Master Disciplines

This came about as part of a discussion here about master cards that could become trifles when print-on-demand starts.

The basic master discipline cards are fine as is. So was Blood Doll and Minion, tap, but someone decided to print Vessel and Villein.

With print-on-demand, there are greater opportunities for alternate versions of cards. Reusing art for different versions of Master: Discipline cards might be acceptable.

So, I'm interested in seeing what alternate versions you might come up with. I will provide a few myself! And don't limit this to "trifle" versions if you don't want to, but that was the impetus.

(I'm going to use my favorite discipline, Presence, go ahead and use your own in examples!)

It could be as simple as:
"Path to Power: Presence"
Master: Discipline. Trifle.
1
Put this card on a vampire. This vampire gains 1 level of Presence . Capacity increases by 1: the vampire is one generation older. Cannot be placed on a vampire with superior Presence .

But that is real boring. I'm sure we can come up with some interesting ideas! The following two target different crypts. The first is good for weenie decks, or anarch decks, where you don't need superior. The second is for those key vampires with the basic level of the discipline you are using.

In all my examples, I did not include an increase to capacity. Perhaps some of them should include it, but without stronger analysis or play-testing, I can't say for sure if it's needed.

"A Little Presence"
Master: Discipline. Trifle.
Put this card on a vampire. This vampire gains 1 level of Presence . Not usable on a vampire with Presence .

"Improve Presence"
Master: Discipline. Trifle.
Put this card on a vampire with basic Presence . This vampire gains 1 level of Presence . Not usable on a vampire with superior Presence .

Two ideas that kinda evolved one from the other. The first represents the possibility of a "self taught" vampire, and makes for some interesting usage with, say, Progeny. The first was originally an archetype, but I wanted to include a "gain blood" effect as you see in all the archetypes. It didn't make sense to have both ideas in one card.

"Art of Seduction"
Master: Discipline. Trifle.
Put this card on a vampire you control. If this vampire does not have superior Presence, he or she may attempt a +2 stealth action to put a counter on this card. This vampire gains a level of Presence equal to the number of counters on this card.

"Art of Seduction (mk.II)"
Master: Discipline. Archetype.
1
Put this card on a vampire you control. This vampire gains 1 level of Presence . Cannot be placed on a vampire with superior Presence . When this vampire successfully completes an action requiring Presence, he or she gains a blood. A vampire may only have one Archetype.

The basic master discipline cards are fine as is. So was Blood Doll and Minion, tap, but someone decided to print Vessel and Villein.

This is not true. Minion Tap and Blood Doll were not fine just by themselves, because they did cost an expensive master slot, limiting deckbuilding. Just try replacing trifle version with non-trifle in any of your decks without adding additional MPAs and you will be forced to discard Master cards which make your deck unique.

Same does not apply to Disciplines as they are not key to deck building. Even then, adding one or two of them, if your star vampire lacks a superior is quite worth the MPA, plus it is not an universal need, so decks still remain distinct.

I am not sure, what broblem are you addressing there...

I would sort of agree, that mechanic similar to Dive into Madness should be considered if you want to improve certain effect accessibility. The good part of this is that you do not enable something, like weenie temporis happening, but you can still try to abuse superior powers at the cost of deck flow.

Dive into Madness
Action
Dementation
+1 stealth action.
[dem] This vampire gains superior Dementation [DEM] until the end of the turn and untaps.
[DEM] Put this card on the acting vampire. The vampire with this card gets +1 bleed. Any older vampire can burn this card as a action. A vampire can have no more than two Dive into Madness cards.

I waited for you to make this thread instead of cluttering the other one. Im normally more sold on your ideas than i am on this.

Prrviously, you metioned big caps getting skill cards as trifles. Im almost ok with that, just because i dont believe certain ancient vamps having inferior of some things. Marcus vitel? Yea, hez also got 5+ dots in tham, auspex, and i think protean.

And some vamps just didnt get thier spreads right, for timing reazons. Xavier should have at leazt inferior abombwe, for instance.

But, im not liking just extra ways to bolt on disciplines for anybody.

Maybe necro could use a trifle that grants necro and gains a pool. Necromancy sucks ao bad it still wouldnt be that good......

But you get the idea....

Necro needed to have allies and retainers that were good instead of all the interesting ones being GIO.

kombainas wrote:

The basic master discipline cards are fine as is. So was Blood Doll and Minion, tap, but someone decided to print Vessel and Villein.

This is not true. Minion Tap and Blood Doll were not fine just by themselves, because they did cost an expensive master slot, limiting deckbuilding. Just try replacing trifle version with non-trifle in any of your decks without adding additional MPAs and you will be forced to discard Master cards which make your deck unique.

One of the biggest problems I have with V:tES in general is that in order to be competitive there are certain "must have" master cards. The reason, is because they are powerful and can fit into any deck archetype.

This includes: Pentex Subversion, Sudden Reversal, Blood Doll/Minion Tap, The Parthenon, Dreams of the Sphinx etc.

I would argue that making Vessel and Villein trifles enable a player to build decks... with more master cards that homogenize rather than differentiate.

And the costs of Vessel and Villein are (mostly) balanced with Blood Doll and Minion Tap. What Villein was intended to do was make decks that use high capacity vampires more viable. (All it's done as far as I'm concerned is force me to do is pack more Sudden Reversal in every deck, but that is another story.)

Also, players tend to place too much emphasis on Master cards. Honestly, if you use half the master cards in any given deck, and focus on the minion cards more, you will have surprising results. When I look at a friend's deck, 9/10 times he has too many master cards in the deck.

I see a little discussion about skill cards on big caps, and something about Necromancy, but I don't see any ideas presented beyond that. Get to it! I will try and touch on that another time, but this is a large enough post w/o adding more topics.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Prrviously, you metioned big caps getting skill cards as trifles. Im almost ok with that, just because i dont believe certain ancient vamps having inferior of some things. Marcus vitel? Yea, hez also got 5+ dots in tham, auspex, and i think protean.

And some vamps just didnt get thier spreads right, for timing reazons. Xavier should have at leazt inferior abombwe, for instance.

I understand your feelings here, but at some point choices have to be made : realize that most of the high caps would have access to most of the cards inferiors ! And to imagine villon stealing blood (unblockable via grand ball) then untapping with forced march to bleed then FD to vote would maybe too much, I can't tell.
It's a card game, so the need to totally emulate the WOD is not necessary. Balance is ultimately what counts.

the only thing that disappointed "recently" was Melind galbraith not having superior OBT, which for a lasombra is kind of strange But again, she may have been overpowered that way, who knows ?