I understand that some characters have the ability to nova: Haka with his Savage Mana, or Bunker with his Omnicannon. Those are one-ofs, though, and Ra seems to be able to consistently output ~crazy~ amounts of damage in even the early half of the game.
Here was Ra’s table, mid-game last night (it was endgame when his turn came up… but we were still under 9 turns, I think):
[list]
[]Flesh of the Sun God – Ra is immune to Fire damage[/]
[]Imbued Fire – All fire damage is increased by 1. || Change the damage type of damage dealt by the heroes to fire.[/]
[]Solar Flare – (x2) Increase fire damage dealt by Ra by 2. || At the end of your turn, either Ra deals himself 4 pyshic damage or this card is destroyed.[/]
[]Blazing Tornado – Ra deals 1 target 3 fire damage.[/]
[]Living Conflagration – Ra deals 1 target 1 fire damage. || You may draw a card.[/][/list]
Ra’s turn comes up and he plays Flame Spike (Ra deals 1 target 1 fire damage. || You may use an additional power this turn.) and wins the game using Tornado and Conflagration.
Here’s how the math came out:
Spike = 1 (card) + 1 (Imbued) + 4 (2x Solar Flare) = 6
Tornado = 3 (card) + 1 (Imbued) + 4 (2x solar flare) = 8
Conflagration = 1 (card) + 1 (Imbued) + 4 (2x Solar Flare) = 6
And he can drop that 20 points of damage in 1 turn, 3 times in a game (at least - this was one specific case last night). That seems a lot, compared to how long it takes Haka and Bunker to get off their one-shot novas. It just seems Ra’s damage scales a lot faster and a lot more consistently than anyone else’s (in the core game, I haven’t bought the expansion yet). Is something like this by design? Or was this just a result of synergies that all landed on the table at the right time?
Now… For a series of questions about a number of those cards, that I’m not clear on, if you have the patience.
(1) Does Solar Flare stack, since it’s not limited, and it’s not a “power” to activate? The “duplicate powers” section in the errata deals with things that activate, and not passives like SF, here.
(2) Is Ra, after applying Flesh of the Sun God, immune to Solar Flare? I see one of three ways this works: The psychic damage turns into fire damage, and Ra is immune to it, so it stays, OR the psychic damage turns to fire, Ra is immune, but the card checks for, “Did it do psychic damage? No?” and then disappears because the condition of dealing psychic damage was not met, OR the psychic damage turns to fire, Ra is immune, and since no damage is dealt the card disappears.
(If it’s the last case, I have another topic open about how the immunity rule works, and this will be solved when that gets answered.)
(3) Imbued Fire states (and even italicizes) that the damage dealt by heroes becomes fire damage. Does this mean “all hero cards,” or does it mean “all hero character cards?” I only ask because the distinction between “villain cards” and “villain character cards” was addressed in the errata for Visionary’s Wrest the Mind.