his discard pile, then to ensure that they are not in any order riffle shuffle them 7-10 times.(he likes to have other people bend his freak drives!) -- Aaron The Nosferatu Stuff PS why don't you create some NEW mechanics instead of dreaming up "new" stuff that you are just ripping off of other games?(in doom town we do this, in magic we do this...)

In message <AD90E167D4EB88BC.5AA39DF3...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >>Aside from the general case, doesn't this SCREAM "Temporis action >>card" at y'all? > >There's already Whispers of the Dead but that doesn't seem strong >enough to be worth bothering with. It depends on your play-style. For many focused deck styles, I would say it's probably not worth it. Why get a Bonding back when you could just play another one of the 8 in your deck? For many toolboxed deck styles, it can be extremely useful. Assume you have 4 Delaying Tactics, 4 Deflection and 4 Spiritual Intervention in your deck, along with 4 Whispers from the Dead. You can almost redesign your deck in mid-play to cater for the opponents you face, redrawing the useful cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <D24AFC8F15C9F9A5.AB428EF6...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >That's an interesting point. Was this by accident or design? Was >Sabbat intended to be an improved revision of the game, correcting >known faults of the Camarilla editions? Partly, yes. See the rules changes that were introduced in the Sabbat rules booklet, for instance. The obvious one is the change in voting styles (which was later further remedied). Others include the way in which certain aspects of the game were changed relative to all non- Camarilla, whereas previously Independent vampires had had a number of the now-exclusive Camarilla privileges. So some of the rules were tweaked/amended as necessary. Partly, no. Large portions of the *set* seem to have been selected not for revisions of the game (if that were the case, WotC would have pretty much had to follow this up with various other changes regarding the entire playable set e.g. a Type II style setting for V:TES - this did not happen, of course) but, rather, for style and flavour. If you compare and contrast, there is much in the set that is more directly brutal and combat oriented e.g. Disarm, being the obvious example. The Sabbat are, generally, politically weaker than the Camarilla, but more internalised - reflected by their inability to call certain votes, but automatic "Sabbat only" on things like Cardinal Benediction - the Camarilla being powerful but open. As a result, a number of cards were not reproduced on flavour grounds. Also, by providing certain alternatives, it provided more incentive to the old players to buy new cards. Catatonic Fear isn't better than Majesty outright, but it's certainly a card that old players can look at and think "Hmmm, I wouldn't mind a few of those." KRC etc., however, were left in the game - something which WotC and the DCI had the power to remove. And Sabbat was designed to interact with previous sets e.g. the text on Cardinal Benediction again. And the Sabbat vampires were still perfectly at liberty to play KRC etc., they just didn't have them in their set. But then, neither did the Setites in Ancient Hearts. Had they so wanted, KRC could have been one of the targets of Camarilla Membership Has Its Privileges, as were several cards from V:TES. It wasn't, hence it seems likely that the designers wanted it to stay that way. >And have there been any Sabbat-only constructed events to see if the >redesign was successful? This rather relies on the answers to your previous questions being that Sabbat was an intentional redesign. It was intended to be a perfectly playable base-set on its own merits - which it is. It's actually a very good set, but politics is a little underpowered in some ways - a reflection of the theme of the set - though with a number of new, flexible aspects e.g. you can have lots and lots of Cardinals, rather than 1 per clan, relative to the Justicars. It was also intended to be an expansion of the game - which it is. It interacts extremely well on a number of level with V:TES. Some of the vampires are a shade more powerful than the original, due to the interesting costing scheme they developed, but the Jyhad/V:TES base set and the Sabbat base set interact extremely well with each other. *Now*, they also interact extremely well with the FN/AH/DS due to the upgrading of the Independent clans. It's not a redesign - like releasing Vampire: 4th Edition, or something. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001 14:05:05 +0100, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >In message <AD90E167D4EB88BC.5AA39DF3...@lp.airnew >s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >> >>There's already Whispers of the Dead but that doesn't seem strong >>enough to be worth bothering with. > >For many toolboxed deck styles, it can be extremely useful. Assume you >have 4 Delaying Tactics, 4 Deflection and 4 Spiritual Intervention in >your deck, along with 4 Whispers from the Dead. You can almost redesign >your deck in mid-play to cater for the opponents you face, redrawing the >useful cards. Or, to steal your above example; with 6 Bonding, 6 Conditioning, and 6 Whispers of the Dead, you have either extra stealth or tactical nuke, depending on what you need at the time. Not to mention that it lets you get rid of something from your hand... say, those stealth cards you've been jamming up on? Or the third Blood Doll in your hand? -- Derek

On Thu, 04 Oct 2001 12:47:08 +0100, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:20:35 -0500, Pat Ricochet wrote: > >That's an interesting point. Was this by accident or design? Was >Sabbat intended to be an improved revision of the game, correcting >known faults of the Camarilla editions? I believe it was intended to be a more combat-heavy revision of the game, emphasizing the brutality of the Sabbat as opposed to the machinations of the Camarilla. >And have there been any Sabbat-only constructed events to see if the >redesign was successful? I participated in a couple Sabbat draft events back when boxes were still around $50 each. The games were MUCH more combat-focused, and much less stealth/bleed focused; there simply were fewer ways to whack the hell out of your prey rapidly, except by beating his vampires to death. They were generally quite fun. This is true of draft in general, though; the tendency of players to scoop up all bleed modifiers whether or not they can play them in their deck usually means that you can't produce a strong bleeder. Except for one particular draft event, where I managed to get something like 6 Kindred Spirits, 4 Eyes of Chaos, and a couple Presence bleed cards as well. (the Word on My Deck went out rapidly after the first round, and each successive prey just left all his vamps untapped every round until I was ousted. =/ Silly, and frustrating.) -- Derek

Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BBB982A...@netcom.com>... > LSJ wrote: > > > > I wrote: > > > It's better people read this rule in their rulebook and play by it all the > > > time rather than have to be aware of it as a constructed tournament rule. > > > It should always be used for constructed, whether in a tournament or not, > > > and barely affects the other types of play. Well, reading this got me thinkging..(way to go Fred) Anyway, why does rule 6.2 exist? 6.2. Constructed Deck Size Limits Standard Constructed decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards and a maximum of ninety cards. The crypt must contain a minimum of twelve cards. Why do tournaments require you to play with 60-90 card decks? When the regular rules are 40+10/per player. Seems a little unnecessary also. Aaron.

