combat rebalancing

Continuing stream of ideas about changes of the game without reboot.

How to make combat more fun for everybody.

1. Ban immortal grapple and psyhe.
2. Make dodge work against environmental damage or ban carrion crows
3. Make SCE work "at the same time as other strikes" - meaning opponents strike will be dealt and just after it the combat will end.
4. Make first strike work before other strikes, even dodge
5. Make aggravated damage be dealt in full (so 2agg means in torpor without 2! Blood)
6. Remove diablery from list of basic actions(diablery cards, such as amaranthe, will still work)
7. 4 transfers to put 1 blood on controlled vampire

Result of all this, as I see it - all combat offence and defence strategies will be viable, on the other hand vampire in torpor will not be such a big problem. Also putting vampire of your prey in torpor will often "mean" 2 pool damage.

Yea, and all of this will work without any serious card pool changes.

Round 2

elotar wrote:

1. Ban immortal grapple and psyhe.
2. Make dodge work against environmental damage or ban carrion crows
3. Make SCE work "at the same time as other strikes" - meaning after the first strike resolution phase, so the damage will be dealt.
4. Make first strike work before other strikes, even dodge
5. Make aggravated damage be dealt in full (so 2agg means in torpor without 2! Blood)
6. Remove diablery from list of basic actions(diablery cards, such as amaranthe, will still work)
7. 4 transfers to put 1 blood on controlled vampire

I see how point 1 and 3 can work, however that demands a range of new "first strike" cards because existing cards are wallpaper cards and S:CE will be too powerful. And I can guarantee you, it won't be long before we see "First Strike:Combat Ends" cards and then S:CE will reign supreme with no way to counter it. If no FS:CE cards are designed, I would even say First Strike is a better method of countering S:CE than Grapple or Psyche (Provided we see new First Strike cards).

Point 2 makes Dodge a tad bit too good.

Point 4 only makes sense with a range of new First Strike cards.

Point 5, I totally agree. I think this is the part that requires the most explanation to new players; "How aggravated damage works". This interpretation is way more intuitive.

Points 6 and 7, not sure why you offer up these points, diablerie is not really a problem imo. and the transfer idea is marginal at best.

elotar wrote:

Result of all this, as I see it - all combat offence and defence strategies will be viable, on the other hand vampire in torpor will not be such a big problem. Also putting vampire of your prey in torpor will often "mean" 2 pool damage.

Was your last sentence actually a point 8 rule idea?

Your proposal does nothing at the end of the line. Players will still play complex combat decks with crappy ousting strategies. You just make S:CE and Dodge more powerful and combat as an alternative to stealth indeed crappier unless we see a range of new First Strike cards. If we do see a range of new First Strike cards, I will see you debating against those cards in the future as nothing really changes, nothing is solved.

You have to a.) Abolish all combat and combat related cards or b.) give complex combat a viable ousting strategy that complements Dragonbound, Tension in the Ranks and Fame. Deep Song is a good example, not so much the added combat effect, but that it doubles as a +bleed cards.

Ankha wrote:

2/ why make agg damage deal the damage in full? this means you need 1 less damage to burn a vampire

Your absolutely right. Would it be too much if we dropped the burn rule from aggravated damage? Leaving only diablerie and cards like "Decapitate" and "Amaranth" as options to burn vampires?

Putting vamps into torpor is nearly always good enough, burning them with a strike quickly leaves a player desperate and having a really crappy game.

Diablerie is, imo, much more frustrating than burn with agg - full 11 cap can be much easily aggropoked and diablerised to get a huge power swing. To burn you'll need few blood on vampire - so the power swing will be much less.

Ankha wrote:

1/ why ban Immortal Grapple and Psyche! if you nerf down S:CE?
2/ why make agg damage deal the damage in full? this means you need 1 less damage to burn a vampire
3/ what is wrong with environmental damage?
4/ how do you know your proposal is balanced?

1) with nerfed SCE they are not needed, but they both are functioning outside of standard combat phases (bad) as well as nerfing other combat strategies (non hand strike close range for IG, presses to end for P)
2)
3) If dodges, SCE and most of prevents are not working against them than unchanged it will be too good.
4) combat is generally not so important to the game, so reasonable changes to it will not imbalance anything. Some archetypes will need to switch some cards for others, but generally it all will cancel each other.