Finest and Newest Legacy

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

Hey, folks.

The conversation around how to handle having both Legacies playing the same game has popped up a few times, recently. I’m going to try to make some time to test out how different concepts work for this. I’m interested in sharing to see if others can do the same and help come up with:[list][]how the concepts work, []which might be overpowered, []which might be underpowered, []which is most fun to play,[]if there’s anything that we’re missing in these descriptions (for example, rules implications to any of these that we haven’t thought of), and []which you just generally prefer to use (recognizing that we all have different styles and will likely have different preferences :wink: ).[/list]

Here are the three concepts I’m going with:

Concept 1 - Basic

[list][]Limited cards are limited for each Legacy (i.e., each can have Inspiring Presence out at the same time, but one Legacy can have two Inspiring Presences out at the same time)
[]In all cases, cards only refer to the playing Legacy [/list]
Concept 2 - Thematic

[list] []There can only be one Legacy Ring in play
[]With the exception of the Legacy Ring, Limited cards are limited for each Legacy (i.e., each can have Inspiring Presence out at the same time, but one Legacy can have two Inspiring Presences out at the same time)
[*]The following affect both Legacies:

[list] []Danger Sense
[]Fortitude
[]Next Evolution
[]Superhuman Durability
[]Surge of Strength [/list]
[]For Heroic Interception, the playing Legacy takes the 3 damage and only the playing Legacy is not protected by the second clause
[*]All other cards only impact/refer to the playing Legacy [/list]
Concept 3 - Full Concept

[list] []Limited cards are limited for both Legacies (i.e., only one of each Limited card can be in play at a time, so only one Legacy can have Inspiring Presence)
[]The following affect both Legacies:

[list] []Danger Sense
[]Fortitude
[]Next Evolution
[]Superhuman Durability
[]Surge of Strength [/list]
[]For Heroic Interception, both Legacies take the 3 damage and neither Legacy is protected by the second clause
[]Lead From the Front allows a choice of either Legacy when a hero target would be dealt damage by a villain card (so damage could actually be redirected from one Legacy to another)
[]Take Down deals damage to both Legacies
[*]Damage from the following comes from the playing Legacy (should be both, but there are too many rules repercussions to have multiple sources of damage):

[list] []Back-Fist Strike
[]Flying Smash
[]Motivational Charge
[]“THOKK!” [/list] [/list]

(If you don’t have an extra legacy deck, I recommend buying an extra deck from the >G store or taking an old set of playing cards and marking them up.)

Looking forward to the conversation! 8)

Russ

2

I can actually tell you about how this will go.

Option 1 is the most balanced. Due to Legacy being a pretty good hero anyway, having 2 of them is a LITTLE bit OP just on principle, but it’s just like playing Legacy and Ra or Wraith or something. Just powerful.
Option 2 is my favorite, but also brutally overpowered. (Also, Lead From the Front should work the same way here as in Option 3) double of everything means that both Legacies are at +5 damage, +2 DR, can redirect damage at will, etc. (Also, there’s the option of having the ring not limited; this IS a multiverse, after all)
Option 3 is actually pretty underpowered, I would think. Basically, since limited cards are shared between the two, they are each limited to half of their deck. Also, if they both take damage from things like Heroic Interception, they will lose health pretty fast. I guess it’s viable as a strategy, since it’s no weaker than using one Legacy, but not as awesome as option 2.

I think to compensate, if you use option one, H should stay the normal amount. For option 2 use H+1, and for 3 use H-1.

3

Since the official stance on playing with both Legacy’s is still “don’t” its hard to specifically argue against any of these.

However it still floors me that anybody would dream of making a case for anything but #1.

If you wanna OP the heck out of your characters, then fine, do what you want. If you just want to play a “normal” game with both characters because its kinda neat, then go with 1.

4

On the contrary. Christopher specifically confirmed at least a couple option 2 and 3 aspects.

