Name: Dirty Fighting
Cardtype: Combat
Cost: 3 blood
Discipline: Celerity/Obfuscate/Protean
Requires a Sabbat vampire. Only usable at close range. Only usable on the first round of combat.
[cel] and/or [obf] and/or [pro] Strike: hand strike or use a melee weapon strike. If using [cel], this strike is with first strike. If using [obf], this strike cannot be dodged. If using [pro], for the duration of this strike, damage from this vampire's hand strikes is aggravated. This card cost 1 less blood for each discipline used.
This card is clearly designed for !Gangrel that have poor disciplines. The hard part was to make it not stronger than Shadow Feint, thus the requirements.
I tried also to make the "1-discipline" use costly (2 blood) so cel gun decks won't use it too easily, or so it doesn't make Claws of the Dead a wallpaper card.
Of course, its best use is when using the three disciplines because it's a free undodgable first strike that deals aggravated, making it more interesting than just playing some agg with protean.
Thoughts? Comments?
EDIT: could someone move it to the right subsection? Thanks
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
I love the idez, mainly because one card to do everything is indeed a strong asset in combat. If you only need 12 Dirty Fighting and 12 Swallowed by the night for your combat, you can focus either on actually using the fact that you can kill people (spying missions, camera phone, etc ...).
The card is based on an anarch card type, wich I found both ironic and fitting, since after all the sabbat at its inception were effectively the anarch of today
Edit : BTW, it significantly change the value of small cap with the three discipline at inferior. The "pack wolf" I had created on another topic, for example, is much more scary with this card.
I am not very fond of this type of very tailormade magicbullet-type of boost cards for certain clans. I prefer if !Gan got cards like Assamites got Selective Silence, Loss and Web of Knives.
Also, it has a kind of long and complex card text. Cards like this and Keystone Kine doesn´t really help the already tough learning curve this game has.
"My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."
> Ashur wrote:
> I am not very fond of this type of very tailormade magicbullet-type of boost cards for certain clans.
>
Well, I believe it's much less of a magic bullet than Deep Song, Perfect Parangon or Resist Earth Grasp. Yes, it's tailor made for city gangrel, like Aire of Elation, Loss, Changelin, or shroud mastery, but not significantly more.
To be honest, I believe its multi purpose is what combat card lack, that's another reason for me to like it.
> jAvel wrote:
> I'd chage text a bit. Something like: "This card cost 1 less blood for each superior [CEL], [OBF], [PRO] this vampire has."
>
No. The card is good when played for free, otherwise the substitutes (Shadow Feint, Claws of the Dead) are better.
Currently, only 32 (including 2 advanced vampires that count twice) vampires can play it for free, starting with Wren (4 cap).
With your suggestion, only 13 of them could play it for three, starting with Darrell
Boyce (6 cap)
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ashur wrote:
> I am not very fond of this type of very tailormade magicbullet-type of boost cards for certain clans. I prefer if !Gan got cards like Assamites got Selective Silence, Loss and Web of Knives.
>
Huh? Loss is precisely a "tailormade magicbullet-type of boost cards for certain clans". Maybe a little less magical (2 effects only), but much more efficient.
> Ashur wrote:
> Also, it has a kind of long and complex card text. Cards like this and Keystone Kine doesn´t really help the already tough learning curve this game has.
>
Beginners have plenty of cards to learn from (Conditioning, Lost in Crowds). This card isn't supposed to figure in the V:tES for dummies handbook.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
It using the multi-discipline mechanic poached from the Anarchs somehow doesn't strike me as right. I too wonder if jAvel might not have a point... perhaps making it cost a base of 2 blood and reducing it for every Superior?
All in all, I can appreciate the idea and the execution as well but I simply don't think that enabling combat (the weakest strategy) is the answer to the !Gangrel's woes.
Drain
> Ashur wrote:
> Also, it has a kind of long and complex card text. Cards like this and Keystone Kine doesn´t really help the already tough learning curve this game has.
