Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 19, 2011 22:09:18 GMT -5
The new collectible buff cards coming out for Dungeons and Dragons in February.
Summary:
I was lucky enough to get a preview pack of these new collectible cards from my FLGS and got to try them out during Dungeons and Dragons Encounters.
Each pack contains 9 cards. 1 instruction card and 8 game cards. The game cards come in three types as far as I can tell, Attack, Defense and Tactics cards. Each card type is identified on the card on the left as well as with a graphic that takes up 60% of the card, except on the Rares. The Rares have actual art on them instead of this graphic for card type.
So how do these work: Well you buy at least two packs of them or trade with your friends so that you have 10 cards. Then at the start of each encounter you shuffle your deck and draw a card. At the start of each of your turns you have the option to draw a card if you don't currently have one in your hand. Discard the card in your hand for a new one or keep the card you have in your hand. Cards in hand can be played at any time (doesn't even require a Free Action).
What can the cards do: All of them are in game benefits, but some cards cause some type of drawback as well. The advantages range from pretty simple and causing little effect to being very powerful. The Rarity of the cards definitely scales along with the card power. The rarity also seems to affect any drawbacks, with common cards having more disadvantages.
Some examples:
Push Through the Crowd: Tactic - Play at the start of your turn. Until the end of your turn, you can move through enemies' spaces. Enemies that make opportunity attacks against you on this turn gain combat advantage with those attacks.
Free Passage: Tactic - Play at the start of your turn. Whenever you move during this turn, entering squares occupied during your allies costs no squares of movement.
Reckless Onslaught - Attack - Play when you miss with an attack. Reroll the attack roll. You must use the second roll, even if it's lower. You then fall prone and take damage equal to your level.
Eye For Danger - Defense - Play at the start of your turn. Until the start of your next turn, being flanked doesn't cause you to grant combat advantage.
Each pack of cards contains 1 rare, 2 uncommon and 5 common cards and 1 rule card.
These cards are RPGA legal as well as legal for the next season of D&D Encounters which starts up on Feb 9th. They will also be used as prizes for future events like Encounters (the next season has three promo cards you can win with Renown Points).
Here's a shot of the cards I got:
Here's a full sized version if anyone wants to read the actual cards:
img196.imageshack.us/img196/5534/bigandreadablecards.jpg
The Good:
I have to admit that I love opening random packs of things. It's an evil addiction that I have had since my first pack of Magic the Gathering cards. So I had to open these right up and take in the 'new cards smell' Once I got over that I took at look at the cards. There was a nice mix of options here and after seeing other people's cards I realized that these unlock a ton of options during combat and even some outside of combat. I personally got a card that would be useful in a skill challenge which was good to see.
During play the effect on the game wasn't overly pronounced and did make for some 'cool moments' where characters did things we've never seen them do before. This seemed to compliment the Essentials characters we were all playing and gave each character a few more options. This was highly appreciated by our Thieves and Fighters who are normally stuck with just Basic Attacks each turn.
The Bad:
No art. What's up with that? This product is from WotC, the company that brings us Magic the Gathering and other CCGs. They have just given us a ton of cards with no art on them except for a symbol showing card type that takes up over half of the card face. Okay that's not totally true the Rule card had some art on it and every rare has some art, but that's only 1 card in 8 for the gaming cards! I just don't understand this one.
Besides the lack of art the next part that bothered me about these was how much better the uncommon and rare cards seemed to be then the commons. Only common cards seemed to have any disadvantage to them, which means that the player with the most money can easily stack their deck with rares and spend every combat round with bonuses with no setback.
Lastly I didn't like the way you could cycle through your cards during an encounter. When first reading about these I thought you would draw one card at the start of each encounter and have that card for the entire encounter. I didn't know if you would keep using it or if they were one use, but I really didn't expect you to just use one and move on to the next one in your deck. This really ups the power of these cards.
The Ugly:
I was very unimpressed by the randomly distributed Rule card I got in my pack. It's called Stroke of Luck and goes on to describe what a Stroke of Luck is and how you use them. None of my cards said Stroke of Luck on them and this card actually confused me as it looked different from the rest of my cards. It wasn't until another player pointed out that he got a different card that explained how to use these new cards we had that I figured out that this was a randomly distributed rule card. Then it dawned on me that with just my pack I had no idea how to use these cards... I didn't even have the rules to use them. Now thankfully another player did get a rules card that told us all how to use our new cards, but with out that I may have been standing there with 8 cards of uselessness.
Overall:
I have to admit that overall I am not really impressed. I knew I wasn't going to like the random distribution and rarity and I was worried about the power creep this causes but, I was willing to give them a chance. I wasn't expecting bare cards with only icons for art and I wasn't expecting them to be as powerful as they are. The ability to cycle through your deck each encounter and use multiple cards combined with the lack of downside to the uncommon and rare cards really does change the balance of the game. I'm sure some power gamers are going to love them due to this. I will admit I didn't dislike them enough to ban them from my games. If my players want to pick these up, all the power to them. I just might have to come up with something on the DM side to re-set the balance though
Summary:
I was lucky enough to get a preview pack of these new collectible cards from my FLGS and got to try them out during Dungeons and Dragons Encounters.
