Besides Banishment, there don't seem to be many "move this vampire to the uncontrolled region", in contrast to dozens and dozens of potential "send this vamp to torpor" effects.
So I was wondering, why is this so? Presumably it is because the cost of rescuing a vamp from torpor is cheaper that having to influence them out again, but it's a design space that could be played with.
So what about a card like:
Words Of Reason
Cost: 1
or Strike: Move the opposing vampire to the uncontrolled region.
or Play when this vampire successfully blocks. Move the opposing vampire to the uncontrolled region. There is no combat.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> Words Of Reason
> Cost: 1
> or Strike: Move the opposing vampire to the uncontrolled region.
> or Play when this vampire successfully blocks. Move the opposing vampire to the uncontrolled region. There is no combat.
>
It's terribly strong and cheap. My advice would be:
-make it dependent on capacity (younger vamp)
-not usable on first round of combat (don't know how to fix the superior level)
-don't give this card to disciplines that already are strong and directly arm pool (aka and )
Other than Banishment theres Exile:
Name: Exile
Cardtype: Action
Cost: 2 blood
Discipline: Presence
+1 stealth action.
Lock an ally or younger vampire and unlock this acting vampire.
Lock X Orun on this vampire to send a vampire or imbued with capacity or cost 2X or less to his or her owner's uncontrolled region.
Sending a vamp to uncontrolled is huge.
It removes them for a turn (at least)
it costs pool to get them back out if they've lost blood
It can slow other vampires coming out if transfers are then needed for the banished vampire.
having power level like that on a combat card at basic is... obscene.
Having a reaction option at superior instead is even more so.
As is, i couldnt see a reason to play obedience instead of this.
Banishment costs an action, votes passing, and is restricted to younger
Exile is an action, 2 blood and a bunch or orun MPA's
There's also Reality.
Making it a strike is terrible in my opinion. A vampire that is in the uncontrolled region is totally unavailable until the player's turn, and it costs pool and time to get back in play. So it's like a super-Pentex somehow.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> Besides Banishment, there don't seem to be many "move this vampire to the uncontrolled region", in contrast to dozens and dozens of potential "send this vamp to torpor" effects.
>
> So I was wondering, why is this so?
>
A bunch of reasons.
1) It's very, very powerful. The reason why Banishment exists as it does today and not in its original form (no younger restriction) is that 2 caps banishing Enkidu or whoever was a problem.
2) It's unfun. Taking out a player's ability to play the game is a problem that V:TES suffers from in a number of areas - if a player can barely do anything, they're unlikely to enjoy the game. In a world where you can reliably and cheaply send all their vampires to the uncontrolled region, this will happen more - with your card, imagine any sort of serious wall deck just banishing vampires when it blocks, with nothing they can do about it because it's a reaction. "Unfun" isn't the same as "the player playing the banish-like tech will win" - though that might happen. Some players can kill another player's fun, even though the person playing it may not themselves win (e.g. various decks that are very, very good at getting 1VP by completely screwing their prey, but rarely that much else).
3) Brainwash. Players occasionally try to use Brainwash to lock people down. This isn't usually that strong because if you're playing it a lot, your grand-prey or whoever probably doesn't care that much once you've ousted your prey. But if you can - for example - play a blocking deck with some extra master phase actions and banish vampires who can't be brought out again in one turn, not so much. (e.g. Aus/Cel/Pre exists in abundance, so it wouldn't be all that hard to block, do some damaging strikes and make a banish-combat-card your final strike) Unlike torporisation, if you block and "banish" your prey's vampires during their turn, they can't get help from another player before it's your turn - no-one can transfer to that vampire, whereas any vampire could potentially rescue it if it looks like you're about to roll the table.
Ok, ok, I figured as much. But just a hypothetical here...
How different would things be if we could influence out minions with any amount of pool/blood? As in, if pool/blood is the cost to bring a minion under our control, then it follows that pool/blood can/could represents the degree of control we have over them or the extent of our control.
Of course, with things like Giants Blood, Taste, and Voter Cap being sources of open-ended blood gain, the idea becomes less reasonable. But pros/cons?
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
You mean I can play 4 Inner Circle with 1 blood each on turn 1? Why would anyone ever play anything else?
Pros: it would make Govern less powerful.
Cons: everything else.
You risk getting vamps burnt/diablerized easier that way. Also contesting, if everyone was just going to play Inner Circles like that.
But VTES has this weird rule where burnt vamps don't stay dead. You just influence another one out. I've seen Alexandra get Archon'ed twice in one game.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> You risk getting vamps burnt/diablerized easier that way.
>
It'd be somewhat easier than now - a freshly influenced fattie with 10 blood on them can play a bunch more cards than a fattie with 1 or 2 blood on them.
But the thing you want to compare with is against other vampires in that changed environment. You can bring out a 2 cap with one inferior discipline for 1 pool. Or you can bring out a huge vampire with a whole bunch of disciplines for 1 pool. Why would you ever do the former? There would be - roughly speaking - no downsides to bringing out a huge vampire with extra bleed, a title, many disciplines etc. So you've basically just written off almost every small or midbie vampire that doesn't have a cool special, because I get all the speed advantages of playing weenies, but with a truckload more power.
I consider Golconda in the same vein as the aforementioned Taste, Voter Cap, Giant's Blood, etc. Open-ended blood/pool gain naturally crowds out other sources of blood/pool gain. Hence why Villein and OG 5th Tradition was nerfed...
But @james, I would suppose that if we could drop fatties into play with 1 blood on them, thus having all the speed of weenies with none of the drawback... that drawbacks could be introduced.
As in, knocking vamps back into uncontrolled region becomes a more common effect, as does effects that take control of other people's vamps, as does effects that require you to transfer pool to minions (is a vote that mandates your prey using all 4 transfers to put pool on uncontrolled vamps on par with KRC? I think so. Force them to oust themselves!)
Like, oh, you influence out Stanislava with 1 blood? My weenie Obf guy plays "Where Loyalties Lie" to "take control of a vampire with cap 8+ who has 2 or less blood on them," thanks!
And then you play Diamond Thunderbolt and the table is shocked that anyone would actually play that card.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.