Submission: Claws of Living Stone

Name: Claws of Living Stone.
Type: Combat
Only one Claws of Living Stone can be played each combat.
This vampire's hand strikes deal 1 more damage this combat.
As above and this vampire's non-aggravated hand damage cannot be prevent by cards that require fortitude.

Art notes:
A Gargoyle showing off his massive claws with shades on and a fang ridden colgate smile.

World of Darkness reference:
Name taken from Gargoyles: The Vigil (www.scribd.com/doc/96117271/Gargoyles-the-Vigil) though opted out of the aggravated hand damage.

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Currently any deck with damage prevention permanently walls Gargoyles. Gargoyles don't bleed hard and they don't vote, so a damage prevent wall basically stops them dead. I'd use these over Raking Talons any day.

Created by: Ben Gerrissen

Changes:
v2 - Changed text "As above and this vampire’s non-aggravated hand damage can not be prevented by cards that require a discipline." to "As above and this vampire's non-aggravated hand damage cannot be prevent by cards that require fortitude."

GreyB wrote:

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Currently any deck with damage prevention permanently walls Gargoyles. Gargoyles don't bleed hard and they don't vote, so a damage prevent wall basically stops them dead. I'd use these over Raking Talons any day.

So, as your prey, do I have many serious defensive combat options against a combination such as Roll (replaceable), Immortal Grapple, Torn Signpost (or any other increased damage), Rockheart/Stonestrength (or other prevent), Disarm? Playable with a Tupdog, if you use Visceratika for the damage prevention.

The main serious options would be maneuvers to long range (or the very occasional set range ability) - but the annoying thing about that is that it wastes very few cards from the Gargoyle player's hand, because they may well be able to re-draw Roll from the ash heap, and hold back on using everything else if they don't want to. And if you're using, say, Stonestrength and Immortal Grapple, you have access to some incidental presses, so the gun deck (an obvious source of lots of maneuvers) might delay disaster, but have its face eaten in the end.

The other option is prevent from other sources, like equipment, retainers, or Glancing Blow/Forearm Block. Thing about most of those is that they only prevent one or two damage, which the Gargoyles could overcome. Leather Jacket is decent enough, but potentially wastes a lot of actions - harming decks that are relatively action poor. The Gangrel Antitribu could come out well with Leathery Hide...

GreyB wrote:

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Currently any deck with damage prevention permanently walls Gargoyles. Gargoyles don't bleed hard and they don't vote, so a damage prevent wall basically stops them dead

I think your diagnosis of the problem is interesting, but I think the solution is going the wrong way. Rather than making them unstoppable killing machines, it would potentially be more interesting to see increased strength in ways of ousting. The problem with the unstoppable killing machine angle is that it makes the game very unfun for your first prey (most likely), because there's the strong likelihood of all their minions dying in a big pile of splatter, while the Gargoyle deck still has horrific problems actually getting it off the table for a VP.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

So, as your prey, do I have many serious defensive combat options against a combination such as Roll (replaceable), Immortal Grapple, Torn Signpost (or any other increased damage), Rockheart/Stonestrength (or other prevent), Disarm? Playable with a Tupdog, if you use Visceratika for the damage prevention.

The main serious options would be maneuvers to long range (or the very occasional set range ability) - but the annoying thing about that is that it wastes very few cards from the Gargoyle player's hand, because they may well be able to re-draw Roll from the ash heap, and hold back on using everything else if they don't want to. And if you're using, say, Stonestrength and Immortal Grapple, you have access to some incidental presses, so the gun deck (an obvious source of lots of maneuvers) might delay disaster, but have its face eaten in the end.

The other option is prevent from other sources, like equipment, retainers, or Glancing Blow/Forearm Block. Thing about most of those is that they only prevent one or two damage, which the Gargoyles could overcome. Leather Jacket is decent enough, but potentially wastes a lot of actions - harming decks that are relatively action poor. The Gangrel Antitribu could come out well with Leathery Hide...

