Submission: Darla, The Researcher

Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Camarilla. When Darla enters play, you may search library (shuffle afterwards) for two Master: Discipline cards and put them on ready vampires. Art notes: Her hair is tied behind her head. She is wearing robes with a high collar and she is holding 3 tomes in the corner of her left arm. The bottom tome has a bookmark in it. There is a key ring with three keys on it around her left wrist. World of Darkness Reference: You can see a picture of her on page 81 of the Tremere Clanbook (Revised Edition), she is the sample character titled: Cloistered Researcher. How does this card address a compelling game need?: She is a cheap Camarilla vampire for Tremere though her ability is extremely flexible allowing her to give disciplines to more powerful vampires and she makes discipline combinations easier to accomplish. Worst case scenario she fits into an Auspex and Thamaturgy deck and she can give herself Superior in both as a 4 capacity. Best use of her is to give two different vampires that have basic disciplines an upgrade. She can also give herself Superior Auspex so that she can be a Wall and still have another discipline card left over for another vampire. Created by: Justin Lacey Update: July 7th 2017 Here is text from the last update Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 5 Camarilla. You may lock Darla to search your ash heap, hand, or library (shuffle afterwards) for a Master: Discipline card and put it on a ready vampire as a discard phase action. Update: July 24th 2017 Her ability is was 180 characters, now it is 174 characters. The hand selection isn't super relevant and hopeful it makes it a little easier to fit in the text box. Trimming the ash heap selection would free up 9 more characters, but hopefully that isn't necessary. Her point value is fine, as her ability locks her and it has a narrow use only getting a very specific type of card, it easily fits as 1 point ability. Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 5 Camarilla. You may lock Darla to search your ash heap or library (shuffle afterwards) for a Master: Discipline card and put it on a ready vampire as a discard phase action.

Group? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> jblacey wrote: > Worst case scenario she fits into an Auspex and Thamaturgy deck and she can give herself Superior in both as a 4 capacity. Best use of her is to give two different vampires that have basic disciplines an upgrade. She can also give herself Superior Auspex so that she can be a Wall and still have another discipline card left over for another vampire. > Because the worst case is still pretty much a straight improvement over a plain 4 cap with 3 points of disciplines, I'd be inclined to temper the ability ever-so-slightly. Something like: When Darla enters play, you may tap them to search your library (shuffle afterwards) for two Master: Discipline cards and put them on ready vampires. So they can still act as normal in their first proper turn, but if you do turn them into an AUS THA block monster, or chuck them Dom for bouncing, they would need a Wake or something like that. But still be really quite pokey indeed.

Am I the only one worried about seeing a Soul Gem of Etrius combo in second turn? Perhaps just adding a restriction (only aus, tha or dom skills?)

Does locking her when she comes into play solve both problems?

Why try to tweak the text when the problem is that the numbers are out of scale? Just remove or fetch 1 discipline only.

> nisu_advanced wrote: > Am I the only one worried about seeing a Soul Gem of Etrius combo in second turn? > Perhaps just adding a restriction (only aus, tha or dom skills?) > What is the turn 2 combo? Darla comes into play and gets for, dom, and plus 2 capacity; on turn 2, Magic of the Smith for the Soul Gem, Force of Will + Daring the Dawn + Conditioning? Then the new Darla gets the soul gem, for, dom, and plus 2 capacity, plays Revelations, then Force of Will + Daring the Dawn + Conditioning, ad infinitum? That's a combo that is just reasonable enough to try but shitty enough to not worry about, unless you've got a better idea.

How about this? Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 3 Camarilla. When Darla enters play, you may lock her to search your library (shuffle afterwards) for up to two Master: Discipline cards and put them on ready vampires. I am very tempted to say "other ready vampires", but only having means that she may need the option to put a Discipline card on herself. Here is another option but I am concerned it may be too weak: Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 3 Camarilla. Darla may search your library or ash heap for a master: Discipline card and place it on a ready vampire as a +1 stealth action. The idea is that she would be the fetch queen. Never really does anything herself but she makes everyone else better. She is the one that pays the bills and keeps the lights on. This version is much slower since she is effectively negative two actions.

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > > > nisu_advanced wrote: > > Am I the only one worried about seeing a Soul Gem of Etrius combo in second turn? > > Perhaps just adding a restriction (only aus, tha or dom skills?) > > > What is the turn 2 combo? Darla comes into play and gets for, dom, and plus 2 capacity; on turn 2, Magic of the Smith for the Soul Gem, Force of Will + Daring the Dawn + Conditioning? Then the new Darla gets the soul gem, for, dom, and plus 2 capacity, plays Revelations, then Force of Will + Daring the Dawn + Conditioning, ad infinitum? > > That's a combo that is just reasonable enough to try but shitty enough to not worry about, unless you've got a better idea. > remove the magic and the revelations, and only putt a few conditionings (only needed for the first bleed: Quick thought: get gem, force of will, conditioning, daring new Darla goes anarch, force of will, daring, ad infinitum. Other turbo decks based on the Gem needs 4-5 cards for each bleed, but with this vampire, once it has started, the loop only needs two cards, and is begining in turn 2, so probably some or all other methuselas won't have any vampire to react. I imagine that the restriction is that you must include some skills as far as you can only search for them in your deck, but, really, try to simulate that, you can easily bleed for 15-20 in your first try. So, it's really worth taking the risk? Adding, for example, the same text than Seterpenre (Discipline cards do not affect his capacity) this would be totally avoid. PD: please excuse my english,It's not used as often as it should be

After some thought this seems a like reasonable option: Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 5 Camarilla. You may lock Darla to search your library (shuffle afterwards) for a Master: Discipline card and put it on a ready vampire as a discard phase action. Reasons: 1) No chance for Soul Gem shenanigans since everything takes phase in the discard phase. 2) The discard phase action is the cost, but it is not an action that can be blocked. 3) It only gets 1 discipline not 2 initially. 4) Since discard phase occurs after the influence phase, she can still use it on her first turn. 5) Discard phase actions are under utilized currently. 6) There is combo potential with other cards like Metro Underground, Powerbase: Los Angeles, William Thorbecke, Unmada, etc. 7) Moved her to Group 5, because Group 3 has multiple aus tha vamps, but group 5 only has one 4 capacity vampire and the rest are 5 capacity or above. Better?

I actually would like to playtest this version. Even great Lord Tremere cannot be used to exploit her now. National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

I like it as it is now, perhaps, do you think it could be positive adding the possibility to search from ash heap?

> nisu_advanced wrote: > I like it as it is now, perhaps, do you think it could be positive adding the possibility to search from ash heap? > Sure. It should probably include hand as well, in case the hand is jammed. Name: Darla, The Researcher Capacity: 4 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 5 Camarilla. You may lock Darla to search your ash heap, hand, or library (shuffle afterwards) for a Master: Discipline card and put it on a ready vampire as a discard phase action.

I really like her, nice little body for a nice ability. the name reminds me of the Cartoon Character from the MTV series. In your description I believe Daria should wear big glasses and have that Blasé look on her face, and a misshapen jacket on her back but that's just me !

could she look like that ?

I like it, you may want to send an art submission.

... well I don't know, it doesn't seem like I can submit art just for a specific card. But I'm glad you like it

In my testing, she is fine. Very solid. Though I did shorten her text over concerns that her ability may be too long.