Fortitude reaction card

The Örebro playgroup has put their heads together to create a fortitude reaction which will make higher cap samedi/ravnos/gangrel/gangrel anti/daughters decks a bit better. These clans are notoriously bad, mostly because their lack of defense. (Yes, some of them can manage a breed-boon type deck, but they should be left largerly unaffected by this reaction card.) We would like the defense to be comparable with bounce, but of course not as strong. We still want the AUS and DOM clans to stick to their old cards. Mind of Steel (name is whatever, someone good with lore or words can make this better!) Reaction 1 blood [for] Tap this vampire to reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. [FOR] As above, but do not tap this vampire. Its defense will be slightly worse than a bounce card (GTU+conditioning is 6 and it can only reduce 5). It will have no offensive qualities unlike bounce, so it only needs to balanced for its defensive qualities. The X clause makes it stronger in the start of the game, which is normally the critical time to survive to work out a build-up/setup which can then take over as a method for survival. Also it will make it quite useless, but still usable, in the duel (in the same way that bounce is useless in the duel). The tap/do not tap inferior-superior can be replaced with a cost/no cost inferior-superior, but I prefer the do not tap. It means it will have a fundamental difference to the AUS bounce, additionally it fits thematically with fortitude to be able to be untapped afterwards. Alternatively it could be a younger/any age inferior-superior, but in this high cap meta I'm afraid it would make the card wall-paper, you'd need a sup FOR vampire be untapped to use it once. The scout youngwood shattering crescendo would have to be addressed, I think, seeing how it could possibly be very strong. I'm aware of this and do not perceive it to be a problem. It might make the archetype tier 2 or even tier 1.5, but I do not see how it could be imbalanced. Compare dom/pot rush with deflections. Dom/pot should be stronger (less moving parts, better vampires, etc, etc) and this archetype is not competitive. What do you think? To strong/weak? Does it affect the game in some way which we have forgot? Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

At first glance I think it might be a bit too strong. It takes those who can use it from being very vulnerable to Bleed to being rather immune, specially in the begging of the game. Then again, if it is facing the Rautakanki deck, per instance, in turn 4 it might be facing 4 bleeds of 5... and not even this card can save it. Anyway, as you very well mention, it helps clans that are Bloodlines. I think there is a consensus that the new expansion should be Sabbat themed. Of course, there is nothing wrong with generic cards that might help other strategies. And worse of all: I think this would make Gwendolin super strong. All in all, it might be a good card. Tiago

Inferior level is too strong. I know that Telepathic Counter isn't a great card, but reducing a bleed by 5 in the early game with a 2-cap vampire is too strong. Rather than using the number of methuselahs to reduce the power of the card, i'd rather make a capacity difference (capped): Cardname: Mind of Steel Cardtype: Reaction Cost: 1 blood [for] Tap this vampire to reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is difference of capacity between this reacting vampire and the acting minion (max the number of Methuselahs in the game). [FOR] As above, but do not tap this vampire. It won't really help Daughters (except Scount maybe); it won't help you neither if you're being bled by an 11-cap (but then, it's maybe your fault). If you want to stick to your original idea, I would make the reduce bleed the superior level, and something else with the inferior level (wake-like during a bleed action for instance): Cardname: Mind of Steel Cardtype: Reaction Cost: 1 blood [for] Only usable by a tapped vampire. Only usable during a bleed action against you. This reacting vampire can play reaction cards and attempt to block as though untapped until the current action is concluded. [FOR] Tap this vampire to reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

There are currently 9 vampires cap 1 or 2 in the game with inferior dominate, the same number for fortitude is 10. I don't think it would be a big problem. If you only include it for defense it would be a better choice to have dominate (since bounce is stronger than reduce). The non-supporting vampires would be the main focus of the deck, and these still won't be as strong (defensively) as an AUS or DOM vampire with Mind of Steel in the game. Yes, it's possible to have another crypt of vampires for a deck which cannot die, but as I always say: "any moron can build a deck which can't die". This fact is still true no matter what you do. The suggestion with X being the difference in capacity would be too weak, I'm totally sure about. Can't be played reliably and non-reliable defense won't help the clans in question. I like your suggestion with inferior being a wake, it could be a good card. I would like it to have some kind of advantage on superior still, though, something like not costing a blood or not being tapped when playing it. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

I absolutely agree that Fortitude needs good bleed defense. Ankha may be right that a bleed reduction of 5 in the early game by a 2-cap is too strong. However, a 2-cap minion with can bleed for 5 on turn 2, which is also too strong. I suggest this minor change (with new title from WoD lore): Stand Against All Foes Reaction 2 blood Tap this vampire to reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. As above, but do not tap this vampire. That bleed of 5 from a small-cap on turn 2 costs 2 blood, so so should the equivalent bleed reduction.

> Aaron wrote: > I absolutely agree that Fortitude needs good bleed defense. > Weirdest thing I've seen posted here yet. What's the justification?

> Dorrinal wrote: > > > Aaron wrote: > > I absolutely agree that Fortitude needs good bleed defense. > > > Weirdest thing I've seen posted here yet. What's the justification? > The Anarchs can do it. Friend of Mine Then again, THAT doesn't really make sense anyway. Game mechanic-wise, I don't have a problem, but thematically I do. Fortitude is a selfish discipline. By nature, it only affects the vampire with the discipline. I could see combining it with a mental discipline to "transfer" the effects of resilience onto others. The issue with that is most, if not all of the mental disciplines have bleed defense. Untapping against a bleed makes perfect sense, as Ankha suggested. I second his suggestion. As much as I'm not big on giving fortitude bleed reduction, there is precedence, but making it require superior is a good idea. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