Something similar is already possible with Assamite and Tremere And just like with the card availability to those clans, the deck will grind to a halt if you include all scary options due to hand jams. You will have to pick cards carefully and it's nearly impossible to include all. The sum of all potential looks scarier than what's actually playable. I might be wrong, play testing will have to prove either case.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

GreyB wrote:

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Currently any deck with damage prevention permanently walls Gargoyles. Gargoyles don't bleed hard and they don't vote, so a damage prevent wall basically stops them dead

I think your diagnosis of the problem is interesting, but I think the solution is going the wrong way. Rather than making them unstoppable killing machines, it would potentially be more interesting to see increased strength in ways of ousting. The problem with the unstoppable killing machine angle is that it makes the game very unfun for your first prey (most likely), because there's the strong likelihood of all their minions dying in a big pile of splatter, while the Gargoyle deck still has horrific problems actually getting it off the table for a VP.

I've devised thematic cards for ousting. First off " Alvusia's lair " which can put Hatchlings into play for extra bleed power, but requires a killing machine and the second the Gargoyle " Virstania, the Great Mother " which gives gargoyles +1 bleed actions that cost 1 blood.

Thing is, Gargoyles are combat machines and perhaps a teensy bit stealthy. They've been used as bruisers, bodyguards, defenders and scouts. I daresay, amongst all the clans in VTES, they should be the deadliest in terms of combat.

I also devised some thematic correct intercept cards, so they could also be viable for most wall strategies, utilising Smiling Jack.

So it's kinda hard to find a good fitting ousting strategy that doesn't rely on combat. Stealth/bleed isn't the gargoyle way. Votes? heck no. Fixing Gargoyles in that respect is even harder than fixing Gangrels.

So I opted for powerhouse swarm bleed (hatchlings) or powerhouse wall (smiling jack) and am in the process of thinking up more cards along that path. My goals are:
- Find a thematic ousting strategy
- Add some missing cards (ie. Whispers of the Chamber )
- Find a thematic pool gain ( Alvusia )
- Find a thematic way to lose slave status (ie. Kissed by Virstania )

And thats just it, those are my goals, my ideas. It's up to the design team to cherry pick ideas and balance them. Everyone is free to offer their ideas and I would really like to see yours and hope my ideas inspire you to find alternative routes

Changed the card text to affect fortitude only, that being the only anti discipline effect that might've rubbed off from the Tremere.

GreyB wrote:

Something similar is already possible with Assamite and Tremere

Not so much. Yes, they have access to damage that can't be prevented, but you need to think about package against package, not card against card.

First, the package I describe can be played with Tupdogs, which is something pretty much entirely unavailable to the Assamites and Tremere. The speed with which Tupdogs can pounce is quite impressive.

Second, Immortal Grapple is the daddy. An Assamite deck might be playing Psyche!, but that means it might waste a few cards if it's not sure you've got a Majesty or Earth Meld or whatever. It might also play Sanguine Entrapment to prevent S:CE. Sanguine Entrapment looks like a solid card in this regard, but to get the anti-S:CE level, you need CEL+QUI, which is much more expensive than merely pot. In groups 2-3 and 5-6, the cheapest vampires are 5/6/7. Group 4 is 6/7/7. Much more expensive, really. Sanguine Entrapment is also a before-range-is-determined card, making it slightly more annoying than Immortal Grapple - before we start throwing down maneuvers (or not), I know if you've played it. This isn't "Sanguine Entrapment is a terrible card" by any means, just Immortal Grapple is extremely good.

In general, the Tremere don't measure up. Perfect Clarity costs 2 blood, in comparison to IG and SE, both of which are free. It also goes when the action is announced, giving the target much more incentive to (try to) find a chump blocker if they can. They can use Telepathic Tracking, but that costs a blood and require AUS.

Next up, Disarm - which also requires only pot. With Disarm, if you can connect with pretty much any damage, you can torporize the vampire, assuming they don't hit you back. But the Gargoyles, like the Blood Brothers and unlike the Brujah, have excellent access to damage prevention, so they stand a much better chance of being able to withstand hitback. Toss in some very-hard-to-prevent damage in the mix and it looks much more horrible. On damage prevention, the Tremere obviously have access to Rego Motus, which is a very decent card for them - but they don't have a Disarm-like card to capitalize on that with.

