ScottManDeath's D&D Customs-2010-11-14-First Playtest post19

[ScottManDeath]

Towns of Valhalla*

I recently got a few D&D Miniatures for which I made customs to use along a town/city in scenarios. I made the cards such that they fit the numbers of figures I have. I tried to give them not too strong, but interesting and fun to play thematic powers that fall within their flavor.

Guard Captain (Zhent Champion) x3

For each Guard Captain acting out of duty, there is a corrupt one. Citizens of war-torn Valhalla accept that the differences are more of semantic nature ...

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/GUARDCAPTAIN.png

Door Guards (Human Town Guard from Lords of Madness, Greyhawk City Militia Sergeant from Night Below) x4

Towns are walled. Walls are gated. Gates are guarded. Guards hold halberds. Halberds cross the paths of scoundrels. Scoundrels have daggers. Daggers stab guards. Guards are going to die. Dying guards are summoned by Jandar to Valhalla. Towns of Valhalla are walled...

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/DOORGUARDS.png

Town Militia Men (Zhent Soldier, Mercenary Sergant, Devotee of the Silver Flame) x2

The Town Militia Men defended the towns and villages of realms long vanished and protected their citizens, ultimately with their lives. Though now aged and tired, they heeded Ullar's call and picked up the weapons and armor they brought back from wars long forgotten, ready to protect once more.

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/TOWNMILITIAMEN.png


Farmers (Human Commoner from Harbinger, Farmer from Desert of Desolation) x4

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/FARMERS.png


Credits go to tannergx, (+1) and Taeblewalker for suggestions regarding wording and power levels.

The full gallery can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms

*Unit name, (D&D Figures required) x how many do I have

[tannergx]

Hi ScottManDeath,

I rarely cruise the customs threads, but thought I'd take a look tonight and found yours. I think they are very good, and fill out roles in scenario play that aren't currently being tackled with D&D. Very thematic for play in town where I'd imagine most people in Valhalla would actually live.

The cards look great - pictures are dynamic, hit zones look official, fonts are sharp and consistent, and the stats seem well balanced with the costs. I really like how you gave them all classes that already exist in Classic Heroscape, and yet they closely fit the role of each unit. And none of the special powers feel arbitrary. Of the three, I think the Guard Captain is my favorite - Bribery is very innovative.

I think the only thing you could tighten up is the wording for their powers. For example, with the Guard Captain card you also reference a 'Captain of the Watch.' I suspect this was an alternate name for the same figure. There are also other little nit-picky things that jump out to me. Like the reference to "a Town Militia" as a single figure. Militia is a singular noun, but always refers to a group of individuals, consisting of reserve soldiers or militiamen. A single figure within the squad would be a "Town Militiaman" or something similar.

With the wording, it only jumps out because the customs themselves feel seamless with existing official Heroscape units. That and I have an English Lit degree. :)

If you are interested, I wouldn't mind trying to draft the wording to make it as consistent as the rest of the cards. It would take me a couple of days, and you could take it or leave it once I'm done. Let me know.

Cheers,

~tgx

[ScottManDeath]

Thanks for the feedback, I fixed some of my bugs. I'm glad you like them :)

I used the Magic Set Editor and the Heroscape templates (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=25594) from bmaczero, which makes it very easy to put the cards together. It takes care of fonts, images etc. It has all the Heroscape keywords in there, and all the unit types etc. So the Captain of the Watch was easy to fix, after you pointed it out. I also figured out that I can give it a separate name for the singular, so Road Strength now correctly references Town Militia Man as the singular. I'll change Protector to Protectors the next time I upload the pictures.

I was tempted to make the Guard Captain "Corrupt" instead of "Tricky", but in the end, I wanted to stay as close to the other Heroscape cards.

I think I'm gonna play the "English is not my first language card" ;) So yeah, I'd appreciate it if you would look over the templating, to make it more coherent.

Here are their abilities made quotable, so you don't have to type them all:


DOOR GUARD

DEFEND THE DOOR
After a Fortress Door rolls defense dice against a normal attack, you may immediatly take a turn with each Door Guard within 4 clear sight spaces of that Fortress Door.

FORTRESS DEFENSE 3
A Door Guard within 4 clear sight spaces of a Fortress Wall or Fortress Door adds 3 defense dice.

CROSSED HELBARDS
All small or medium opponent's figures that enter or occupy a space adjacent to at least two Door Guards may not move. Figures affected by Crossed Helbards cannot be moved by any special power on any Army Card or Glyph.