5

I think it’d be kinda cool (and also vaguely thematic) to have them in some kind of tag-team scenario.

Say you’re taking Finest Legacy and two other heroes against one of the harder villains. Finest Legacy has been redirecting damage to himself all game and becomes incapacitated. Pauline has been hidden somewhere nearby, since her father didn’t want her involved in the fight, but seeing him rendered helpless is too much for her and she rushes the battlefield. Instead of removing all of his cards from play, Newest Legacy steps up and one of the following happens:

  1. she picks up all of Legacy’s equipment and deck where he left them, or
  2. she shuffles the entire deck plays from scratch alongside the two remaining heroes (or what’s left of them by now).

Perhaps incapacitated Finest Legacy can stay in play and provide the usual incapacitated assist, if you’re really struggling.

Now I don’t have a Young Legacy promo or anything so I can’t test this out, but… thoughts?

6

Yes I know. It’s difficult to say this considering, but I feel that was a huge mistake. My assumption here, knowing that Christopher pretty much knows what he is doing, is that he was referring to a very strict and literal interpretation of the rules, and speculating on the concept of something that wasn’t intended to be actually done.

The thing is that to get to this point you’re already breaking one rule (don’t use Legacy and Young Legacy together). There’s a saying in philosophy; “Given Absurdity, anything follows.” You’re probably already familiar with its mathematical cousin; the Zero-demoninator trick. Effectively, if you follow a strict application of standard mathematics, while allowing division by zero, you can “prove” that 2=1 or basically anything else you want. The moral of this story is after you’ve thrown the rules out the window, don’t go back to the rules and try to use them to prove you’re right.

Back to gamer lingo, just because its technically within some of the rules doesn’t mean you should do it.

7

That’s kinda the point, though. :slight_smile:

My original proposition isn’t what the rules prescribe. But it’s fun to play both Legacies in a game, so I wanted to figure out how to do that without breaking the game.

And what I find especially entertaining is how many folks are saying one option is overpowered / underpowered, but they’ve never played that option. Because these things don’t always work out as you think they should. :wink:

And Christopher is always in favor of us playing the game to have fun, so yeah, he supports things like this, but it’s outside the norm so I don’t think he’s messed with this, himself, he’s just thinking through what makes sense given the structure of the game.

8

if thats you’re concern, then 1.

9

Have you actually played the options? ???

10

You know, I had not.

And then I did. For you. I played the Full Concept route, the one that was suggested to be the weakest.

Disclaimer: I didn’t buy I second Legacy deck, I only approximated it by giving each Legacy hero 20 cards at random (IE: I split the deck in half). If a deck needed to be shuffled, I was going to shuffle the hero trash and the hero deck together, but the 20 cards Young Legacy gets at the beginning of the game are the 20 cards she keeps for the whole game.

WIth that said, the decks didn’t need to be shuffled because the game was over in victory in 4 and a half turns with the lowest hp hero at 18. This was against Baron Blade on hyper-advanced mode (advanced mode, but also trashing 2 cards per turn for the Impulsion beam instead of 1). I played on the Industrial Complex.

11

No results to add (yet?) but really enjoying this conversation.

12

The version I used is a mix of Concept 1 + 3. Basically, Limited cards are limited for both Legacies (i.e., only one of each Limited card can be in play at a time, so only one Legacy can have Inspiring Presence), and cards only refer to the playing Legacy.

I find it a good balance.

13

ketigid: That was actually my original Concept 2. :slight_smile: I changed it to this version after thinking through Christopher’s comment on the topic.

Played Full Concept tonight, adding Visionary and Fanatic to the team going up against Dawn. Unfortunately, Fanatic started with an End of Days then Visionary kept Dawn’s deck under control and keeping Dawn from flipping with Brain Blaze.

