The Spellbook of Tarot: The Fool

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by quozl

I think the risk is important to the fool theme. Something like this:

I'd still add in a bonus on that 2nd roll, but since you don't know when you will need to cast it you could make it tied to the number of OM's on the casting figures card.

[MrNobody]

The main problem to me is that the spell currently really rewards you for taking it with an OM hub. Prof. X and Wanda, Zemo and Enchantress, Psimon and Jinx, so on. However, the character that it's designed for doesn't really have any thematic OM hub allies.

If you're playing a JLD army with Xanadu, Zatanna, Deadman, and Swamp Thing, there's not really an easy place to dump your OMs, and if you try spreading them out, you could end up getting screwed and losing an OM. Where as with a Prof. X build, you're getting that nice +12 for basically doing what you're already usually doing with your OMs. So I feel like there's almost a downside to playing it with the thematic builds instead of just tossing it into a random build.

This new version would still have a downside for losing, but that downside would be way more severe if you dumped all your OMs on a hub.

I also don't really think Xanadu (as a weak non-combatant) is really going to want many OMs on her own card. We could always change tacks there and make her an OM hub herself though.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I'd still add in a bonus on that 2nd roll, but since you don't know when you will need to cast it you could make it tied to the number of OM's on the casting figures card.

That looses a lot of the feeling of The Fool, to me - encouraging you to mass OMs one one person is part of the theme. The positive aspects are enthusiasm, energy, limitless potential, mirrored by recklessness - a youthful insouceance, as it were. If its a bonus you just might sometimes get, then it's not really encouraging that hell-for-leather enthusiasm of putting all the OMs on one person.

One way to discourage OM hubs might be to require the chosen figure to be out of the start-zone, of within so many spaces of an oppontent. That would do more to represent that idea of energy and recklessness, that isn't really represented by using it on Xavier or Waller sitting at their desk at HQ. Still works for frontline OM hubs (Reed, Pinhead, Luke Cage etc.) but even then, that feels a lot more thematic and less absusable.

[Yodaking]

Could just make it so you can only take turns with the figure who reveals the OM's win or lose. Then you are casting the spell and putting all your OM's on one figure who doesn't want to bond with anyone, ie. the Fool rather then the Leader.

[Lazy Orang]

That could work. I still want to see the risk of dropping an OM, but I like that.

[MrNobody]

So something like this?

You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power. At the start of the round, after rolling for initiative, you may cast this spell and choose a figure you control. Add 3 to your initiative roll this round for each Order Marker on the chosen figure's card and for the entire round after revealing an Order Marker on that figure's card, you may not use any special power to take a turn with a different figure.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

So something like this?

I'd do this:

You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power. At the start of the round, after rolling for initiative, you may cast this spell and choose a figure you control. Add 3 to your initiative roll this round for each Order Marker on the chosen figure's card and for the entire round after revealing an Order Marker on that figure's card, you may not use any special power to take a turn with a different figure. If you lose initiative, the player who won initiative may remove an Order Marker at random from the chosen figure's card.

[Yodaking]

Can we move this part to the end of the power here and on the last Tarot Spell card:

You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power.

I'm really getting sick of reading that line and it's not easy to just skip over to find where the relevent power text begins.

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

I'd do this:

Honestly just feels a bit complex to me. I think there's definitely a danger in overcomplicating a 10 pt spell, both from a card space perspective and a head space perspective.

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Can we move this part to the end of the power here and on the last Tarot Spell card:

You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power.

I'm really getting sick of reading that line and it's not easy to just skip over to find where the relevent power text begins.

I honestly don't have a problem with it, but I feel like I was told it should be at the top at some point? I'll re-read and if nobody actually said that, I have no problem with it being at the bottom cause I agree with you.

[MrNobody]

After sitting on this for a few days, I think I have two directions I could see pursuing.

1.

At the start of the round, you may cast this spell and choose a figure you control. Add 3 to your initiative roll this round for each Order Marker on the chosen figure's card. if you lose initiative, the player who won initiative may rearrange any Order Markers placed on Army Cards you control other than the card of the figure that cast this spell. That player may never reveal an Order Marker when rearranging Order Markers. You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power.

A tad more text (definitely a worry with these things), but if we could possibly toss out the "revealing OMs" line that would save some space.

I like this cause still encourages you to dump all your OMs on one guy, but discourages OM dump armies vs. armies where almost everyone is at least a decent pick for an OM (which is what JLD is shaping up to be so far.)

2.

At the start of the round, you may cast this spell and choose a figure you control. If all your Order Markers for the round are placed on that figure, you may add 10 to your initiative roll and for the entire round after revealing an Order Marker on that figure's card, you may not use any special power to take a turn with a different figure. You may not draft any other Tarot Spells unless you draft a figure with the Tarot Deck special power.

This one is totally simple. The risk is in throwing all your OMs for the round on one guy. I feel like it'd be really good at the beginning of the game to mobilize a heavy hitter early (pretty thematic), or towards the endgame (if you have a MD figure left) where getting that initiative swing could really change things.

This is mainly just an initiative boost with a slight chance of getting overly reckless, and I don't feel like that idea should be too complicated in design overall.

[MrNobody]

Oh, and I also went ahead and slid the drafting text down to the bottom like YK suggested. I think that makes sense from the perspective of a player having to read multiple of these cards per game. I guess pinging @Karat just to make sure that's okay makes sense, but if it is I'll make the same edit on the Magician as well.

[Karat]

Actually, I wonder if we can't just add that to the spell rules instead of spelling it out each time.