I think this is the first suggested fix in this thread I like. I love Fixer and find him to be immenently useful and fun to play, but the idea of him doing something as he shifted from one style to another is pretty great.
I do agree with a lot of people that Fixer's use isn't meant to be damage, rather, Mr. Fixer is all about utility. Get some options in your hand through Tool Box and Meditation (Scrap Yard can be used if the villain has actually destroyed things, in which case you'll be every other equipment user's best friend anyway). Then, just go with the flow of the battle.
Lets think about numbers plasticbrain. Ra - damage dealer hero deals on turn in which he uses his play phase to augument his powers (for example playing imbue fire) deals with his basic power 2+1+3 maximum damage. Three for fire tornado, one for imbued fire and one for a staff. It`s total of 6 damage. Your version of fixer deals 1+1+1+1 twice. Strike + tool + grease monkey style + harmony and change of the style + grease monkey style + tool + harmony. It`s two more than the hero whose job is primarily dealing damage.
I'd be resistant to version of Strike that requires me to destroy Styles. Change that to "You may destroy a style card. If you do, deal 1 target 1 damage," and we're in business.
With this wording, Mr. F doesn't get the benefit of the style he's destroying on the second packet of damage. Not sure if that was intentional or not. You could do "You may choose a Style card in play. If you do, deal 1 target 1 damage and destroy the chosen Style card." That gets kinda wordy and clunky though.
I'm not really going to comment on plasticbrain's suggestions, as I'm not big on changing the cards, myself, but I did want to comment on your analysis, as you've compared Ra's base ability with cards in play to Fixer's base ability with cards in play and playing a card (because you'd have to do that to destroy a style), which isn't exactly a fair comparison. Throw in Ra playing a card (and he has a lot of damage-dealing cards), and the comparison is probably more appropriate.
I don't really remember. It was quite a while ago, but I think you were in that game, Reckless. I think the problem was that I couldn't get both a tool and a style out because I had to return a card to my hand every turn, and I just didn't have enough cards on the field.
I analyzed situation in which he play a card imbue fire - a card that let him modify his playstyle. Card fitting for the current situation quite nicely. And no - letting change of the styles don't make him more fluid or anything - it make him overpowered powerhouse. If we let him get his style go back to his hand that means he can play overdrive every turn ( because overdrive is nothing more than deal one target one damage if played on his turn ). And if we don`t let him his style go back to his hand we just added 10 new overdrives like card to his deck. Thats around 16 overdrives on his full deck if we count salvage yards. Thats 20 total damaging cards that he have in this situation in his deck - and normally he should have only 9 of damaging cards in his deck. Thats doubling the ammount of damaging cards in his deck!
@soul31: i wasn't suggesting that the "1 damage" text go on every style necessarily, but rather that every style have SOMETHING happen when it is destroyed, to make the Styles more useful. "When this card is destroyed, get an equipment card out of your trash." or "When this card is destroyed, draw a card." or 'When this card is destroyed, destroy a non-hero ongoing card." or etc...
Last night my group tried out Mr. Fixer using a version of plasticbrain's suggestion to get him to cycle through his styles and tools in a more fluid way. It worked out very well, and I'm planning on making an alt version of Fixer's oversized card that uses the new power. The power we used was:
Strike: Mister Fixer deals 1 melee damage to 1 target. If a Style or Tool card was played this turn, increase this damage by 1.
The effect was that you get rewarded for swapping in new styles and tools throughout the game (rather than sitting on a hand full of styles/tools you don't want to play), and even if the new style/tool isn't the perfect one for the situation, the +1 damage boost makes the change still worthwhile. But it doesn't feel so mandatory that you feel forced to do it every turn even if you've got other plans.
Unfortunately, the wording we chose means that you'll get the +1 the first time you lay out a Style or Tool, even if you're not swapping them, but we thought that was acceptable. The alternative, since different things happen to Styles and Tools when you replace them, would have been to use some tortured wording that says something along the lines of "if a Style card was destroyed this turn or a Tool card was put back into your hand, increase this damage by 1", which we wanted to avoid.
I'll post a note when this alt version of Mr. Fixer has been added to the accessories on my site, in case anyone else wants to play with this.
You could also word it "If a Style or Tool card left play this turn, increase this damage by 1," if you want a more streamlined version. I actually like the flavor of getting the boost the first time he plays one better though. It makes more thematic sense for him to get a little boost for surprising his enemies with a new tool or stule than for losing his stuff, and it smooths out those first couple turns while he's getting set up.
