Community Card Construction - Making a level 4 Nightmare Creature

[Sailor Vulcan]

Maybe a creature that has an attack that gains vampiric against sleeping creatures. It could also have an attack that has a chance of causing an enemy creature to fall asleep until the end of the round or until they're damaged, whichever comes first. Don't forget that an incapacitated mage can still use quick non attack spells.

Also...

http://soupandbutter.deviantart.com/art/Haunter-179501197

[Puddnhead]

Whatever it is that we actually create, I would like to stand in solidarity with the people who do not want the psychic type on the attack bar. I don't mind if it has a psychic effect on it but it needs to have at least one attack that is good (4 plus dice) that doesn't get shut down by the psychic immune trait.

My preference would be a phantasmal knight such as Aaron showed.  Give it an ability that buffs it when a force spell is used...or let it increase in power the more enchantments are attached to the target of its attack.

[exid]

it could have a BIG hammer to put his target to sleep?

[Ganpot]

the first question is do we want this creature to be Legendary or not?

First there is the creature who feeds on dreams. This would be like a kick ass version of haunter from pokemon. It puts you to sleep and then feeds on you without breaking the condition. Then, there is the "Phantom Force Nightmare". This one could be like a poltergeist or some form of intangible force knight with a horrifying presence.  And I'm sure you guys have ideas for this as well. We're close. After this step I'll build some playtest cards for us to see just what we've come up with.

Personally, I'd prefer non-legendary.  While a Legendary creature allows for more unique abilities, the mind school kind of needs solid mid-tier soldiers to deploy.  That being said, I do have an idea or two for a legendary creature as well.  Disclaimer: these are all initial ideas, and have had absolutely no thought given to balance concerns yet. 

1. Mind-Consuming Darkness
Idea = a dedicated anti-familiar.  Consumes them and grows more powerful.
Specifics = attacks gain Unavoidable and +2 against all familiars.  If a familiar is killed by this creature's attack, its card is placed under this creature's card.  These creatures cannot be resurrected or regained in any way by their mage.  For each captured creature card under it, this creature gains Reconstruct +1, Melee +2, and an extra action marker (giving it an extra turn).  Whenever this creature takes damage, its controlling mage may discard one of the creature cards under it to regain health equal to the number of health listed on that card.  Afterwards, that card is Obliterated. 
Notes = the upside is that it's very different from any other existing creatures, and it suits the theme fairly well.  The downside is that its abilities would only suit a legendary creature, and familiars aren't extremely popular or prevalent anyway (meaning the card would be HIGHLY situational).

2. Haunting Shadows
Idea = relatively weak creature which enemy mages are forced to deal with personally.  Sort of like living homing missiles.
Specifics = this creature may only move in the direction of the nearest enemy mage.  It cannot be targeted by any non-mage creatures or conjurations.  It is Obscured, Unstoppable, and Uncontainable.  It cannot attack anything except a mage, and its attacks are Unavoidable and Critical.  It is unaffected by terrain and walls. 
Notes = upside is it doesn't have to be legendary, is somewhat unique, and fits the theme of a "phantom force nightmare".  Downside is that it will be challenging to make this idea scary instead of annoying for an opposing mage while not having it be too powerful.

3. Nightmare Illusionist
Idea = a solid mid-tier creature which can make damaging illusions of itself, making the enemy guess as to which one is real
Specifics = this card comes with 4 tokens.  all tokens possess the same face-up side, and 3 of them say illusion on the other side.  The last token says real on its face-down side.  When this creature is summoned, place all 4 tokens in areas within 1 space of the controlling mage (can be placed in different spaces from each other).  Place the creature card next to the mage's equipment.  Each token possesses its own action marker and takes its own turn.  Whenever one of the tokens is attacked, it is flipped over.  If the token says real, the creature card is placed in that space and all illusion tokens are discarded.  If the token says illusion, that token is discarded.   Each token may attack and deal damage as normal, but only the real token may damage psychic-immune creatures. 
Notes = on the upside, this would give the mind school a solid soldier card, while also incorporating the theme of mind games.  On the downside, this might prove unwieldy and intrude too much on whatever is planned for the Siren (or a future Illusionist).  It also relies on psychic attacks by necessity (which might be a problem). 


I might think of other ideas later. 

[Sailor Vulcan]

For number 2 make it a quick action to cast. Instant terror. Think it should also be nonliving, lv2, and have a mana cost of 8. Destroy it when it attacks and damages an enemy creature. This makes more sense for an undead goblin bomber than I nightmare, I think. Maybe could be called something like "Shadow Bomber"

Alternatively you could make it epic and cantrip instead of a quick action, although that makes more sense for a grim reaper kind of creature than a nightmare.

