Miniatures in Mage Wars

[Sailor Vulcan]

Perhaps, but I'm rather worried that with zones or squares, we'll be dealing with one of two even worse problems:

1. A bad discontinuity between flavor and gameplay. How does it not matter how much a creature actually moves?/How can a creature warp to any square in the zone they move to? It really doesn't make sense at all that sometimes a creature could move 10 squares (2 zones) and other times they could move 15 squares (2 zones), and it would still use up the same "full" movement action, even though they could have moved even farther into the zone they ended up in.

OR

2. Have you ever played the game "Rush Hour"? Have you ever played the game rush hour where you only control some of the cars, and can't move all the ones you control? Yeah, that's what I think it would look like using square movement. You cast too many objects into your zone and it becomes a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. Or if an opposing beastmaster or priestess swarms you, and then the swarm can be used as extremely powerful position control. Even if you take size out of the picture, if you can't move through the space that other objects occupy, it will become hard to move things once there's enough things on the field.


As much as people don't like math that much, and even though a lot of people have had negative experiences fighting over protractor and ruler measurements, I think the alternative is ultimately worse. And like I said, I'm pretty sure most measurement fights can be solved by rounding to the nearest hashmark and using measuring tape and NOT rulers.
If you make sure the measuring tape is flat on the table and held steady by something to weigh it down (such as a small weight, a chess piece, or some dice), as well as making sure to round distance measurements to the nearest hashmark on the measuring tape, then there shouldn't be as many problems.

[DarthDadaD20]

I would say you have control over movement and placement just fine moving by zone- I dont see how its really much different if you are still moving by squares, and the placement is there.

If anything- I plan to move forward with how I have stated- and more in depth movement rules are always welcome or optional. (I really want to mess with the core game as little as possible, and then move forward)

[The Dude]

There doesn't have to be zones, there can just be a grid on the table. I have played many grid skirmish games, and I haven't ever really had to deal with a "Rush hour" type of situation, and if I have, it was either solved via rules set (friendly can move through friendly as long as the action is not ended on the same square), or my opponent was trying to block me, in which it becomes a tactical part of the game that you don't really get with MW with zones, you only get hindering. Which can also be solved very simply (if adjacent to a creature, instead of moving the full value of 5 as a quick action, they can only move one [see Dungeon Command]).

But, as arbitrary arguments go, I just don't care for stick movement. You do get a tad more freedom, but you also create a whole lot of quirky rules situations that otherwise wouldn't come up. Grid movement is simple to transcribe and easy to understand.


@Dada, I quite like the idea of tokens. We could even have a health point system that has damage tracked under the token itself. See Hopolomacus for examples. But, if we did that, chances are everything would be pog sized tokens, which isn't a big deal, except I quite liked the idea of differing bases based on size. What if we had the medium/big based creatures based on starting health? Except the Mage, of course, who would, for the most part, be single square based. (we could even let the warlord be large base sized, to give him the BONUS he so desparately needs).

If we didn't include zones, how would we handle zone exclusive?

As well, pest would be excellently transcribed as "Can move through enemy creatures, does not hinder".

They are pouring out. Pouring.

[Sailor Vulcan]

There doesn't have to be zones, there can just be a grid on the table. I have played many grid skirmish games, and I haven't ever really had to deal with a "Rush hour" type of situation, and if I have, it was either solved via rules set (friendly can move through friendly as long as the action is not ended on the same square), or my opponent was trying to block me, in which it becomes a tactical part of the game that you don't really get with MW with zones, you only get hindering. Which can also be solved very simply (if adjacent to a creature, instead of moving the full value of 5 as a quick action, they can only move one [see Dungeon Command]).

But, as arbitrary arguments go, I just don't care for stick movement. You do get a tad more freedom, but you also create a whole lot of quirky rules situations that otherwise wouldn't come up. Grid movement is simple to transcribe and easy to understand.


@Dada, I quite like the idea of tokens. We could even have a health point system that has damage tracked under the token itself. See Hopolomacus for examples. But, if we did that, chances are everything would be pog sized tokens, which isn't a big deal, except I quite liked the idea of differing bases based on size. What if we had the medium/big based creatures based on starting health? Except the Mage, of course, who would, for the most part, be single square based. (we could even let the warlord be large base sized, to give him the BONUS he so desparately needs).