> Dorrinal wrote: > Weirdest thing I've seen posted here yet. What's the justification? > The same reason that the OP gave. I was agreeing with him, after all. Direwolf/Edward: In WoD, there are several described advanced Fortitude powers that give you protection from mental influences. I had suggested a card in another post called Sensory Shield for Fortitude that would do the same thing as Telepathic Counter except cost a blood. Here is a link to the described advanced powers for Fortitude in WoD: wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Fortitude. Now, unlike bounce, I think that reduction represents a minion going around and reversing what a bleeding minion does. This goes back to our (in person) conversation several weeks ago when you said you thought that bounce affects resources not the bleeding minion, while I disagreed. I think that reduction does affect resources. Now, how could Fortitude help protect resources? Your minion with Fortitude could use his invulnerabiltiy to retrieve valuable papers from a burning building, play bodyguard to an important mortal lackey, or otherwise perform clean-up to the damage to a Methusaleh's physical property. Maybe the minion sacrifices his blood to the Methuselah who is running low after being forced to use a lot of disciplines to fend off attacks. Who knows? The cards don't always make perfect sense. For instance, I don't understand from a thematic perspective how Auspex can bounce bleeds, since Auspex doesn't allow you to control minds, only read them.

Fortitude already has Steadfastness for bleed defense.

How about some change to boost this card? Cardname: Mind of Steel Cardtype: Reaction Cost: 1 blood [for] Only usable by a tapped vampire. Only usable during a bleed action against you. This reacting vampire can play reaction cards and attempt to block as though untapped until the current action is concluded. [FOR] Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game and tap this reacting vampire. ..and another idea: [FOR] Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game and tap this reacting vampire. Also usable by a tapped vampire to burn a blood and play this card. No more reaction cards can be played this action by this vampire. (idea from "second tradition" card) So it would be a 1 blood wake agains bleed, or a 2 blood bleed reduction.

You mention making "higher cap samedi/ravnos/gangrel/gangrel anti/daughters decks a bit better". What about adding a "Only usable when a younger vampire is bleeding you"-clause? "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

The card is fine. But i don't like the fact it requires fortitude. There should be clear differnces between disciplines. Bleed reduction for fortitude just makes no sense. It's like intercept for potence.

I must say I really like the idea. Too many people are complaining that it introduces bleed defense to a new discipline and that it's not suitable with existing themes. As long as bleed is as strong as it is that sort of reasoning is just making every deck without dominate or auspex inherently subpar. One might argue other decks work as well but in the end they are still somewhat inferior. So either new defensive cards must be made up, helping the weaker clans, or the balance between bleed/vote/walling/combat and whatnot must change to make other methods better at ousting (and my two cents on that balance is that the only action anyone can do inherently that does pool damage is to bleed for one, it's the most fundamental action in the game). Also worthy of note is that this is not even a bounce, it is merely a defensive move and will not put any pressure on ones own prey. That being said I wonder how the card could be tweaked. I lean towards the original idea with possibly a few changes. Like some have said having a 2-cap reduce for five on inferior is strong (but it still puts no pressure, bounce is better!). If one really wants to address that I would suggest putting a hard cap on capacity to use, like capacity 5 or above, much like approximation of loyalty. This way slightly bigger vamps are required but won't make it wallpaper against other high caps. I also toyed around with the idea to make the inferior only reduce against a bleed my methuselas other than the predator, i.e an already bounced bleed. Turned a bit long but I feel it's a card that needs some discussion. It addresses an existing problem very well and it is needed. Lidingö Scourge

i was just thinking about the same theme/idea. what about asking the vampire to take the bleed hit? Eg. "Take the Fall" Combat/Reaction for: Prevent 1 damage FOR: Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined (after all modifiers). Tap this reacting vampire, and reduce the bleed by x, where x is the bleed amount. Cost of this card increases by x Blood. wording initially was "this vampire takes x damage, where x is the bleed amount"

> alek wrote: > The card is fine. But i don't like the fact it requires fortitude. There should be clear differnces between disciplines. Bleed reduction for fortitude just makes no sense. It's like intercept for potence. > Fortitude already has 2 bleed reduction cards. Friend of Mine and Steadfastness.

Friend of mine is anarch card and they have some strange effects for their disciplines cards. And steadfastness makes no sense for me as well as the proposed card

> jtroyve wrote: > i was just thinking about the same theme/idea. what about asking the vampire to take the bleed hit? > > Eg. > > "Take the Fall" > Combat/Reaction > for: Prevent 1 damage > FOR: Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined (after all modifiers). Tap this reacting vampire, and reduce the bleed by x, where x is the bleed amount. Cost of this card increases by x Blood. > > wording initially was "this vampire takes x damage, where x is the bleed amount" > I prefer a wording that possibly causes the vampire to end in torpor, and that allows excess bleed to carry on. Name: Take the Fall Cardtype: Combat/Reaction Discipline: Fortitude [for][COMBAT] Prevent 1 damage. [FOR][REACTION] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined. Tap this reacting vampire. For each pool that would be lost to this bleed, this vampire takes 1 damage. Reduce the bleed by X, where X is the amount of damage healed by this vampire. So basically, during a bleed for 6, a vampire with 4 blood would end in torpor, tapped, and reduce the bleed by 4. (And a Samedy with Regenerative Blood would reduce twice as much I think, to be confirmed). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

well. that was better worded.

I like Ankha's proposition, it seems balanced and interesting to play.

