Team Play

[ScaredyCat]

After reading  this thread I am intrigued by Zubrei's suggestion to have joint-team turns. 

My group has played quite a few 2v2 games with team mates sitting across table.  We initially discussed joint-team play but elected not to go down this route.  We wanted to avoid changing the official rules. 

We did change the board though: http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=14232.0).

Regarding players sitting next to one another or collaborating in secret, while the two mages are acting as a single player, they are two mages and should act accordingly.  We permit cross-table talk.  The two mages can talk or yell in the arena.  Allowing the two mages to secretly collaborate during planning is not permitted; they can talk to each other but they must do so across the table in the presence of their opponents.  Again, these mages are in combat in an arena, not sitting next to each other in the stands operating robots.

The joint-life total was also discussed early in our team-play but was quickly discarded due to the rule challenges it poses (Regen, Finite Life, Blood-thirsty, condition markers, mage specific traits, and many more).  We have not experienced any problems with individual mages' life.  Each mage needs to look after one another - if one mage dies early then the other mage is likely doomed. 

I will revisit the joint-team play idea with my group.  This seems like a very doable idea and solves one pesky challenge we've had with "passing" because you have the fewest active creatures (do you have the fewest literally or fewer than your opponent).

[Mystery]

Hey guys

We would love to play more team games. I read all the info about team initiative and shared live.
The idea is good, but thematically with finit life, healing I don't like it. And we would really like to increase players to like 3vs3 or 4vs4 and of course with single mage targeting and normal mage life, 4 hurl boulders in quick might just be to fatal. So i thought about having one conjuration with lifebond 3-4x#Number of mages.

The idea is that you could transfer some damage from one mage to the conjuration and then from there to another mage, just shouldn't be to much as then you could still have for example a priestess healing in the back and the frontliner taking damage. Bit it is limited to a certain transfer per round.

I thought about having like a force conjuration with like 10 life incorporeal situated in the very back in the middle. And then having lifebond 3 per mage which can be shared by all mages

what do you think about it? Would you reduce it to 2 per mage or increase to 4?

[Sailor Vulcan]

Thematically, you could justify the regular shared life rules this same way and say it's an indestructible conjuration cast by the judge/referee on the entire arena and mages are not permitted to  negate its effects. That way you don't need a card in your spellbook to represent it.

Or even better, it could be an innate property of the arena the fight takes place in, just like the outer arena walls.

If you want to try teams without shared life, Dignitary format is a multiplayer format which does not have shared life and actually works better that way. If your familiar with MtG, it's basically mage wars version of emperor format.

[Moloch]

There is already a Lifebond mechanik in the game so I think shared life fits the games theme well enough.
Three possible lore explenations how to achive this much stronger Mage-Bond:
1. A very powerfull enchantment cast in preparationb for the batte (to strong to disenchant with the limited mana available during battle)
2. A set of two very personal items, maybe Earrings(for item slot conveniance). The active Bond would protect the item from destruction so a dissolve would cost as much as the mages have combined life left->destruction impractical.
My favorite:
3. It is a very common preparation ritual known to almost any mage since training to become a mage is difficult and very very very dangerous (failed to controll that hydra you just summoned?). As one of the first practical techniques every apprentice learns to bond with his teacher/master there is no difficulty to utilise it when figthing as a team with another fully trained mage.

Anyway I love the suggested modifications, shared life and team initiative and will work them into our next 2v2.

I would love for Arcane Wonders to release those stones that hinder teleportation soon but until then I will also houserule no offensive teleports in 2v2. Undeniably they add tactical debth but they also make many defensive strategys much less viable especialy vs. up to 4 teleports/seeking dispells/decoys per turn. We play with 2 gameboards making such displacement even more devasting and if the victim gets frustrated by such shenanigans a 2v2 will last much longer making the unpleasent experience much worse.

[Zuberi]

I realized that I had neglected this thread when someone recently asked about team games. I've updated the initial post to reflect the most recent rule set that we use. I also have added the name that I've taken to calling this format: Lifebonded Arena.

[lukard]

Hey Zuberi,

I have a small suggestions when it comes to the total shared life. Instead of using percentages, you might want to try the following formula: (Sum of Mages Life) - (Fixed Life modifier)

Let's suppose we come up with a Fixed Life Modifier equals 15 for a 2v2 game; so, we would have the following example:

Beast Master Life = 36
Necromancer Life = 32
Shared Life = 36 + 32 - 15 = 53

I am not sure if you tried it already, but it might work and is quite simple.

Cheers,

[Zuberi]

That was actually what I initially used when testing shared life, but as Wildhorn pointed out using a fixed modifier unfairly advantages mages with higher Life. With a fixed number like you suggest, you are removing a bigger chunk of Life from lower Life mages than you are from higher Life mages.