Master Disciplines

direwolf wrote:

"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.

I also wanted to add : this is a good idea. An alternative to discipline cards, with a nice side ability. That's the best thing I saw so far !

direwolf wrote:

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.

Your list seems odd to me of essential masters. I get dreams, and maybe pentex, but parthenon shouldnt be in every deck. To be 100% honest, i think its complete shit if you arent playing some cheesy as hell girls deck. Ive ran anson @ 20 something masters for years and never "needed" more mpas than two, unless of course i somehowxdidnt get anson in a 5/12 crypt ratio(and it only screwed me like that in 15+ player tournaments....)

But, you have a strong point. I knowxa guy who dudnt run DoTs for like 2 years because he contested it like 7 times in three rounds at a naq in dc. Everyonexuses it.

When i first got a DI in a booster, i was told ( not untruthfully either) "dude, thats a great card, it can and should go into every deck, rotate ir begween all of your decks if you neex to". And while i favor di squared more in many decks now, direct intervention is still an auto include in many decks.
Tap, bd, vessel, and villein are another story. Yiu CAN make a deck withcno blood/ pool managemwnt like thozse, but oh my does itfeel weird. Its more of a science experiment than normal vtes. In my malk 94 deck i let noobs borrow, i even run like 3 vessel, just to nuke blood dolls, since suddening vessels or taps or villeins is more prudent uze of suddens andwashes.

Pentex is only an auto include in wall decks or at leasf toolbozy decks that block. Id say smiling jack is juat az auto incluxe, and jack is misayed more often(defending jack isnt juat blocking burn actions, but making it nit kill your grand prey plus yiur predafor before you get your prey, its just easy table dynamics often ovwrlooked)

Sudden isnt an auto include, i ocfen throw it in if im at 15 masters in a deck that doesnt NEED much more freen card nonsense.

Powerbase montreal is included in nearly all wall dexks as well.

Point im getting at is there are many auto includes, and while di shouldnt be az abusable, in moxeration, its ok. Dofs is unique, az is pentex anx ifs burnable, blood management is ok, only gb and tap nonsense annoys me, since at least golconda costs a whole bigass minion.

When pod comes into existance, staple cards will be eazier finds, and if we nerf gis decks enough, we vet nofmal vtes, and it matferz lesz seeing pentex and carlton so often,sincd we will all hace plenty, the novelty may wear off on some cards even.
As for achetype making you gain skills, i think an archetype version of cam vitae slave could be neat....

Game balance: more options, fairness to big vamps

Fluff reasonz: plenty of tutors, plus look at the old setite trick with unbondable, addictive vitae nearly free discipline powergaming.

Eed addressed: why should lasombras get all the cvs fun? Give them more votes, and other vamps a psuedo cvs.

what about a master: discipline card that grants superior, but burns if you actually use it at superior?

That sounds a lot like a variation on Infernal Familiar.

Candles Burning Brighter
Master: Trifle
1 pool
Put this on a vampire you control. This vampire may use any discipline they currently have at superior. Each time this vampire uses this card for a superior discipline, put a counter on it. During your discard phase, burn this card if it has 3 or more counters. During your influence phase, this vampire may burn one blood to burn one counter on this card.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

That sounds a lot like a variation on Infernal Familiar.

Candles Burning Brighter
Master: Trifle
1 pool
Put this on a vampire you control. This vampire may use any discipline they currently have at superior. Each time this vampire uses this card for a superior discipline, put a counter on it. During your discard phase, burn this card if it has 3 or more counters. During your influence phase, this vampire may burn one blood to burn one counter on this card.

Seems a bit strong as a trifle....
But nothing jumps out at me as plainly broken. It gives Gwydd big temporis, pedrag big valeren, pentweret big obeah, and hardestadt big celerity.

Id say make it unique and not trifle and its at least good enough to tezt. And im normally at kinda hard on submitted masters. I guess to me, the safest part is that they are granted the usexat superior, they dont GAIN it at superior, so no sanguine instruction nonsense with a slew of ventrue using agg sticks or several gangrel shitting out 3-4 werewolves eaxh turn and playing in blood.

Although.....

Its still not as useful as liliths as far as long term goes.

And if you want to keep it at trifle, definately unique, AND id say when it burns, it does 1 unpreventable agg for eqch counter on it. That seems balanced, decidedly better than spontaineous power, and vastly different than infernal familiar or cam vitae slave, and not as transient as the crappy agent of power.

Actually the idea is that they can get access to a superior they have at inferior and the more they use it, the more counters they gain. The larger vampires will have the blood to remove 1 counter a turn for a while and be able to keep the ability running for longer. Smaller vampires will burn it out quickly. However, if you wanted to burn through a bunch of cards you can't play without Superior, then you can do it quickly. I actually dislike the idea of making any discipline unique, clan specific and costly I can understand, but not unique.