The Book of Judge Mortis

[A3n]

Generally looks good.

I like the idea of a decaying power but that current power doesn't feel like it's decaying. Here's 2 ideas, first one (my preference) to decay life, the second to decay attack (which could be swapped for defense).

DECAYING TOUCH
Start the game with 5 grey decay markers. After revealing a numbered Order Marker on this card before taking a turn with Judge Mortis, if he is engaged with an opponent's hero figure you may place decay marker on that heroes card. At the end of each round all figures with a decay marker on their card gain one wound. Judge Mortis is not affected by this special power.

DECAYING TOUCH
Start the game with 8 grey decay markers. After revealing a numbered Order Marker on this card before taking a turn with Judge Mortis, if he is engaged with an opponent's hero figure you may place decay marker on that heroes card. Figures subtract 1 from their attack value for each decay marker on their card. Judge Mortis is not affected by this special power.

I agree with the others about "The Shield" power triggering.

But the glyph doesn't feel like a shield but some sort of area trap. Apart from that I don't mind glyph (& disagree with Vigeon's concern about it) because the way it's worded at the moment once a figure has moved inside the shielded area they experience no other effect until they decide to move outside the area. So it's just a 50% chance of receiving a wound & stopping - same effect for all figures. Sure it's a 50% chance of dying if it's a common or squad figure but it's known risk before attempting it . Having said that the thing I don't like about it, is that it has a generic name but is targeted to be used only by Dark Judges.

[Tornado]

Thanks A3n. Your analysis is spot on.

The Shield is a trap! In the comics it is used to surround an entire building (like the one in the movie). This kept their victims in and kept the Judges out while they slaughtered. It is generic in name and apparently was a technology only used by the Dark Judges(but they most likely stole it from some victim). The radius of effect should actually be much more.

I think part of the problem is the power names do not reflect accurately what the powers do. Unfortunately it is exactly what the powers are called in the comics.
The Shield is called simply The S-S-Shield(they hiss their S's). I think perhaps we could change it to The Shield Trap or just Shield Trap.

Decaying Touch is the same way. The problem is when people think decay they think slow but in fact it is very fast. Death Touch would be more accurate but that is already taken.
When Mortis touches you, you are dead in mere moments. Once while hunting Rookie Judges holed up behind a security door, he simply touched the door that decayed away and he burst through. I think I would rather have a more deadly affect that happened less then something that happened more but did little or no damage.

I like the idea of Decay markers except for one major issue, it does not work on squads. Mortis would be more likely to go after weaker targets. I could never live with a Mortis design that could not use Decaying Touch on Civilians. That is his favorite thing.

I am not sure if lowering Defense is the way to go since that is the power we gave Fear and Fear's is written to work with Judge Death.

I would have no problem dropping The Shield if that makes it easier but I am less flexible on Decaying Touch. It does damage, instantly, with a touch.

DECAYING TOUCH
Instead of taking a turn with Judge Mortis, you may choose one engaged figure to be affected by Decaying Touch. If the chosen figure has exactly one Life remaining, destroy it. If the chosen figure is not destroyed and is a Hero, you may reveal an X Order Marker on this card and roll two(3?) unblockable attack dice against the chosen Hero.

See if that sparks any ideas.

I can provide some comic images of The Shield and Decaying Touch in action if that would help.

[Karat]

What about?

DECAYING TOUCH
Instead of taking a turn normally with Judge Mortis, you may choose an adjacent figure and roll the 20-sided die. Add 1 to the roll for each Wound Marker that was on the chosen figure's card at the start of your turn. If you roll X or higher, the chosen figure receives 1 wound and you may roll again for Decaying Touch. You may continue rolling for Decaying Touch until you fail to roll X or higher or the chosen figure is destroyed.

I'd give it a fairly high roll like 18 or so.

[Yodaking]

That would not be very effective against common heroes & squads though. After reading T's recap of the power as seen in the comics, I like his approach where he uses it on any figure with just 1 life left. Then he can be using it on common heroes and common squads all the time (and figures like Wasp), while only using it on the named heroes once they have already been beaten up and slowed down by injuries. He would be great at taking out the fully raged Hulk. You just would have to keep him alive and protected long enough for your opponents hardest to kill figures to get taken down.

