The Pre-SoV Workshop

[Dad_Scaper]

Don't sweat it. The tips I gave you in your customs thread will help you. If you have more questions or want to discuss certain of your ideas, post there.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper 101

I am very sorry, I will try to learn from my mistakes. There are things about this site I'm started to learn slowly.

No worries; you've had some great ideas that can definitely be developed further! This thread is just dedicated to aspiring SoV designs, which is more narrow than many customs aim to be. There's nothing wrong with making giant creatures that are massively powerful, but those generally don't quite fit the SoV's goals.

I'd encourage you to keep posting your ideas in your own thread, but don't be afraid to revisit them from time to time. I've found that balancing units mostly comes from refinement, from taking a step back and looking at what you've made with a fresh perspective. Your pace of new ideas is admirable, but I personally would like to see you keep adjusting your old ones as well. It's difficult to get it right on the first try (which I think is where the balancing problems lie), but there are some real gems there that could be polished to really shine.

I also know that it must be frustrating to not get much feedback on your customs, but I think that you could combat this by taking the time to respond to all of the feedback that you do receive. When people take the time to comment on your units, it means that they're genuinely interested in some part of them, so it can be disheartening to have their voices mostly ignored (or followed without question--we can be wrong, too!). Discuss the designs with them and find out what they like and what they don't, then evaluate what changes you want to make.

I hope that you don't let any of this discourage you, because this site is a fantastic community for a fantastic game, and there's plenty of room for your ideas here, too!

[Astroking112]

Miniature:

Spoiler Alert!

This miniature is the Wild Elf Warsinger from the Unhallowed DnD Miniatures line.

Traits and Abilities:

Spoiler Alert!

GENERAL = ULLAR
PLANET = FEYLUND
SPECIES = ELF
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = WARLORD
PERSONALITY = FEARLESS
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 2
POINTS = 65

DRAGON RIDER
At the start of the game, choose one Unique large or huge Dragon Hero that you control to be Eltris' Dragon Ally. Eltris and her Dragon Ally roll an additional die when attacking normally or defending against a normal attack while they are within 2 clear sight spaces of each other.

PASSENGER
After revealing an Order Marker on Eltris' Dragon Ally and moving it normally, if it began its turn adjacent to Eltris, you may place her on any space adjacent to her Dragon Ally.

ETERNAL HEARTBREAK
If Eltris' Dragon Ally is destroyed, she immediately receives 3 wounds.

I'd like to get some feedback on Eltris before I work on submitting her to the SoV. I've always been a fan of books such as Eragon, and looking back at the plethora of high-fantasy inspired units that we received, I'm a little surprised that we've never seen any kind of a dragon rider.

Mechanically, I didn't want her to be too complex (especially since she'll often be accompanying another unit), so I designed her largely as a passive buff to a single dragon of your choice (much like how the Greenscales must choose their Lizard King).

Despite only adding a single extra defense die on the surface, though, she can present interesting new layers of gameplay to dragons, both when using them and when going against them. Her form of reverse Carry gives the user new concerns when placing their dragons, such as how to keep her safe or even place her to safeguard the dragon, while the other player could either attack her with her lower defense or try to power through the buffed dragon in the hopes of Eternal Heartbreak crippling her.

Another thing that I was looking to create was an Elven Warlord, someone to bind the Elves and Vipers together in Ullar's army, so she also can be used in those formats. I don't think she brings much to a Roman army, but the Armocs share her point cost, which makes it a little easier to draft her into their army. Ideally, she should be somewhat like Sonya Esenwein: a good buff to something else, but also usable in other circumstances.

I'm specifically wondering about balance and overall theme right now. I'm pretty content with her method of adding an extra die when attacking or defending with her chosen dragon (any more might be too powerful, in my opinion, and the extra attack will mostly help Charos), and I'm a big fan of Passenger (although I'm not sure if it is worded perfectly yet), but I'm not completely sold on Eternal Heartbreak. It definitely feels thematic, but I'm not sure if it just needlessly complicates what should be a simple design.

[obfuscatedhippo]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

Miniature:

Spoiler Alert!

This miniature is the Wild Elf Warsinger from the Unhallowed DnD Miniatures line.

Traits and Abilities:

Spoiler Alert!

GENERAL = ULLAR
PLANET = FEYLUND
SPECIES = ELF
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = WARLORD
PERSONALITY = FEARLESS
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 2
POINTS = 65

DRAGON RIDER
At the start of the game, choose one Unique large or huge Dragon Hero that you control to be Eltris' Dragon Ally. Eltris and her Dragon Ally roll an additional die when attacking normally or defending against a normal attack while they are within 2 clear sight spaces of each other.