If we didn't include zones, how would we handle zone exclusive?

As well, pest would be excellently transcribed as "Can move through enemy creatures, does not hinder".

They are pouring out. Pouring.

Zone exclusive: cannot be placed less than five inches from another zone exclusive.

You're also confusing pest and elusive. A pest doesn't hinder, but it can still BE hindered. So...

Pest: can be moved through by enemy creatures.

Also, I REALLY don't think size should be based on just level. It should be a separate characteristic for each object, like mana cost or level, and should be determined by a number of factors, including: mana cost,
 level, range of its attacks/abilties, what it's abilities are, lore, and card artwork.

Otherwise sizes could get nonsensical very fast. Should fellela pixie familiar be bigger than timber wolf? Should Cervere the forest shadow be as big as a darkfenne hydra? I think not.

I still would very much prefer this version of mage wars be gridless. Perhaps we could try both with and without the grid?

[DarthDadaD20]

"I still would very much prefer this version of mage wars be gridless. Perhaps we could try both with and without the grid?"

I dont see why not- Ok- Its getting hard for me to figure out which direction we are going-

I think I get what Imaginator is saying but,

Dude- Do you think the "Move by zone but place in square" is worth pursuing? I do, as it really comes down to the only change in the game being: LoS and New terrain effects. (I also think this could work for other projects Dude.)

If so- I will make a new thread just for Zone based miniature magewars- and we can keep this one for a "Fleshed out mini mage wars- where we can include (Even if only optional) Energy levels, token damage stacking, non-grid based maps, "summoning" or placing terrain, ect.

Just let me know and we can do it.

I plan on playtesting the "Original idea" this friday (Since I dont have anything else to do for that 12 hours now!) to see if its fun. (Fun is the most important part to me, and if it feels forced or less fun the normal MW, its not worth it)

And we can continue to work on our fleshed out version regardless- I like all these ideas!

Also- @Imaginator- this topic is on BGG, but not getting any response - just to let you know.

[The Dude]

I love the original Idea, and I want to pursue that.

[DarthDadaD20]

Dropping new thread called "Zone based miniature mage wars". Will contain a link to this thread.

Not much is to be done but terrain effects and testing- But I just feel like it will stay true to MW, while offering a different experience.

[DarthDadaD20]

OK- Someone locked it- I hope to get a privet message soon.....

[Sailor Vulcan]

I was thinking...without grid-based movement, the arbitrary rule of "move before other quick actions" might not be necessary. I think being able to cast a quick spell or use a ranged attack before moving would be pretty useful.

Also, using energy levels, traits like fast, slow, and lumbering would have to be tweaked a bit.

Fast: energy required for this creature's movement actions is multiplied by .5

Slow: Energy required for this creature's movement actions is multiplied by 2

Lumbering: This creature is slow. The direction of this creature's move actions stays the same for the entire round, unless they touch another object.

Also, rather than having creatures use their entire activations one at a time, it might be better if players could activate a creature as many times as they want during a round, as long as that creature has enough energy. Also, I'm thinking it should be called Stamina, rather than energy.

Also, I'm thinking that the entire game should be in the action phase. Let me explain:

Whenever a mage could reveal an enchantment, that mage could prepare spells as a free creature activation (costs no stamina or mana), but only when they have enough stamina to cast them as if they had already prepared them. A mage with 50% Stamina would only be able to have a single quick cast spell prepared. If their stamina became lower than the amount required for a prepared spell, that spell is returned to the spellbook at the end of the activation that lowers their stamina to that point. I think all creatures would recover stamina at a rate of 25% per creature activation. This represents a creature "catching its breath". Oh yeah, and max stamina is 150% for mages, and 100% for other creatures. However, when a mage has 50% or less stamina, movement costs x3 stamina. This represents that mages normally wouldn't tire out very quickly, but all that spell casting they do makes their bodies weaker when they're low on stamina.

Channeling would be whatever a creature's channeling stat is, but they would only gain that mana at the start if their own activations, and after channeling they won't channel until another five of their own activations have passed if they're a mage, three for any other creature with channeling.

What do you think?

[DarthDadaD20]

Good work man! Thats brilliant!

What do you think about the mages just having a "quick cast" as normal, and not requiring any energy?

Not that I don't like how you presented it- its just a little cleaner.

I like the slow/fast- very cool.

Stamina is great.

