V1: The One Ring (alpha playtests)

[hrcho]

I agree with Gil about making separate topics. On the note of the ring, how about something like this:

The One Ring, The Ruling Ring
Vit +1
While wearing The One Ring, each time bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.
Fellowship: Exert bearer (twice) to remove a (2) threats.
Skirmish: Add a threat to wear The One Ring.

We can increase it's cost a bit by making it a double exertion for two threats. We can also increase the cost of putting on the ring. That way it might be good against some decks and terrible against others. You can remove threats without too great a penalty, but against some decks it might be very difficult to put on The One Ring which is a big risk.

[hrcho]

@Thranduil (or anyone else who knows): Can we change signets?

[Thranduil]

@Thranduil (or anyone else who knows): Can we change signets?

Yes by the rules of Virtual cards. But, in terms of playtesting, drawing a new signet on a card might be difficult.

A quick note before I give my thoughts on the card ideas:

• Don't feel that we're in any sort of rush! We have no deadline to work to and we will produce a much MUCH better set if we work on 1 card at a time and take as long as necessary over everything we do. There really is no rush whatsoever.

• Someone mentioned about the rarity of the ring. We shouldn't make it too "out there" or too powerful. But it should be at least fairly different, interesting and appealing. This means we should probably be imagining that we are making an uncommon card.


The mechanical themes we've seen so far for The One Ring:

i) Specific RB
ii) Removing threats
iii) Double moving
iv) Attribute reductions


i) As other people have noted, doing it like this (though I support the goal of supporting ARBs) limits deckbuilding potential, which is not quite what we want. The best way to make a Ring that supports alternate RBs is to include a resistance bonus (like the Ring of Rings). This is much easier to do and much more universal.

ii) Dealing with threats is an interesting idea. But I, as others, would strongly counsel against a straight copy of Elven Long Knife's text—that would be incredibly overpowered. However, something like Hope of the Free Peoples would be very interesting to see (which also encourages moving, fulfilling perhaps 2 of our ideas). Also a question for here is how it particular fits the flavour of "Ruling Ring".

If I were to make something like a threat ring, I would go for something crazy to throw out:

•The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Strength: +1
Skirmish: Add a burden to have the Ring-bearer wear The One Ring until the regroup phase.
While the Ring-bearer is wearing The One Ring, each time he or she is about to take a wound, add a threat instead. If you can't add a threat, place a companion in the dead pile.

Or something like that. This is probably too crazy for the "semi-uncommon" feel that we're probably going for, but I thought it was worth mentioning!

iii) Increasing people's desire to move is a good thing, in my opinion, as it makes the game more fun. Put it often walks a dangerous knife-edge of being too powerful or too annoying. If done well, this could be very successful. If not done well, then it will be disastrous. But I think it's worth keeping this in mind for a bit longer and seeing if we can incorporate it into other cool things.

iv) I like the idea of messing with the expectations for attributes. It is a very simple and clean way to show a different kind of Ring. The most obvious attribute to reduce is probably resistance (for the Ring's flavour). This concept is very good and feels uncommon to me. The question is how we balance the reduction, and whether this is good V1 material that says "look at how cool we are and the cards we can design!"


We should see some more suggestions and discussions. Maybe we should put a deadline on the suggestions (like a week), then vote on the one we want to playtest?

Thran

[Ringbearer]

I wouldnt think of a ring adding threats, its not really the corruption one expects from a ring.

Maybe something in the line of this:

The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Str +1
While the Ringbearer wears the one ring, each time he take a wound, add a burden instead.
Fellowship: add a threat to heal a companion wearing a ring.
Skirmish: add a threat to put one The One Ring.

[Jerba]

I'm having a hard time with the thematic element of the Ring removing threats. it seems the One Ring attracts trouble it doesn't get rid of it.

[Tbiesty]

Continuing to tweak...

The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Str: +2
Each time the fellowship moves during the regroup phase, you may add a burden to remove 2 threats.
Skirmish: Wear The One Ring until the regroup phase. While bearer wears The One Ring,
each time bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

[Kralik]

I am a bit late to the party, since I have been focusing mainly on server stuff and programming. However, wouldn't it be better to replace, say, Isildur's Bane? I've always thought of the Ruling Ring to be the "base, common" ring and all others with their quirks as rare. Why not leave the Ruling Ring as-is?

