Submission: Ars Magna

Kraus wrote:

It's the end result of the power level you're suggesting that troubles me. This card doesn't enable melee weapons - melee weapons enable this.

Well, I agree that it looks strong on the surface, but it is the only way to approach the dilemma in my opinion, if we want to elevate melee weapons to be comparable to hand damage with grapple, guns with adds, animalism combat, breath of the dragon, claws of the dead, and what have you. (Pay attention that this card loses to all of the listed combat modules)

In my mind this card is not even that ridiculous, since we already can put together pretty ridiculous combat in decks that focus on combat. As a funny example: Lasse's Enkidu has struck for 8 aggravated with a single strike in our weekly games. Its not practical, thus its a funny example.

I just feel that if we go for a single additional strike, the card would not be that much better than concealed weapon+melee weapon+pursuits. Then the main sell would be that you need to utilize one less card (you still need the actual weapon as a card), and that you could equip a weapon that's bigger and better than what concealed weapon can put to play. I just feel that that would not be good enough to make you build a deck around it, especially with all the weaknesses to other combat modules. This would need to trump at least one of those (dodges, prevents, grapple, range, or aggro)

How about...

Name: Ars Magna
Cardtype: action
Cost: none
Capacity: none
Discipline: none
Clan: none
+2 stealth action
This vampire equips a melee weapon from your hand (pay cost as normal) and unlocks if successful. Put this card on this vampire. This vampire is immune to grapple cards. Once per combat round, this vampire may burn 1 blood to gain 1 additional strike for that round, only usable to strike with a melee weapon.

Flavor text: "To win any battle, you must fight as if you are already dead."
- Miyamoto Musashi



Now this negates one particular weakness to other combat modules (grapple). Its still not guaranteed to win the fight.

Fascinating: I was trying to edit the message, but the forum insisted I was replying to the post instead.. even if I clicked "edit" from the pulldown menu... A new "feature" of the forum?

Name: Ars Magna
Cardtype: action
Cost: none
Capacity: none
Discipline: none
Clan: none
+2 stealth action
This vampire equips a melee weapon from your hand (pay cost as normal) and unlocks if successful. Put this card on this vampire. While equipped with a melee weapon grapple cards cannot be played against this vampire . Once per combat round, this vampire may burn 1 blood to gain 1 additional strike for that round, only usable to strike with a melee weapon. A vampire can have only one Ars Magna.

Flavor text: "To win any battle, you must fight as if you are already dead."
- Miyamoto Musashi

This is what I'd go for with this design.

Kraus wrote:

A vampire can have only one Ars Magna.

Why do you think this is necessary?

To make it a bit more vulnerable to that anarch card (whichever it's called), not to let you cycle extra melee weapons like jack-of-both-sides, and to further reflect that it's actually a trait/skill the vampire obtains/possesses. You can't possess two times preternatural strength (you're already preternaturally strong), nor heroic might (you're already heroic), nor field training (you're already trained), nor (I'd guess) sword fighting skills (you already know the stuff). Not piling multiple of these also reduces clutter on (under) cards.

Small things, but to me preferable. It's the skills you get. The weapon just comes with the package (you probably trained with something). It's really comparable to Preternatural Strength, I think. Get a package: super muscles and rocks to throw; a collection of signposts; your preferred weapon and training.

Kraus wrote:

To make it a bit more vulnerable to that anarch card (whichever it's called), not to let you cycle extra melee weapons like jack-of-both-sides, and to further reflect that it's actually a trait/skill the vampire obtains/possesses. You can't possess two times preternatural strength (you're already preternaturally strong), nor heroic might (you're already heroic), nor field training (you're already trained), nor (I'd guess) sword fighting skills (you already know the stuff). Not piling multiple of these also reduces clutter on (under) cards.

Small things, but to me preferable. It's the skills you get. The weapon just comes with the package (you probably trained with something). It's really comparable to Preternatural Strength, I think. Get a package: super muscles and rocks to throw; a collection of signposts; your preferred weapon and training.

While I agree to the sentiment behind the suggestion, I think we should aim to keep card texts as concise as possible. It is an art form in itself to keep the text short, while at the same time portraying the required game mechanics and flavor in a way that avoids misunderstanding them.

"Can have only one" achieves two goals:
- avoids card cycling through this card
- flavor
I am not sure either of these is a good enough reason to bloat the card text, but its not my choice I guess.

It is another weakness of the game rules as a whole, if we have to keep including rules clutter like this to cards to avoid them being used in unintended ways. "During phase X" rule springs to mind as both unintuitive and restricting.