"Aaron" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message [clip] > Well, reading this got me thinkging..(way to go Fred) > > Anyway, why does rule 6.2 exist? > > 6.2. Constructed Deck Size Limits > > Standard Constructed decks must contain a minimum of sixty cards and a > maximum of ninety cards. The crypt must contain a minimum of twelve > cards. > > Why do tournaments require you to play with 60-90 card decks? When > the regular rules are 40+10/per player. Seems a little unnecessary > also. Since you can shift between 4 and 5 player tables, if you used the rulebook's rules you'd be able to create a deck that is legal in one round (90 cards in a five player game) and then illegal in the next round (90 cards in a 5-player table). So, I can see that it makes sense to have a fixed number. Now why that fixed number is 60-90 cards instead of 40-90, I don't know. Robert

[ quoted text not captured ] I suppose it's just concern that a limit smaller than 60 cards allows players to build a deck that draws too predictably. I expect it's pretty debatable whether that's true or not but you have to remember: it was implemented by those whacky DCI guys, the same folks who gave us Type 1 Magic. Fred

>I suppose it's just concern that a limit smaller than 60 cards allows players >to >build a deck that draws too predictably. I expect it's pretty debatable >whether >that's true or not but you have to remember: it was implemented by those >whacky >DCI guys, the same folks who gave us Type 1 Magic. Hey, there was nothing wrong with Type 1! In fact, I think it was *vastly* superior to Type 2 (and that Type 1.5 thing). I'd rather spend a little money now to get the "good cards" (and know I can continue using them) than be forced to buy boxes each time a new expansion comes out (and all of my old boxes of cards become useless). Halcyan 2

In message <20011004182232...@mb-mv.aol.com>, Halcyan 2 <halc...@aol.com> writes >Hey, there was nothing wrong with Type 1! In fact, I think it was *vastly* >superior to Type 2 (and that Type 1.5 thing). > >I'd rather spend a little money now to get the "good cards" (and know I can >continue using them) than be forced to buy boxes each time a new expansion >comes out (and all of my old boxes of cards become useless). There is something wrong with a Type I style format, however, when you know that you can buy the good cards now but that, in the future, no-one will be able to buy cards as good as yours because they realise they need game balance. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D And if it's all right, I'd kind've like to be your lover EBD690ECD7A1F 'Cause when you're with me I can't help but be B457CA213D7E6 So desperately, uncontrollably happy 68C3695D623D5D

Halcyan 2 wrote: > > >I suppose it's just concern that a limit smaller than 60 cards allows players > >to build a deck that draws too predictably. I expect it's pretty debatable > >whether that's true or not but you have to remember: it was implemented by those > >whacky DCI guys, the same folks who gave us Type 1 Magic. > > Hey, there was nothing wrong with Type 1! Nothing except the completely wrong concept of "restriction". Pick one, you morons: Bad card: bad in *all* situations ===> ergo ===> BAN OK card: OK in *all* situations ===> ergo ===> leave alone "Restrict" does not appear on any sane list. I've said this consistently since 1994, when I won my first Type I (then just "DCI") tournament. And I will take the thought with me to my grave. "Magic, a great invention. Too bad the tournaments were run by idiots." Type 2 is OK for the specific purpose of allowing latecomers to compete until their collections have enough variety to compete in another type of tournament. It's just that they need another type of tournament: basically, Type 2 without date-of-printing limits but with all the cards banned that need to banned. Fred

"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:_N1v7.1834$2p1.2...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net... [ quoted text not captured ] That makes sense, if you played a 4 player you'd get 40-80 cards, then 5 player would be 40-90. But why not standardize this? This seems like an unnecessary conflict between the VEKN tournament rules and the regular VTES rules. There would be multiple ways to do this, and really it doesn't matter to me which way. Just as long as it was standard? Would 40 card ultra thin decks be too strong for predicitability? You'd trade knowing what you would draw for... 1st you could only play 8 masters, let you totally jam to oblivian. 2nd Figuring that you will draw 18% of your deck on turn 1, would you really want to go that small? Figure you play 1 master a turn, 2 actions+1 modifier(combat or reaction), you can only sustain that for 8 turns. If you came to a tournament, playing via VTES rules and only had a 50 card deck, you cannot play....if you didn't know the errata for fame someone would just point that out to you and you'd put it on the correct vampire. Hmm..possible fix? VTES RULEBOOK: 1.2.1.....Each player must have at least 12 cards in her crypt and at least ** 50** cards in her library. Each player may add up to 10 additional cards to her library per **OTHER** player in the game. Thus, in a six-player game, each player may have a minimum of **50** and a maximum of 100 cards in her library. VEKN TOURNAMENT RULES: 6.2 Standard Constructed decks must contain a minimum of **FIFTY** cards and a maximum of ninety cards. The crypt must contain a minimum of twelve cards Tiny adjustment, to make them the same? Maybe 50 card decks would be only slightly more predictiable then 60, but not as bad as 40?? [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: [snip] >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what >> they were, let 'em figure it out. > >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the "correction" would be in error. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices.

"Gene Wirchenko" <ge...@mail.ocis.net> wrote in message news:3bbc9646...@news.ocis.net... > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > [snip] > > >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the > >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my > >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what > >> they were, let 'em figure it out. > > > >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting > >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. > > What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the > "correction" would be in error. Section 5.1 of the V:EKN Tournament Rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/veknRules.html Misrepresenting public information To start with. Hiding the card you discard can be interpreted as misrepresenting public information. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com -- Posted from rr-163-54-80.atl.mediaone.net [24.163.54.80] via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > The best way of shifting the balance of a CCG is by printing powerful > new cards. That's what WW are doing in this area, trying to hose > weenies with cards like Free States Rant and help elder vampires with > cards like Zillah's Valley. "powerful" in the right circumstances, and with appropriate costing, though, of course. > > The focus of my idea was to make more of the discipline mix that you > get with an elder vampire. This is hard to fully utilize as it stands > because you can't keep enough cards for each discipline in your hand > so that they are there when you need them. Maybe there should be more > cards which increase your hand size like the Elder Library? But I've > had another card idea which I worked out in the bath just now. Let's personally, to make more of the larger vampire's discipline mix, i'd like to see more cards that depend on _other_ vampires having or not having a certain discipline. like Kiss My Ra and Speed of Thought, and more recently Meat Hook. Large vampires are more likely too have "off" disciplines that aren't used in the deck the vampires are in, but could become useful if other people are playing the right cards. Pleasepleaseplease make more cards like these Mr. White-Wolf people. just my two pool, salem.

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news: > The best way of shifting the balance of a CCG is by printing powerful > new cards. That's what WW are doing in this area, trying to hose > weenies with cards like Free States Rant and help elder vampires with > cards like Zillah's Valley. > > The focus of my idea was to make more of the discipline mix that you > get with an elder vampire. This is hard to fully utilize as it stands > because you can't keep enough cards for each discipline in your hand > so that they are there when you need them. Maybe there should be more > cards which increase your hand size like the Elder Library? But I've > had another card idea which I worked out in the bath just now. Let's > see if I can write it down without too many words: > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > Title: Experience > Type: Wild Minion (a new symbol - perhaps an asterisk) > Cost: none > > Text: You may play a minion card from your ash heap as if it had been > played from your hand. The card chosen may not be deeper in the ash > heap than the capacity or life of the minion playing it and the card > stays in that position unless it is put into play. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- how bout this instead, to try and end-run all the arguments that deflected andrew's original (imho) GOOD IDEA (tm)??? > The focus of my idea was to make more of the discipline mix that you > get with an elder vampire. == COMBAT EXPERIENCE cost: free card type: combat text: choose a combat card in your ash heap that requires a discipline. this is the only card requiring that discipline that you may use in this combat, and if you have already used a card requiring that discipline this combat, you may not use the chosen card. you may use this card as if it is in your hand until the end of the current combat. remove this chosen card from play at end of combat. do not replace Combat Experience until after combat. > > Examples: Hasina Kesi can abuse the card by grabbing the previously used signpost. (but can't pump it with further potence cards.) Gideon can truly abuse a majesty. (but then it's removed from the game...) but how does that compare with the abuse possible for the cardanos and anguses of the dark world? how bout if they use lots of deals with the devil, too? and best of all, it doesn't require the (imho) extraneous "ordering" of the ash heap. == or something a lot more thought-out along those lines... (lol) -sporemage37 "some get broken, some get mended. some can't surrender, they're too well-defended. some get lucky, some are blessed, and some pretend... that it's only a dance." -joni mitchell