Each pack contains 9 cards. 1 instruction card and 8 game cards. The game cards come in three types as far as I can tell, Attack, Defense and Tactics cards. Each card type is identified on the card on the left as well as with a graphic that takes up 60% of the card, except on the Rares. The Rares have actual art on them instead of this graphic for card type.
So how do these work: Well you buy at least two packs of them or trade with your friends so that you have 10 cards. Then at the start of each encounter you shuffle your deck and draw a card. At the start of each of your turns you have the option to draw a card if you don't currently have one in your hand. Discard the card in your hand for a new one or keep the card you have in your hand. Cards in hand can be played at any time (doesn't even require a Free Action).
What can the cards do: All of them are in game benefits, but some cards cause some type of drawback as well. The advantages range from pretty simple and causing little effect to being very powerful. The Rarity of the cards definitely scales along with the card power. The rarity also seems to affect any drawbacks, with common cards having more disadvantages.
Some examples:
Push Through the Crowd: Tactic - Play at the start of your turn. Until the end of your turn, you can move through enemies' spaces. Enemies that make opportunity attacks against you on this turn gain combat advantage with those attacks.
Free Passage: Tactic - Play at the start of your turn. Whenever you move during this turn, entering squares occupied during your allies costs no squares of movement.
Reckless Onslaught - Attack - Play when you miss with an attack. Reroll the attack roll. You must use the second roll, even if it's lower. You then fall prone and take damage equal to your level.
Eye For Danger - Defense - Play at the start of your turn. Until the start of your next turn, being flanked doesn't cause you to grant combat advantage.
Each pack of cards contains 1 rare, 2 uncommon and 5 common cards and 1 rule card.
These cards are RPGA legal as well as legal for the next season of D&D Encounters which starts up on Feb 9th. They will also be used as prizes for future events like Encounters (the next season has three promo cards you can win with Renown Points).
Here's a shot of the cards I got:
Here's a full sized version if anyone wants to read the actual cards:
img196.imageshack.us/img196/5534/bigandreadablecards.jpg
The Good:
I have to admit that I love opening random packs of things. It's an evil addiction that I have had since my first pack of Magic the Gathering cards. So I had to open these right up and take in the 'new cards smell' Once I got over that I took at look at the cards. There was a nice mix of options here and after seeing other people's cards I realized that these unlock a ton of options during combat and even some outside of combat. I personally got a card that would be useful in a skill challenge which was good to see.
During play the effect on the game wasn't overly pronounced and did make for some 'cool moments' where characters did things we've never seen them do before. This seemed to compliment the Essentials characters we were all playing and gave each character a few more options. This was highly appreciated by our Thieves and Fighters who are normally stuck with just Basic Attacks each turn.
The Bad:
No art. What's up with that? This product is from WotC, the company that brings us Magic the Gathering and other CCGs. They have just given us a ton of cards with no art on them except for a symbol showing card type that takes up over half of the card face. Okay that's not totally true the Rule card had some art on it and every rare has some art, but that's only 1 card in 8 for the gaming cards! I just don't understand this one.
Besides the lack of art the next part that bothered me about these was how much better the uncommon and rare cards seemed to be then the commons. Only common cards seemed to have any disadvantage to them, which means that the player with the most money can easily stack their deck with rares and spend every combat round with bonuses with no setback.
Lastly I didn't like the way you could cycle through your cards during an encounter. When first reading about these I thought you would draw one card at the start of each encounter and have that card for the entire encounter. I didn't know if you would keep using it or if they were one use, but I really didn't expect you to just use one and move on to the next one in your deck. This really ups the power of these cards.
The Ugly:
I was very unimpressed by the randomly distributed Rule card I got in my pack. It's called Stroke of Luck and goes on to describe what a Stroke of Luck is and how you use them. None of my cards said Stroke of Luck on them and this card actually confused me as it looked different from the rest of my cards. It wasn't until another player pointed out that he got a different card that explained how to use these new cards we had that I figured out that this was a randomly distributed rule card. Then it dawned on me that with just my pack I had no idea how to use these cards... I didn't even have the rules to use them. Now thankfully another player did get a rules card that told us all how to use our new cards, but with out that I may have been standing there with 8 cards of uselessness.
Overall:
I have to admit that overall I am not really impressed. I knew I wasn't going to like the random distribution and rarity and I was worried about the power creep this causes but, I was willing to give them a chance. I wasn't expecting bare cards with only icons for art and I wasn't expecting them to be as powerful as they are. The ability to cycle through your deck each encounter and use multiple cards combined with the lack of downside to the uncommon and rare cards really does change the balance of the game. I'm sure some power gamers are going to love them due to this. I will admit I didn't dislike them enough to ban them from my games. If my players want to pick these up, all the power to them. I just might have to come up with something on the DM side to re-set the balance though