[submission] Junky pension fund

Hi all

I am still trying to find a way to give an utility to the investment card... here is my idea:

junky pension fund:
Master
Put this card under your control. you cannot control more than one junky pension fund.
Whenever you shall lose pools due to a bleed or a political action less than the total of counters on investments you control, you must burn instead as much counter from an investment you control. Burn the pension fund if at any time, you control no investment. Any minion can attempt to burn a counter from an investment you control as a +1 stealth action.

snegiem wrote:

junky pension fund:
Master

Honestly, just reconsider at this point before going any further. Investments all already require a full master phase action. This requires a second, and this is useless until you play the investment. The competition for master cards is fierce, because you could be playing a game-changing card like Week of Nightmares, Pentex Subversion, Legendary Vampire, Dreams, or whatever.

Then move on to the specific interaction with the mainstream investments:

snegiem wrote:

Put this card under your control. you cannot control more than one junky pension fund.
Whenever you shall lose pools due to a bleed or a political action less than the total of counters on investments you control, you must burn instead as much counter from an investment you control. Burn the pension fund if at any time, you control no investment. Any minion can attempt to burn a counter from an investment you control as a +1 stealth action.

Is the intention that if I have three counters on an STI and get bled for three, can I absorb the whole bleed with that? (It's not "less than" the total, but equal to.) With short term investment - 1 cost, 3 counters - you get to save 2 pool, possibly only 1 pool if I can't burn the final counter (or I have to use a master phase action to retrieve it). With Protracted, you save 3 (or 2) pool. In either case, this is less than you'd save by playing two Dummy Corporations.

Potentially two master phase actions - Pension Fund + Protracted Investment - saves you from the damage equivalent of one KRC (3 damage, or possibly only 2). Could have been Villein + Giant's Blood, which would save you from two or three KRCs.

It might be better with Swiss Cut or Ventrue Investment - but both of those cards require clans with Dominate, who would (all else being equal) much prefer to bounce the bleeds than reduce them. And the !Ventrue can already reduce them if they want with Auspex. And having Dominate, both of them can bloat with superior Govern, which provides potential resilience to bleeds and damage votes, while doubling up as very strong bleed offence when you don't need the defence. So would either of them really care to play this, when they have those alternatives?



There may be some design space for working with investment cards, but I don't see that master cards work well with it at all. Perhaps a reaction that burns an investment card counter for some useful ability? (e.g. non-shit disciplineless bounce?) An anarch three-way that had one level that touched on investments? An action card of some sort that doubles up for tutoring them out and boosting them - perhaps as alternate uses? An event that simulates some sort of stock market instability - tricky to exploit well because events are once per game, but at least it's not competing with master cards. But I struggle to see this sort of tinkering with non-trifle master cards helping, unless you make the payoff very strong indeed.

Thank you james, your comment is as always helpful and precise.

I was not thinking to make it a trifle as the power level seemed to me quite "big"...
I agree that with short term or with protracted investment the gains can be similar to dummy corporation or comparable (or less powerful) than a villain.
but:
- the investments create "pool" out of nowhere, a villain is more making another use of your vampire blood so if you don t follow with a voter captivation or a giant blood, your vampire will be more sensible to all effects concerning blood.
- i am more afraid of the power level of secret horde combined with it: let s say you invest 10 pools on it, it would protect you of 20 pts of "pool damage"... the dominate clan is true can bounce and may prefer this solution toward bleeds... but as i am thinking again about it, it may not be the best thing: some clans without bounce may found it interesting but it would be too much powerful with already heavy bloating modules...