I don't know how I feel about the "if players could activate a creature as many times as they want during a round, as long as that creature has enough energy."

Let me think about it.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I'm also thinking that when calculating stamina use, movement measurements should subtract the radius of the base after taking movement traits like fast or slow into account. That way size could also influence how much ground is covered. Spells and ranged attacks I think should not do this. Rather, I think that the closer a target is to the outer reaches of the spell's or attack's range, the more stamina it should consume, and the closer the target is to the minimal range of the spell or attack, the less stamina it consumes. So a quickcast that targets something farther away will use closer to 50% stamina, and if you're casting on yourself or something right next to you it costs quite a bit less stamina. I'm thinking it should be a multiplier that could be anywhere from x.5 to x1, so the least stamina a quickcast spell could take is 25%, and the highest is 50%. I'm not entirely sure if this would break equipment or not. Maybe the lower limit of the multiplier should be higher than .5

The reasons I make this distinction between movement ranges and other action ranges is partly because it's more realistic. I'm not too worried about it being unbalanced this way since this way larger creatures would also be bigger targets. Having a larger base means that spells don't have to go as far to reach that base, which means they'll use less stamina.

When activating his ability, I think Blue Gremlin's move actions would teleport him up to five inches away per move action, using the same amount of stamina per teleport through this effect (50%).

[Sailor Vulcan]

Another important question is what should be the dimensions of the battlefield?

I'm thinking it should be a 25 inch by 15 inch ellipse. Here's how I determined it:

A regular arena is rectangular with 3 x 4 zones. If you consider each of those zones to be squares with a length of five inches, then the arena is a size of 300 square inches. I used an ellipse calculator and found the area of a 25 inch x 15 inch ellipse to be about 290 square inches, so it was pretty close. There were a number of other dimensions I calculated. 30 in x 10 in ellipse would be too narrow. 20 x 15 I'm thinking would be too small (and too close to a perfect circle. 30 x 15 might be okay, but I think it's too big. Maybe it doesn't matter though, since both 30 in x 15 in ellipses and 25 in x 15 ellipses are pretty much equal to 2 square feet in area.

Also, having a 25 in by 15 in battlefield would probably work for both 1 on 1 games and 2 on 2 games.



Of course, if you really want flexibility in the number of players playing, such as for four player free-for-alls and the like, it might be better to go with a circular board that can increase or decrease in size by unfolding outward from the center or something. I think it would need layers to do that though. Like an onion shaped board. And depending on how big you want the battlefield to be, you peel a layer and lay it flat on the table.



Or, it might be better to have a single flat circular board around the size of about 150 square inches (radius is about 7 inches). This is the apprentice mode board. Then you could encircle the board with a "ring" that has an inner radius of about 7 inches and an outer radius of about 10 inches. The apprentice mode board has now transformed into a regular (300 square inch) 1 v 1 board. Add another ring with an inner radius of 10 inches and an outer radius of 12 inches and you get a 3 player free for all! Add another ring of inner radius 12 inches and outer radius of 15 inches. Now you have a 4 player game of 600 square inches!

I did my calculations using the google calculator/unit converter and these other two calculators, this one for the area of ellipses: http://www.csgnetwork.com/areaellipse.html

And this one for the radii of the circular board and each subsequently larger ring:

http://www.ookingdom.com/metric/diameter

I used significant figures for my calculations, so there were multiple times I had to round due to uncertainty in measurements. I suspect, however, that each ring has an outer radius of exactly 1.5 inches greater than the next size down (not entirely, since I excluded 3 player apprentice mode, and 4-player apprentice mode would use the same sized board as 2 player regular; for those who are curious, I had the radius for 3 player apprentice mode board as 8.45 inches).

And about my last post that I deleted...I apologize for that. I got confused and used the wrong conversion factor for turning square inches into square feet. I should have multiplied by 1/144, rather than by 12. It was awfully stupid of me, and it went completely against common sense. Sorry if it scared anyone when I said that we would need over 100 square feet for a board if a range of 5 inches was the equivalent of 1 zone length. That is obviously NOT true. I can't believe I said that.

I swear I'm not crazy!

[DarthDadaD20]

 

Well I think the boards/maps/board dimensions can vary as you see fit- I don't see why not.

A baseline wouldn't be bad at all to set up though- but small/large/featureless/packed with features....all will create a new dynamic in gameplay.