PCK Laibon Set Round 3 of Playtesting has Concluded

Jeff wrote:

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

RE: Guardians of the Faith Set

1. Our theory is that one of the key weaknesses of the three worst Sabbat clans (!Brujah, !Gangrel, and !Nosferatu) is the lack of bleed defense. We decided to address this common weakness in slightly different ways with Faustrecht, Malfean Pact, and Defending the Warren. We also wanted to do something other than bleed bounce while playing to each clan's strength.

Faustrecht provides bleed defense via successful actions (something the !Brujah do well) and can be cycled even if you aren't being bled. Malfean Pact serves the dual purpose of both bleed reduction and bleed boost---!Gangrel can successfully stealth bleed well, but typically only for small amounts of pool. Defending the Warren can be used for intercept (synergizing with Information Network) when making a !Nosferatu deck focused on Obfuscate and Potence.

So "Yes, this is a stop gap" is the summary of this answer.

2. Proxy cards (such as skill cards) can work. In fact, the ineffable and illustrious Self Biased created wonderful discipline cards to use. Much of the time, the choice will be obvious based on existing disciplines.

Besides, there are other more egregious "paperwork" issues in VTES, such as having multiple contracts out each naming different vampires (most common with Hand Contract) or having a bunch of Embraces of different clans or Tumnimos if different sects.

Just because people have made discipline cards (and I have also done that) it doesn't immediately connect disciplines to the individual copies of Divergent Evolution. Of course, Sect-based cards/counters could be created for cards like The Embrace, Tumnimos, etc.

3. Why is Infernal Pact only available to !Tremere?

Thematically, Malfean Pact emphasizes the connection to Black Spiral Dancers that the !Gangrel have with their Black Spiral Buddy---just like how Infernal Pact emphasizes the above-average infernal connections that !Tremere were believed to have.

So because !Gangrels have Black Spiral Buddy, they are more connected to the Wyrm (a Werewolf figure) than other vampires? What occurs to their infernalism, does it vanish with the card?

4. Yes, on a bleed, Defending the Warren does provide both intercept and bleed reduction. Of course, since it requires a block attempt (otherwise you can't play intercept), the bleed reduction realistically matters only if the action gets stealthed through (meaning your intercept isn't sufficient) or the action continues after being blocked. The majority of the time you will only benefit from one of the two effects (intercept or bleed reduction) so the other is like a failsafe.

So this card hedges your bets quite drastically. If you can't block you automatically get a bleed reduce equal to your number of minions? So having a swarm of !Nos basically means you cannot ever be ousted by S&B or Block-fails Powerbleed?

5. Sabbat Intrigue is also usable by Black Hand vampires, Seraphs, and titled vampires. The Inquisitor trait is currently gained through the Sabbat Inquisitor card, but who knows what future cards could also grant that trait.

It isn't a particularly great card at any rate. Dealing with Inquisitor by increments seems like a way to guarantee it remains an obscurity.

6. We tried such a removal clause in playtest, but the card was then found to be too weak, and the clause took up precious text space. Priscus is often considered a much weaker title than Cardinal or even Archbishop. Multiple Prisci aren't particularly helpful, and it is strictly better to upgrade your title via Cardinal Benediction. Now, Empowering the Curia gives a reason for a vampire to stay a Priscus or become a Priscus and for a Methuselah to control multiple Prisci.

Was this sort of thing tested specifically with Gratiano in mind? The G2 Lasombra Vote deck was always a fairly strong deck concept, having Gratiano basically have votes like a Regent (by dominating the Priscus Block) seems likely to be overpowered on the voting front. On the "As a Cardinal" front... it gives them 6 cards (8 if you include Masters)... so it seems rather redundant since realistically the only action out of the lot that might see play is Auto-da-fe and it hasn't been tearing up anything.

7. As kombainas has noted, the Inquisitor trait already exists, as seen with Sabbat Inquisitor and Auto-da-fe. None of our cards is Inquisitor-only, so we already have Auto-da-fe (usable by cardinals, regent, or inquisitors) as precedent.

Actually, I am suggesting, why bother with designing the measly number of Inquisitors (in the vampires) to cater for a trivially small pool of library cards? Why not turn around and create a full 50-library-card set, with Inquisitors/Templars for G2, G4 & G6, 'targets' for the Inquisitors/Templars (i.e. Infernals, Bahari, etc)? It seems like a wasted opportunity to shoe-horn in a handful of minions using a keyword that basically sees no use. It would seem more sensible to flesh out the whole idea or to leave it gathering dust.

Jeff wrote:

Priscus is often considered a much weaker title than Cardinal or even Archbishop. Multiple Prisci aren't particularly helpful, and it is strictly better to upgrade your title via Cardinal Benediction.

I love this piece of thing. It's like saying that Justicar title are much weaker than Inner Circle or even prince.

Ohlmann wrote:

Jeff wrote:

Priscus is often considered a much weaker title than Cardinal or even Archbishop. Multiple Prisci aren't particularly helpful, and it is strictly better to upgrade your title via Cardinal Benediction.

I love this piece of thing. It's like saying that Justicar title are much weaker than Inner Circle or even prince.

No, Justicar title is stronger than prince title. One would argue that it's the strongest title in the game thanks to alastor/parity shift/2nd tradition combination.

There is no benefit in using Prisci title over Cardinal. Best case scenario is that it's equal in value (as it grant 3 votes in some cases, and you can use some good cards), worst case scenario it don't give any votes at all and you can't play some cards that are prisci only.

Only idiot would argue that multiple prisci are better than multiple cardinals.

Lech wrote:

There is no benefit in using Prisci title over Cardinal. Best case scenario is that it's equal in value (as it grant 3 votes in some cases, and you can use some good cards), worst case scenario it don't give any votes at all and you can't play some cards that are prisci only.

Only idiot would argue that multiple prisci are better than multiple cardinals.

And only idiots would forget that priscus are smaller on average than even archbishop. Or that cardinal have nearly no advantage over priscus. It's not unlike saying that prince are less valuable than Inner Circle : you can have them for cap 7 without too much trouble.

Don't forget : if your priscus is not worth 3 votes, it can only be because you put two of them into play. It's like self-contesting prince title. Or arguing that printed justicar are bad because they prevent you from playing clan justicar title card.

(and cardinal card not playable by priscus are ... not very good. Do you really regret not being able to play Auto-da-fé or Deploy the Hand ?)

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

So "Yes, this is a stop gap" is the summary of this answer.

Could you please explain for the non-native English speaker what a "stop gap" would be?

@Amenophobis:
The easiest idea would be to think of the kind of thing you might use to plug a hole in a boat or tyre before you did proper repairs. In English it is generally used either for:
- a temporary fix that is known from the outset to need to be replaced
- an inferior fix for a particular problem