>
I really like the Keystone Kine template, though I think that it would be better used in cases where a combination of disciplines is rare (cel obf nec) than common, as here. And I think that it would actually be easier to learn how KK works if there were other cards that worked the same way, since it would give players more opportunities to see the template.
Like Drain, I really like the idea, but I think this misses the mark slightly.
It gives them a pretty decent combat card. but only in areas they're already doing stuff anyway. The default position is that it's still going to be a strike for 1 aggravated damage, even if it beats dodge. Beating First Strike is nice in that it saves you from taking hands (or whatever) - but it does seem to edge them yet further into "I can trump other combat, but that's not where my weakness was" territory.
I would be much more interested in seeing something that went, say:
[pro] Something bland, easy to cycle, but maybe there's a blood cost, or it's not quite as flexible. Say, +1 stealth on actions to enter combat or commit diablerie.
[obf]+[pro] Something combat-y. Maybe a perma-benefit - you can still stack a few an cycle them at [pro], or maybe use them at [OBF]+[PRO] when you don't need this benefit anymore.
[OBF]+[PRO] Something not combat-y.
Or reverse the second and third level. So somewhere between Deep Song and Elemental Stoicism. (ES also uses the three level, two discipline approach.)
Doing something with [pro]+[cel] would also be a fairly obvious option.
> Drain wrote:
> It using the multi-discipline mechanic poached from the Anarchs somehow doesn't strike me as right.
> ...
>
> All in all, I can appreciate the idea and the execution as well but I simply don't think that enabling combat (the weakest strategy) is the answer to the !Gangrel's woes.
> Drain
>
I very much agree.
Sabbat. Animals, Wraiths and Zombies Molloy recruits or employs get an additional life.
I like the idea of the card, but its very powerful, and the cost it to easy to get around, as have a path. I also don't like all the disciplines being for one clan, I think maybe replacing the requirement with say would balance it a bit and make it more usable for other Sabbat.
> Drain wrote:
> It using the multi-discipline mechanic poached from the Anarchs somehow doesn't strike me as right.
>
Well, I do believe it's ironically fitting. The sabbat at its inception was very much alike the anarc, and more importantly the three-discipline is a response to anarch not having big discipline, like, for example, most of the sabbat troopers.
Edit : for me, the two example of card that are needed by combat in general and ciy gangrel mostly would be deep song (attack vampire, or kill prey), and swallowed by the night (stealth, or combat utility)
First of all, !Gangrel have shitty discipline that ARE the weakness of the clan (plus the fact that the discipline spread isn't very coherent within the clan). Unless creating a pool-damaging card in [obf], [cel] or [pro], they will stay a weak clan. And I wouldn't encourage creating such cards.
[cel] and [pro] are used for fighting, [pro] and [obf] are used for stealth. You can't expect !Gangrel to do anything else than stealthing or fighting (poorly besides that). If the fighting module takes 30 cards, what do you want them to do aside?
What I wanted to do was to lighten the combat module of !Gangrel so they had more space to include other strategies.
Concerning whether it should look like a three-way or something else, I think you all miss the point. IMO, the card format is absolutely irrelevant. It's just astuteness/elegance/card balancing.
What is important is the card function. Suggestions that have nothing to do with the card idea are off-topic. (Please create another topic.)
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
> It gives them a pretty decent combat card. but only in areas they're already doing stuff anyway.
>
They do, but poorly and it costs them too many cards.
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
>
> [pro] Something bland, easy to cycle, but maybe there's a blood cost, or it's not quite as flexible. Say, +1 stealth on actions to enter combat or commit diablerie.
> [obf]+[pro] Something combat-y. Maybe a perma-benefit - you can still stack a few an cycle them at [pro], or maybe use them at [OBF]+[PRO] when you don't need this benefit anymore.
> [OBF]+[PRO] Something not combat-y.
>
Could you be more vague? Besides, you're just defining a format, not a function. I can create lots of bad cards using this template.
> Pullen wrote:
> but its very powerful, and the cost it to easy to get around, as have a path.