Guard Captain

ON DUTY
After taking a turn with this Guard Captain, a Guard or Protector you control within 4 clear sight spaces may make a normal attack against an adjacent figure.

BRIBERY
When an adjacent opponent's Unique Hero receives one or more wounds from a normal attack by this Guard Captain, its controller may remove a Treasure Glyph from that figure's Army Card and put it on this Guard Captain's Army Card. If he or she does, ignore any wounds that figure just received.

Town Militia Men

SOLIDARITY
When defending with a Town Militia Man, add 1 defense die for each other adjacent Town Militia Man, up to a maximum of +2 dice for the Solidarity power.

ROAD MOBILITY
If a Town Militia Man ends his normal movement on a road space, you may immediatey place him on any empty same-level space within 2 spaces. If a Town Miltia Man is engaged when he starts his Road Mobility movement, he will take any leaving engagement attacks.

ROAD STRENGTH
Add 1 to a Town Militian Man's attack and defense while on a road space.

[tannergx]

Thanks for tip on the Magic Set Editor and templates. I started on some customs over a year ago, and gave up thinking it would be too hard to make good looking cards. I will have to investigate this further.

I actually really like Corrupt as a personality. It fits the Guard Captain.

And I'm glad to hear you are open to input on the wording. These customs are just so good, that I'd like to see the wording look perfect. :)

I took a stab at a first draft for the Guard Captain:

ON DUTY

After taking a turn with this Guard Captain, you may make a normal attack against an adjacent figure with a Guard or Protector you control within 4 clear site spaces of this Guard Captain.

BRIBERY

When an opponent's Unique Hero possesses a Treasure Glyph and receives one or more wounds from an attack by this Guard Captain, they may offer a bribe. To offer the bribe, your opponent must remove a Treasure Glyph from the attacked Hero's Army Card, and place it on this Guard Captain's Army Card. After the bribe is offered, your opponent's Hero ignores all wounds they received from the attack.They are longer, but I tried to make them fit the style of wording on official cards. With Heroscape, the style is to clarify everything. Also, with Bribery I dropped the "normal attack" reference because the Guard Captain does not have a Special Attack.

If you like it, let me know and I'll keep going with the others. And if there is anything you'd like changed, let me know. They are your customs after all. ;)

Edit: I thought of a different copy draft for Bribery:

BRIBERY

When an opponent's Unique Hero possesses a Treasure Glyph and receives one or more wounds from an attack by this Guard Captain, the opponent may offer a bribe by removing a Treasure Glyph from the attacked Hero's Army Card and placing it on this Guard Captain's Army Card. Once the bribe is offered, the attacked Hero ignores all wounds it received from the attack.

[ScottManDeath]

Thanks for your suggestions, I think you have good points to make it read more coherently and concise.

Initially, I tried to express Bribery in rather abstract rules terms, instead of having am more flavorful description like yours.

However, Jotun's Throw special ability uses terms like "throw" and "land", so there is precedent for having terms that are more flowery than using just rules terms such as move, place, etc. Recently, Shurrok's Knockback also has "Knockback" used as a verb in the rules text. So using "bribe" seems to have precedent :)

Mind Exchange uses "control of the chosen Hero returns to the player who controlled the Hero before", so I use that now instead of "controller".

I felt a bit uneasy with "possesses a Treasure Glyph." I now use the template from the Feral Troll where it looks for markers on the defending figure's army card. "...recieves 1 extra attack die for each wound marker on the defending figure's Army Card"

I modelled the "ignore wounds" part after the Sacred Band's Defy Death "When an adjacent Sacred Band figure receives one or more wounds, roll the 20-sided die before removing that figure. If you roll a {param1} or higher, ignore any wounds"

I also made him "corrupt" Tricky is nice though, since it interacts with other official powers.

So here we go:

BRIBERY
When an opponent's Unique Hero with at least one Treasure Glyph on its Army card receives one or more wounds from an attack by this Guard Captain, the player who controls that Hero may offer a bribe by removing a Treasure Glyph from the defending Hero's Army Card and placing it on this Guard Captain's Army Card. If a bribe is offered that way, any wounds are ignored.

[tannergx]

BRIBERY
When an opponent's Unique Hero with at least one Treasure Glyph on its Army card receives one or more wounds from an attack by this Guard Captain, the player who controls that Hero may offer a bribe by removing a Treasure Glyph from the defending Hero's Army Card and placing it on this Guard Captain's Army Card. If a bribe is offered that way, any wounds are ignored.