Also regarding hitback, Immortal Grapple shuts down some very potent forms of hitback. (Not all, obviously.) If I can maneuver back to close, you can't use that gun. You can't use that Weighted Walking Stick. You can't use that Rowan Ring. You can't try to surprise me with a copy of Coma or Flames of the Netherworld or a whole bunch of fun cards. Again, IG is very, very good.

Next, think about blood costs. Immortal Grapple is free. Disarm is free. Multiple potence-based strength increases are free, if you prefer that route, and Visceratika and Fortitude provide options for free damage prevention. Roll provides free, pretty persistent maneuvers. If you want to include a few Raking Talons, they're free too. From the point of view of Quietus, most of the unpreventable damage costs blood and is on poor cards. Exuding Blood is free, but only one or two damage, and only usable at long range. Strike at the True Flesh has some potential, but requires a melee weapon - Weighted Walking Stick is an obvious potential candidate - but because it requires a weapon, it annoyingly gets shut down by Immortal Grapple. Thaumaturgy is similar here, though its access to Theft of Vitae is also welcome.

And you might be thinking that any given strike compares favourably to a single strike by a Gargoyle using CoLS - they can all do mostly-unpreventable strikes for a couple of damage - but then you need to think about Disarm again. Disarm means that you can bring out an 11 cap vampire, full of blood, and I can potentially send it to torpor with one strike, because it generally doesn't matter anywhere near as much how much damage I do with the strike in total, because I play Disarm. An Assamite or Tremere deck in that same situation needs to be thinking "How do I get that vampire into torpor?" It might well be additional strikes. There are some free ones in Celerity, but you might also be mixing in Blur, to provide you with the ability to make three strikes in one round, which is another blood. If you're looking at finishing off with Taste of Death (a very fine card), that costs a blood. Generic Tremere don't have particularly solid options regarding additional strikes, but they could be looking at press-based combat - that in itself exposes them to an additional cost of being hit in the second round (even if just hand damage for one).

You might also think idly about action efficiency. With Fortitude and Flight, Gargoyles have solid access to Freak Drive and As the Crow. Thinking about Tupdog specifically, if a deck comes and hits you with several Tupdogs, one or two of those actions may well be successful (you may not be able to block them all), meaning you might find yourself with the third Tupdog coming and eating your face, untapping with ATC, and going in for diablerie with a disposable minion - unlike that 5/6/7 cap Assamite from earlier, a Tupdog dying in the ensuing Blood Hunt is painful but not the end of the world. Yes, you lose on the redraw so you wouldn't want to be doing this all the time, but it's the end of the world to lose an occasional one. (If you don't like Freak or As the Crow, consider a small scattering of Amaranth instead.)

GreyB wrote:

Thing is, Gargoyles are combat machines and perhaps a teensy bit stealthy. They've been used as bruisers, bodyguards, defenders and scouts. I daresay, amongst all the clans in VTES, they should be the deadliest in terms of combat.

Two points:

1) The Assamites and Samedi would often dispute that claim. And there are a huge variety of clans represented amongst bruisers, archons, enforcers etc. in the WoD.

2) WoD theme should never override card game concerns. Practically unstoppable lethal killing machines are seriously unfun to sit downstream from. I transfer out a vampire, look, it dies. I transfer out another vampires, it dies too. We already face a world where some very good combat decks are very lethal, and can cause issues with a target player just being frozen out of the game. Making that significantly worse is... problematic.