PASSENGER
After revealing an Order Marker on Eltris' Dragon Ally and moving it normally, if it began its turn adjacent to Eltris, you may place her on any space adjacent to her Dragon Ally.

ETERNAL HEARTBREAK
If Eltris' Dragon Ally is destroyed, she immediately receives 3 wounds.

This is an amazing concept! Would love to see some play-test reports.

She's probably best with Charos (he'd be a 6/6 with buff on Counter-Strike). That's pretty solid. Builds with Othkurik and Mimring would be interesting (they both need the defense boost).

Passenger is nice but I'm not sure when you would put OM's on Eltris except after your Ally was dead. I'd leave Heartbreak at 2 wounds instead of 3. Love the theme - thanks for sharing.

[Dysole]

I'd be worried about a greenscales Raelin Nilf Eltris build. Nilf is scary enough with 6 defense. 7 defense and 7 attack Nilf could be very unfun to play against.

The concept is really solid. I'd choose something like Rider's Heartbreak since it's a different power but can call back to the original power.

~Dysole, more of a Pern fan than Eragon (and her favorite Pern books aren't focused on dragon riders

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by obfuscatedhippo

Passenger is nice but I'm not sure when you would put OM's on Eltris except after your Ally was dead.

To be honest, I don't think an OM would ever go on her as her strongest abilities are simply buffing the dragon build she's in. On top of that, she's got some cool synergy with the LEGOS and so you can have her just bonding with her in a non-dragon build as a cheap 65 point hitter or throw in a dragon as well and the LEGOS just get her into position if she's not already riding with the dragon.

EDIT: oooo...just realized she also bonds with Armocs. She makes for a very interesting and synergistic unit. @Astroking112 have you price pointed her after having done tests with LEGOS and Armocs at least a couple times? Bonding can really change a units point value, even if it isn't their intended build or design.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by obfuscatedhippo

This is an amazing concept! Would love to see some play-test reports.

She's probably best with Charos (he'd be a 6/6 with buff on Counter-Strike). That's pretty solid. Builds with Othkurik and Mimring would be interesting (they both need the defense boost).

Passenger is nice but I'm not sure when you would put OM's on Eltris except after your Ally was dead. I'd leave Heartbreak at 2 wounds instead of 3. Love the theme - thanks for sharing.

I agree that she boosts Charos more than any other dragon, especially since outside of Nilfheim, they rarely use their normal attacks. His Counterstrike also gets more value out of the extra die (especially with 9 life), but I've never viewed Charos as being a problem when compared to the other dragons, so I'm fine with him getting the most value out of her.

I can think of a few instances when one might want to pull off a surprise attack with her instead of using their dragon, but it's admittedly rather niche and would be uncommon. Thanks for the suggestion on 2 wounds instead of 3 for the Heartbreak; I'll definitely consider implementing it.

Originally Posted by Dysole

I'd be worried about a greenscales Raelin Nilf Eltris build. Nilf is scary enough with 6 defense. 7 defense and 7 attack Nilf could be very unfun to play against.

The concept is really solid. I'd choose something like Rider's Heartbreak since it's a different power but can call back to the original power.

~Dysole, more of a Pern fan than Eragon (and her favorite Pern books aren't focused on dragon riders

I'm curious about why Greenscales would be a problem, since she actually works somewhat poorly with them. You would likely have to load OMs up on your dragon to get her into position, at which point I suppose you could always switch to focusing on getting the Greenscales to catch up (and shackling your dragon to a 2 space radius around her), but that leaves her exposed and the dragon's mobility very limited. Initially, I was actually concerned that she competed with Greenscales too much to have her own niche.

This might just be me, but I think that Raelin makes just about anything less fun to play against. That said, someone would have to drop 250 points for Nilfheim + Eltris, so adding Raelin takes the total up to 330 points (albeit Raelin can also aid the rest of the army). That's a massive chunk of most tournament games' prices.

Thanks for the input on Eternal Heartbreak. I was hesitant to rename it, especially since it is almost verbatim the same as an existing power, but I think I'll go this route if the number of wounds stays different from Sonya Esenwein's version of the power.

I can't say that I've read Pern, but if I have the time in the future, I'll definitely check it out!