ScottManDeath, I really like your choices here, especially dropping "possesses" and replacing it with "with at least one". Possession is not defined in the rules or on the card, so you were definitely right to drop it. There are just 2 fine tune edits I thought about:

with at least one Treasure Glyph on its Army card

Should capitalize the "c" on "card" to keep it consistent:

with at least one Treasure Glyph on its Army Card

and

If a bribe is offered that way,

Wanted to suggest dropping "that way" - there is no other way to offer a bribe (since you have invented and defined it :)).



Also, I put together a first draft for the Town Militia Men:

SOLIDARITY
When defending with a Town Militia Man, add 1 defense die for each other adjacent Town Militia Man, up to a maximum of 2 additional defense dice for Solidarity.

ROAD MOBILITY
If a Town Militia Man ends its normal movement on a road space, you may immediately place it on any empty same-level road space within 2 spaces. If a Town Militia Man is engaged when it starts to mobilize, it will take any leaving engagement attacks.

ROAD STRENGTH
Add 1 to a Town Militia Man's attack and defense while on a road space.

For Solidarity, I saw that you used the Roman Legionnaires as the template. But I think Heroscape style has refined a bit since that pack, so I used some language from the Feral Troll to update it. Specifically, I didn't like the "+2 dice" from the Roman's card, and used the following as a style template from the Feral Troll:

... to a maximum of 3 additional attack dice for Blood Frenzy

For Road Mobility, I introduced "mobilize" as an action much like "tunnel" is introduced with the Marro Drudge:

If a Marro Drudge is engaged when it starts to tunnel, it will take any leaving engagement attacks.

It seemed to me that you were using the Drudge's Swamp Water Tunnel as your original template. So I thought you might like the "mobilize" reference that connects with your power title.

The last thing that struck me is how comfortable we all are with powers that reference "road spaces" and applying them to wall-walk spaces when used on the "ground". As such, no point in over-clarifying I think.

Cheers,

~tgx

[ScottManDeath]

Cool, thanks. I made all the changes you suggested. I also changed Road Mobility to Road Mobilization, so the noun and the verb match, similar to Swamp Water Tunnel, which I indeed took as my template :)

I removed the "that way", which I added, since I'm used to read it from MtG cards. :oops:

[Taeblewalker]

I like the Guard Captain as is. The Door Guards might just add only 2 defense dice; three seems a lot, especially, since the castle wall and not just the door grants the bonus. You also might want to limit the number of Door Guards that get to take a turn to two.

EDIT: On reading the other posts, I think Corrupt actually works pretty well for the Guard Captain. I also like the wording changes suggested. Lastly, I read the town Militiamen and I like them too.

[ScottManDeath]

I like the Guard Captain as is. The Door Guards might just add only 2 defense dice; three seems a lot, especially, since the castle wall and not just the door grants the bonus. You also might want to limit the number of Door Guards that get to take a turn to two.
Good points, the current values are rather strong benefits.

So I changed the range of FORTRESS DEFENSE from 4 down to 2, which makes more sense flavorwise anyways. Also DEFEND THE DOOR now only grants a turn to all Doord Guards within 2 clear sight spaces. That should reduce the number of Door Guards affected, to a more resonable

Bribery, as it is now is a disadvantage for the Guard Captian, since the defending player would only bribe, if the defending hero would die through that attack.

So I was thinking of eather increasing his attack to 4 (which would make him a rather tough guard captian), or make the defending Hero take an automatic wound/ roll an additional unblockable die, if no bribe was offered. This would not affect common heroes and squads, but would making when to bribe a decision spending more thought on.

[tannergx]

So I was thinking of eather increasing his attack to 4 (which would make him a rather tough guard captian)That change would make the Guard Captains base stats on par with Brave Arrow... not unreasonable given their costs are the same. Another option would be to drop the cost of the Guard Captain. I don't think I'd mess with Bribery at this point - I think it gives the captain a flavor much like Hawthorne or Marcu and fits the Corrupt personality.

Forgot to mention that I liked how you went with Corrupt personality.:thumbsup:

Edit: I finished with edits to the Door Guard card, capturing everything I think was discussed so far:

DEFEND THE DOOR
After a Fortress Door rolls defense dice against a normal attack, you may immediately take a turn with each Door Guard you control within 2 clear sight spaces of the defending Fortress Door.

FORTRESS DEFENSE 3
A Door Guard within 2 clear sight spaces of a Fortress Wall or Fortress Door adds 3 defense dice.

