Ideas for Dark Spells

[baronzaltor]

Any card to give the Bloodthirsty trait to a mage would need to also have an Upkeep +X feature, so that the controller can choose to stop paying the upkeep whenever it gets out of hand or is getting him in a position where his inability to control actions is being too disruptive.  Otherwise its just suicide, as the opponent can simply keep you from ever being able to cast spells or move on your main phase for the rest of the game. 

The thing about a vampiric weapon is that its simply impractical... the Vampirism enchantment already covers this extremely well.  There is little reason to use a weapon with Vampirc+Drawback when you can benefit from a weapon of your choice AND Vampiric via the enchantment instead.   Vampirism gives very easy access to the trait regardless of weapon at reasonable spellpoint and mana cost (and discountable with enchanters ring).  Even non-dark mages can make good use of it.

Also, having the healing source of Vampirism on the weapon is kind of putting all your eggs in one basket.   A single dissolve knocks out your weapon and your healing engine in one action.  With the enchantment and weapon as separate pieces, the opponent has to spend resources disabling 2 different things.

So, its hard to make a practical weapon with Vampiric due to the sheer utility of the enchantment version and the ability to benefit from things other more rounded weapons grant (pierce, burn chances, reach, ethereal, curse-casting-familiar, etc) with no major drawbacks.

[qaz_azaran]

I don't think Upkeep would be needed since you can already swap out your equipment any time you choose just by summoning a new piece instead.  Unless the sword had a curse on it that said you can't choose to put it down you can always swap it out if it's causing more harm than good.  (I don't necessarily discount the curse idea; but the card would be getting really complicated.)

I don't think that a strong Bloodthirsty physical attack is really that big a detriment.  It's easy enough to work around by using Quick Spells and the Pentagram.  Especially when you consider that the sword could easily end up doing more damage than some of your spells with no mana cost it's just not a big deal.

Yeah, you probably want to use undead instead of living creatures if there's a chance you'll attack them; but, I don't see that as that big an issue if you're doing most of your attacking yourself.  If you've got a Skeletal Knight and a bunch of skeletal archers to back you up, this should work pretty well.  Since it's easy to circumvent the downside by using undead I think the drawback is totally worth it if it makes the sword cheaper.

I agree that it could be putting all your eggs in one basket; but, at the same time I don't see any reason that it couldn't work it you had a back-up weapon and the vampiric enchantment for if someone dissolves it.  If it's important that it not be dissolved you can put an equipment ward on it, which may help; but, either way you should have some kind of strategy for if that fails.  It's always a pain in the butt if someone dissolves something important to your strategy and it's always good to have a back-up plan. 

Maybe enchantments are a better primary strategy and the Bloodthristy Sword works best if somebody uses Purge Magic to take Bear's Strength and Vampirism off of you so that you've got a quick way to get your strength back or maybe you pull out the enchantments after your sword is destroyed.  I suspect that either strategy would work fine.  If the Bloodthristy Sword is faster and cheaper to get out than multiple enchantments it would still have value. 

I was also thinking how nicely the Bloodthristy Sword would pair with the Dark Cultists I suggested earlier.  You could let them spend a few rounds using Self-Flagellation to generate mana and then kill them with the Bloodthirsty Sword to get extra Bloodthirsty tokens.  If that's possible, it may completely negate the need to give an extra mana boost if the Cultist accidentally kills himself.

[qaz_azaran]

Here are some of the other thoughts that I've had bouncing around in my head for the last couple of days:

I think the Dark Cultist may work best if instead of extra mana for dying they just have the option to use Self-Flagellation (Full action - attack self and gain mana equal to damage) or Devotion (Full action to gain 1 mana.) This way your mana production doesn't have to shut down if they are seriously damaged and you don't want to kill them.  Also, it would give time for Regrowth to work if you wanted to put that on them.

The Dark Cultist is a nifty idea and suggests a couple of other things.  The first one is a Cult Leader/Dark Priest - 12 or 13 Mana to summon (obviously that number may need to be adjusted based on playtesting.) Lvl 3 Dark. Unique.  Dark Priest has Channeling 1 and can summon lvl 1 Dark Creatures. All Dark Cultists in zone produce 1 additional mana when using Self-Flagellation. All friendly living creatures gain Regen 1 while in zone with Dark Priest.

All this thinking about Dark Cults brought my mind to the Cthulhu mythos and I wonder if there might be some value in including a couple of ridiculously expensive Elder Beings which can only be summoned at a special spawnpoint - an Elder Gate (obviously wording can be changed as appropriate for the Mage Wars universe.) While your mage is standing at the Elder Gate he may sacrifice a friendly living creature he controls as a full action to place a Sacrifice Token on the Elder Gate.  All Elder Beings require a sacrifice token in addition to any mana cost (maybe some of the more powerful require 2, but I think anything more than that become unwieldy and infeasible.)

