MTG Salvation

* bloodydoves is still standing here...

One more thing I thought of. Tapping cards could work. They could be like stun cards for one turn. Something like that.

That's how they work in game (functionally stunning creatures), so that makes sense to me. qfx?

Quote from qfx »

Discard: Instead of adding cost to a player's next spell, have it remove spells from their satchel for that fight. If you have 20 total spells and you opponent plays a card that says discard 2, then you would be down to 18 spells. (To balance this I would let card draw stack).

But right now, this means that players can take 4 discard spells, get their opponent no spells, and then kill them with anything. Seems unbalanced, thus my suggestion of the cost penalty.

I don't like the dice, but I do like the distance restriction. It makes burn and discard far less scary, and yet keeps their functionality. I am DEFINITELY in favor of a distance restriction. I also would say that you have to SEE your target to affect them. That's relevant with discard especially, and makes your environment and land choices matter a bit more. Forests give you a bit more protection than, say, plains, but you can still round a tree, and get nailed by a smart mage who was hiding in the branches, and was waiting for you to walk underneath him.

This is why I like lands affecting stuff, since it opens up so many tactical options, and is far more fun to roleplay. That's just my .02 though.

Dice make it clunky (IMO).

About missing, if they close to ten feet, and Beacon of Destruction you.... you had it coming. <_< Make arenas 200 feet across, and give all burn a range of 40 feet to damage the player, and 40 feet to target anything else. Discard only works with in 20 feet. Etc.

Nope, I think everything looks good qfx.

Also, to anyone else reading this, we are taking player interest, so if you're interested in this, post here, and let us know

I happened to get lucky and find this thread earlier today... as I was reading it, I felt that it was very much reminiscent of my favorite Magic book, Arena. Sure enough, this game was based on it, and feels a lot like the epilogue of the story. Now, I've wanted to see some kind of simulation of this come about for a long time, and, as I'm designing RP systems myself, I would like to comment on a few things here:

Discard - This seriously should be a spell that is in keeping with the original flavor. Being that the way you are implementing this, each spell in a satchel can be used up to 4 times, discard should simply knock down these uses instead of eliminating a card altogether (something that a Meddling Mage or Lobotamy, for example, should be able to do). Here's what I think you should do for the different mannerisms of discard:

Direct Discard: Have the defending player choose one of the spells in his satchel for each discard. They must be different spells, if possible. Eliminate one use of each spell for this fight (therefore weakening the gem or the caster's will)

Random Discard: Have the two different spells be chosen at random to be reduced (in this case, hitting the same spell more than once should be fine if the random discard happens more than once)

As for card drawing, I'm not sure yet, but there has to be a better way than to spend mana now to make things cheaper later. Drawing is about expansion of the mind, not saving mana for chaining spells. Maybe earn back used non-draw spells? Or have the next spell take less time to cast.

Quote from Arguas2617

I happened to get lucky and find this thread earlier today... as I was reading it, I felt that it was very much reminiscent of my favorite Magic book, Arena. Sure enough, this game was based on it, and feels a lot like the epilogue of the story. Now, I've wanted to see some kind of simulation of this come about for a long time, and, as I'm designing RP systems myself, I would like to comment on a few things here:

Discard - This seriously should be a spell that is in keeping with the original flavor. Being that the way you are implementing this, each spell in a satchel can be used up to 4 times, discard should simply knock down these uses instead of eliminating a card altogether (something that a Meddling Mage or Lobotamy, for example, should be able to do). Here's what I think you should do for the different mannerisms of discard:

Direct Discard: Have the defending player choose one of the spells in his satchel for each discard. They must be different spells, if possible. Eliminate one use of each spell for this fight (therefore weakening the gem or the caster's will)

Random Discard: Have the two different spells be chosen at random to be reduced (in this case, hitting the same spell more than once should be fine if the random discard happens more than once)

As for card drawing, I'm not sure yet, but there has to be a better way than to spend mana now to make things cheaper later. Drawing is about expansion of the mind, not saving mana for chaining spells. Maybe earn back used non-draw spells? Or have the next spell take less time to cast.

I like the suggested changes to discard Arguas. About the Direct/Random, that was assumed.

Drawing is a hard one to adjucate, and the cost reduction is the best I could figure out. I know it's about expanding the thoughts, but how to represent this? Perhaps.... grant temporary access to a spell that the player doesn't actually know, chosen at random from a list of spells in a color of the casters choice that all have a CMC=the draw spells?

Example: Bob casts a Brainstorm, and chooses blue. For the rest of the duel, Brainstorm would be replaced with a randomly chosen spell that costs U (meaning he has three uses of that spell left, since he's already cast Brainstorm once).

This doesn't step on the Wishes toes though, since they let you CHOOSE the spell. It's an idea anyhow.

By the way qfx, I think we decided on your idea at last reckoning. Perhaps we can do Arguas' as a tweak to yours (rather than lose the whole spell, you lose uses of the spell).

The Drawing isn't that hard actually. We have randomization engines (ie. dice) and we have programs to show us all spells of a certain CC and color. It's not terribly difficult.

Ok. Anyone else interested in this?

Better ideas for drawing, maybe:

1) Recover non-card-draw spells.

2) "Draw" a card not currently in the satchel but is known by the wizard (Number of casts of that spell = # of cards drawn)

3) Increase the speed at which spells can be cast (ie, 1 extra spell next turn cast for each card draw next action?)

4) the next X spells cast don't cause you to go down a spell, where X is equal to the number of cards drawn (This is probably the smoothest way to do it, as that way you can still draw card draw spells, and recurring it requires mana to do, and maybe time to cast the spells)

The speed to cast spells is only limited by your mana Arguas. This uses a mana system like magic, so speed isn't an issue.

The last idea seems interesting, but weak (though cantrips are still good then). This is up to qfx though (he's the technical guy, I'm the GM guy). qfx, thoughts? I do like Arguas' idea #4.

Quote from bloodydoves

Ok. Anyone else interested in this?

You've got a big huge YES OH YES I'M SO IN from me.:D

Quote from qfx

@Arguas2617: Thank you for your Ideas on Card Drawing, but I think that the one BloodyDoves should work well enough. However, if we should find fault with the system we are using then I will consider your Ideas again.

Sounds fair enough to me. Just potential ideas anyway

So is this version having a graveyard, or not? This one is a bit harder to set in stone, but it might work.

Yes, sort of. The basic idea is that you keep a running tab on what you've cast in a given game, and those expenditures are your "graveyard" of sorts. It'll be hard to communicate in-game, but I think I can do it (I've been fiddling about, and I think I've got it down pretty decently at this point).

I'm going to be in on this, seems very interesting to me.