>
It's precisely the point of this card. Being strong and free for !Gangrel.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ankha wrote:
> First of all, !Gangrel have shitty discipline that ARE the weakness of the clan (plus the fact that the discipline spread isn't very coherent within the clan). Unless creating a pool-damaging card in [obf], [cel] or [pro], they will stay a weak clan. And I wouldn't encourage creating such cards.
>
Why? The Assamites have Loss and the world hasn't ended.
If you want to avoid proliferation to other people (e.g. Assamites), then there are a variety of options. Make the card require [pro]+something else (rather than [obf]+[cel]). It would also be easy to create a card that required a clan and discipline. Or required a clan and got benefits from disciplines.
You could even combine Country and City in one card to enable cross-overs a little more.
Card Name
Requires Gangrel Antitribu
[ani]+[for]: One effect
[obf]+[cel]: A totally different effect.
> Ankha wrote:
> Could you be more vague? Besides, you're just defining a format, not a function. I can create lots of bad cards using this template.
>
Why is any of this a problem? Anyone can create bad cards. What's your point?
If you actually read what I wrote, I also referred specifically to Deep Song as a possible model, which combines a combative function and a bleed function. (Deep Song is often considered a good card, by the way.)
Instead of just focusing on yet more combat, I was recommending dealing with one of their other problems - be it pool damage or defence. Or you might strike out in a radically different area, to give them some different tools. But you'd also give them a solid combat tool as well. I don't have fixed opinions on what the effects have to be, and I wouldn't want to nail discussion to a single implementation, rather than a more general change of direction.
> Ankha wrote:
> You can't expect !Gangrel to do anything else than stealthing or fighting (poorly besides that). If the fighting module takes 30 cards, what do you want them to do aside?
>
Why not? It is possible to thematically simulate pretty much anything. With their discipline spread you're probably better off using clan-cards to represent pool damage, though.
> Ankha wrote:
> What I wanted to do was to lighten the combat module of !Gangrel so they had more space to include other strategies.
>
But even that is not really accomplished. Anti-Dodge and First Strike are absolutely marginal combat countermeasures. As long as your combat module has to account for Prevention, Maneuvers and the all-mighty S:CE then it is going to have to be bulky.
> Ankha wrote:
> Concerning whether it should look like a three-way or something else, I think you all miss the point. IMO, the card format is absolutely irrelevant. It's just astuteness/elegance/card balancing.
> What is important is the card function. Suggestions that have nothing to do with the card idea are off-topic. (Please create another topic.)
>
Presenting alternatives that deviate from the originally posted format can be a bit of nuisance if taken to extremes but I would hardly call it off-topic.
> Ankha wrote:
> It's precisely the point of this card. Being strong and free for !Gangrel.
>
It could still be much stronger, even in its own flawed context of being a combat card. Spirit Claws, with its inherent maneuver is what a real slot-saver looks like to me.
Drain
> Drain wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> > What I wanted to do was to lighten the combat module of !Gangrel so they had more space to include other strategies.
> >
> But even that is not really accomplished. Anti-Dodge and First Strike are absolutely marginal combat countermeasures. As long as your combat module has to account for Prevention, Maneuvers and the all-mighty S:CE then it is going to have to be bulky.
>
Compared to the actual combat module available to !Gangrel, I think it's really better. I may be wrong (and it ties up with your last point), so do you have any suggestion to make it better.
> Drain wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> > Concerning whether it should look like a three-way or something else, I think you all miss the point. IMO, the card format is absolutely irrelevant. It's just astuteness/elegance/card balancing.
> > What is important is the card function. Suggestions that have nothing to do with the card idea are off-topic. (Please create another topic.)
> >
> Presenting alternatives that deviate from the originally posted format can be a bit of nuisance if taken to extremes but I would hardly call it off-topic.
>
They are off-topic because the thread cannot handle two cards sharing nothing in common. Discussions will become a big mess, some people commenting the original card, others some other card. I wish people create a new thread instead (with a link to the original thread).
> Drain wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> > It's precisely the point of this card. Being strong and free for !Gangrel.
> >
> It could still be much stronger, even in its own flawed context of being a combat card. Spirit Claws, with its inherent maneuver is what a real slot-saver looks like to me.
>
So any suggestion?
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director