> You mention making "higher cap samedi/ravnos/gangrel/gangrel anti/daughters decks a bit better". What about adding a "Only usable when a younger vampire is bleeding you"-clause? > The vampires in question are cap 8-9-10, there are lots of bleeders of this capacity or higher. It would need to be playable on any action (at least on superior) to actually be useful, I reckon. > The card is fine. But i don't like the fact it requires fortitude. There should be clear differnces between disciplines. Bleed reduction for fortitude just makes no sense. It's like intercept for potence. > Sure, I appreciate your point. We should try to stick to a congruent world. But not to the cost of our game. The point of designing new cards is to make this game more fun to play. The most important part of this is increasing the number of different decks which are viable and competitive. A card like this will fix so much for the marginalized clans. If this card is implemented I can easily imagine the number of competitive decks increase by 50%. And that would be awesome! Bleeds, reduce and bounce have been poorly explained through-out, one more slightly weird thing won't ruin the game for me. > Name: Take the Fall > Cardtype: Combat/Reaction > Discipline: Fortitude > [for][COMBAT] Prevent 1 damage. > [FOR][REACTION] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined. Tap this reacting vampire. For each pool that would be lost to this bleed, this vampire takes 1 damage. Reduce the bleed by X, where X is the amount of damage healed by this vampire. > I don't think this card would have the desired effect. Each blood on your vampire can reduce bleeds against you by one? That's exactly what villein does, and seeing how Villein works against votes as well it's just straight up better defense. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> The vampires in question are cap 8-9-10, there are lots of bleeders of this capacity or higher. It would need to be playable on any action (at least on superior) to actually be useful, I reckon. > Ah. You have a point here. It was just me seeing a card for the FOR-weenie deck. I do not like FOR-weenie getting anything. > The point of designing new cards is to make this game more fun to play. The most important part of this is increasing the number of different decks which are viable and competitive. > Absolutely, this is true. But we have to be a bit careful. WW was good at this, for example making bloodlines good at different stuff than normal clans, and balancing good stuff with drawbacks. > Name: Take the Fall > Cardtype: Combat/Reaction > Discipline: Fortitude > [for][COMBAT] Prevent 1 damage. > [FOR][REACTION] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined. Tap this reacting vampire. For each pool that would be lost to this bleed, this vampire takes 1 damage. Reduce the bleed by X, where X is the amount of damage healed by this vampire. > Yes, I am sorry, but this is kind of wallpaperish, for the reason Xaddam states. Although it is a reaction card, not a trifle master (like Villein is). "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Aaron wrote: > > > Dorrinal wrote: > > Weirdest thing I've seen posted here yet. What's the justification? > > > The same reason that the OP gave. I was agreeing with him, after all. > > Direwolf/Edward: In WoD, there are several described advanced Fortitude powers that give you protection from mental influences. I had suggested a card in another post called Sensory Shield for Fortitude that would do the same thing as Telepathic Counter except cost a blood. Here is a link to the described advanced powers for Fortitude in WoD: wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Fortitude. > > Now, unlike bounce, I think that reduction represents a minion going around and reversing what a bleeding minion does. This goes back to our (in person) conversation several weeks ago when you said you thought that bounce affects resources not the bleeding minion, while I disagreed. I think that reduction does affect resources. > > Now, how could Fortitude help protect resources? Your minion with Fortitude could use his invulnerabiltiy to retrieve valuable papers from a burning building, play bodyguard to an important mortal lackey, or otherwise perform clean-up to the damage to a Methusaleh's physical property. Maybe the minion sacrifices his blood to the Methuselah who is running low after being forced to use a lot of disciplines to fend off attacks. Who knows? The cards don't always make perfect sense. For instance, I don't understand from a thematic perspective how Auspex can bounce bleeds, since Auspex doesn't allow you to control minds, only read them. > Lol why ya gotta use my real name? Anyway, the above justification is what Dorrinal (and I) wanted to hear. Sure that's a little bit of a stretch, but it works. The title of the card and the artwork should be in line with it (which is the HARD part of designing an interesting card ) And about the Auspex Bounce: Auspex may not give you the ability to control minds, but it does give you information. A smart vampire will be able to then take physical actions to alter the intended events. For example, he finds out that his enemy is "Legal Manipulating" by filing a lawsuit involving large sums of cash and property. The auspex vampire might change the evidence in the case to implicate a third party, but only does so because he has enough advance warning to do so. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

I just realised my suggestion is not worded in the way we would like it to function. It says "tap to", what we actually intended was a deflection-like use. More like this: "Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Tap this vampire." Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Ashur wrote: > > > Name: Take the Fall > > Cardtype: Combat/Reaction > > Discipline: Fortitude > > [for][COMBAT] Prevent 1 damage. > > [FOR][REACTION] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined. Tap this reacting vampire. For each pool that would be lost to this bleed, this vampire takes 1 damage. Reduce the bleed by X, where X is the amount of damage healed by this vampire. > > > Yes, I am sorry, but this is kind of wallpaperish, for the reason Xaddam states. Although it is a reaction card, not a trifle master (like Villein is). > It should be a reaction life-savior, so a little different from Villein. True, it's not a real life-savior with that wording. What about: Name: Take the Fall Cardtype: Combat/Reaction Discipline: Fortitude [for][COMBAT] Prevent 1 damage. [FOR][REACTION] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks have been declined. This vampire takes X damage and goes to torpor, where X is the amount of bleed. The action ends unsuccessfully. The difference is that now you're protected from that bleed for 6, whatever blood you have. The drawback is that you end in torpor anyway, even if the vampire had enough blood to sustain the damage. I remove the "tap the vampire" part, which is a bit redundant with the fact the vampire goes to torpor and cannot play reaction cards anyway afterwards. Just think to pack some Rapid Healing in your deck Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Not to shoot you down, but that card is fundamentally different from the proposal discussed. A one-shot, suicide defense card is not a card that will make fortitude non-AUS, non-DOM decks suddenly viable. In the same way that Touch of Pain is simply neat or funny, it won't change anything. You'd still need dom or aus to survive. Losing vampires (and/or actions) to survive a bleed is simply too great a cost. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

I agree with the Swedish poster boy over here. (Adam: don't be upset with me, be with the mighty Lord of the Clog). Between taking a 5 pool bleed or loosing a vampire... I'd rather call an Archon to Investigate.