And you might say that, well, a good player is never going to make a deck that is the perfect killing machine, at the expense of being able to oust people. That might well be true, in general. A good player might experiment with such a deck to see if they can pull it off, I guess - but let's say they've tried it, didn't like it, gone back to a solid, top tier deck. Now it's not a problem, right? Not exactly. Not everyone is a "good player" in the sense of always making the strongest decisions - both in deck choice and in play terms. Some players play what they like. Some people enjoy combat. A "bad" player might just really enjoy ripping people's vampires to bits and getting the occasional VP, and not really care about the fact that he's not actually winning. That is, when you say:

GreyB wrote:

And just like with the card availability to those clans, the deck will grind to a halt if you include all scary options due to hand jams. You will have to pick cards carefully and it's nearly impossible to include all. The sum of all potential looks scarier than what's actually playable. I might be wrong, play testing will have to prove either case.

...you're talking about playtesting for power concerns, when the issue is different - a deck that doesn't reliably get game wins can still be unpleasant to have to play against, because it makes life un-fun for other people.

GreyB wrote:

So it's kinda hard to find a good fitting ousting strategy that doesn't rely on combat. Stealth/bleed isn't the gargoyle way. Votes? heck no. Fixing Gargoyles in that respect is even harder than fixing Gangrels.

Offence doesn't have to come from bleed or votes alone.

The problem you've diagnosed is that Gargoyles have real trouble with Fortitude walls, weenie Fortitude, and other decks that can make heavy use of damage prevention. You could punish a deck for doing that, without just destroying the deck's vampires. For example, give the deck a choice - if you prevent this damage, bad things will happen to you; if you don't prevent this damage, different bad things will happen to you (e.g. Disarm). Just throwing something together to show the sort of mechanic I'm thinking of, with no real thought about balance:


There's also nothing stopping you going the action-based route and making it thematic - cards like Inside Dirt, Choir, Off Kilter, 419 Operation, Army of Rats, Constant Revolution etc. are all pool destruction, in their own ways, but feel very different. I think you could put together something solid that would be unique and different, while still an action. Perhaps something somewhere between a Constant Revolution and a Revolutionary Council style. I have an earthquake theme in my head, rising tremors, something like that, but can't nail a mechanic I like.


If you want to stick with a straight combat effect, an alternative would be to make the damage prevention still playable, but more costly - you get some "damage" done that way.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

GreyB wrote:

Something similar is already possible with Assamite and Tremere

Not so much. Yes, they have access to damage that can't be prevented, but you need to think about package against package, not card against card.

First, the package I describe can be played with Tupdogs, which is something pretty much entirely unavailable to the Assamites and Tremere. The speed with which Tupdogs can pounce is quite impressive.

Second, Immortal Grapple is the daddy. An Assamite deck might be playing Psyche!, but that means it might waste a few cards if it's not sure you've got a Majesty or Earth Meld or whatever. It might also play Sanguine Entrapment to prevent S:CE. Sanguine Entrapment looks like a solid card in this regard, but to get the anti-S:CE level, you need CEL+QUI, which is much more expensive than merely pot. In groups 2-3 and 5-6, the cheapest vampires are 5/6/7. Group 4 is 6/7/7. Much more expensive, really. Sanguine Entrapment is also a before-range-is-determined card, making it slightly more annoying than Immortal Grapple - before we start throwing down maneuvers (or not), I know if you've played it. This isn't "Sanguine Entrapment is a terrible card" by any means, just Immortal Grapple is extremely good.

In general, the Tremere don't measure up. Perfect Clarity costs 2 blood, in comparison to IG and SE, both of which are free. It also goes when the action is announced, giving the target much more incentive to (try to) find a chump blocker if they can. They can use Telepathic Tracking, but that costs a blood and require AUS.

Next up, Disarm - which also requires only pot. With Disarm, if you can connect with pretty much any damage, you can torporize the vampire, assuming they don't hit you back. But the Gargoyles, like the Blood Brothers and unlike the Brujah, have excellent access to damage prevention, so they stand a much better chance of being able to withstand hitback. Toss in some very-hard-to-prevent damage in the mix and it looks much more horrible. On damage prevention, the Tremere obviously have access to Rego Motus, which is a very decent card for them - but they don't have a Disarm-like card to capitalize on that with.