Perhaps all these cards would work best in an expansion with a new mage: the Voidbringer.  The Voidbringer gains 2 mana whenever a melee attack against a living creature deals damage as the Elder Beings they worship delight in bloodshed and chaos.  The Voidbringer has an ability called Blood Frenzy and may pay 5 mana to gain a 2nd quick attack against any target that they have damaged with a melee action that round. The Voidbringer is unnaturally charismatic and may summon Dark Cultists as a Quick Cast Spell.  The Bloodthirsty Sword we've been discussing would go delightfully well with this mage.  Obviously this may take a little work to get balanced, but it seems pretty neat to me. 

Thoughts?

[jupiter999]

This Cult Leader / Voidbringer idea reminds me of a mage in a game or two: Blood Mage, who spend blood instead or normal mana channeling...

[qaz_azaran]

Blood Mages have always struck me as unfairly stigmatized.  If you're using your own blood and not sacrificing others I don't see it as a thing that's necessarily Dark.  Power by itself is neutral and self-sacrifice is more likely to come from a good person who's willing to make sacrifices for something they believe in.  I see this as an ability for a highly disciplined mage, not a half-mad servant of chaotic Elder Gods.

In such a mage an ability where you can spend 1 health and gain 3 mana once per round as a free action makes perfect sense.  I'm not sure what other abilities I would give them or any of the other flavor yet.  I'll have to think about it.

[qaz_azaran]

Here are my ideas so far for Elder Beings.  They are not really complete or balanced at this time (I feel particularly bad about the terrible names); but, I figure it's a decent start and may get others brainstorming so...

Malefic Magebane - Cost: 30 mana (plus 2 Sacrifice tokens), Upkeep 3, Attack 5 with Mana Drain +2, Armor 3, Health 20, Regen 2.

Malefic Magebane is a powerful being who's presence disrupts the flow of magical energy in the world.  ALL spells have their cost increased by 2.  All spells targeting Malefic Magebane have their cost doubled.  No spells can be cast in the same zone as Malefic Magebane.

*
Tentacled Horror - Cost: 30 mana (plus 1 Sacrifice Tokens), Upkeep 4, Defense 11+ (infinite), Slow. Regen 4.  Armor 3, Health 25.

Quick Attack 4 (reach), Full attack 5 plus d12 to see if target is Incapacitated.

Tentacled Horror has an automatic melee attack against all creatures within 1 zone radius during the upkeep phase. Whenever a creature is killed by Tentacled Horror it gains a +1 Attack token.
*
Goddess of Dark Beauty - Cost: 35 Mana (plus 3 Sacrifice Tokens), Upkeep 2, Regen 2, Armor 2, Health 20

All living creatures in zone with Goddess of Dark Beauty must roll 10+ or be incapacitated.

Quick Attack - 4, vampiric

Full Action - Goddess of Dark Beauty takes control of 1 incapacitated creature. That creature can and will attack it's friends and allies if directed to. Every controlled creature gains the Upkeep +2 trait and you maintain control of them so long as that upkeep is paid.
*
Brutus Bloodlust - Cost: 30 Mana (plus 1 Sacrifice Token), Upkeep 3, Regen 3, Armor 4, Health 30

Brutus Bloodlust has the Fast and Charge +2 traits.

All Dark Living Creatures gain Bloodlust +2, Armor +1 and Life +3 so long as Brutus Bloodlust is in play.

Full Action - Sweeping attack for 5.

Quick Action - Attack for 6


I rather like the idea that if someone is playing the Voidbringer you have no idea which of the 4 (or more) Elder Beings they are planning on summoning.  All the costs and stats are just a rough estimate, playtesting will be needed to keep these at all balanced (as much as summoned Elder Beings can be balanced.)

The real idea is that opposing players need to destroy the Elder Gate before they are summoned and the most powerful take the longest to summon.  So long as they are difficult enough to summon they shouldn't be gamebreaking and I rather think that the new dynamic of attack/defend the Elder Gate would make for an interesting game.

[qaz_azaran]

I'm starting to feel like I'm just talking to myself here, but...

I came up with 2 new modifiers and a card to go with them.

Swarm - If you have sufficient mana you can summon more than one of these at a time.

Expendable - When this creature is killed return the card to your spellbook instead of discarding it.

I think that there are a lot of nature creatures that these would work for (a swarm of ants or bees jump to mind first thing); but, I also think that they could work for a horde of weak goblins (for example.)

Mad Cultist - 6 mana, lvl 1 Dark, 0 Armor, 3 Health, 1 Attack.  Mad Cultists have Bloodthirsty +1 as well as the Swarm and Replaceable traits.


There might be some need to play with names.  Maybe Dark Cultist should be Dark Acolyte or something. 