> Aaron wrote: > > > Dorrinal wrote: > > Weirdest thing I've seen posted here yet. What's the justification? > > > The same reason that the OP gave. I was agreeing with him, after all. > > Direwolf/Edward: In WoD, there are several described advanced Fortitude powers that give you protection from mental influences. I had suggested a card in another post called Sensory Shield for Fortitude that would do the same thing as Telepathic Counter except cost a blood. Here is a link to the described advanced powers for Fortitude in WoD: wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Fortitude. > > Now, unlike bounce, I think that reduction represents a minion going around and reversing what a bleeding minion does. This goes back to our (in person) conversation several weeks ago when you said you thought that bounce affects resources not the bleeding minion, while I disagreed. I think that reduction does affect resources. > > Now, how could Fortitude help protect resources? Your minion with Fortitude could use his invulnerabiltiy to retrieve valuable papers from a burning building, play bodyguard to an important mortal lackey, or otherwise perform clean-up to the damage to a Methusaleh's physical property. Maybe the minion sacrifices his blood to the Methuselah who is running low after being forced to use a lot of disciplines to fend off attacks. Who knows? The cards don't always make perfect sense. For instance, I don't understand from a thematic perspective how Auspex can bounce bleeds, since Auspex doesn't allow you to control minds, only read them. > Thanks for the explanation - I really like the way you've justified bleed reduction for . Also, I had no idea Steadfastness existed. That is a really strange card. Here's a reminder for everyone else: reducing a bleed by 2 is all right, but isn't good enough. What's the ratio of bounce to reduce in an deck? You want the one card you can put 6-10 of in a deck and call it good on defense. Silver bullet for bleeds. So if you want "better bleed defense" you mean bounce - if the card doesn't say "oh and your prey might also take that bleed" it's not good enough. Now stop designing cards under the power curve.

Honestly, I don't mind the "Burn blood on a FOR vampire to reduce bleed". I was thinking that it was actually one of the more functionally balanced cards I'd seen for a while. I honestly preferred it in the "take damage" form. Take the Fall Combat/Reaction Prevent 1 damage. Reduce a bleed against you by X. This vampire suffers X unpreventable damage. X cannot be greater than one more than the current amount of blood on this vampire. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Dorrinal wrote: > Here's a reminder for everyone else: reducing a bleed by 2 is all right, but isn't good enough. What's the ratio of bounce to reduce in an deck? > This might be rhetorical, but I'll bite: X:0. Reduce a bleed by 2 is not "all right". It's absolutely worthless. You're better off including a card of your primary strategy to increase your decks through-put and hope you survive the bleeds. Same logic as ascendance, too little effect to justify a card slot. > Dorrinal wrote: > So if you want "better bleed defense" you mean bounce - if the card doesn't say "oh and your prey might also take that bleed" it's not good enough. > > Now stop designing cards under the power curve. > I don't understand where you stand. Which cards do you like and which do you not like? In what way would you like the proposals changed? > Honestly, I don't mind the "Burn blood on a FOR vampire to reduce bleed". I was thinking that it was actually one of the more functionally balanced cards I'd seen for a while. I honestly preferred it in the "take damage" form. > > Take the Fall > Combat/Reaction > Prevent 1 damage. > Reduce a bleed against you by X. This vampire suffers X unpreventable damage. X cannot be greater than one more than the current amount of blood on this vampire. > How do you argue for this with the counter-arguments already provided (equivalence to villein, incredibly high cost)? Simply saying "I like this better" is a valid stance, but it's not too helpful in a constructive discussion. No offense intended, of course. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

If the card deals damage or burns blood: I would not use this with big caps, like Karsh or the Gwendolin, because of Lost in Translation or Villein. I would not use it with mid-to-small caps because of Archon Investigation. So, back to Örebro's idea, methinks.

My suggestion is that any reaction meant to defend against bleed and bleed alone needs to be as powerful as Deflection to be worth anyone's time. In my opinion such a card is not appropriate for but don't let that stop you. Edit: for what it's worth I'd rather see a card that makes it easier to block than any kind of bleed reduction, because reduction is so weak. I might as well contribute something... Fortitudey Bleed Reaction 1 Do not replace until your untap phase. : Usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire may attempt to block and play reaction cards as if he or she were untapped. : Reduce a bleed against you to 0. (Further effects may increase the bleed). So the effect is weaker than Deflection. But its inferior effect makes it playable in quantity without being a dead card against light bleeders. The reduction angle also makes an interesting mini-game with your predator. If your predator declares no modifier hoping to bait the reduction, you can take the bleed and save it. But it also works the other way, if they're out of e.g. Conditioning, but want to bluff.

> Dorrinal wrote: > My suggestion is that any reaction meant to defend against bleed and bleed alone needs to be as powerful as Deflection to be worth anyone's time. In my opinion such a card is not appropriate for but don't let that stop you. > I don't really agree with that. Compared with other CCGs (ahem, magic, ahem), vampire has always put emphasis on your ability to play. Sure no one can play shit cards well enough to win, but the player you can afford the most Enkel Cogs isn't necessarily gonna win all his games. I think there is an area for cards that are "good enough" to play, that may not be as good as another card in another discipline, or clan or whatnot. Sure, this card idea isn't as good as Deflection. But it's "good enough" to give fortitude some bleed defense without everyone jumping ship from deflection to this proposed idea. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

My point is, cards that are not as strong as Deflection are not "good enough."