The Legacies had an entertaining game. There were moments they couldn’t play a card because the other had it out (such as a second Inspiring Presence, which is one of the main reasons I like this, as two IPs are really powerful), but they always had something else to play so it wasn’t a significant issue. Take Down did extra damage because it hit both but Fortitude helped keep that managed by reducing damage to both. Lead from the Front was played early but was never actually used. Other than that, the concept had little impact on the game.

It’ll be fun to see how more games work out… :smiley:

14

I’ll tried “DFNSS” affecting both Legacies too, and I find especially Danger Sense and Fortitude overpowered at least in Insula Primalis. But I’ve yet to try other environments so that might change things a bit.

15

Thought I’d post an update. :slight_smile: Unfortunately, I’m not playing as frequently as some other folks, and I’m not making the time to post the results as much as I’d prefer. (Real life tends to get in the way, unfortunately. Mind you, “real life” is often game prep for the RPG sessions I’m running, but… :wink: )

We’ve played a few games using this, focusing on Concept 3 – Full Concept, first. Here are my observations to date:

  • Having Surge of Strength, Superhuman Durability, etc. affect both is very useful, although I’ve never had a game in which we had more than one or two of these out at a time.[/][]Limited cards limited for both created a number of dead cards in hand (quite a few Inspiring Presences drawn, for example), which was a great balancer.[/][]Take Down hurting both can really add up! We had one game in which three were played, which really hurt (but we decided it was worth it, as three turns of no villain cards was very useful - and, admittedly, also very powerful, but we’ve had that come up in other games with similar hero cards)[/][]Heroic Interception is suddenly much weaker - in a 4-hero game, it only covers half the group. :-\ I’ve had it come up in every game played testing this, and never felt like it was useful, which is rarely the case when playing just one Legacy.[/][]The pros and cons really seemed to balance even better than I expected. 8) I’m not sure if this is Concept is fully balanced, but it’s pretty close.[/*]

I’m planning to try Concept 1 – Basic, next… :o

16

Well, Concept 1 - Basic provoked a lot of thoughts and comments.

  • After playing Concept 3 - Full Concept, Concept 1 was kinda boring. :-\ Concept 3 involved a lot of coordination between the two Legacies in addition to the usual coordination between team members. It also created more challenging and interesting choices. [/][]The ability to get out two Inspiring Presences (in addition to having an active Galvanize) was very powerful.[/][]The versatility of two Lead from the Fronts is impressive - and powerful.[/][]Other than that… Well, Legacy’s pretty powerful (as a support hero). Having more than one Legacy with nothing balancing out the effect is very powerful. Newest’s base power is a lot of damage, and when combined with everything else Finest provides, it really feels like too much. [/*]

In our bi-weekly group, we discussed options and felt like Concept 2 was probably going to be even more over-powered, but I’m going to try to work in some games to test it, anyway, as I know from experience things don’t always work as clearly as they look on the surface. (Probably be solo games, though, as I don’t think the group wants to even play it. ;))

17

So, as arenson9 posted, we recently played a couple games with a team of all 3 Legacies (Greatest, Finest, and Newest). We used Concept 1, described above. The team was amazingly powerful using Concept 1. At one point, we had all three Inspired Presences out, for example, and at a couple points two of us had the Legacy Ring out. Between those, nearly constant Galvanizing, the Kid’s Atomic Glare base power, and Gramps’ Gung Ho base + Motivational Charge, damage and HP were plentiful.

Seriously, we killed the Matriarch - the Matriarch - and all three were at max HP. :open_mouth:

Personally (and this is just me), given this and previous experiences, Concept 1 is too powerful and not as much fun as Concept 3. Concept 2 is the worst of both. That's just me, though - your mileage may vary (if you even care to try :wink: ).

 

18

For what it is worth, "Concept 3" is definitely the "most correct" interpretation of the rules (in spite of the fact that, by playing with multiples of a character, a fundamental rule is being broken in the first place.) - Concept 1 and Concept 2 are incredibly overpowered because they also violate a *second* fundatmental rule, i.e. "Limited cards are unique, in that only one card of that name can be in play at one time".