It may just be me, but I've never really needed any extrinsic motivation for changing styles and tools. The battle changes over time naturally, and I just adapt to it when necesary. Sometimes there are a lot of foes I need to hit at once, but later on I'm more concerned with just hitting one target really hard, so I switch things up. Not every tool is needed every battle, but I usually find something useful pretty soon into the game. I like to think of him as a damage specialist, meant for wedging his way into enemy defenses and prying them open.
It looks like the idea of a "Synergy" ongoing that raises your damage on turns where you change tools/styles was brought up during playtesting( it later became Harmony), but seemed too artificially forced and not very thematic to have him trying to change his moves frantically, regardless of whether it was needed.
Actually, looking over the old playtesting forums for Rook City, I see there was some talk about Mr. Fixer lacking ways to build up power as the game progresses. I can sort of see what they meant. In my experience Mr. Fixer does a lot of the building in his hand rather than the play area. But now I'm curious-- would it be fun to have some way for him to "build up Chi," as the RC playtesters put it?
I gave this some thought last night, and I don't think implementing something like this would be as radical a change as one might think. Just for fun, I'm going to try a game with him using these changes:
Overdrive's keywords are (Ongoing, Chi).
Overdrive's text reads, "POWER: Use Mister Fixer's "Strike" power X times this turn, where X = the number of Chi cards in play plus 1. Then, destroy this card."
So mechanically it will do the same thing as before, but now multiple copies can be saved up for a series of "Flurry of Blows" strikes. For added fun, I might try giving Harmony the Chi keyword, too. Maybe even have Meditation make Chi cards indestructable until the start of your next turn( or maybe just the end of this one, I feel like this could end up getting really silly).
I've added the "Stance Shifting Master" alt Fixer card to my oversized cards and have posted it on my site for anyone who wants to grab it. I used the Mr. Fixer art from the hp tracker card that >G put out with Rook City, so it looks different from the base Mr. Fixer card.
i like the interpretation. much easier to implement than a change to all the Style cards and gets the job done in respect to making it feel like there's a reason to play your cards when you're playing this Hero.
(but Spiff, i can't find where you've hidden him at your site?)
I added his alt tracker to the normal .zip of hero oversized card trackers. So download that .zip and it's in there (at least, it's supposed to be and be sure to let me know if it's not).
I think of Mr. Fixer as being in the same group as Absolute Zero, the Argent Adept and in some cases Nightmist and Unity.
They can all be fine on by them selves. but to shine they need time or a teammate to help them get set up (drawing cards/playing them).
So to say hes under powered or needs fixing beacuse his bace hit is 1 or he realise on set combos is a little silly when Absolute Zero needs modules to not hit him self and still has a bace hit of 1. And you can be stuck looking for that one instrument as the Adept that synergises with what ever rhythm, harmony and melody cards you have.
Those are my favorite people to play as because of the set up required. Some games youll save the day and other times youll get the team killed miling your deck.
Adept has four Instrumental Conjurations and multiple forms of draw acceleration. Fixer has Meditation and Toolbox and that's it. If he's out a Tool, he'll be hitting one target for two at the most (Possibly more if he has an Overdrive or a Strike in his hand, but it'd be a pretty lackluster play that would prevent him from Toolboxing more cards to his hand). Abs can search for his Modules, and has a few cards for draw acceleration. Unity has multiple draw acceleration cards and can handpick what Golems she needs. Nightmist is a monster on her own for getting what she needs when she needs it. It's great that he can look for his Styles, but Fixer has no means to get a Tool he needs unless he draws it or it ends up in his trash and he Scrapyards it back to his hand. I like him as a character, but there seems to be a lot of games where he needs a gratuitous amount of hand-holding to function at all.
hes not going to be soloing any bosses but hes great agenst hevy minion villans with his jack handle and tire iron.
Ive played a few games where we just let Unity destroy Mr. Fixers tools when the situation no longer called for it.
With a little help from Argent Adept we were able to play greese gun 5 turns in a roe.
Useing a turn to stop all villain/environment targets from doing damage, or useing salvage yard to let evryone get all equipment back can change the tide of the fight (hopefully for the best).
and gets the job done in respect to making it feel like there's a reason to play your cards when you're playing this Hero.