On Thu, 04 Oct 2001 08:07:15 -0400, LSJ wrote: >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what >> they were, let 'em figure it out. > >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. If the ash heap no longer has a top card then this cannot be public information. The rules do not require you to show your discards to the other players as they do the cards that you play (1.6.1.1 & 8). Indeed, I'm not allowed to show players my discard as this is not sanctioned by the rules (just as I'm not allowed to show cards in my hand). The only public information is what's in your discard pile at any given time. Players are free to examine this and draw their own conclusions (so long as they don't take notes) but I'm not obliged to supply details about how and when the cards got there. For one thing, I might not remember myself. My current practise is to say, "I'm discarding a card". This is normally the cue for the next player to start taking his turn (to save time). I will now bury the card in the middle of my ash heap. Once it's there, it's anyone's guess as to what my discard was. This is a logical consequence of your ruling and doesn't seem like a problem to me. I've not come across any players who are actually interested in my discards but would be pleased to frustrate them if they do exist. Andrew

>My current practise is to say, "I'm discarding a card". This is >normally the cue for the next player to start taking his turn (to save >time). I will now bury the card in the middle of my ash heap. Once >it's there, it's anyone's guess as to what my discard was. This is a >logical consequence of your ruling and doesn't seem like a problem to >me. I've not come across any players who are actually interested in >my discards but would be pleased to frustrate them if they do exist. I find it to be a common courtesy (and also a time saver) to have people announce their discard (or instead of grabbing an ash heap across the table, simply ask what they discarded). Similarly, whenever people move cards from their graveyard (Carlotta, Whispers, Sargon, Reinforcements, WMO, Summon Soul, etc.) even if it weren't required to announce things, it would be common courtesy to do so. [Question, which I'll post at the bottom]. If you want to play any such "trickery" such as hiding cards in your ash heap, then the rest of us will be forced to constantly memorize the cards in your library (and constantly searching through it). All of which can waste valuable game time (both in and outside a tournament setting). Think of how much easier it would be if everyone was open with such "public information." [Question from above]: Although I *know* the answer to Carlotta and Whispers, let me re-ask: in the following cases, does the Methusaleh have to announce which card is being chosen from the graveyard? (A) Carlotta, Whispers From the Dead, and Sargon Fragment (which as actions move a card from ash heap to hand). (B) Pochtli and Summon Soul (which as actions move cards from ash heap to library) (C) Waste Management Operation (isn't actually an action, so do you have to "announce" the card?) (D) Reinforcements (effect of the political action is to shuffle some ash heap cards to library). Thanks! Halcyan 2

pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote in message news:<20011003162625...@mb-cq.aol.com>... > Andrew wrote: > >>Pat's Giovanni newsletter contained his ideas on how to change the > game to improve the balance between elder and neonate vampires. > Whatever the merits of these ideas, the problem is that it involves > changing the mechanics of the game and that's unsatisfactory.>> > > They were interesting ides for variant rules, which are often fun to read. Agreed, also a meditation upon the way in which weenie-deck predators can spoil their prey's day in a rather unsatisfactorily-random way. Interesting and useful, i thought. > > >>I'm surprised The Lasombra's minions haven't been sent to chastise him for > not following the party line.>> > > Nah. I'm here to chastise you for being a meddlesome troll who insists on > making trouble when you don't even *like* this game. Andrew, why do you post > here? Why do you read this stuff? You don't like this game. You find the basic > mechanics (players getting removed from the game) distasteful. You don't like > the errata. You don't like the art. You don't like the tournament rules. You > don't like the non tournament rules. You think all the cards are broken. Why > are you here? Hehehe ... many's the time i've thought and said the same thing, near enough. However, i think all posts should be treated on their merits, and i find this particular one from Andrew to be quite interesting. i don't think it is fair to criticise him for thinking about the general rules of card games, for thinking about new card concepts, and for trying to apply ideas from other card games to VTES. And i think the basic idea of making big, especially non-camarilla vampires, more playable, is a highly laudable one. However, like Scott i foresee TERRIBLE trouble if we bring Order to the Ash-heap. So, i suggest the following modification of the idea: Experience Unique [?] Master, cost 1 pool Play this card on a Vampire you control with a capacity greater than 7. Burn this card if this vampire goes to torpor. [If this card was not to be a unique master, i think you would have to add "a vampire can have only one experience card"]. Burn three blood from this vampire during an action to move a card from your ash-heap and place it on this vampire. For the rest of the current action, this vampire may play this card as if it had been played from your hand. Remove this card from the game at the end of the current action. <snip>

In message <004916443DC3F749.BCED3636...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >>Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting >>to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. > >If the ash heap no longer has a top card then this cannot be public >information. You do not have to ask which card is top; you ask to be informed what card you are discarding which is public information. [ quoted text not captured ]

Gene Wirchenko wrote: > > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > [snip] > > >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the > >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my > >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what > >> they were, let 'em figure it out. > > > >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting > >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. > > What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the > "correction" would be in error. Unsportsmanlike conduct or possibly Cheating-Fraud (if you're doing it to mislead other players into thinking that the visible card is the one you've just discarded). Similar to hiding/camoflaging your pool total . If you're doing it to make people ask, then it also qualifies as stalling. [ quoted text not captured ]

>Experience >Unique [?] Master, cost 1 pool >Play this card on a Vampire you control with a capacity greater than >7. Burn this card if this vampire goes to torpor. [If this card was >not to be a unique master, i think you would have to add "a vampire >can have only one experience card"]. >Burn three blood from this vampire during an action to move a card >from your ash-heap and place it on this vampire. For the rest of the >current action, this vampire may play this card as if it had been >played from your hand. Remove this card from the game at the end of >the current action. > Does this mean that you can use that card as many times as you want during the combat/action? I think it might be scary if Etrius (or something other large vampire with Thaumaturgy) used this new card and a single copy of Weather Control in the graveyard. You block with Sir Walter Nash? Hmmm...Etrius burns 3 blood to be able to play Weather Control, which he uses 8 times to send Mr. Nash into torpor. And I taste back 7 of the blood... A little blood intensive but not very card-intensive in the very least! =) Or how about retrieving those Psyches!? An 8-cap with a Saturday Night Special can Bum's Rush Arika. Manuever and shoot with gun. S:CE, Dodge, prevention, or press to continue? Who cares? You'll run out soon. When there's no press to end, you Psyche!, shoot for one with the gun and let combat end again. Keep Psyche!'ing to your heart's content! Similarly, an unlimited number of manuevers or presses might be a bit much. Hmmm...I play this Trap card 100 times, so each round there are 100 presses to continue... And with Form of the Ghost, Gleam of Red Eyes, or even just a Flash you have an unlimited number of manuevers *and* presses. And a single Skin of Rock is better than Skin of Steel, Flesh of Marble, and all any other damage prevention card... Halcyan 2