> Dorrinal wrote: > My point is, cards that are not as strong as Deflection are not "good enough." > Yes they are. You go into the ice cream parlor. They have: Vanilla Ice Cream Chocolate Ice Cream Chocolate Gelato Strawberry Gelato Plain Frozen Yogurt Strawberry Frozen Yogurt You want Vanilla and Strawberry, but mixing yogurt and ice cream would be gross, so you would have to settle for plain frozen yogurt, but no one likes plain, but you settle for it. Then someone has the idea that there should be Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, so the manager makes Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, but someone complains that the Vanilla Frozen Yogurt is as good as the Vanilla Ice Cream, so why shouldn't we have Vanilla Gelato as well? So the manager compromises and cuts the vanilla Frozen Yogurt with the Plain Frozen Yogurt that no one wants anyway, and you have a Vanilla Frozen Yogurt that is not as good as the Vanilla Ice Cream. Now I am hungry. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

@Dorrinal I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > @Dorrinal > I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing. > No he plays Tremere. Dorrinal has an analytical mind: what he is saying is that it's not worth making a card that isn't as good as Deflection. Sure by the numbers deflection is strong. Remove a threat from your pool and put it on your prey. You can't beat that with a stick. But what it doesn't account for is the more ambiguous: First of all there's gameplay styles. I am more of an intuitive/feeling type, I can't play his decks and he can't play mine. On top of that you really have to playtest a card to see how it interacts with other cards. There could be card combos that make the card more useful than you think, or that there are too many variables to consider, but in the right circumstances a particular card will do well. Players with more analytical minds like Dorrinal can look at a card and try to determine it's value in respect to: cost to play the card, opportunity to play the card, value of the card slot, etc. I can't do that. (which is why I am bad at Magic: the Gathering, and I suck at drafting cards for Agricola.) The main reason I disagree with Dorrinal's point is that looking at a single card and evaluating it is not good enough to determine it's value. Someone is going to do something with that card that you don't expect, or play it with a combination of cards that baffles you, but works for them. Unless you are a genius (and as much as I love my brother, Dorrinal is very smart, but he don't know everything!) you can't conclude EVERYTHING about a card with a few minutes glance at a forum post. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

Good points all. i realized that there are masters that do "almost" exactly what "Take the Fall" would do. but isn't potence and celerity full of cards doing almost the same thing (punch for more than 1/ maneuver or additional strike or both), but with subtly different effects? also the different wakes/forceds. the problem with AI, is that we still lose an outright 3 pool. and with Villein, timing would be an issue, as you can only do it on your own turn. with take the fall, we could probably buy some time, especially if we have big caps, to take a few damage initially, and then beat the crap out of the bleeder on the next turn. and yes, in the end game, id rather throw my vampire in front of a truck, rather than accept a big bleed.. -edit- we can also put in "reduce the bleed by x+1, where x is the damage taken.." to make it worthwhile.

I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look... Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate. Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins) !Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter) Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate. !Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate. Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones.

@Direwolf Then based on pure consistency, statistics and efficiency... I return to my previous comment of expecting to see almost every deck of his to be something like: Powerbleed Malk 94 or Bleed Weenie Since those have, over the course of the game and with the generally accepted 'top of the curve status of Dominate' to be the most efficient decks. If efficiency is the primary goal, then those are basically the only decks really worth playing. This is not my own playstyle, and while I understand "efficient play" and can think that way... I find it dull and boring. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Klaital wrote: > I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look... > > Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism > Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus > Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence > Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism > Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate. > Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry > Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins) > !Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter) > Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate. > !Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate. > > Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones. > I think you forgot that the suggested card is a discipline card and not a clan card. And with the logic you seem to suggest here no new cards should be made at all, I'd say that isn't the best way to look at things.

> Dorrinal wrote: > My point is, cards that are not as strong as Deflection are not "good enough." > I´m not sure I get what you mean, but if i´m only judging by the words, I might actually agree. Deflection is an insanely good card off course, because it is both defense and offense. That, and Govern, is why like 80 % of all decks I play have Dominate. The bleed defense card you talk about need to be at least somewhere near Deflection in power. Ie, the card should do something more than just defense. Example: Turning the Momentum Reaction Cost 1 blood for: Only usable by a tapped vampire immediately after he or she blocks (play after combat, if any). Untap this reacting vampire. FOR: Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Reduce a bleed against you by 2. Move 2 blood from the blood bank to a younger vampire in your uncontrolled region. Tap this reacting vampire. Note: The card above is just an example from the top of my head, of a card that is both defensive and offensive. It has not been playtested "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > @Direwolf > Then based on pure consistency, statistics and efficiency... I return to my previous comment of expecting to see almost every deck of his to be something like: > > Powerbleed > Malk 94 or Bleed > Weenie > > Since those have, over the course of the game and with the generally accepted 'top of the curve status of Dominate' to be the most efficient decks. If efficiency is the primary goal, then those are basically the only decks really worth playing. > > This is not my own playstyle, and while I understand "efficient play" and can think that way... I find it dull and boring. > I think this discussion is about tournament "efficent play" and making other decks than AUS/dom survive fast bleed decks. Playstyle in tournaments should be about "efficent play". I don't even find those example decks very good ( Bleed is exception). Planned fortitude reaction is trying to make fast auto-mode all eggs in one basket style bleed deck weaker. Card balance planning should be about tournament play b/c that metagame is known. There should be also cool casual cards which offers fun different strategies (like Shatter the Gate or Summon History). But I find cards like Steadfastness waste. Those cards doesn't offer anything new to casual or efficent to tournament play. There are just so much many cards to fill the deck with. I agree that fortitude or obfuscate needs something to survive early game fast bleeds. I am just not so big fan of reduce as defense. It just stalls the game. Bouncing, blocking or damage makes the game go forward. I also think that Örebro gang has very much experience so they know how the "efficent play" works and how to make metagame more diverse.