The other thing that caught my eye was the instant decaying of a door, the castle door has always been a bit of a pain to deal with. Perhaps the power should also extend out to DO's, so he can touch and remove from the board DO's at will? Some of the DO's, like the trees, have effects that kick in once destroyed that could be quite useful for his team. Instead of trying to go right at the 4-life Superman, drop a couple of trees on him and try to bring him down to 1 life so you can take him out with the decaying touch as well.

[Viegon]

A couple possibilities:

1) The simple approach:

DECAYING TOUCH
Instead of attacking with Judge Mortis, you may choose a figure adjacent to Judge Mortis that has 1 Life remaining. Destroy the chosen figure.

2) The complex approach:

DECAYING TOUCH
Instead of attacking with Judge Mortis, you may choose a figure adjacent to Judge Mortis. Roll X combat dice, where X equals the chosen figure's remaining Life number. If you roll a skull on every die, destroy the chosen figure.

[johnny139]

Both of those are interesting powers, Viegon. I'd be curious to see how they play.

Beyond that I think I'm good with it... The Shield could have some wonkiness with throwers but I think that's something we have to live with. Is it thematic, though? Could Magneto throw a guy through it?

[A3n]

Originally Posted by Viegon

2) The complex approach:

I like this.

[Tornado]

I like that also. I was thinking auto-destroy might be a little much.

The one problem is that I do not think it will work with JD's Death Never Dies power. The power is worded that you must "attack and destroy" a figure to bring back JD. That is why the second part of my power I had Mortis roll attack dice, so at least he could bring back JD when destroying heroes.
So if we could word it so it would work with Judge Death then I am all for it. Great power V!

Could we possibly tweak that so it works better on DOs?

The more I think about it the more I like it. Catwoman would be nearly Decay-proof.

Originally Posted by Dysole

So most people that can move figures have a range of 4ish allowing them to safely sit outside the shield and toss a dark judge off the glyph and it goes bye bye. Is this okay?

~Dysole, probably doing this out of order

I apologize for not answering yesterday.
Great question.
The answer: unfortunately yes.
It would not happen in the comic because The Shield was activated inside a Mega-structure, so Magneto would not be able to see the Dark Judges to throw. However if the DJs were foolish enough to activate The Shield in a more open setting I see no reason why Magneto could not toss them or anyone else inside The Shield, including in to it, forcing a roll.

In the comics, anyone who touched The Shield was instantly destroyed.
Only Anderson was able to get through unharmed(which leads me to believe that The Shield is psionic in nature, the DJs are also psionic, though this is never spelled out in the comics.)
Of course this could never be for C3G. I could see making the range bigger if everyone is OK with it.
I really have no problem with the weakness of being tossed off the glyph. It feels right. You could always draft Shadowcat to protect the glyph holder.

[Viegon]

If you want Decaying Touch to work with Judge Death, it will need to be an actual attack; a power that rolls combat dice wouldn't activate Death's power. Maybe make it something similar to the Apokoliptian Weaponry where a certain roll triggers an auto-wound?

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Out of curiosity, why is Death limited to attacks to revive, but the Orange constructs get to come out from any type of kill? Seems a little weird to me considering how similar the two powers are otherwise. Right now, none of the powers suggested would work with JD very well.

[Tornado]

Took me a bit but here are the original posts.

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by Tornado

If there are no objections I would like to change DND to

DEATH NEVER DIES
When Judge Death is destroyed, remove all markers, including Order Markers, from this card and you may place his figure on the card of any Undead Unique Hero you control. When a figure with Judge Death on its card attacks and destroys an opponent's figure that is not an Android, Undead, or Destructible Object, you may immediately, if possible, replace the destroyed figure with Judge Death's figure.

Otherwise Special Powers, like Silver Banshee's Accursed Wail and Kirigi's Kyoketsu Shogi, would not work for DND. They would still both be good but not quite as effective.

My bad. I am surprised I never saw that before. If anyone is against it, I understand either way. I am not sure why I even worded it like that to begin with.

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Bingo. A gray area we've worked to avoid in powers like this.

Can we add a clause on to the end of Viegon's version that states "figures destroyed by this power are considered to have been attacked"?

I would still like to tweak it for DOs if possible.

[TrollBrute]

Was I the only one who liked the original Decaying Touch?

Originally Posted by Viegon

DECAYING TOUCH
Instead of attacking with Judge Mortis, you may choose a figure adjacent to Judge Mortis. Roll X combat dice, where X equals the chosen figure's remaining Life number. If you roll a skull on every die, destroy the chosen figure.

This works, but doesn't excite me much. I'm just not a fan of highly-swingy, auto-destroy powers.