Hello everybody, I'm Tink and I have been bouncing an idea around for quite some time. I'm no stranger to the many posts of RPG-esque variants which allow you to play as a planeswalker with your own list of stats including "memory" and whatnot, and I'm not hating on those variants, they are quite creative, and I'm downright envious. Meanwhile, I have some discrepancies with aforementioned variants, namely with keeping the separate sheet of stats and changing the amount of your hand size, draw amount, mana color, and all that shiz-niz as you level every battle or so. While progression and diversity is good, I always enjoyed Magic for it's portability and it's playability without keeping tabs on each individual player's personal stat sheets and all that blablablablabla, (I am very tired while typing this, I apologize,) so without further adieu, here's my brief concept:
Firstly, players have a roster of creatures, similar to how in Pokemon you would have a roster of, well, Pokemon. Also this is similar to how in a JRPG you enter an encounter with your entire party lined up against theirs, taking turns giving each other a good ol' whack. As you progress and level up you are allowed to exchange these party members for higher tiered versions of their "classifications," so essentially your Merfolk Soldier will be exchanged for a stronger Merfolk Soldier, or perhaps a Merfolk Warrior. The progression of leveling can be done by points which are spent on your mana-cost, (converted or not, I dunno,) Atk/Def stats, rarity, etc.
Your roster may or may not allow for a "front row" and a "back row" which would mean those in front are lined up for attack and must be defeated in order to reach the back, giving extra defense to archers or direct-damage wizards, along with any healers or buffing creatures you may have in your party. However, creatures may be moved between these areas once each turn if such an idea sticks. It's possible that creatures with abilities such as flying and trample would be able to reach those in the back row, but I'll get to that later.
Each creature has an HP total, similar to the concept of each creature being a player, but what I'm considering is you take the creatures Toughness and multiply it by 10, and then their Toughness acts as a DEF score. Here's a brief example:
Thornweald Archer is a 2/1 Elf Archer, Meaning it has a base attack of 2, as before, but also has a defense score of 1, so it would ignore 1 damage from an attack, and the rest is carried over to its 10 HP, (1x10=10hp) so creatures with only 1 ATK wouldn't really be able to touch it without boosts, or special abilities. An optional rule is that each attack deals a minimum of 1 damage no matter what, but that's optional.
I've also considered a speed stat which is calculated from mana cost or something. This all has gone through many un-written revisions, and I'm posting some of it here in hoping that you guys might be able to help me find the best and worst of it all.
Creatures choose their targets when they strike, as the player has no life total. Creatures are only able to use their DEF stat if they are not tapped, meaning Vigilance is very useful, and attacking every turn can be fatal.
Alright, here's the big part. Of course there'd have to be some large change for this variant to work, and that is in Keywords, or abilities. Things such as Flying, Haste, Deathtouch, and all that take on dramatic new meanings. These new concepts still need to keep their meaning in mind, but have to be adapted, and here are some ideas for that:
- Deathtouch now does x3 damage of whatever surpasses the target's defense.
- Indistructable now triples it's cards HP total, but does not effect DEF.
- Defender now means you may intercept an attack from an opponents creature focused on another of your creatures. This does not apply to intercepting Flying attacks and you may not attack on your own, much like in the regular game.
- Flying means you may attack creatures in the back row as well, without the front row preventing that.
- Reach means you may intercept a Flying creature's attacks similar to if you had Defender.
- Haste allows your creature not only to attack as if it had no summoning sickness, but it means you may attack first assuming a SPEED skill is implemented. Alternately it could mean you get one free attack at the beginning of combat.
- Landwalk (and other direct unblockable attacks) allow you to surpass a creatures DEF score, even if they are untapped.
- Regenerate works similarly to how it does in normal play, and is thus only really needed if that creature's HP is low enough for them to perish.
These are just a few examples, and they are really easy to convert to be honest, I just didn't feel like typing them all.
In addition, you have either a small deck per character, or more likely a deck covering all of them, becoming color-diverse as you see fit, and including all your parties spells and equipment and such. There may be a restriction for equipment limits on creatures, or spells being cast if you control no spellcasters, etc.