On 5 Oct 2001 02:25:04 -0700, legbiter wrote: >and for trying to apply ideas from other card games to VTES. You're the second person to say something like this. This card idea was not inspired by any other card game. To template it, I went to the Reality Mirror card text. >Experience >Unique [?] Master, cost 1 pool >Play this card on a Vampire you control with a capacity greater than >7. Burn this card if this vampire goes to torpor. [If this card was >not to be a unique master, i think you would have to add "a vampire >can have only one experience card"]. >Burn three blood from this vampire during an action to move a card >from your ash-heap and place it on this vampire. For the rest of the >current action, this vampire may play this card as if it had been >played from your hand. Remove this card from the game at the end of >the current action. This is loaded down with so many costs and restrictions that I'm not convinced that anyone would play it. And it would do little to tilt the weenie/elder balance. What's needed is something like Wake which is mostly cost-free. Your idea of giving the card to the vampire for a while is close to the variant idea which I've been toying with for some time. In other WoD games, as in real life, it's easy to do something again once you know how to do it. A vampire with the Celerity discipline can move quickly by spending some blood and can keep this up as long as they have blood to burn. In the CCG, you not only have to have the Celerity discipline, you also have to have a celerity card too. It's this that makes it hard for the elder vampires to utilize all their disciplines - they don't have access to any more cards than a weenie and the hand/deck limits are too small to support more than a couple of disciplines. Your Happy Families variant touches on this but constrains elder vampires rather than empowering them. My thought was that, once a vampire uses a discipline card, it clearly knows that particular power and so should be able to keep using it. To reflect this, a discipline card could be kept by a vampire after it has been played. It could then be used again in a subsequent turn but would be tapped each time it is used, to prevent overuse. To reflect the age and experience of the elder vampires, a vampire would only be able to retain as many discipline cards as its capacity. You'd have limits for each discipline too - one retained card for inferior know-how, two retained cards for superior. For example, Aaron Duggan has capacity 2 but only has inferior knowledge of Obtenebration. He can only master one standard move then - Blanket of Night say. Lucita, however, has "cel DOM FOR OBT pot" and a matching capacity of 8. When she's fully loaded, she'll be spoilt for choice, having eight standard moves to use each turn. Now this idea flows mainly from thinking about the differences between the Vampire CCG and RPG but there are other CCGs which have mechanics like this. For example, Doomtown has power and spell cards which are played onto characters with appropriate disciplines. They can only use each power once per turn and this is indicated by tapping it. That game doesn't have the capacity concept though and so one weenie spellcaster can be loaded up with lots of spells and that's rather broken. Anyway, my vision for Vampire is of a mighty Prince being kitted out with a repertoire of discipline cards which he can use again and again - his Modus Operandi, you might say. This ought to mesh fairly well with the Happy Families concept which would help ensure that a balanced mix of discipline cards was used. The downside is that it might help weenies just as much - all they may need is to learn one good trick. And it would further undermine the cost effectiveness of equipment and retainers. Hmm... Andrew

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:3A265345CCC1764D.C9DA484E...@lp.airnews.net... > Celerity discipline, you also have to have a celerity card too. It's > this that makes it hard for the elder vampires to utilize all their > disciplines - they don't have access to any more cards than a weenie > and the hand/deck limits are too small to support more than a couple > of disciplines. That is an interesting observation, maybe what we should look for is ways to increase your hand size/recycle cards according to your minion's capacity? Elder Knowledge Political Action, worth 1 vote, etc... [Or maybe do this as an action? I wouldn't want to limit this to political decks, though you're likely to have the support of all Elder decks, and so it should be an easy vote to pass] Each Methuselah chooses one vampire he controls. If vote is successful each Meth's hand size is changed by (vamp's capacity - 5), and no more Elder Knowledge can be played in this game [so if the vote fails you can try again]. I see one serious problem with this as it is, but I'll wait for comments before proposing a solution. :-) Ancient Precognition +1 stealth Action(?) 1 blood Only usable by a vampire with capacity above 6. If this action is successful, put this card on the acting minion and untap him at the end of your turn. If the vampire with this card is ready during your untap phase, you can look at the top 2 cards in your library. Once each turn, this vampire can burn 1 blood to increase your hand size by 1 until the end of the turn. Experience Master 2 pool (?) Chooses one vampire you control. Choose a number of cards in your Ash Heap equal to (half?) that vampire's capacity and shuffle those cards back into your library. Remove this card from the game afterwards. Put all of those with together with The Barrens/DotS/etc and you can get an Elder deck flowing much better. <snip> > The downside is that it might help weenies just as much - all they may > need is to learn one good trick. And it would further undermine the > cost effectiveness of equipment and retainers. Hmm... Right, permanent effects are currently represented mainly by Equipment and Retainers, while transient cards often have a better effect. Turning transients into permanents would not only make equipments obsolete, it would also easily break the game. Flux

"Flux" <fl...@netc.pt> wrote in message news:3bbd...@212.18.160.197... > Elder Knowledge > Political Action, worth 1 vote, etc... [Or maybe do this as an action? I > wouldn't want to limit this to political decks, though you're likely to have > the support of all Elder decks, and so it should be an easy vote to pass] > Each Methuselah chooses one vampire he controls. If vote is successful each > Meth's hand size is changed by (vamp's capacity - 5), and no more Elder > Knowledge can be played in this game [so if the vote fails you can try > again]. > > I see one serious problem with this as it is, but I'll wait for comments > before proposing a solution. :-) As you haven't defined changed, I will choose to change my hand size exponentially. 7^5 = 16807. Even 7^2 would work for me. I don't think making someone lose hand size while others gain hand size is a workable concept. See the limits on Jan Pieterzoon or Aggressive Tactics for example. > Ancient Precognition > +1 stealth Action(?) > 1 blood > Only usable by a vampire with capacity above 6. > If this action is successful, put this card on the acting minion and untap > him at the end of your turn. If the vampire with this card is ready during > your untap phase, you can look at the top 2 cards in your library. Once each > turn, this vampire can burn 1 blood to increase your hand size by 1 until > the end of the turn. Why use Christanius Lionel, The Mad Chronicler or Cassandra, Magus Prime at all then? Although I know of a potence based deck that used both, and the Elder Library and Dreams of the Sphinx to regularly have a 12 card hand size. Alternately, each of my Tzimisce take this action, untap at the end of the turn, and next turn I have +3-4 hand size and can look at the next two cards. Why should I play with Visit from the Capuchin? > Experience > Master > 2 pool (?) > Chooses one vampire you control. Choose a number of cards in your Ash Heap > equal to (half?) that vampire's capacity and shuffle those cards back into > your library. Remove this card from the game afterwards. Why should I pay 2 pool when I can play Reinforcements and get 3 back as well as give three cards back to my cross table ally? > Put all of those with together with The Barrens/DotS/etc and you can get an > Elder deck flowing much better. Maybe so. Playtest it and see. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Anyway, my vision for Vampire is of a mighty Prince being kitted out > with a repertoire of discipline cards which he can use again and again > - his Modus Operandi, you might say. This ought to mesh fairly well > with the Happy Families concept which would help ensure that a > balanced mix of discipline cards was used. This seems like an interesting tack for RE-designing the game, actually. But, as pointed out elsewhere, transients are so much more powerful that turning transients into permanents would break the game. Add to that those "perfect combos" stacked on a vampire, and you can have chilling results; you only need the combo cards in hand once. Illiana can Restore, Force of Will, Day Operation, Conditioning, Move Slowly, Heal Rapidly, all with Earth Control and Rapid Change if needed. If the opposing prey didn't bring intercept, they're hosed. The "perfect rush" would suck, too, killing a vamp every turn, period. About all that keeps Rush in check, really, in hand-jam, not Fortitude. > The downside is that it might help weenies just as much - all they may > need is to learn one good trick. And it would further undermine the > cost effectiveness of equipment and retainers. Hmm... Another idea that I've had fits Andrew's initial suggestion: just print more powerful cards. It'd be interesting to see cards whose effects are based upon the *difference* in capacities between two vampires. An obvious one being something like Elder Power 1 blood Only usable when the opposing minion is a younger vampire. Strike: Strength + X damage, where X is the half the difference in capacities between the two combatants, rounded down. This is a somewhat "watered down" version of the V:TES variant rules that Andrew mentioned (which gives +X strength and/or +X bleed to all vampires, where X is half their capacity, rounded up, i.e. Arika hits for 7 and bleeds for 9, or something like that. It was pre-DS, obviously), but doesn't have the 5-caps hitting back as hard. Course, this card only makes combat stronger for bigger vamps, and that hardly fixes the game. What is really needed are cards like Eternal Vigilance, Freak Drive, Wake, etc, that Elder vampires can use to be more effective per minion. I'm a big fan of "older," "younger," and if you can work it in "difference in capacities." An interesting errata to 2nd Tradition would be: The Second Tradition: Domain Requires a Prince or Justicar. Usable by a tapped Prince or Justicar. Untap and attempt to block a vampire of the same age or younger, with +X intercept, where X is the half the difference in capacities between the two vampires, rounded down. Note the boon to allies, which have the sense to go about their business during the day, while the Elder Master sleeps. But the point being that you don't go telling your Elders "Not in MY backyard!" so easily, either out of your fear or their experience in Masquerading. -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

On Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:10:24 +0100, Flux wrote: >That is an interesting observation, maybe what we should look for is ways to >increase your hand size/recycle cards according to your minion's capacity? Yes, that'd be good. A while ago, I suggested that your hand size should be equal to the capacity of your oldest minion. That would be a simple rule change but it's interesting to see your ideas for new cards which do this. >Elder Knowledge >Each Methuselah chooses one vampire he controls. If vote is successful each >Meth's hand size is changed by (vamp's capacity - 5), and no more Elder >Knowledge can be played in this game The problem with this is that a weenie deck might call an early vote to constrict everyone's hand. The player who is still bringing out Arika finds that they now have a hand size of 2. Oops! >Experience >Master >2 pool (?) >Chooses one vampire you control. Choose a number of cards in your Ash Heap >equal to (half?) that vampire's capacity and shuffle those cards back into >your library. Remove this card from the game afterwards. That's quite nice but is a late game card which doesn't really help you against the weenie speed which Pat was complaining about. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:10:24 +0100, Flux wrote: > > >That is an interesting observation, maybe what we should look for is ways to > >increase your hand size/recycle cards according to your minion's capacity? > > Yes, that'd be good. A while ago, I suggested that your hand size > should be equal to the capacity of your oldest minion. That would be > a simple rule change but it's interesting to see your ideas for new > cards which do this. That sounds like a fun idea, actually - everyone starts with no cards in hand (no minions). Then, when you influence your first vampire out, you draw his capacity in cards from your library. Have to change the 'set-hand-size' card (Aura Reading) to say +2 instead of 9 (and restrict the superior to one per combat), but otherwise the change shouldn't cause any problems. May also have to worry about "virtual" vampires (Illusions of Kindred), but I don't think that that would cause too much trouble. Recommend counting torporous vampires as well - to avoid thrashing your hand when you bounce around torpor. Perhaps only check/set hand size during your own untap to hold this in check as well. Have you ever tested this variant? How'd it go? [ quoted text not captured ]

>That sounds like a fun idea, actually - everyone starts with no cards >in hand (no minions). Then, when you influence your first vampire >out, you draw his capacity in cards from your library. I also agree that it's an interesting rules variant but wouldn't it hurt elder decks even more (which Andrew was just complaining about)? Since you don't draw any cards until you influence out a vampire, that means you can't readily use Information Highway, Tomb of Ramses, OR Zillah's Valley. So no more first turn Anson or Gratiano and no more second turn IC member... Halcyan 2

Halcyan 2 wrote: > > >That sounds like a fun idea, actually - everyone starts with no cards > >in hand (no minions). Then, when you influence your first vampire > >out, you draw his capacity in cards from your library. > > I also agree that it's an interesting rules variant but wouldn't it hurt elder > decks even more (which Andrew was just complaining about)? I don't think so. The weenies that pounded you so soundly before now have a 2 or 3-card hand (and no 1st turn Info Hwy or Effective Management). While the elder decks have a full hand (and more) starting with the third or fourth turn. The amount of damage a weenie deck can do with a 2-card hand in 3 or 4 turns is greatly reduced, I think. > Since you don't draw any cards until you influence out a vampire, that means > you can't readily use Information Highway, Tomb of Ramses, OR Zillah's Valley. > So no more first turn Anson or Gratiano and no more second turn IC member... Yeah. So you still start slowly (like usual). But now you acquire a big advantage for doing so - a 4+ card differential in your hand size. [ quoted text not captured ]

>My thought was that, once a >vampire uses a discipline card, it clearly knows that particular power >and so should be able to keep using it. To reflect this, a discipline >card could be kept by a vampire after it has been played. It could >then be used again in a subsequent turn but would be tapped each time >it is used, to prevent overuse. To reflect the age and experience of >the elder vampires, a vampire would only be able to retain as many >discipline cards as its capacity. You'd have limits for each >discipline too - one retained card for inferior know-how, two retained >cards for superior. > Flashback. For those who don't follow Magic, it's one of Odyssey's mechanics. You cast a spell, it goes to your graveyard (so far, same old, same old), with Flashback, it can be cast out of your graveyard and is then removed from the game. Get two uses out of one card. I could see an attempt to adapt such a mechanic to V:TES. Several different ways to go from putting "rememberance counters" on vampires limited by capacity to ensure that it helps larger vamps more and that you can only do it so many times to having such cards be weaker than similar cards to having them only Flashback when used (icky, probably a rules mess) by a vamp of a certain capacity. Alternatively, could use a mechanic common in DBZ, that of a card hanging around to be played another time. For example: Combat Celerity C = 1 Inf: Maneuver or Press Sup: Maneuver with an optitional Press If played by a vampire with capacity above X, put this card on the vampire. The vampire with this card may burn this card to use its effects as if it were played from hand. Course, better would be to come up with a nifty short cut term so that the text at the end could be simplified or converted to reminder text.