CROSSED HALBERDS
All small or medium opponent's figures that enter or occupy a space adjacent to at least two Door Guards may not move. Figures affected by Crossed Halberds cannot be moved by any special power on any Army Card or Glyph. Made very few changes. Defend the door seems based off of Scatter, and I just clarified "control" and the "defending" door. You used "defending" Hero in Bribery, so I repeated that here. Fortress Defense seems templated off of the 10th's Melee Defense, and I didn't change the style at all. With Crossed Halberds, the templates seem to be Gladiatrons and Fyorlag Spiders (spelling out "two" instead of using the number "2"). So all I fixed here was some spelling issues - "halberd" instead of "helbard."

Lastly, I was thinking about Road Mobilization all day today. If the intent is to match the Drudge, then I think it should be Road Mobilize. The Drudge have "Swamp Water Tunnel," which is the verb itself in the power title. The equivalent to Road Mobilization would be something like Swamp Water Tunneling. This is a very obscure point; if you don't make another change to that card it wouldn't really make a difference. But I suspect you obsess on inconsistencies like I do. ;)

Overall, looking real good at this point. Can't wait to see the updated cards. :)

[ScottManDeath]

But I suspect you obsess on inconsistencies like I do. ;)

Guilty as charged :oops:

I adjusted the point costs, based on other HS cards: Guard Captain/Brave Arrow, Door Guard/ vs Sahuagin Raider, Town Militia Men/Roman Legionaires.

I also changed Road Mobilize back to the original version, where it can move to anyspace within 2 after ending its normal movement on a road tile. The intent is being able to road traverse with +3, and then attack something that is off-road, roaming around in the village. Or start off the road, move 5end the road, and then move 2 more.

And now the new units have some fluff text :)

[Taeblewalker]

You might want to specify on the door guard card that the power works on a door you control (i.e., have a figure on door space 4). It's a minor point, but as is, the power allows you to storm your opponent's castle and take turns with these guys.

Of course, you have almost no chance of getting them up to the door in the first place if attacking across the map, but I thought I'd mention it.

[ScottManDeath]

To make it less wordy (and avoid having to have another figure at door space 4), I'll make the "take a turn" trigger only by opponent's normal attacks. That should also prevent friendly figures shooting at the own gate.

[ScottManDeath]

After looking around for some more "civilized" D&D miniatures to go along with my guards (after all, guards should guard something;) ) I came up with this mockup of a common squad of 2 farmers:

Farmers (Human Commoner from Harbinger, Farmer from Desert of Desolation)

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/FARMERS.png

Field Provisions (pun intented :oops: ) is modelled after Hide In Darkness and Healing Word. Since there can be many (even though they are weak) Farmers on a map, 16 might be a bit to low , so I might make the feeding only work on a 19 or higher. (i.e. 16 on sand, 13 on grass).

I used "friendly Hero", so they can stand around as NPCs in a scenario where e.g. one player has to defend the village, and the other player has to destroy it.


I also found some more odd figures fitting the villagers faction, I'll see what I can come up with after my figures arrive from Auggies. I'm also going to make the door guards a squad of 2, since I found a matching figure. Also, the 3rd miliat men the top one) will be replaced with a more fitting one :)

[Taeblewalker]

Considering that they cost 40 points and have little personal combat potential, I doubt a player will have more than two squads on the board at a time. The number 16 is just fine. If you find another figure, you can lower their Attack to 1 and add a third figure to the squad.

BTW, why "Fearsome?"

[ScottManDeath]

Ah, I meant fearful. I dropped them to 25 and gave them mob attack. I gave them scatter initially, so they could move around like headless chicken when attacked. With the mob attack, they are like goblin rats, it sort of makes sense flavorwise more than having a reflavored Encircle Special Attack.


I wish there were another figure, I was quite happy to find the guy with the sythe, so I could make them a 2 person squad.

[tannergx]

ScottManDeath, I'm digging the continuation of your "civilians" theme. Curious to see the current card for the farmers with the Encircle special. And I'll keep my eyes out for a compatible 3rd figure.

~tgx

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ScottManDeath again."

[ScottManDeath]

ScottManDeath, I'm digging the continuation of your "civilians" theme. Curious to see the current card for the farmers with the Encircle special. And I'll keep my eyes out for a compatible 3rd figure.

~tgx

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ScottManDeath again."

I'm glad you like them :) As always, I'm grateful for comments regarding power level and wording.

