New trait idea: assimilate

[Gogolski]

Imagine you had a couple of building blocks at your disposal and you could use them to build your own creature or conjuration. That is more or less what assimilate would accomplish on the board: You cast certain cards (with a common name??) on the board and they become one creature or conjuration when they are in one zone and all the stats would all add up.

When the assimilated object takes damage, the controller decides which card takes the damage and if it is destroyed, which card takes the remainder of the damage (and so on...) If a card has damage but is not destroyed, it will be take the next damage until it is destroyed.

Let's say we have an assimilating worm:
* Each card is lv1
* Each card has 4 life
* Each card has one attack die
* Each card has 'assimilating worm' in it's name

* Some cards have armor +1
* Some cards piercing +1
* One card has channeling 1, ability to cast incantations and unique
* One card has the cantrip trait
* ...

When activating the worm, it may split up and you could move part of it into another zone. (Add an active activation marker to the part of the worm that hasn't acted yet. It may be activated in a later activation round.) You now have two assimilating worms with different (lower) stats.

If two parts of an assimilating worm meet each other in a single zone, they merge into one creature. (Remove the action marker from the part that was already there, use the ready marker from the part that entered the zone.)
NOTE: This probably requires assimilate creatures to enter the arena with an active activation marker...

A repulse could scatter the worm in all directions.

A zone attack would only attack the assimilated creature once.

When pushed through a wall of thorns, add the level of each card to get the level of the assimilated creature.

As for conjurations:
* A spawnpoint that casts assimilate-creatures. The parts would be quite costly, as you can rebuild the spawnpoint when it is being demolished. The parts themselves could all have 3 live 1 armor. Each part would have it's very own stats too: one part with channeling 1 + unique, one part with -2 Water OR Fire OR Air OR Earth (OR Frost), one part with cantrip, one part with obscured, (??one part with doublespawn??)...

* A slow moving siege tower with a bunch of different weapens (with their own ready markers) and/or defenses...


It looks more like something to build a new mage around than a new trait, but i like the idea of numerous Lv1 cards that build a Lv5 (7 or 12) creature or conjuration. Also while it takes damage, it's abilities disappear...

Please tell me if this is a bad idea or not.
Greetz!

[Halewijn]

It's morphing time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7pHy2MB6HM

[bigfatchef]

I like the idea. It remains me on a swarm idea where a swarm of bees could split up ...http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15908.0
Maybe those two mechanics should be connected in one concept. Anyway great idea!

[riastradh]

I think this could be a good idea that also includes the swarm concept noted. I perceive this more as a creature trait, separate from conjurations. A modular conjuration effect could be an interesting adaptation as well, but covered by it's own traits.

For creatures, a trait that conveys the sense of the mercurial - the ability to blend and separate at will. Two creatures of the same type that share this trait could stack together, one adding a specific bonus to the other as noted by the OP. Attack, armor, life, status effect, etc. Not it's whole block of stats, just something specifically noted in the creature text box. The creatures would be of the same type, but could be different in name. For example, the Straywood Leafcutter and the Wytchwood Bullet Ant are both of the Ant type, and share this "melding" trait, so could conceivably stack with one being the primary creature and the other being the secondary that adds a bonus. Separately these creatures might be fairly weak, but stacked might be quite powerful, and certainly flexible enough to respond to board conditions.

This could cover creatures like oozes, insects, undead, wisps, elementals, soldier units, etc.

Joining would be a quick action performed by either creature. If it is the secondary creature, then the primary still has an action free to use with it's new upgraded status. If the primary has already acted, then the secondary can join it then wait until next round. Separating would also be a quick action per creature, but they would have to wait until the next round to re-join or join another collective. If the primary creature is killed, all elements stacked with it also die.

Of course one drawback to all of this is the absolute mess it could potentially make of your board, but realistically should be no worse than a creature with a cartload of enchantments.

For conjurations, I see two compatible modules with one being cast onto another increasing the overall effect of the module - say a spawn point to which you can install a source that increases grants or increases channeling, or a life-giving tree with an added essence which increases the regen for friendly creatures.