Also regarding hitback, Immortal Grapple shuts down some very potent forms of hitback. (Not all, obviously.) If I can maneuver back to close, you can't use that gun. You can't use that Weighted Walking Stick. You can't use that Rowan Ring. You can't try to surprise me with a copy of Coma or Flames of the Netherworld or a whole bunch of fun cards. Again, IG is very, very good.

Next, think about blood costs. Immortal Grapple is free. Disarm is free. Multiple potence-based strength increases are free, if you prefer that route, and Visceratika and Fortitude provide options for free damage prevention. Roll provides free, pretty persistent maneuvers. If you want to include a few Raking Talons, they're free too. From the point of view of Quietus, most of the unpreventable damage costs blood and is on poor cards. Exuding Blood is free, but only one or two damage, and only usable at long range. Strike at the True Flesh has some potential, but requires a melee weapon - Weighted Walking Stick is an obvious potential candidate - but because it requires a weapon, it annoyingly gets shut down by Immortal Grapple. Thaumaturgy is similar here, though its access to Theft of Vitae is also welcome.

And you might be thinking that any given strike compares favourably to a single strike by a Gargoyle using CoLS - they can all do mostly-unpreventable strikes for a couple of damage - but then you need to think about Disarm again. Disarm means that you can bring out an 11 cap vampire, full of blood, and I can potentially send it to torpor with one strike, because it generally doesn't matter anywhere near as much how much damage I do with the strike in total, because I play Disarm. An Assamite or Tremere deck in that same situation needs to be thinking "How do I get that vampire into torpor?" It might well be additional strikes. There are some free ones in Celerity, but you might also be mixing in Blur, to provide you with the ability to make three strikes in one round, which is another blood. If you're looking at finishing off with Taste of Death (a very fine card), that costs a blood. Generic Tremere don't have particularly solid options regarding additional strikes, but they could be looking at press-based combat - that in itself exposes them to an additional cost of being hit in the second round (even if just hand damage for one).

You might also think idly about action efficiency. With Fortitude and Flight, Gargoyles have solid access to Freak Drive and As the Crow. Thinking about Tupdog specifically, if a deck comes and hits you with several Tupdogs, one or two of those actions may well be successful (you may not be able to block them all), meaning you might find yourself with the third Tupdog coming and eating your face, untapping with ATC, and going in for diablerie with a disposable minion - unlike that 5/6/7 cap Assamite from earlier, a Tupdog dying in the ensuing Blood Hunt is painful but not the end of the world. Yes, you lose on the redraw so you wouldn't want to be doing this all the time, but it's the end of the world to lose an occasional one. (If you don't like Freak or As the Crow, consider a small scattering of Amaranth instead.)

GreyB wrote:

Thing is, Gargoyles are combat machines and perhaps a teensy bit stealthy. They've been used as bruisers, bodyguards, defenders and scouts. I daresay, amongst all the clans in VTES, they should be the deadliest in terms of combat.

Two points:

1) The Assamites and Samedi would often dispute that claim. And there are a huge variety of clans represented amongst bruisers, archons, enforcers etc. in the WoD.

2) WoD theme should never override card game concerns. Practically unstoppable lethal killing machines are seriously unfun to sit downstream from. I transfer out a vampire, look, it dies. I transfer out another vampires, it dies too. We already face a world where some very good combat decks are very lethal, and can cause issues with a target player just being frozen out of the game. Making that significantly worse is... problematic.

And you might say that, well, a good player is never going to make a deck that is the perfect killing machine, at the expense of being able to oust people. That might well be true, in general. A good player might experiment with such a deck to see if they can pull it off, I guess - but let's say they've tried it, didn't like it, gone back to a solid, top tier deck. Now it's not a problem, right? Not exactly. Not everyone is a "good player" in the sense of always making the strongest decisions - both in deck choice and in play terms. Some players play what they like. Some people enjoy combat. A "bad" player might just really enjoy ripping people's vampires to bits and getting the occasional VP, and not really care about the fact that he's not actually winning. That is, when you say:

GreyB wrote:

And just like with the card availability to those clans, the deck will grind to a halt if you include all scary options due to hand jams. You will have to pick cards carefully and it's nearly impossible to include all. The sum of all potential looks scarier than what's actually playable. I might be wrong, play testing will have to prove either case.