[Laddinfance]

Technically expendable is already a keyword, Cantrip.

[Coshade]

Hey Qaz

While I like the ideas, I'm not sure if they could be used for 1v1 gameplay. The balancing on it seems really difficult to pull off. Attempting to Summon one of your elders would probably lose you the game because of actions needed to get to that point.

I do think that you could make a fun custom mage that maybe you have a scenario of 2 or 3 vs him. Very creative stuff !!

[qaz_azaran]

@Coshade - I'm a little confused by your comment.  If you don't think you could win 1 on 1 why on earth would you suggest 2 or 3 vs. him?  I agree that summoning an Elder Being without getting yourself killed in the process would be quite a challenge and I can't see any way that you could stand up to 2 or 3 people all focused on stopping you.  I do think it'd work quite well in a 2 v 2 game where you had an ally that could play offense while you played defense; but, if everybody wants you dead, you're pretty well dead.

I know the balancing will be hard.  I'm going to try and convince one of my friends to let me play a Voidbringer next time we play and report back on how that goes.  I don't think the discussion can really move forward until I've got some actual play experience with these ideas, more hypothetical guesswork isn't really going to show whether it's viable or not. 

That said, I think you should be able to win a game with the Voidbringer even without summoning an Elder Being.  If the entire concept for the mage depends on that specific strategy then it's kind of broken.  It needs to be able to be played a couple of different ways.  The special abilities of the Voidbringer lend themselves to direct attacks and being a front-line fighter and that's a viable way to play it.  The Blood Frenzy ability combined with the Bloodthirsty Sword would be a real bitch to take down.

I do think that with the 2 different types of cultist that it's possible to win a game while trying to summon an Elder Being; but, it is (and really needs to be) incredibly difficult.  Elder Beings are crazy powerful and if they are too easy to summon it breaks the game.  But, especially the Elder Beings that only require 1 Sacrifice Token shouldn't be all that hard to summon.  You may be able to do it 5 or 6 turns into the game if things go your way.  The Mad Cultists I just proposed should make it very difficult to actually get to the Elder Gate to destroy it and should buy you plenty of time to work with if you're trying to summon one.  I really get a kick out of the fact that trying to summon the Elder Beings would have to be one of the most defensive ways that you could play the Voidbringer.

The Dark Cultists and Cult Leader should really give you a bunch of mana to work with and it's important to remember that this mana can still be used to summon other things and cast attack spells (though obviously it will slow down the summoning of the Elder Being.)  With the flow of mana you should be able to mount a pretty effective offense or defense (again meaning that the game may be won regardless of the Elder Gate.)  I'm honestly a little worried that the Dark Cultists and Cult Leader make generating mana too easy and may be too powerful as I've currently got them statted out.


@Laddinfance - I'm really unsure about the cost on the Mad Cultist.

There is a fair amount of power in the ability to some more than 1 at a time and never really run out of expendable units, but at the same time I noticed that a Goblin Grunt has 4 Life and 3 Attack has a cost of 4 mana.  The Mad Cultists are clearly weaker with 3 Life and 1 Attack.  It'd be ridiculously easy to take out a whole swarm of cultists with a sweeping attack or an attack spell that targets everything in the zone. 

A cost of 3 or 4 may be more balanced in terms of what you're getting, but makes them much more powerful.  As currently written you could bring out 3 of them in the first round. At a cost of 5 you could summon 4 in the 1st round and easily 2 per round after that.  A cost of 3 or 4 becomes even more ridiculous.   They may not be able to deal much damage, but they are far from useless.  I honestly see them as having the most value in guarding and hindering the enemies movements.

What do you think?

[wtcannonjr]

I would avoid adding traits like swarm as a separate mechanic in the game. It would be much simpler to implement the idea as a creature subtype so a single creature card represents the summoned swarm. The card effect might  link the number of attacks or number of attack dice to the remaining life of the swarm. To balance the strength of a swarm creature it would need a high mana cost as well as a high spell point cost. An insect swarm might be a good example of this type of creature.

We already have quick summoning by the Straywood Beastmaster that allows a swarm effect in the way you describe except it requires additional actions.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Blood Mages have always struck me as unfairly stigmatized.  If you're using your own blood and not sacrificing others I don't see it as a thing that's necessarily Dark.  Power by itself is neutral and self-sacrifice is more likely to come from a good person who's willing to make sacrifices for something they believe in.  I see this as an ability for a highly disciplined mage, not a half-mad servant of chaotic Elder Gods.

In such a mage an ability where you can spend 1 health and gain 3 mana once per round as a free action makes perfect sense.  I'm not sure what other abilities I would give them or any of the other flavor yet.  I'll have to think about it.

It's too good of an idea, and multiple people have already commented about this sort of mage. We need a Sanguimancer. Eventually.

http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=14378