[/spitball]

[bigfatchef]

It's one idea to stack only some features while connected in any way and still leave each creature play on it's own. Each creature would be a possible target for enchantment and attacks and get it's own life and damage counted.

The other idea ist to literally stack creatures. Out of 3 wormparts you would get 1 big worm with added stats plus maybe a bonus with 2 wormcards that are stacked up like enchantment.

[sIKE]

The more I read and think on this, the more I start thinking, isn't this what Enchantments already do?

[bigfatchef]

Just stacking life or whatever would be very enchantment like.
But there are way more possibilities thinking of timing and tactic. Imagine 2 or 3 bobcats with 2 life left. They join and are back to 6 life and hit with lots of melee. Regarding my last post this would be case 2. This triple bobcat would then be one target and still killed quite easy. There would be no triple defense!

If those three would stay 3 targets the question is if they act as one creature or three. Thematically I would say one. So losing 2 actions should result in a huge advance of attack or life. It would then be possible to kill one of three bobcats in that staple. Regarding the idea they could split up again they would more or less need apostate actions. But also attacking separate would break the whole idea down to something like aegis. “other swarms in your zone get melee +1. This can stack up“.
... Still not that bad. Maybe keeping in that simple is the way to go.

[Gogolski]

To keep things a little more simple, I think the cards that can be assimilated should be identical. By assimilating the cards, you lose actions, but you gain extra abilities. The card could list the abilities in the text box and it would be easy to keep track of it.

So when assimilating, you add the life of each card (multiply the life by the nuber of cards), ad the armor, the defense value, the channeling and the level of each card. That's all the icons on the right (I think). If there's traits with a "+", add them up (if there's traits that don't have the "+", you don't add as usual.)

Assimilated traits could look like this:

2 assimilated cards: piercing +1
3 assimilated cards: cantrip
4 assimilated cards: intercept, climbing
5 assimilated cards: channeling 1+, can only cast water and healing spells
6 assimilated cards: aegis 1

=> This way an assimilated creature comprised of five cards has piercing +1 on all its attacks (not +5, then it would have been in the traits above the assimilation traits), cantrip for each destroyed part above two assimilated parts, intercept, climbing and channeling +1 (not +5) with the ability to cast water spels and healing spells.

=> If the creature splits up or a piece/card of the creature gets destroyed, it looses its mana since it no longer has channeling (unless it had channeling 0 or 1 in the symbols on the right) as well as the prepared spell (if any).

To keep track of the number of assimilated cards, you could leave each extra action marker on the cardstack (put them inactive) and turn over only one action marker to its active side each reset phase.

It would not allow for the same building fun, but it should be a lot less fidly...

[wtcannonjr]

The more I read and think on this, the more I start thinking, isn't this what Enchantments already do?

I agree. It seems Assimilate could be implemented as a subtype of Enchantment with variable effects more easily than adding a whole new trait.

[Gogolski]

Still, I believe it is really very different from enchantments.

Combining cards to get better attributes at the loss of actions and later splitting them up to get more actions while loosing certain bonuses is the main idea here. It's not only about having a creature and buffing it. There are no enchantments that can have their own activation or that can wander the board on their own...

I'll try and cook up a card to post in the Custom Cards forum. (But having no graphic skills and limited card-cooking skills it might be something horrible...) I'll reference it here when it's up...

[wtcannonjr]

Well good luck with this idea.

I think the current Creature and Enchantment interaction is a simpler way to combine cards and effects. I think the new idea that Assimilate adds is the interaction with creature Action Markers. Why not have a level 4 or 5 enchantment with an effect to add an extra action marker to the targeted creature?

It seems that current Enchantments attached to a zone have similar effects to what you describe, but creatures lose the effect when they leave the zone not when they gain actions. Now that I write this it seems a Conjuration could also be used to create the effects you describe. E.g. add an action marker to all Bobcats that start the Reset Phase in the same zone with another Bobcat. I guess I just see all the existing spell types as combining cards (in the overall arena) to create game effects while you would prefer to have this ability within the Creature spell type only. Just a different perspective.