> Klaital wrote: > I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look... > > Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism > Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus > Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence > Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism > Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate. > Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry > Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins) > !Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter) > Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate. > !Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate. > > Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones. > What I see is the problem with the decks that dont use dominte or auspex have a tendency to make defence or bloat the sole or large purpose of the decks and that in itself limits its offensive capabilities. Creating a card that allows a deck to use "fast" defence in the form of say a larger reduce I think is what is needed to "up" decks that dont use dom or aus. I also have discussed the for reduce with Adam and Isak and i think that this version should be considderd Mind of Steel (name stolen from Adam) Reaction 1 blood [for] Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Tap this reacting vampire. [FOR] As above, but do not tap this vampire. And if you reduce the bleed by 4 or more your prey burns one pool. The biggest strength with deflects is that its offensive and defensive. And I think that prey burning one pool is not to powerful... Prince of Lidingö

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > @Dorrinal > I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing. > I meant in the context of this thread. There are certainly cards that are weaker than Deflection, yet are played often in successful decks. None of the suggestions in this thread are even that good. I basically agree with Klaital. I think when building a deck using high-capacity minions without / then you need to figure out how to defend your pool from giant bleeds without bounce. And for you direwolves and juggernauts out there who like variety, think about it: Deflection is boring! It's so strong you just put 7 in and call it good! Why do you want another discipline to have a similar card? Do you want every deck's reactions to look the same?

What makes Eurobrujah good? 2 combat disiplines, Princes and Dominate What makes Lasombra/Kiasyd bleed good? Stealth and Dominate What makes Giovanni bleed good? Block fails and Dominate What makes Malk 94 good? Stealth and Dominate What makes Kindred Spirits Bleed good? Stealth and Bloat-by-bleeding Many of the 'stable frequently winning' decks have far-more-often-than-not used Dominate. While I don't think that we should create "Flick for Potence" I do think that options should be created to counter specifically the obvious over-powered nature of Dominate. As a point, people rarely 'graft in' Animalism, Auspex, Celerity or almost any other discipline. They might want to put a few discipline masters/Sanguine Instructions into a deck to make the core mechanic of the deck work. But I have more than once seen people put in Dominate masters so they can play 6-8 Deflections. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Randy wrote: > Mind of Steel > Reaction > 1 blood > [for] Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Tap this reacting vampire. > [FOR] As above, but do not tap this vampire. And if you reduce the bleed by 4 or more your prey burns one pool. > If think this card is very interesting, although I don´t like the "immersionistic logic" of it. I would rather see that the last sentence is replaced by some other effect, offensive or not. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Dorrinal wrote: > > > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > @Dorrinal > > I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing. > > > I meant in the context of this thread. There are certainly cards that are weaker than Deflection, yet are played often in successful decks. None of the suggestions in this thread are even that good. > > I basically agree with Klaital. I think when building a deck using high-capacity minions without / then you need to figure out how to defend your pool from giant bleeds without bounce. And for you direwolves and juggernauts out there who like variety, think about it: Deflection is boring! It's so strong you just put 7 in and call it good! Why do you want another discipline to have a similar card? Do you want every deck's reactions to look the same? > Is this what you're agreeing with? > > Klaital wrote: > I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look... > > Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism > Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus > Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence > Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism > Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate. > Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry > Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins) > !Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex > Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter) > Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate. > !Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate. > > Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones. > For the AUS and DOM clans I'm sure we can all agree that they are fine with bleed defense. For the other clans you argue that either bloat (Con. Boon for Daughters and the Clan actions for Samedi) or intercept will keep them alive. I can't but agree. Well, I could disagree, since dominate and obfuscate will chew threw them in no time in my experience. But this could be a point of contention, so I'll stick to another argument. Namely that a deck which can survive with these clans or the disciplines will be an utterly useless deck. Bloat actions and intercept require so much of it to actually guarantee your survival, your deck will be left totally toothless. I realized this when I tried playing an animalism block deck a few years back. A full-on wall deck which' only strategic point was to block people and put them in torpor. Yeah, now that I am a much wiser V:TES player this sounds ludicrous. Whether or not this deck managed to survive doesn't even matter because it can't win a game within 2 hours. The story is the same for many a deck. As I always say "Any moron can build a deck which cannot die". For these clans the only way to make them widely competitive is to give them a card-efficient way of surviving bleeds. What you're proposing is not card-efficient. It gives the decks in question no room for creativity or strategy. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

Paranoic Vigilance [reaction] Only usable by a tapped vampire. [for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence [FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence

Right now, there are some clans that seem intended for use with bloat as a defensive strategy. Some of them have Fortitude - Daughters, Samedi, maybe Ishtarri. Right now, bloat just loses to heavy bleed. I think it's reasonable for people to want to play those clans, and to use their cards in the way they were intended. Right now, though, they can't - at least not at a serious table. It's reasonable to wish there was a card that fixed this. I don't think that a bleed defense card needs to be as strong as Deflection in order to see play in this context. Bloat is already pretty reasonable if given the chance to set up. What they really shouldn't get is a global bleed reducer. Something that is strong enough to blunt a DOM offensive could utterly negate a more moderately built predator. So, what is needed is something that selectively works against heavy bleed. My thought is: Stoicism Reaction. for: reduce a bleed against you by 1. FOR: Play when a successful bleed would cause you to burn more than 2 pool. Burn 2 pool instead. I also think it would be interesting if there was a Fortitude reaction set up the same way as a Sense the Savage Way, ie only available to 7+ vampires. From a design point of view this lets you make a card that is "for" elder vampires, without being unreliable because it says "younger". That might look something like: In the Way Reaction Requires a vampire with capacity above 6. for: Play when a political action would cause you to burn pool. You may burn blood from this vampire as though it were your pool. FOR: Only usable during an action directed at you or a card you control. Usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire untaps and attempts to block.

> jAvel wrote: > Paranoic Vigilance > [reaction] > Only usable by a tapped vampire. > [for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence > [FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence > MUCH more in line with the discipline than any of the other attempts in this thread; although inferior should be limited only to the metusalah himself (Reduce bleed AGAINST YOU by 1.) Superior version should limit the number of Paranoic Vigilances the vampire an have. Most likely to one. Untap anytime later on it insanely strong, especially as there is no cost (other than that you have to reduce a bleed by 1). Fortitude is already an insanely strong discipline due to untaps, but also for damage prevention. Many players consider big caps that aren't able to multiact due to lack of fortitude a vaste of time. The disciplinen doesnät need to be made stronger with absurdly powerfull reduce (five or whatever) or bounce. Not that my weenie fortitude horde wouldn't just love such a card... Finnish Politics!