[Sailor Vulcan]

For a nightmare creature, I'm thinking nonlegendary, its attack gains vampiric vs sleeping creatures. Don't forget that sleeps turn to dazes when a sleeping creature is damaged. Would go well with a dark+mind mage. A few problems:

1. psychic immune creatures and that putting enemy mages to sleep is kinda OP.
2. Why would you want to attack a creature once it was asleep?
3. If the answer to 2 is to bring them back as zombies more easily without your creature killer taking too much damage from awakened creature's attacks, why not just mind control them?

So, to use a nightmare creature effectively, I'm thinking you want a dark/mind Mage that likes to control his enemies. Is the ziggurat necro only or dark Mage only? If it's dark Mage only, I imagine a Mage that wants to play a little similarly to johktari bm in that they want to destroy enemy creatures. Unlike johktari, the living creatures this Mage destroys could come back as a zombie under their control using the ziggurat. All out of school creatures would cost triple. For nonliving creatures agony, enfeeble, force hold, etc will help a lot.

[ringkichard]

Mana cost reduction if there are sleeping creatures in play, combined with direct damage to those creatures when it comes into play?

--

How about a creature that costs more mana if summoned within LoS of an "awake" enemy non-mage living creature. If your opponent has creatures firmly anchored in wakeful reality it makes it harder to summon a nightmare?

This turns the necromancer matchup from a liability to a strength: all those psychic immune zombies aren't awake in any meaningful sense, and so the nightmare(s) can come out to play.

[Rinc]

If this creature will help the forcemaster against nonliving creatures we have two choices.

Either it is legendary and in this case it will need to be really powerful to be able to take down more than 1 midsized nonliving. Balance wise, this might be hard to achieve.

Or, we make it nonlegendary so you can have more than one of them in your deck. In this case, it might be a little less powerful.

For me, it does not matter.

[fas723]

As long as we don't make it "X mage only" I think all ideas above are awesome!

[ACG]

Either it is legendary and in this case it will need to be really powerful to be able to take down more than 1 midsized nonliving. Balance wise, this might be hard to achieve.

Or, we make it nonlegendary so you can have more than one of them in your deck. In this case, it might be a little less powerful.

You might be thinking of the Epic trait. You can have multiple copies of a legendary creature in your deck.

[Halewijn]

(I didn't read the entire tread)

The haunter/nightmare creature is really cool and I also very much like the force knight! (I want both  )

- If it's the haunter then I wouldn't want it to be legendary because, just as in the case of the spiders, they work better in group.

- If it's the knight; Yes, make it legendary! (slightly more powerfull for the same level/mana)

[ringkichard]

As a variation on teleporting to sleeping creatures, the nightmare could be summoned to the zone of a sleeping creature, ignoring range and LoS. That way it's like it came out of that creature's mind.

--

There's a small adjustment that would help a "dreaming type" nightmare: permit it to treat Daze like it does Sleep. That would give the nightmare a longer window of opportunity with living creatures (especially against e.g. Idol of Pestilence), and open opportunities for the Forcemaster's Daze causing Force attacks (and other Daze causing spells).

[exid]

As a variation on teleporting to sleeping creatures, the nightmare could be summoned to the zone of a sleeping creature, ignoring range and LoS. That way it's like it came out of that creature's mind.

the nightmare could:
1) make a target sleep
2) haunt a sleeping target (i don't know for what effect, but it would have to stay by it's pray)
3) when haunting a target it could spin off (summon a copy of itself!)

[ACG]

There's a small adjustment that would help a "dreaming type" nightmare: permit it to treat Daze like it does Sleep. That would give the nightmare a longer window of opportunity with living creatures (especially against e.g. Idol of Pestilence), and open opportunities for the Forcemaster's Daze causing Force attacks (and other Daze causing spells).

You could also allow it to inflict sleep on non-mage creatures, similar to what I did in my version. That way, there is a chance that when it attacks its target will remain asleep.

[wtcannonjr]

There's a small adjustment that would help a "dreaming type" nightmare: permit it to treat Daze like it does Sleep. That would give the nightmare a longer window of opportunity with living creatures (especially against e.g. Idol of Pestilence), and open opportunities for the Forcemaster's Daze causing Force attacks (and other Daze causing spells).

You could also allow it to inflict sleep on non-mage creatures, similar to what I did in my version. That way, there is a chance that when it attacks its target will remain asleep.

I like this approach.  The attack itself has a chance to put the Creature back to sleep. A simple use of existing mechanics to keep a creature sleeping.

If we want to expand the sleep dimension we could also consider adding a Deep Sleep condition. This might require two attacks to wake up a creature with twice the removal cost of Sleep.