[Tbiesty]

I am a bit late to the party, since I have been focusing mainly on server stuff and programming. However, wouldn't it be better to replace, say, Isildur's Bane? I've always thought of the Ruling Ring to be the "base, common" ring and all others with their quirks as rare. Why not leave the Ruling Ring as-is?

We're not actually "replacing" it, we're making an additional version available for use. Not sure if that was the point you were getting at, but I at least thought I'd give an answer.

[Kralik]

Yes, I know. Still, in my mind it remains as the simplest, most basic ring. So it seems to me that a virtual other ring would be better and leave 1C2 as it stands.

[Thranduil]

Yes, I know. Still, in my mind it remains as the simplest, most basic ring. So it seems to me that a virtual other ring would be better and leave 1C2 as it stands.

It's a good point. The reason I suggested the Ruling Ring in the first place was because it's a card that everyone has hundreds of lying around and not in decks. It is also quite an appealing idea, I think, and perhaps more of a talking point than a V version of Isildur's Bane.

Thran

[Witchkingx5]

All those removing threats can easily lead to broken combination. You really have to remember one thing:
If you create a card each and every Deck has acces to and you make the card too strong, it's only a matter of times when people start building Decks that are completely insane just because of that opportunity they got. Basically, having a Rong that removes threats makes a) every threat-adding strategy pointless, as you'll always have access to disrupt it and b) makes every Free People strategy using threats just insane. Did you forget there were tons of Sites from RotK that add Threats to give you an advantage. I could easily see someone start using those in an infinite loop à Gondorina Captain.

On the other hand, I firstly really liked that the One Ring adds threats, but Threats were introduced in RotK Block, so I'm not sure if we should create one card that does change the whole Rule concept in both FotR and TTT Formats.

What do you think of something like:

  .The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Strength: +1
Game Text: Response: If bearer is about to take a wound, he wears The One Ring until the regroup phase. While wearing The One Ring, each time the Ring-bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

Basically the Rong of Rings with stength Bonus instead of Resistance. I'd found interesting to have a line like: "Exert the Ring-Bearer twice to take off the One Ring", but that would pretty much destroy some of those "Force to put on the One Ring" strategies.

TMWYT.

[Tbiesty]

What do you think of something like:

  .The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Strength: +1
Game Text: Response: If bearer is about to take a wound, he wears The One Ring until the regroup phase. While wearing The One Ring, each time the Ring-bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

Basically the Rong of Rings with stength Bonus instead of Resistance. I'd found interesting to have a line like: "Exert the Ring-Bearer twice to take off the One Ring", but that would pretty much destroy some of those "Force to put on the One Ring" strategies.

You make a lot of good points with the dangers of working with threats; a simple tweaking of attributes like you have is clean.

How about a little more tweaking so it doesn't totally overshadow Isildur's Bane in terms of flexibility.
Less vitality should make the Ring-bearer put on the ring more often, balancing out the fact the the penality is one burden, instead of two.

We can always tweak the str, vit, and res bonuses, but here's my take...

  .The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Strength: +2
Vitality: -1
Game Text: Response: If bearer is about to take a wound, he wears The One Ring until the regroup phase. While wearing The One Ring, each time the Ring-bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

[Kralik]

Now that would be funny on certain ARB's... but I could go for it.

[hrcho]

.The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (V)
Strength: +2
Vitality: -1
Game Text: Response: If bearer is about to take a wound, he wears The One Ring until the regroup phase. While wearing The One Ring, each time the Ring-bearer is about to take a wound, add a burden instead.

I like it. A lot. It might be a bit too powerful, but we'll see through playtesting.

[Thranduil]

I think we should leave until the end of the week (Sunday 20th Feb) to receive any further suggestions or comments. Then we will pick out the suggestions we like the most, vote, and move into playtesting phase. Sound good?

So keep comments and suggestions coming in.

My worry about your simple change Wkx5 is that it's almost identical to the original RR, which we want to avoid for confusion's sake. So I like Tbiesty's version much more.

I would also make a point about the threats thing. I think it would be balanced with an effect like HoFP. Perhaps adding a burden instead of adding , but that seems reasonable to me. If it turns out to be too much, then it can also be limited to regroup/fellowship phase.

Thran