...you're talking about playtesting for power concerns, when the issue is different - a deck that doesn't reliably get game wins can still be unpleasant to have to play against, because it makes life un-fun for other people.

GreyB wrote:

So it's kinda hard to find a good fitting ousting strategy that doesn't rely on combat. Stealth/bleed isn't the gargoyle way. Votes? heck no. Fixing Gargoyles in that respect is even harder than fixing Gangrels.

Offence doesn't have to come from bleed or votes alone.

The problem you've diagnosed is that Gargoyles have real trouble with Fortitude walls, weenie Fortitude, and other decks that can make heavy use of damage prevention. You could punish a deck for doing that, without just destroying the deck's vampires. For example, give the deck a choice - if you prevent this damage, bad things will happen to you; if you don't prevent this damage, different bad things will happen to you (e.g. Disarm). Just throwing something together to show the sort of mechanic I'm thinking of, with no real thought about balance:

Reverberation
Combat
A minion can play Reverberation only once per combat.
[vis] Strike: make a hand strike with +1 damage. (Could be anything utilitarian that lets you play the card.)
[VIS] Play this card when an opposing minion prevents all the damage from your strike; put this card in play on the minion (you still control this card). During this minion's untap phase, burn this card, burn 1 pool from his controller., and burn 1 blood or life from this minion.

There's also nothing stopping you going the action-based route and making it thematic - cards like Inside Dirt, Choir, Off Kilter, 419 Operation, Army of Rats, Constant Revolution etc. are all pool destruction, in their own ways, but feel very different. I think you could put together something solid that would be unique and different, while still an action. Perhaps something somewhere between a Constant Revolution and a Revolutionary Council style. I have an earthquake theme in my head, rising tremors, something like that, but can't nail a mechanic I like.


If you want to stick with a straight combat effect, an alternative would be to make the damage prevention still playable, but more costly - you get some "damage" done that way.

Obsidian Swing
Combat
[vis] Strike: make a hand strike. Cards played by the opposing minion to prevent this damage cost an additional blood or life.
[VIS] As [vis] above, with +1 damage.

Thanks for the wall of text, it really was not needed I've submitted a slew of cards, this one is my least favorite and meant more as an non-aggravated alternative to Raking Talons.

Ps. lets show the combinations rather than addressing them one by one.

Tremere
[/i]Thoughts Betrayed + Theft of Vitae + Apportations + Drain Essence + Soul Burn[/i]
The 2 blood cost of TB might seem to costly for most people, but it lasts throughout the combat and with Apportation a Tremere has loads of maneuvers and presses. ToV and DE quickly gets you back the missing blood and a Soul Burn can finish the opponent off, add the occasional Rego Motus to mitigate aggravated ranged strikes from the opponent. Takes a lot of cards, causes the occasional hand jam, but pretty impressive combat and at the end of combat the vamp is full again.

Assamite
Sanguine Entrapment + Dam the Hearts River + Blood Sweat + Pursuit + Taste of Vitea[/b]
Again a pretty killer combination, toss in an occasional Sanguinary Wind to cancel dodges and you put vamps into torpor faster than Tremere's. Usually need only 1 Sanguine Entrapment per combat. Assamite do have to be weary about ranged aggravated strikes heading their way though.

Gargoyle
Raking Talons + Immortal Grapple + Pounce/Slam/Lead Fist + Brick by Brick + Taste of Vitae
Now this looks like you need the same amount of cards to get an equal combination going, except it fails against Fortitude. And since combat is also close range, the Gargoyle player needs to pack prevention cards. This combat package is simply weaker than the options for Tremere & Assamite.

The interesting point now is... If Tremere and Assamite have a better combat package than Gargoyles, why aren't they played that much? Answer: Because it takes too much and too many different cards. Trick: get guns, avoid strike cards. This was my idea of removing strike cards from Gargoyle combat. Could play Gargoyles with guns, well... yay another combat theme ruined.

Anyways, this was just 1 idea