"The Lasombra" <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote: >"Gene Wirchenko" <ge...@mail.ocis.net> wrote in message >news:3bbc9646...@news.ocis.net... > >> LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> >> >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: >> >> [snip] >> >> >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the >> >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my >> >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what >> >> they were, let 'em figure it out. >> > >> >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting >> >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. >> >> What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the >> "correction" would be in error. > >Section 5.1 of the V:EKN Tournament Rules: >http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/veknRules.html > >Misrepresenting public information > > >To start with. Hiding the card you discard can be interpreted as >misrepresenting public information. How? If you're assuming that there is an order to the ashheap, maybe, but LSJ says otherwise. No, I'm not going to do such a thing, but how do you reply to someone adding an arbitrary? You ask for chapter and verse in the rules. If there isn't actually such a rule, you're out of luck. Sincerely, Gene wirchenko [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3bbd43e3...@news.ocis.net>, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@mail.ocis.net> writes >>Misrepresenting public information >> >> >>To start with. Hiding the card you discard can be interpreted as >>misrepresenting public information. > > How? What you do during your turn is done publicly. What you discard is [ quoted text not captured ]

Le Legbiter wrote: >>However, i think all posts should be treated on their merits, and i find this particular one from Andrew to be quite interesting.>> Oh, I certainly wasn't criticising him for talking about variant rules. I was criticising him for his penchant of showing up and saying inflamitory, snarky things for no good reason, towards people who have done him no harm ("I'm surprised The Lasombra's minions haven't been sent to chastise him for not following the party line."). I found his discussion of the actual game in this context to be rather interesting. >>i don't think it is fair to criticise him for thinking about the general rules of card games, for thinking about new card concepts, and for trying to apply ideas from other card games to VTES.>> Oh, I agree--I think Andrew is an intelligent guy who often has very interesting things to say. I'm on the Shadowfist listserve with him, and I find his posts there to be some of the most interesting/intelligent ones ('cause, ya know, he likes *that* game). However, in this forum, he seems to fancy himself some sort of objective critic who is here to point out our contradictions and foibles or something, and often he makes completely off base, if not downright inflamitory, comments, just 'cause he likes to troll. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "The Ramones are more important than the Solar System." -Sean Finnerty

The Lasombra <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:6ae4cfcaa2ad7d0fb8b...@mygate.mailgate.org... > "Flux" <fl...@netc.pt> wrote in message news:3bbd...@212.18.160.197... > > Elder Knowledge > > Political Action, worth 1 vote, etc... [Or maybe do this as an action? I > > wouldn't want to limit this to political decks, though you're likely to have > > the support of all Elder decks, and so it should be an easy vote to pass] > > Each Methuselah chooses one vampire he controls. If vote is successful each > > Meth's hand size is changed by (vamp's capacity - 5), and no more Elder > > Knowledge can be played in this game [so if the vote fails you can try > > again]. > > > > I see one serious problem with this as it is, but I'll wait for comments > > before proposing a solution. :-) > > As you haven't defined changed, I will choose to change my hand size > exponentially. 7^5 = 16807. Even 7^2 would work for me. I don't think > making someone lose hand size while others gain hand size is a workable > concept. See the limits on Jan Pieterzoon or Aggressive Tactics for example. Just 'increase hand size by...' then (a negative increase would be treated as 0) The worst problem I was thinking of was someone calling this has an early vote and screwing everyone else. Limiting this to 'increase' would work, but another solution would be to have it limited to titled vampires. Another idea would be to have a 'timer' on it, limiting it's effect to a few turns (2 maybe?). > > Ancient Precognition > > +1 stealth Action(?) > > 1 blood > > Only usable by a vampire with capacity above 6. > > If this action is successful, put this card on the acting minion and untap > > him at the end of your turn. If the vampire with this card is ready during > > your untap phase, you can look at the top 2 cards in your library. Once each > > turn, this vampire can burn 1 blood to increase your hand size by 1 until > > the end of the turn. > > Why use Christanius Lionel, The Mad Chronicler or Cassandra, Magus Prime > at all then? Why not use all? :-) It would be nice to have a similar effect available to other vampires/clans. > Although I know of a potence based deck that used both, and the Elder Library > and Dreams of the Sphinx to regularly have a 12 card hand size. > > Alternately, each of my Tzimisce take this action, untap at the end of the > turn, > and next turn I have +3-4 hand size and can look at the next two cards. My first thought was to make it 'look at next card during untap and burn 1 blood to draw it', but I got mixed up on the wording and wrote this version down instead. Probably my first idea would be more balanced... Ancient Precognition Action 1 blood Only usable by a vampire with capacity above 6. If this action is successful, put this card on the acting minion and untap him at the end of your turn. If the vampire with this card is ready during your untap phase, you can look at the top card in your library. This vampire can burn 1 blood during your untap phase to increase your hand size by 1 until the end of your turn. I think the 'untap at end of turn' effect would be important for any action to benefit elder vampires because of the limited number of actions they have to work with (compared with weenie decks). > Why should I play with Visit from the Capuchin? Because it's a Master instead of a (blockable) Action, and because you might want to save your vampires some blood. > > Experience > > Master > > 2 pool (?) > > Choose one vampire you control. Choose a number of cards in your Ash Heap > > equal to (half?) that vampire's capacity and shuffle those cards back into > > your library. Remove this card from the game afterwards. > > Why should I pay 2 pool when I can play Reinforcements and get 3 back > as well as give three cards back to my cross table ally? 2 pool might be more apropriate for a full capacity recycle, 1 pool for half capacity. Anyway, Reinforcements is a Political Action, hence vulnerable to intercept, Delaying Tactics and opposing votes, while this is a Master card that can only be countered by SD. > > Put all of those with together with The Barrens/DotS/etc and you can get an > > Elder deck flowing much better. > > > Maybe so. Playtest it and see. I just might (try to) do that... :-) Flux

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >Gene Wirchenko wrote: >> >> LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> >> >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: >> >> [snip] >> >> >> has no defined top then clearly I can't discard to the top of the >> >> pile. One practical consequence of this is to encourage me to bury my >> >> discards in the ash heap as I make them. If folk want to know what >> >> they were, let 'em figure it out. >> > >> >Let them ask - sure. If you do this consistently at a tournament (attempting >> >to hide public information), I'd be prone to correct you, if I were a judge. >> >> What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the >> "correction" would be in error. > >Unsportsmanlike conduct or possibly Cheating-Fraud (if you're doing it to >mislead other players into thinking that the visible card is the one you've >just discarded). > >Similar to hiding/camoflaging your pool total . > >If you're doing it to make people ask, then it also qualifies as stalling. Thank you. I don't like situations where an abuse is being done is within the letter of rules but not the intent. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: >> >> On Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:10:24 +0100, Flux wrote: >> >> >That is an interesting observation, maybe what we should look for is ways to >> >increase your hand size/recycle cards according to your minion's capacity? >> >> Yes, that'd be good. A while ago, I suggested that your hand size >> should be equal to the capacity of your oldest minion. That would be >> a simple rule change but it's interesting to see your ideas for new >> cards which do this. > >That sounds like a fun idea, actually - everyone starts with no cards >in hand (no minions). Then, when you influence your first vampire >out, you draw his capacity in cards from your library. If that isn't enough, borrow a house rule I made up for Talisman. Some Talisman characters always have spells. To avoid them just running through the spell deck, I came up only allowing a player to play as many spell cards in a turn as he had at the beginning of the turn. In VTES, how about: A player may only play as many cards in a turn as his hand size at the start of his turn. Note this would not stop a player from playing cards drawn that turn. [snip] [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 06 Oct 2001 20:04:51 GMT, Gene Wirchenko wrote: >>> What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the >>> "correction" would be in error. >> >>Unsportsmanlike conduct or possibly Cheating-Fraud (if you're doing it to >>mislead other players into thinking that the visible card is the one you've >>just discarded). >> >>Similar to hiding/camoflaging your pool total . >> >>If you're doing it to make people ask, then it also qualifies as stalling. > > Thank you. > > I don't like situations where an abuse is being done is within >the letter of rules but not the intent. It's LSJ that's abusing the rules. If I bury my discard, I'm not doing it to mislead or to waste time. I might even be saving time by placing the card directly into its sort position. If folk want to riffle through my ash pile to try to deduce it, they are the ones wasting time - they have no need to know this. What you can't cite is a rule that says I should show players my discards - there isn't one. You have explicitly have to show the card that you play (1.6.1.1). There is no such stipulation for the cards that you discard and so the legal maxim "the exception proves the rule for the unexcepted cases" applies. Your discards are nobody's business but your own. That's the way that folk usually play in my experience and it is not a problem. It's the folk that do things like look at your ash heap that are unsporting time-wasters, IMO. Andrew

