[SUBMISSION] Slab of Steel

Name: Slab of Steel
Cardtype: Combat
Cost: None
Capacity: Not applicable
Discipline: Potence
Clan: None
[pot] Strike: Prevent up to 3 damage this round.
[POT] As above, and if the opposing minion inflicts damage with a hand or gun strike this round, they take 1 damage only preventable by cards that require Fortitude. If they do not already have a Slab of Steel, put this card on the striking vampire. This vampire can burn this card to Strike: 2R damage. Cold iron.


Flavor text:

Art notes: The art on this can be awesome.
Preferred art: An old-school celerity style vampire (with blurred hand motion) crushing their arm against a giant, jagged-edged Slab of Steel held by an obvious candidate for Superior Potence. (by giant, I mean the slab should be at least 50% taller than either vampire).
Alternate art 1: A vampire hefting a slab of steel, with a goth-punk industrial park in the background.
Alternate art 2: Ricochet bullets off a slab of steel, held by superior potence vamp.
Imagery:
www.google.com/search?q=torn+slab+of+steel
www.google.com/search?q=slab+of+steel
Imagine a large (say 5' by 12') slab of steel, improbably torn out of a building by a vampire of immense strength, exposing sharp edges on 1 or 2 sides where it was sheared off.
See effect of ripping steel here: jeffpeachey.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/sheared-blade.jpg

World of Darkness reference:
This is just basic potence vs fortitude.

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
This card is intended as a balance for POT vamps against Celerity Guns decks and is another way to break the Immortal Grapple / Majesty / Psyche&Guns game of rock-paper-scissors. I believe using a strike (from a potence vamp in particular) to cost the prevention instead of blood is an interesting dynamic, debuted but underused with the Nightstick melee weapon from LotN:U.

It is meant to give an edge against gun decks and a playable Potence response to Target Vitals (instead of discarding cards). By encouraging alternatives to Grapple and not affecting Melee weapon strikes, in a minor way this broadens the opportunity to make melee weapon combat more viable. I could see a place for this as Combat defense/offense in Vote decks and a way to be card efficient for Bruise/Bleed.

I believe "Slab of Steel" is carefully costed to be comparable to Undead Strength and Thrown Sewer Lid, with an interesting new effect that in particular creates new options for POT / CEL & to a lesser extent POT / OBT decks. I would prefer the superior effect to be "burn this card and 2 blood to Strike: 4R damage" but adding blood cost to the superior effect puts more words on a just long enough card. I believe the sentence saying you can't stack them is both thematically correct and vital to costing the card properly. It's cold iron because it is a steel object and meant to be torn (opportunistically) from a building site, exposing sharp edges (cold iron and cold steel generally refers to edged weapons and fae vulnerability to iron usually emphasizes the edged effect). It's also intentionally not equipment so it cannot be transferred (and is untouched by equipment stopping effects). I would prefer text saying "Burn this card if this minion does not have [POT]" but that's so corner-case that it doesn't merit space on the card (i.e. without superior potence, you can't lug a slab of steel around with you).

All that being said to justify the card, I am not convinced that it's a compelling game need. The game is generally very well balanced, and I think new cards should strive not to break that balance by being generally overpowered compared to existing cards. I hope that if this card makes it to play testing it proves to be useful but in no way trump-y, and that if necessary it will be tamped down further (e.g. blood cost =1 for the whole card, while perhaps future damage at superior goes up to 3R).

Created by: Lead from LackeyCCG / d from JOL

Lead wrote:

Name: Slab of Steel
Cardtype: Combat
Cost: None
Capacity: Not applicable
Discipline: Potence
Clan: None
[pot] Strike: Prevent up to 3 damage this round.
[POT] As above, and if the opposing minion inflicts damage with a hand or gun strike this round, they take 1 damage only preventable by cards that require Fortitude. If they do not already have a Slab of Steel, put this card on the striking vampire. This vampire can burn this card to Strike: 2R damage. Cold iron.

Before I say anything more, kudos for doing something interesting with Potence.


I'm not sure about the inferior. Forearm Block exists and isn't a million miles away, and hasn't exactly lit up the TWDA. I'm not sure this has enough oomph to make it popular with any decks that are littered with inferior Potence.

The superior, I'm not sure what to make of. I have two questions about it, though, one of which you can probably answer as it's more design intent. The other is more rules-y, and I'm not sure what the answer would be.

1) Is it your intention that 1 'retaliation' damage is Cold Iron? That is, when I play this, should an opposing Kiasyd take one aggravated damage?

2) I'm not 100% sure how the rules would treat the retaliation damage. Is it damage from the strike, such that you could pile Target Head/Target Vitals on top? Is it damage from a damaging strike, such that Increased Strength would stack with it? Being able to get "prevent three/hit for three" with two cards would be fairly solid, and then add Disarm on the end... But I'm not 100% sure what the rules would do here.

From the same vein I got the idea of...

Lamppost
Combat
Potence
This vampire cannot gain additional strikes this round.
[pot] Strike: Strength +2 ranged.
[POT] Strike: Strength +3 ranged.

Artwork: A vampire facing away from the art panel with a lamppost or traffic light crashing down from the 'top' of the panel.

Aye, nice idea.

In LARP I always thought the sewer lid would make a nice shield for a character with Potence (would stop some bullets, melee weapons and might break a fist) while leaving a hand free for a gun, short single-handed melee weapon, or fist.

Similarly Juggernaut1981's suggestion is good too. I probably over-rely on Earthshock when Lamp-post would be useful (and is more flexible than Thrown sewer lid , which is long range only). Against the other 3R Potence card ( www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?lib=754 ), the free cost but no additional strikes seems balanced. However, I assume the limit wording would be "cannot use additional strikes this round" to stop arguments about Sword of Judgement gaining the additional strike, not the vampire etc....

Variation on Slab of Steel...

Sedan Shield
Combat
Potence
2 blood
[pot] Strike: Prevent all damage from melee strikes this round.
[POT] As above, and deal 2 damage to the opposing minion.

Artwork: One vampire grabs a car parked on the street and swings it between itself and its opponent.

Note: It could easily be changed to cover ranged effects as well at superior.
Sedan Shield
Combat
Potence
2 blood
[pot] Strike: Prevent all damage from melee strikes this round.
[POT] Strike: Prevent all damage from ranged strikes this round.

The superior version doesn't make sense to me. But, since you are proposing a potence strike that is defensive I will propose my own version:

"Steel Guard"
Combat
Potence
1
prevent 2 damage from each of the opposing minion's strikes.
as above with an optional press. If combat continues this vampire has +2 strength.

At basic it is strictly a defensive card, but at superior the player can choose to continue being defensive or go on the offensive based on the current game state.