Hi,
Does anybody be else think the card, especially the superior, is a bit OP? It seems to disproportionately affect potence. I've seen players shrug off insane amounts of DMG (potence + celerity) and it seems a bit much. Replacing all damage with a number like 4 or 5 would still protect against the majority of strikes but would allow someone using a combo of torn signpost, undead strength and a weapon still inflict some damage. Or increase the cost.
More in line with the source material too I think.
First of all, one of the key attributes of Fortitude is preventing damage.
Secondly, preventing damage is great, but it's a losing strategy in the end because you're not gaining anything from paying 1 blood each time someone strikes you.
Lastly, Skin of Steel prevents damage from a strike, so it's useless against environmental damage such as Carrion Crows.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Yeah, Fortitude can be annoying for combat decks.
There are several cards that trump a several card combo of gazillion damage with just mere one card. so card efficiency is the thing that might irk some people.
Finnish Politics!
I would suggest RWTP suffers from the same issue actually. It seems unbalanced to me that brujah players for example could load their decks with potence & celerity cards all to have them stopped by a single card - this can certainly contribute to winning games as the defending player can load their deck with other cards.
Meanwhile non-fortitude decks have very little defense against the same attacks.
Its a minor issue and I think its a great game but there are certainly flaws.
In the above mentioned case when striking with a weapon, there is also S:CE that trumps it. Why should Fortitude prevention be worse than that?
If you don't strike with a weapon, you can use Immortal Grapple. Since Skin of Steel and Rolling with the Punches have to be played after the first strike, you can save your celerity cards. With the press from Immortal Grapple, you get to the next round. Torn Signpost still works. With another grapple, you have a new chance to hit your opponent hard using your saved celerity cards. So you needed 1 card (the additional grapple) to trump 1 card. Seems fine to me.
Prince of Bonn, Germany
> Ripper wrote:
> Does anybody be else think the card, especially the superior, is a bit OP?
>
Overpowered? No. Skin of Steel is essentially a reactionary measure to mitigate another player's strategy. Building a deck around Skin of Steel won't win games.
> It seems unbalanced to me that brujah players for example could load their decks with potence & celerity cards all to have them stopped by a single card - this can certainly contribute to winning games as the defending player can load their deck with other cards.
> Meanwhile non-fortitude decks have very little defense against the same attacks.
>
I'm confused by the final two sentences. How can a deck be loaded with other cards when it has to reliably draw Skin of Steel, which, again, is a reactionary measure against a single strategy? The flip side to being able to reliably draw Skin of Steel is not being able to reliably draw other cards that you purport the deck to be loaded with. Also, some non-fortitude decks have arguably a better defense in strike: combat ends (Majesty is a prime example).
> Yomyael wrote:
> In the above mentioned case when striking with a weapon, there is also S:CE that trumps it. Why should Fortitude prevention be worse than that?
>
Maybe because potence has an answer to combat ends; immortal grapple - but it does not have an answer to fortitude?
Potence also does not have cards that deal enviromental damage. It only has strikes. Dark steel requires obtenebration.
These are just some of the multitude of issues potence has and why I have for a long time put potence on the bottom of my list of combat disciplines.
Smoking craters tell no tales.
—Tex talks Battletech