On Fri, 05 Oct 2001 13:53:29 -0400, LSJ wrote: >I don't think so. The weenies that pounded you so soundly before now have a >2 or 3-card hand (and no 1st turn Info Hwy or Effective Management). While >the elder decks have a full hand (and more) starting with the third or >fourth turn. The amount of damage a weenie deck can do with a 2-card hand >in 3 or 4 turns is greatly reduced, I think. I'm not sure that it slows the weenie deck down that much. Pat's benchmark weenie deck seemed to have nothing but 1-caps, Effective Management and Computer Hacking. With a 1-card hand, the Effective Managements are going to keep jamming up but including some 2/3 cap vampires in the mix might ease the flow enough to make it work much the same. These can be the focus of counter-strikes by the other deck though and that may be enough to take the edge off the assault. I'd expect most crypts to include a good proportion of mid-range vampires so that you could bootstrap your hand quickly. But I've not tried it. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sat, 06 Oct 2001 20:04:51 GMT, Gene Wirchenko wrote: > > >>> What rule would you use? i.e. If there isn't one, the > >>> "correction" would be in error. > >> > >>Unsportsmanlike conduct or possibly Cheating-Fraud (if you're doing it to > >>mislead other players into thinking that the visible card is the one you've > >>just discarded). > >> > >>Similar to hiding/camoflaging your pool total . > >> > >>If you're doing it to make people ask, then it also qualifies as stalling. > > > > Thank you. > > > > I don't like situations where an abuse is being done is within > >the letter of rules but not the intent. > > It's LSJ that's abusing the rules. If I bury my discard, I'm not > doing it to mislead or to waste time. You may care to re-read my statement to find out what I said. > I might even be saving time by > placing the card directly into its sort position. Then announce it. > If folk want to > riffle through my ash pile to try to deduce it, they are the ones > wasting time - they have no need to know this. Yes, they do. > What you can't cite is a rule that says I should show players my > discards - there isn't one. You have explicitly have to show the > card that you play (1.6.1.1). There is no such stipulation for the > cards that you discard and so the legal maxim "the exception proves > the rule for the unexcepted cases" applies. ... and you only draw to replace cards "played" [1.6.1.2] ( and the card dicarded during your discard phase [8]). It seems clear that both of these rules [1.6.1.1] and [1.6.1.2] are mis-using the term "play" for any card leaving your hand. I'll clarify 1.6.1.1 and 1.6.1.2 for the next release of the rules. > Your discards are nobody's business but your own. Not true. > That's the way that > folk usually play in my experience and it is not a problem. That's not the way that folk usually play in my experience. Announcing your discards is not a problem. > It's the > folk that do things like look at your ash heap that are unsporting > time-wasters, IMO. While repeadedly looking thorugh someon's ash heap to waste time would be stalling, doing so to discover a player's hidden discards would not be (although the hidden discarder *is* wasting time by forcing the other playes to look through her ash heap after every discard). [ quoted text not captured ]

Andrew wrote: >>Your discards are nobody's business but your own.>> Incorrect. Your ash heap is public information. You can announce the card you discard when you discard it to save everyone time, or you can not worry about it when people look in your ash heap. >>That's the way that folk usually play in my experience and it is not a problem.>> In my experience, folks say "Hey--what did you just discard?", and someone tells them, which is also not a problem. >>It's the folk that do things like look at your ash heap that are unsporting time-wasters, IMO.>> Spending an inordinate amount of time sorting through someone's ash heap falls under the rubric of "stalling". On the other hand, playing such that your ash heap is public knowledge, and allowing people to know what you discarded is playing the game by the rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2001 05:20:32 -0400, LSJ wrote: >You may care to re-read my statement to find out what I said. I just did so and saw nothing more. What's your point? >Then announce it. No thanks. I'm not saying anything if players like you are going to make bogus accusations of misrepresentation. I'll just take the 5th. Amendment, that is, not Tradition <grin>. >Yes, they do. What need? It tells them nothing and verifies nothing. It just wastes time and that's why most players don't do it. >... and you only draw to replace cards "played" [1.6.1.2] >( and the card dicarded during your discard phase [8]). It >seems clear that both of these rules [1.6.1.1] and [1.6.1.2] >are mis-using the term "play" for any card leaving your hand. That's not a big hole because rule 8 explicitly says that you draw to replace the card that you discarded. There is a problem with cards like The Barrens though. But you'd better not just say that you immediately replace cards that you discard (like the original Jyhad rulebook did). You'll be in trouble with cards that make you discard down to your hand size like Al's Army Apparatus. That would turn them into a fast way of emptying your library. >While repeadedly looking through someon's ash heap to waste time >would be stalling, doing so to discover a player's hidden discards >would not be (although the hidden discarder *is* wasting time >by forcing the other playes to look through her ash heap after >every discard). Nonsense. The discarder isn't forcing the other players to do anything. Consider this. The VEKN rules assert that a player has the right to know how many cards are in your deck. Does this mean that you have to announce the figure at every opportunity to save them the time and trouble of figuring it out for themselves? It's absurd. If they want to know then they can do it themselves. I'm not going to keep a running count and be accused of providing misinformation if I get it wrong. Now that's something that is specifically listed as public information. The identity of discards is not. An even better example is pool. Keeping track of pool totals is quite important both for strategic reasons and to check that players are paying costs correctly. In practise, this is not made easy. There is no standardisation of the tokens or units used for this and players usually maintain their own private bank rather than a communal bank as the rules specify. And they resist suggestions that they should follow the rules (I've tried). Players don't announce their pool expenditures or totals - they just leave it to you to count their heap of tokens across the table. Are they wasting time by "making you ask"? Now this is important because players do make errors. It appears to be common for players to forget to take pool for the Edge (because this is another game component that is laughably non-standard). I myself sometimes make slips like putting blood costs into my pool rather than my private bank and so wouldn't be surprised if others do too. If I was playing in a really serious game, I might want to track everyone's pool total on a notepad, as Magic players track life totals. This would probably slow the game down quite a bit but the VEKN rules allow me to do this, right? So, if you want to regulate play further, start where it matters. Discards aren't important. Pool is. Improve the rules in this area and make everyone follow them before you hassle me about trivia. Andrew

>No thanks. I'm not saying anything if players like you are going to >make bogus accusations of misrepresentation. I'll just take the 5th. >Amendment, that is, not Tradition <grin>. (Could be wrong but...) I thought you lived in the U.K. Andrew? Halcyan 2

