[card idea] Shiv

Kraus wrote:

Krausedit\\ People have been obsessing over IG for some months now on these forums. For the life of me I can't understand why. Potence is an atrociously bad discipline, and IG is practically nowhere in competitive play. Just saying. Let them have IG. Potence sucks.

Can you explain why Potence is so notoriously bad? Is it the lack of effects beyond +damage?

@Ratadin: I do agree with you that melee weapons should be stronger than they have been thus far, but we can't just errata old weapons to buff them or print new ones to obsolete the old ones.

Edit. For what it's worth, I really like the Bonecrusher, and the idea of a Spiked Chain weapon.

Can you explain why Potence is so notoriously bad? Is it the lack of effects beyond +damage?

Mostly this, and even in damage department they're not that much better off than Animalism or even disciplineless combat. Target Vitals and Walking Stick more or less puts Potence to shame, even if their static strength boost actions are alright. Potence has the benefit of doubt in that it kind of counters Animalism combat, but alone it's less than great. Fortitude+disciplineless trumps it. It's a combination of basic maths and twda examples.

Funny enough, Potence is a fine combat discipline in countering other combat modules, but is too card intensive in itself as offensive combat discipline.

Also, little utility outside of dealing raw damage.

@Ratadin, I hear you. Your intention was crystal clear. Keep it up. Melee weapons should find a place within the design space. We already got guns figured out more or less (to a point where we're even experimenting with different ways of dealing damage; kp1st and AK-47 are excellent examples of this).

LivesByProxy wrote:

@Ratadin: I do agree with you that melee weapons should be stronger than they have been thus far, but we can't just errata old weapons to buff them or print new ones to obsolete the old ones.

Edit. For what it's worth, I really like the Bonecrusher, and the idea of a Spiked Chain weapon.

I gotta say that yes, we can, and we should print new ones to obsolete old, unused melee weapons. It is unwise to print new melee weapons that are way better than ranged weapons that are currently used and played, but better than all melee weapons that aren't used? Of course we should. Otherwise we would just accept that we cannot have good melee weapons because bad melee weapons were printed 20 years ago.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

- "Before play begins" would probably need to be a new rules-based keyword.

I am generally against introducing a keyword to the rulebook merely for the purpose of one card. That is not what keywords are for, If there were multiple cards that use the same mechanic (preferably in the same set release) then it would be a better idea. We should try to utilize the new mechanic a multiple times in a release.

Other games already use this sort of mechanic. Leylines from magic the gathering spring to mind.

Maybe use the same wording: "If Shiv is in your deck, you may begin the game with it in the research area."
EDIT: Ok thats just unnecessary shuffling since you have to present the deck as a whole with shivs still in it... Then take them out and shuffle again. I guess the original suggested wording is better.

Kraus wrote:

Just chiming in about the tutoring effects; searching just your library is pretty rough. For desired power level you'll want to search both library and hand, often even ash heap.

Maybe we might want to introduce special set of cards that begin the game in a separate area (research area)? This would circumvent the need to keep searching the library constantly.

The idea's fine though. Delivery Truck's problem was that it was too slow, took multiple actions (too valuable), and, to an extent, it never did concealed weapon's job better.

I didn't know this card. Delivery truck does literal nothing except increase your handsize in practice. Since equipment is equipped with a same kind of action with same kind of +1 stealth as it would if the equipment was in your hand instead of on the delivery truck, this same effect can be achieved by having +1 handsize. Increasing your handsize with cards other than equipment however has added benefits. This card just went straight into my "worst VTES cards I've seen" folder.

Really, it's not that equipping with melee weapons isn't possible. They're just worse than .44. You're on the right track, though, I think, with giving those utility effects to anarch, and having another effects other than just doing stuff with equipments.

I still think that melee cards are not as bad as they seem. They already have a default benefit of benefiting from vampires added strength. There just aren't cards that enable them enough. I think we need for example a card that is similar to immortal grapple, but allows melee weapons to be used.

We need to identify the problems correctly. Currently melee weapons are countered by maneuvers, and by combat ends. If we introduce cards that remove this advantage from the enemy, then melee weapons would be enabled to benefit from their own strengths.

Melee weapon deck needs to be able to win the combat if it draws the right cards. Currently those cards don't exist. Lets create them.

Bloodartist wrote:

I still think that melee cards are not as bad as they seem. They already have a default benefit of benefiting from vampires added strength. There just aren't cards that enable them enough. I think we need for example a card that is similar to immortal grapple, but allows melee weapons to be used.

That isn't that big of a benefit, because we have to consider that every minion will have 1 strength, as playing cards to improve strength is redundant: why would I play a weapon alongside my tornsign, when I could just play torn-sign.

Again, to do something alingside what POT already do will leave us with what POT have: a subpar combat technique that works, kills, but isn't as reliable as playing Magnun and some TV/Blur now and then.

Adding an extra card to replicate IG on melee weapons isn't helping either, because, again, people will prefer Magnums because the weapon mix both the damage and the maneuver on a permanent damage.

It is the weapon itself that has to have some interesting effect.