card idea: nec pot

Necrotic Power

Burn a Zombie you control to give this acting vampire +1 strength until your next untap phase.
Only useable when an action to recruit a Zombie is successful. Place this card on that Zombie. Unique. The Zombie with this card may play cards requiring basic Potence as a vampire.

goals: Fun! And, encourage diversity in Zombie decks, where, as things are now, the vampires themselves hardly ever do any of the fighting.

Burning a zombie for +1 strength? Make it +2 Strength, or make it an action to increase strength by 1 permanently.

The SUP version seems pretty strong, but requiring superior of two disciplines (smallest vamp is 6 cap, most are 7+) and that it is unique means it won't be abused... too much anyway.

You could try this:

"Necrotic Power"

Only usable when an action to recruit a Zombie is successful.
Put this card on the zombie. This zombie has +1 strength.
As above, and this zombie may play strike cards that require basic Potence as a vampire.

I tried to keep it simple, and I avoided the whole burn a zombie for strength. I have another idea for that in the next concept:

"Necrotic Power"

Burn a zombie you control and put this card on this vampire. This vampire has +1 strength and once per combat may burn a blood to play a card as if he or she has superior Potence .
Only usable on a successful action to recruit a zombie. Remove X zombies in your ash heap from the game to place X strength tokens on the zombie. Zombies have +1 strength for each token; burn a token during your untap phase.

It might be too much text, and might be better off as two separate cards. But I like the idea of burning zombies for one effect, and removing them from ash heap for another.

Direwolfs first example looks ideal. As a fluff nazi, theres nothing potence can do to givecyou stronger zombies. Necro is like 128 different magical paths, so strong zombies SHOULD EXIST and ehil shamblers and dead hookers are plainly solid, better is always better.
Putrescent servitude grants potence, and hasnt broken the game (and it can even go on imbued) so i dont see how +1 strength and grappling makes dead hookers or shamblers overpowered. Giovanni and samedi benefit, dead hookers can possibly punch for 3 and grapple, playimg fortitude. Pretty good, not broke tho.

Mayne adding an outferior that lets you move a zombie from your ash heap to the top of your deck for little necro.

The origional burn a zombie for strength is unplayable. Dead hookers and shamblers are too good to burn for such limited effect, and temporary at that. Theres no sourcexmaterial to have it make senze, and zombiez frankly arent nutricious in a material or ephermeral way. So, it doesnt compute, wont help the game, has no compelling game reason to make, and is a terrible waste of a resource you had to dedicate blood and or a ashheap card to, for a temporary effect when you coulda playex heroic might or preturnatural strength. Junk.

But the stronger zombie part is awesome and worth looking strongly into. All the way, im convinced, test it and throw it ina set next year possibly.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

The origional burn a zombie for strength is unplayable. Dead hookers and shamblers are too good to burn for such limited effect, and temporary at that. Theres no sourcexmaterial to have it make senze, and zombiez frankly arent nutricious in a material or ephermeral way. So, it doesnt compute, wont help the game, has no compelling game reason to make, and is a terrible waste of a resource you had to dedicate blood and or a ashheap card to, for a temporary effect when you coulda playex heroic might or preturnatural strength. Junk.

I have a tapped Shambler with 1 blood, another Shambler in my hand and no fodder in my ash heap. Gianmaria Giovanni is going to Bum's Rush Anson and grapple him. Of course I would burn the tired Shambler to give Gianmaria +1 strength, because then Francis Milliner can recruit me a shiny new one.

Removing Zombies from the game to gain some small effect is what's unplayable.

But transient +1 strength may not be as strong a return as is merited.

Also, please note that Heroic Might and Preternatural Strength cost an action (and more).

Necrotic Power
Action Modifier
Only usable when you recruit a Zombie ally. Put this card on that Zombie. The zombie with this card may use cards requiring as if they were a vampire.
This zombie with this card gains +1 for each counter on this card. Put one counter on this card.
As above, but the acting vampire may burn X blood to put X+1 counters on this card instead of one.

Molloy wrote:

Necrotic Power

Burn a Zombie you control to give this acting vampire +1 strength until your next untap phase.
Only useable when an action to recruit a Zombie is successful. Place this card on that Zombie. Unique. The Zombie with this card may play cards requiring basic Potence as a vampire.

So, my main issue is zombies.

The basic Zombie retainer is only usable with the inferior version. And while the Zombie retainer isn't totally unplayable, you're not really going to waste an action costing one blood for a very transient +1 strength - especially when the retainer does one close range damage itself. Yeah, there are individual circumstances where it'll matter that it's strength not environmental damage, or that it's on the 'wrong' vampire, but not sufficient to build a deck around, right?

Shambling Horde is awesome. You're more likely to want to send it into combat than use the inferior - perhaps when it has only one life left it might be reasonable, I guess. The superior is likely to use make Shambling Hordes more awesome. Shamblers that can play IG (and Torn Signpost and things, but mostly IG)? I think I just wet myself. Yes, it's unique, but Shamblers are sufficiently disposable that you can include a few of these in your deck without jamming too much, and using Potence combat relatively sparingly. And NEC POT turns up on Giovanni who aren't awful. Francis Milliner (6 cap) lacks Dom, but Pochtli (8 cap), Don Michael (7 cap), Gillespi (7 cap) and Carlotta are pretty much non-awful. (If Carlotta had some reliable untap like Freak Drive or something, it'd be a hoot.)

Pressing Flesh and Reanimated Corpse both require Thanatosis, with no outferior. And there are literally zero Samedi with NEC/POT/tha+. Troglodytia and Tangine are closest.



So I think the biggest issue is a lack of good zombies to use it with - except one which it would be really quite unpleasant with.

So my main way of making more and better zombie decks right now would be to make a more diverse range of zombies.