> jAvel wrote: > Paranoic Vigilance > [reaction] > Only usable by a tapped vampire. > [for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence > [FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence > Paranoic Vigilance 1 blood Only usable by a tapped vampire with capacity 6 or more. Reduce a bleed against you by 2. As above, and put this card on the reacting vampire. The minion with this card may burn 1 blood and this card to untap after a successful action or to untap and attempt to block an action. That feels a little more balanced and playable. (Reduce by 2 for 1 blood, 1 blood for inferior Freak Drive or an "eluding the arms of morpheus" prepared in advance) Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> finbury wrote: > Right now, there are some clans that seem intended for use with bloat as a defensive strategy. Some of them have Fortitude - Daughters, Samedi, maybe Ishtarri. > > Right now, bloat just loses to heavy bleed. > > I think it's reasonable for people to want to play those clans, and to use their cards in the way they were intended. Right now, though, they can't - at least not at a serious table. It's reasonable to wish there was a card that fixed this. > Not only do they loose to heavy bleed they also have a tendancy to time the table. The games as a whole has during the last years become slower and slower and time is always an issue. Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO Prince of Lidingö

> Randy wrote: > Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources > > Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO > I'm not saying bloating like crazy is the best way to win a game, but it is a better way to get VPs if you're not going to use Dominate or Auspex. It might only be 0.5VPs, but that's more than you get by bringing something else. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > > Randy wrote: > > Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources > > > > Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO > > > I'm not saying bloating like crazy is the best way to win a game, but it is a better way to get VPs if you're not going to use Dominate or Auspex. It might only be 0.5VPs, but that's more than you get by bringing something else. > Thing is you're most certainly better off grafting on dominate and deflections or just not playing that deck if you want to be competitive, for example Ravnos often do this. As it stands not only does a bounce 'reduce' any bleed fully, which blows any of the reduce by X or 1 or 2 out of the water, it even sends it to your prey. The bigger the bleed you 'reduce' the harder the hit you inflict. This combined with dominate being easily the strongest bleed discipline in itself. Any of the untaps or reduce for anything short of the whole bleed is way to weak, simply put. Lidingö Scourge

> finbury wrote: > I don't think that a bleed defense card needs to be as strong as Deflection in order to see play in this context. Bloat is already pretty reasonable if given the chance to set up. What they really shouldn't get is a global bleed reducer. Something that is strong enough to blunt a DOM offensive could utterly negate a more moderately built predator. > > Lönkka wrote: > Fortitude is already an insanely strong discipline due to untaps, but also for damage prevention. Many players consider big caps that aren't able to multiact due to lack of fortitude a vaste of time. The disciplinen doesnät need to be made stronger with absurdly powerfull reduce (five or whatever) or bounce. > Both your points are that a reduce by five would be too strong. Compare it to deflection. Even ignoring the offensive capabilities of bleeding your prey for free. It will reduce infinity. For one blood. With inferior dominate. Without capacity restrictions. Any defense needs to be compared to these. Making a strictly inferior card but of equal defense is my suggestion. A reaction card like this couldn't logically be imbalanced with the reason that fortitude is already so strong because there are an incredible amount of decks which uses both dominate and fortitude and which are all fine balance-wise. (As a footnote, I'm not arguing for banning deflection or whatever. I think V:TES is the best game in the world. We don't need to change anything which has an integral part of the game. I'm simply suggesting to add more stuff to make it even more awesome.) Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> finbury wrote: > I also think it would be interesting if there was a Fortitude reaction set up the same way as a Sense the Savage Way, ie only available to 7+ vampires. From a design point of view this lets you make a card that is "for" elder vampires, without being unreliable because it says "younger". That might look something like: > > In the Way > Reaction > Requires a vampire with capacity above 6. > for: Play when a political action would cause you to burn pool. You may burn blood from this vampire as though it were your pool. > FOR: Only usable during an action directed at you or a card you control. Usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire untaps and attempts to block. > what about a discipline-less elder only card in the same vein as CHAMPION? No Respect Reaction Requires a vampire with capacity above 7. Only usable if you are being bled for 4 or more pool. The action fails and the acting minion enters combat with this reacting vampire instead. Tap this reacting vampire. it would not necessarily be a benefit for the reacting vampire, as it would entail entering combat with the acting minion, but my assamite decks would surely enjoy having this around

> jtroyve wrote: > No Respect > Reaction > Requires a vampire with capacity above 7. > Only usable if you are being bled for 4 or more pool. > The action fails and the acting minion enters combat with this reacting vampire instead. Tap this reacting vampire. > I like it. Maybe even higher cap though, like 9. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> jtroyve wrote: > No Respect > Reaction > Requires a vampire with capacity above 7. > Only usable if you are being bled for 4 or more pool. > > The action fails and the acting minion enters combat with this reacting vampire instead. Tap this reacting vampire. > I see some issues here. First, this is a pretty conditional card; anyone who has held onto an AI for an entire game knows what I mean here! It isn't easily cycleable if it isn't applicable. What's more, if you're in a situation where it's useful, you'll probably want more than a couple of copies - unless your combat is extremely lethal. Which leads me to the second concern: while this is useful for many decks that run elders, it's most useful for combat decks. That may or may not be a good thing. Third, it's fairly easy to play around. Knowing their prey is running this, a bleeding predator can slow down a little and make it a dead card. Sure, that gives their prey a bit more room to stabilize, but combat decks are generally more sensitive to hand jam than bleed decks anyway, so it's probably a bit of a push. This also means that a deck can't rely on this as a sole defense, especially if they draw multiples early and are forced to let the cat out of the bag by discarding one. Finally, in effect this is very close to Archon Investigation. The trigger condition is identical, and the card is playable by the same clans (ie, all of them). The costs - "discard some combat cards and burn some blood from your vampire" vs "burn 3 pool" - are different, but of similar value. The requirements for AI are much easier to meet - you don't need a vampire in play at all. And AI will eliminate the acting vampire more reliably. So, I think many decks would just want to run AI instead. You could certainly tweak the card to be more cycleable - give it another effect or something. But I don't think that's appropriate for a non-discipline card. You could also push the power level up, but it's a delicate balancing act - if it's less powerful than AI, it's difficult to justify playing with it, but if it's more powerful then you might just end up with a game where nobody ever bleeds for more than three. That's not fun; it tends to make bleed decks a lot more uniform, and lack of diversity is what we're trying to get away from here.

