So my friends and I have been playing this amazing game ever since PAX-East a few years ago when I stopped by the GTG booth and got hooked. A buddy and I split the base set and Rook City expansion and instantly began playing, almost daily. Well here we are now, and after years of game play and two more expansions we still love playing the game at least once a week.
With that, we have noticed a few heros being some-what "under-powered" and thus we began tossing around the idea of what some simple modifications we could do to "fix" them. When thinking up these changes we tried to keep to 3 principles:
1. The changes should be fair and balanced.
2. The changes should be in-line with the Heroes super powers / backstory.
3. The changes should be simple and easy to understand.
Anywho, now to the good stuff, here is the (updated) ideas we came up with for possible variantas of Expatriette...
- Bullet Proof - Power: Regain 1 Hp. Expatriette gains damage reduction 1 until the start of her turn.
- Tactical Re-deployment - Power: Draw 1 card. Expatriette gains damage reduction 1 until the start of her turn.
- Belt Fed Ammunition - Power: Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Put all revealed Ammo cards into play or into your hand. Shuffle the remaning cards back into your deck.
- Sniper - Power: Deals 1 target 1 irreducible projectile damage. If that target is destroyed draw a card.
I kind of like the Bullet Proof card because it can help her if she is stalling out trying to find a gun. It provides here with some defense but defense that comes at the expense of offense (if you have a gun).
The Belt Fed Ammo I might say it can only put the ammo in your hand. It would work very nicely inconjunction with speed loading without giving too much on its own. I see this as an opportunity to not shoot and spend time loading every few turns for more powerful attacks later. She would only fire every every other or maybe 2/3 turns possibly and spend the other finding ammo to load up with. I suppose that even if you left it as is the speed loading would guantee an ammo on the top of your deck so there is still some synergy.
For Sniper I don't have too much of an oppinion. I don't think does much mechanically with her deck, but its fine. There are plenty of other counter attack mechanics in the game.
My buddies and I have been playtesting the Power: Bullet Proof, and we like it. Its not over powered yet still useful and adds a different element to her game play and deck. I also really like it as I see it as Expatriette shooting off her guns, then ducking behind cover and reloading her guns and treating her wounds only to pop back up and shoot yet again.
My buddies and I have been play testing the Power: Tactical Re-Deployment (which is really a varient of Bullet Proof) and we also really like it. Not sure which is more fun, more useful, least broken ect... yet more play testing is required.
Also updated the first post to reflect the new Power we came up with (i.e. Tactical Re-Deployment) and modify the Power: Sniper, as per Hearteaters suggestion.
Tactical redeployment just might be the fix I would like to try, or maybe snipe if I feel it is too powerful. I feel the biggest flaw of expatriette is lack of card draw and lack of actual useful one shots (appart from RPG launcher none come to mind) to justify playing more than one card. I might feel a little reduction in overall hp to say 26-27 and a roughed up maybe slightly singed look could be in order. Would represent a nasty encounter with citizens that lead to a more careful approach.
I like the tactical redeployment a lot. It reminds me of Redeemer Fanatic. I think RF might be fantastinc with Expats deck, I wonder there are any other interesting combos of one hero using a different hero's deck.
For some reason I want to call tactical redeployment "Take Cover". I think you mentioned the idea before of Expat ducking behind cover and bandaging herself. I see this one similarly as her ducking behind cover and then using that to check her gun and ammo situation.
Some time ago, I had the concepts of Setup Cards for Heroes (and potentially for Environments as well). It would be similar to a villain setup card. The default startup action for a hero would be to shuffle the deck and draw four cards, while a hero with a setup card in play would be to instead follow the setup (and later gameplay) sections of the setup card. The gameplay section of the card would be like having an indestructible keywordless card in play from the start of the game.
The card I created for Expatriette (in the idea of simply making her fun, not necessarily balanced, and untested at that) would have this:
Setup: At the start of the game, shuffle Expatriette's deck and draw three cards.
Gameplay: Whenever Expatriette destroyes a target, you may draw a card. Whenever Expatriette uses the power of a Gun card which does not have an Ammo card played next to it, destroy that card.
I like it too. You could even have sets of setup cards which form a scenario. For example, the top card gives Expat a group of abilities (and even disadvantages) which represents her being on a certain stage of an adventure. Then for the next fight, you use the next setup card, which would have new effects as the story moves along. Only thing keeping me from making a bunch of these myself is the play test time I don't have to devote to it.
We had a similar idea on the forum that someone would setup a game with a short narrative. The narrative would describe the scene, which heroes and villains, which cards start in play, how much hp everyone has, etc. A bunch of people would play the same scenario and send in the results. The next person would setup the next game based on the results, and we would start again. We are still waiting for someone to setup the first game. Any takers?
That does sound really cool. I have been creating some scenarios which add different objectives and some gameplay changes for the 6v2 games my group has been playing (whenever we manage to get together). I'll see if I can come up with something like a setup for a regular game this weekend. Will post it if I manage to come up with something playable.
So as to not create a new thread, I'll ask about my idea on Pat:
Load: Play a card. If you do, draw a card.
Every turn Pat is using Load, is a turn she is not doing damage and Pat is all about getting guns down and dealing damage. This helps with Pat's shortcoming, which is accessing the cards she wants to play. I probably doing "...if it's an Equipment card, draw a card" but still have to try it out to see if it matters.
It was a bit of a let down on 2 games yesterday to have her get tactical shotgun out, Incendiary Round, later Pride and Prejudice and finally be able to play an Unload (that is, quite an awesome hand/play) and acknowledge Tachyon ended up doing more damage than her anyway (team was Tachyon, Unity and Expat vs Ambuscade. Unity also did more damage too).
edit: oh well, doing some searching in the forum found this idea posted quite a while ago. NVM.