A great bonus to a simple style like this is that it could be played quickly within a map-based RPG game on say, a battle-mat or an otherwise D&D like game. I'm sure I forgot a great deal of things though, but I'm happy to discuss this concept and try to form something completed with the help of you amazing card players of the internet. Thank you for your time!
- Tink
Would double strike work as it normally does?
Would cards like Murder still work the same as printed or just upright be banned?
Can we see an example roster and accompanied deck list please?
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Firstly, players have a roster of creatures, similar to how in Pokemon you would have a roster of, well, Pokemon. Also this is similar to how in a JRPG you enter an encounter with your entire party lined up against theirs, taking turns giving each other a good ol' whack. As you progress and level up you are allowed to exchange these party members for higher tiered versions of their "classifications," so essentially your Merfolk Soldier will be exchanged for a stronger Merfolk Soldier, or perhaps a Merfolk Warrior. The progression of leveling can be done by points which are spent on your mana-cost, (converted or not, I dunno,) Atk/Def stats, rarity, etc.
Your roster may or may not allow for a "front row" and a "back row" which would mean those in front are lined up for attack and must be defeated in order to reach the back, giving extra defense to archers or direct-damage wizards, along with any healers or buffing creatures you may have in your party. However, creatures may be moved between these areas once each turn if such an idea sticks. It's possible that creatures with abilities such as flying and trample would be able to reach those in the back row, but I'll get to that later.
Each creature has an HP total, similar to the concept of each creature being a player, but what I'm considering is you take the creatures Toughness and multiply it by 10, and then their Toughness acts as a DEF score. Here's a brief example:
Thornweald Archer is a 2/1 Elf Archer, Meaning it has a base attack of 2, as before, but also has a defense score of 1, so it would ignore 1 damage from an attack, and the rest is carried over to its 10 HP, (1x10=10hp) so creatures with only 1 ATK wouldn't really be able to touch it without boosts, or special abilities. An optional rule is that each attack deals a minimum of 1 damage no matter what, but that's optional.
I've also considered a speed stat which is calculated from mana cost or something. This all has gone through many un-written revisions, and I'm posting some of it here in hoping that you guys might be able to help me find the best and worst of it all.
Creatures choose their targets when they strike, as the player has no life total. Creatures are only able to use their DEF stat if they are not tapped, meaning Vigilance is very useful, and attacking every turn can be fatal.
Alright, here's the big part. Of course there'd have to be some large change for this variant to work, and that is in Keywords, or abilities. Things such as Flying, Haste, Deathtouch, and all that take on dramatic new meanings. These new concepts still need to keep their meaning in mind, but have to be adapted, and here are some ideas for that:
- Deathtouch now does x3 damage of whatever surpasses the target's defense.
- Indistructable now triples it's cards HP total, but does not effect DEF.
- Defender now means you may intercept an attack from an opponents creature focused on another of your creatures. This does not apply to intercepting Flying attacks and you may not attack on your own, much like in the regular game.
- Flying means you may attack creatures in the back row as well, without the front row preventing that.
- Reach means you may intercept a Flying creature's attacks similar to if you had Defender.
- Haste allows your creature not only to attack as if it had no summoning sickness, but it means you may attack first assuming a SPEED skill is implemented. Alternately it could mean you get one free attack at the beginning of combat.
- Landwalk (and other direct unblockable attacks) allow you to surpass a creatures DEF score, even if they are untapped.
- Regenerate works similarly to how it does in normal play, and is thus only really needed if that creature's HP is low enough for them to perish.
These are just a few examples, and they are really easy to convert to be honest, I just didn't feel like typing them all.
In addition, you have either a small deck per character, or more likely a deck covering all of them, becoming color-diverse as you see fit, and including all your parties spells and equipment and such. There may be a restriction for equipment limits on creatures, or spells being cast if you control no spellcasters, etc.
A great bonus to a simple style like this is that it could be played quickly within a map-based RPG game on say, a battle-mat or an otherwise D&D like game. I'm sure I forgot a great deal of things though, but I'm happy to discuss this concept and try to form something completed with the help of you amazing card players of the internet. Thank you for your time!
- Tink
Would cards like Murder still work the same as printed or just upright be banned?
Can we see an example roster and accompanied deck list please?