> Randy wrote: > Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources > > Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO > I'd expand that a bit. Playing just defense and no offense: not a good way of playing the game. I think that many people don't like to feel like they lost a game. And, for many of those people, being ousted feels like losing, but timing out doesn't - even though they both count as losses by the rules of the game. Clearly, this behavior should not be encouraged. However, I don't think there's anything the card pool could do to discourage that without nerfing all defenses to the point of uselessness. Otherwise, the people who pathologically hate being ousted will just find another way. Right now they can build wall decks, or decks that bloat, or decks that backrush their predator into oblivion and then bleed for 1 with 8-cap vampires a lot... I think the fix there may actually be to tweak the rules - to say that a timeout is only worth 0.5VP if you already have a VP, that otherwise it's a loss, and be very clear that a timed out game with no VPs is an "everyone loses" game. But that's a discussion for another time and another thread. There's also a second category of people, who are less interested in "not losing", but do want to play the clan they choose for its strengths without messing about with out-of-clan disciplines. Right now, if these people play DoC or Samedi, they're probably going to be bloating a lot. And, in order to make a deck that has any chance of success, they'll probably be lowballing offense in favor of extra bloat; sure, that means they'll only be able to oust when the stars are right, but that is (marginally) better than just being ousted quickly. I want those decks to have the room to include offense. And that means giving them tools against heavy bleed. I also think that bloat is an interesting thing to have at the table, because most bloat involves a lot of actions at +1 or +2 stealth. This makes splashed or minor intercept a bit more compelling, and means that blocking decks are a bit better at ousting certain types of prey. These are good things. It's another complexity in the metagame, another dimension to the rock-paper-scissors matchup.

> Xaddam wrote: > Compare it to deflection. Even ignoring the offensive capabilities of bleeding your prey for free. It will reduce infinity. For one blood. With inferior dominate. Without capacity restrictions. Any defense needs to be compared to these. Making a strictly inferior card but of equal defense is my suggestion. > Deflection is the high point of bouncing. All others should be inferior to it. Most likely clearly inferior. Especially if new disciplines are added to the bounce mix. > Xaddam wrote: > A reaction card like this couldn't logically be imbalanced with the reason that fortitude is already so strong because there are an incredible amount of decks which uses both dominate and fortitude and which are all fine balance-wise. > Fortitude is already a great discipline. No need to overtly bolster it with amazing bounce as well. Finnish Politics!

Even if fortitude (freak drive) is great it also happens to be the common factor of a lot of clans who are in dire need of improvement. So far one of the ideas I've liked quite a lot is the straight reduce to 0. It makes for the same mind games of boosting the bleed or not just like with bounce but it doesn't 'carry on' to the next action modifier like a reduce by X would. Thereby I propose this: Some fortitudy name reaction cost: 1 blood for: Reduce a bleed against you to 0 FOR: As above, and put this card on the reacting minion. You may burn this card for +1 bleed Some may argue it reduces for too much on inferior, I say that reduce itself is inherently worse than bounce and that is a non-issue. Other reduction cards are bad and should not be what new competitive cards are measured against. Lidingö Scourge

> Louhi wrote: > Even if fortitude (freak drive) is great it also happens to be the common factor of a lot of clans who are in dire need of improvement. > > So far one of the ideas I've liked quite a lot is the straight reduce to 0. It makes for the same mind games of boosting the bleed or not just like with bounce but it doesn't 'carry on' to the next action modifier like a reduce by X would. Thereby I propose this: > > Some fortitudy name > reaction > cost: 1 blood > for: Reduce a bleed against you to 0 > FOR: As above, and put this card on the reacting minion. You may burn this card for +1 bleed > > Some may argue it reduces for too much on inferior, I say that reduce itself is inherently worse than bounce and that is a non-issue. Other reduction cards are bad and should not be what new competitive cards are measured against. > I like that card and agree with you. It is clearly inferior to deflection and I would stick with deflections with my Ventrue deck. I would consider adding some of these things to card: Only one per action (so it adds the mind games you mention, can't play govern -> reduce 0 -> conditioning -> reduce 0) Make +1 bleed similiar effect as spying mission (burn for +1 bleed when this minion bleeds successful next time) Tap the recting minion if minion is lower than 6 cap (if weenies are problem) EDIT Offensive ability with superior is great, straight reduce is boring

> finbury wrote: > > > jtroyve wrote: > > No Respect > > Reaction > > Requires a vampire with capacity above 7. > > Only usable if you are being bled for 4 or more pool. > > > > The action fails and the acting minion enters combat with this reacting vampire instead. Tap this reacting vampire. > > > I see some issues here. First, this is a pretty conditional card; anyone who has held onto an AI for an entire game knows what I mean here! It isn't easily cycleable if it isn't applicable. What's more, if you're in a situation where it's useful, you'll probably want more than a couple of copies - unless your combat is extremely lethal. > > Which leads me to the second concern: while this is useful for many decks that run elders, it's most useful for combat decks. That may or may not be a good thing. > Agreed. that's what we're trying here. a choice, whether AI or No Respect, given a specific deck/play style. We're not trying to suggest a top tier card, just an alternative to what's currently out there. again, just like we have a multitude of wakes/forceds/onthequi/ others.