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

To be honest, I don't think an OM would ever go on her as her strongest abilities are simply buffing the dragon build she's in. On top of that, she's got some cool synergy with the LEGOS and so you can have her just bonding with her in a non-dragon build as a cheap 65 point hitter or throw in a dragon as well and the LEGOS just get her into position if she's not already riding with the dragon.

EDIT: oooo...just realized she also bonds with Armocs. She makes for a very interesting and synergistic unit. @Astroking112 have you price pointed her after having done tests with LEGOS and Armocs at least a couple times? Bonding can really change a units point value, even if it isn't their intended build or design.

I agree that she won't see many OMs on her card, from being carried by the dragon to bonding with Romans and Armocs. I wasn't comfortable with increasing her attack, though, precisely because of how she can still work without a dragon, which is what led me to only give her the extra die when near the Ally.

I'm hoping to do some heavy playtesting of her in the coming weeks, since my finals just ended. I just wanted to take the chance to get feedback and catch any potential balance issues (such as Raelin, Eltris, and Nilfheim, as mentioned by Dysole) that need to be tested for. Since I'm pretty happy with the overall design, now it's mostly a matter of tuning. Romans and Armocs (along with each dragon) are all priorities on my list to test, along with a couple of games throwing her in as a random extra Elf.

[Dysole]

Seeing the OM reveal on the dragon would make it tougher to work with greenscales but I could easily see that being mitigated somewhat with good OM placement. Rats become far more worrying as a screen or really any other unit that can hold it's own and keep Nilfheim from being engaged (knights). Being able to encourage dragon builds without greenscales (or other bonding units for other dragons) is a good thing.

I'd also test Braxas and Quahon with Raelin and screen as well (Quahon liking the screen more). Charos is also worth testing against melee builds with decent support and Moltenclaw with an extra die could be very useful. If those dragons aren't unbalanced (my typical measure of concern is the army is able to beat other really good armies without needing amazing dice), I'd say maybe a couple brief games with Othkurik, Mimsy, and Brimstone just for sanity's sake.

Raelin can make many units very frustrating, but as a part of the game, she'll need to be considered especially since she often shows up in top tier dragon builds.

As for changing the name of the power, it's already a different power than Eternal Heartbreak since it names "Dragon Ally" rather than "Cyprien Esenwein" so it'd get changed anyways.

As for Pern, it's solid but there's a loooooot of books. Having not read Eragon, I can't comment on how similar they are.

One last note, I like this unit and think the idea and flavor are solid. Assuming you've tested it properly, the biggest opposition you're likely to encounter is of the flavor " dragons don't really need the help and I worry this makes them too good". I received similar pushback from Executioner and rats, but because I'd done enough playtesting to know she didn't wreck anything and the base concept was good enough, she was able to make it through to testing stage where the judges were able to determine she didn't unbalance rats or other soulborg builds. So, my recommendation to you is to make sure you've got this unit right before you submit it to minimize the amount of pushback you could receive from a unit that makes dragons better (albeit in an interesting way in my opinion).

~Dysole, who will admit she's not psychic and unable to determine if other issues would arise, but right now she sees that as the biggest one

[Scytale]

Dragons are not something that needs a boost, but this booster seems well thought out. That 65 pts is no small thing to add to a Dragon to boost its stats. It seems dangerously potent, but also costly enough that it may not be broken. The bit about revealing an Order Marker for Passenger is brilliant in that it prevents the Greenscales-Dragon-Eltris combo.

"Warlord" feels out of place. I get that you're going for synergy, but it just doesn't fit with the unit, neither the class nor the synergy. The Dragon focus is all this unit wants or needs.

If your version of Eternal Heartbreak has a different number, you do have to give it a different name, if only adding a "3" at the end. I'm not sure if keeping the name "Eternal Heartbreak" is the better way to go or not, since it cares about a different unit, but I at least like the attempt to keep the name the same. This is something we could hash out between the ERB and Editing if the unit passes.

[Kinseth]

Really cool figure, I'd leave heartbreak at 2 and call it a day there.

[Dad_Scaper]

I like the idea of reusing Eternal Heartbreak, and I have a suggestion for solving the riddle of how to make it work.

I always understood the "Eternal" to be a reference to Sonya's - and Cyprien's - nature as undying creatures of the night. Simply rename the power "Heartbreak," and you will have both the reference to that power and the freedom to tweak it as needed.

[superfrog]

I like the unit as well, and I also think that Warlord seems shoehorned onto the card.

Obviously it's hard to judge the balance of a card like this just by Theoryscape, so I'd be extra diligent on the playtesting before submitting if I were you.