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Sun, 07 Oct 2001 05:20:32 -0400, LSJ wrote: > > >You may care to re-read my statement to find out what I said. > > I just did so and saw nothing more. What's your point? You took my two "if" points and said that they weren't true and therefore I was breaking the rules. But you failed to acknowledge the thrid (non-"if") point, which still holds and upon which I was basing the ruling. > >... and you only draw to replace cards "played" [1.6.1.2] > >( and the card dicarded during your discard phase [8]). It > >seems clear that both of these rules [1.6.1.1] and [1.6.1.2] > >are mis-using the term "play" for any card leaving your hand. > > That's not a big hole because rule 8 explicitly says that you draw to > replace the card that you discarded. Very good. As I said above. > There is a problem with cards > like The Barrens though. But you'd better not just say that you > immediately replace cards that you discard (like the original Jyhad > rulebook did). You'll be in trouble with cards that make you discard > down to your hand size like Al's Army Apparatus. That would turn them > into a fast way of emptying your library. Sure. > >While repeadedly looking through someon's ash heap to waste time > >would be stalling, doing so to discover a player's hidden discards > >would not be (although the hidden discarder *is* wasting time > >by forcing the other playes to look through her ash heap after > >every discard). > > Nonsense. The discarder isn't forcing the other players to do > anything. Deliberately obscuring public information is unsportsmalike conduct, as I've noted already. [ quoted text not captured ]

[Re: announcing discards] > What need? It tells them nothing and verifies nothing. It just > wastes time and that's why most players don't do it. From my experience, most players do, especially at tournaments. In fact, I've known many players, myself included, to avoid discarding a card into order to avoid announcing a deck's capability. A perfect example is not discarding a Conditioning out of your hand when you're playing, say, Assamites, even though one of your vamps has Dominate -- people don't expect it, but the discard brings attention to the possibility. Also, I've known people not to discard early on, just to keep people guessing. Bringing out Normal and discarding Disguised Weapon is very different than discarding Lost in Crowds. Of course, an extremely subtle player might put in one copy of Dragon's Breath Rounds, but no guns, just so they can ostentatiously discard it during the game, just to scare the other players into avoiding combat. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

"Pat Ricochet" <sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> wrote in message news:B7E72668.7D31%sp...@socrates.gatech.edu... [ quoted text not captured ] Never understimate the intimidation factor of discarding cards. Quite often, when you discard, ppl assume you are discarding because you have too many of it in your hand. Discard the only conditioning in your hand when you've got a hand full of combat, when they block, fearful of the other one you've supposedly got in your hand, proceed to beat the bejezus out of them. Lack of information is dangerous but disinformation is the real killer.

After reading everyone else's comments it seems to me that in the below state the card is not pratical. I agree with the nay-sayers only because maintaining a strictly ordered ash heap would be a pain in the butt, esp in tournaments where ppl would get anal about ash heap order. I suggest that you change the mechanic of the card, maybe something like this. Title: Experience Type: Combat Cost: 1 blood Text: You may play a combat card from your ash heap as if it had been played from your hand. When that card is burned, remove it from the game. The cost makes it prohibitive for weenies. Or your could make it require a minion of X capacity. Removing the card from the game and restricting it to combat cards makes it less powerful. Another suggestion: Title: Experience Type: Combat Cost: 0 Text: Only playable by a minion that does not have experience counters equal to or in excess of it's capacity. You may play a combat card from your ash heap as if it had been played from your hand. When that card is burned, remove it from the game. Place an experience counter on this vampire. Same as above but a change in the mechanics of how it makes this card prohibitive for weenies. [snip] > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > Title: Experience > Type: Wild Minion (a new symbol - perhaps an asterisk) > Cost: none > > Text: You may play a minion card from your ash heap as if it had been > played from your hand. The card chosen may not be deeper in the ash > heap than the capacity or life of the minion playing it and the card > stays in that position unless it is put into play. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > > Example: Gwendolyn is in combat with a Gangrel and it's not going > well. She would really like to use her superior Fortitude but, > because she's in a Brujah deck, she doesn't have a Fortitude card in > hand. Reaching back through her long memory, she goes back into the > ash heap to find the Skin Of Night that she remembers using in the > past. It's only 7 cards down and her capacity is 11 so she can play > it to avoid going to torpor from the Gangrel's aggravated damage. The > Skin of Night stays where is and, with the Experience card added to > the pile, is now 8 cards down. > > The Experience card wouldn't be much use to a weenie deck. These > typically just use one discipline and their capacity is so low that > they might as well just use more copies of the cards they want instead > of this one. But a player using a high capacity vampire can get a lot > more out of it. That vampire has access to many more minion cards > and, the older it is, the more chance it has of finding that special > discipline card that it needs. > > The card is self-limiting. If you play several of them then they will > fill up the top of the ash heap and so push the real minion cards > deeper into the ash heap. And if you have too many Experience cards > in your deck, you'll have trouble finding real minion cards to reuse. > > It is designed to be a staple like Wake with Evening's Freshness - a > card that you'd expect to see in many decks. It would thus shift > change the metagame in favour of elder vampires without any change to > the game mechanics. > > One might object to this being a new card type though. I can't see > this being a problem - players can react to the card that's being > replayed rather than this one. But, if an existing type is needed, > you could say that this card has the type of the card that it is > replaying, just as Reality Mirror is a combat card whose effect is to > replay another combat card. > > Andrew

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001 00:05:24 +1000, GreySeer wrote: >Never understimate the intimidation factor of discarding cards. Quite often, >when you discard, ppl assume you are discarding because you have too many of >it in your hand. Discard the only conditioning in your hand when you've got >a hand full of combat, when they block, fearful of the other one you've >supposedly got in your hand, proceed to beat the bejezus out of them. That's why the discards are not significant. If you see someone discard a card, does it mean that he has more in hand or none? You don't know. This was one of the arguments in favour of NCL - that it stopped players being able to count cards and use the information against you. Andrew

In message <E807A27E10AB13C8.3F741E22...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >That's why the discards are not significant. If you see someone discard >a card, does it mean that he has more in hand or none? You don't know. That doesn't meant it isn't significant, however. No, you cannot be sure that they don't have more of them, or that they do, or whatever, but you can start using it as a useful guide to play- style. What are you discarding? For instance, can I see that you apparently have a glut on stealth at the moment? Or are you discarding Majesty like the clappers? Are you discarding at all? Is this indicative of a poor playing style, an excellent hand or what? I may need to assimilate this to judge the calibre of a player. What aren't you discarding? Well, that interesting Presence deck over there hasn't seen a single Majesty in, oh, 20 cards - including discards. Would now be a good time for a rush? Or are you just saving them up. >This was one of the arguments in favour of NCL - that it stopped players >being able to count cards and use the information against you. An argument, perhaps. You can't just sit there and work out "Oh, he's played 4 Skin of Steel." You can, however, sit and look at the cards and try and get a better grip as to what's going on. The difference that such help can make can be the different between a good player and a great one. This, however, works for both cards played and cards discarded; since it applies to both, it cannot easily be considered supportive of your attitude towards discard moreso than played cards. And that you can't count cards and think "All gone" doesn't mean that the discards aren't potentially important information. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:E807A27E10AB13C8.3F741E22...@lp.airnews.net... [ quoted text not captured ] A single discard on it's own I would usually count as insignifigant but played cards and discards as a whole are signifigant. At the least it gives you insigt into the composition of the deck. Knowing things about the playing style of the discarder combined with the discards themselves also helps. When playing I try to stick to my own game, my deck has a plan and I try to stick to it. After a few rounds you generally have some idea of the capabilities of a deck, not so much based on cards played or discarded, but more on requirements that can be met. I tend to assume, especially before going into combat, that I'll be faced with the worst-case scenario ( within reason ). At the very least you've got to bring them down with you.