The image of the farmers should have changed above. The Healer mini from Archfiends is borderline usable as a 3rd farmer, but it costs about $3.50 and is also hard to get, so I'm not sure I want to get 4 of them to supplement my farmers, especially since they are not perfect.

http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/TSR/TSR96625-09_500.jpeg

Every Farmer at night goes into a tavern, and hopefully doesn't turn this:

Tavern Brawler (Tavern Brawler from War of the Dragon Queen)

https://sites.google.com/site/scottmandeath/home/heroscape-dndcustoms/TAVERNBRAWLER.png

P.S. Hah, I put the images onto sites.googles.com, now I can upload updated images, without having to change the thread, since the URLs stay the same. I used Picasa and Google Docs before, which identify a file not by its name, but by an unique ID, so updating the images meant also updating the thread here. Google Sites is using the file name to identify a file, so now whenever I update the file, it will replace the previous version which will reflect here :) The downside is that I have only 100MB for free.

[ScottManDeath]

tannergx, (+1) and me did a first playtest yesterday in a scenario (which we'll post online once it's polished) where an invading army of Utgar/Valkrill (500 points) had to raid a trading post and kill the 8 Farmers by round 6. The defending army (400 points total, 100 of which had to be Farmers) had also 2 squads of door guards and 2 squads of the Town Militia Men, as per requirements of the scenario, which were supplemented by around 200 points of figures following the allied generals.

Resulting from that, a few changes were made to the figures in order to balance them and make them more fun to play.

Door Guards
The +3 defense within 2 LOS to a Wall/Door was just too tough, so we dropped the range to 1 and the defense gain to +1. They seem to be appropriately costed for a 25 points 2 person squad that way. With 4 defense, they are a decent blocking force, before the attacker can go and get the door, at 6 defense, they would have delayed the attacker too long.

Guard Captain
We noticed that he would only get order markers at the end of the game, when other figures were already destroyed, so we increased the (adjacent) attack bonding to 2 Guard/Protector figures [1] and removed the restriction of 4 LOS to make it more applicable in practice. Adjacent attack bonding is more conditional than full turn bonding, or just movement bonding since it requires the attack bonded figures to be engaged already.

[1]Blastatrons, Drow Chainfighter, Dumutef Guard, Granite Guardians, Gurei-Oni, Marrden Nagrubs, Obsidian Guards and Protectors of Ullar and the Town Militia Men

We also played with treasure glyphs, but there was no case, where bribing was of any consideration for the defending player, since at 3 attack, not many wounds were dealt in average, so the defending player would only bribe if his Hero was about to die.

Thus we added Greed (+2 attack if defending Hero has a Treasure Glyph) in order to make bribing a more viable option to consider for the defending player, because at 5 attack more damage should get through than at 3 attack.

That went along with a increase in points to 60 and getting up to 4 life.

Farmers
We dropped the Farmers attack and defense down to 1, to make them more in line with their role as cheap support commoners.

Also we replaced Scatter with a more flavorful Panic, where all Farmers that see another Farmer getting attacked run away screaming, but only 2 instead of 4 spaces. Panic without Disengage (like the rats) have is less useful, we compensated that by making it also work on special attacks, since we like the flavor of a dragon BBQing a Farmer, which causes the other ones to run away.

It was fun to see Cyprien gutting a Farmer and watching the others all run away :)

Town Militia Men
They stayed as they were, so far we didn't see any problems with them, given that they are rather straight forward. We had a cluster of 3 attack 5 defense Militia Men standing on a road, holding their ground, as they were intended to do.

[ScottManDeath]

Some ideas for a Prisoner, which we are thinking of using in a liberation type of scenario.

Prisoner (Prisoner from Night Below) x 4

http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/WOC/WOC10760-40_500.jpeg

Human
Common Hero
Prisoner
Rebellious

Move 3
Range 1
Attack 1
Defense 1
Points 10

GUARD
At the start of the game, choose a Unique Hero you control to be the Prisoner's Guard. If the chosen Guard is a Lawman or Guard, add 1 to that Hero's attack and defense when a Prisoner is within 4 clear sight spaces of it. Opponent's figures must be adjacent to attack a Prisoner with a normal or special attack when that Prisoner is within 4 clear sight spaces of the chosen Guard. You can choose only one Guard for all the Prisoners you control.

CHAIN GANG
After taking a turn with the chosen Guard, place any Prisoner you control that is within 4 clear sight spaces of the chosen Guard on an empty space adjacent to the chosen Guard.

[tannergx]

Really enjoying these town customs SMD. I ordered my minis for them last night. :)

Cheers,

~tgx