[Pod 1] Velkhor (Ob Nixilis, Demon of Spite) - Playtesting

[All Your Pie]

@Fakeraistlin
@Jaur0n
@lefton4ya

Are we happy to move forward with Velkhor as the name for this unit? I'm still happy to take other suggestions here. Once we've landed on something definitively I'll propose the vote to move into testing.

[lefton4ya]

How about Malacoda, references

character in Dante's Inferno

character in Dante's Inferno

, and means "bad/evil tail" in Italian - the figure looks like a lot of depictions of the character in the book and his powers goes along with as well. The character has been referenced/copied in a lot of games as well such as Castlevania, Resident Evil, & Yu-Gi-Oh; I don't know if that is a good or bad thing if we wanted to use the same character/name, but is just a good suggestion if we didn't want to create an original name. I'd also accept any other demons from mythology or literature. Other suggestions include: Wormwood, DeSaad, Mephistopheles, Morgoth, etc, but Malacoda seems like best of those IMHO, but I'd be OK with Velkhor though as well

[Ericth74]

Malacoda does sound pretty good

[Heroscaper Guy]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

How about Malacoda, references character in Dante's Inferno, and means "bad/evil tail" in Italian - the figure looks like a lot of depictions of the character in the book and his powers goes along with as well. The character has been referenced/copied in a lot of games as well such as Castlevania, Resident Evil, & Yu-Gi-Oh; I don't know if that is a good or bad thing if we wanted to use the same character/name, but is just a good suggestion if we didn't want to create an original name. I'd also accept any other demons from mythology or literature. Other suggestions include: Wormwood, DeSaad, Mephistopheles, Morgoth, etc, but Malacoda seems like best of those IMHO, but I'd be OK with Velkhor though as well

And if not, there's a whole long list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_theological_demons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_theological_demons

(I'm fine with that name along with Belial, Asmodeus, Astaroth, Malphas,Dagon, Beleth, and Aamon)

[lefton4ya]

Nice reference. I think Malacoda, Abaddon, or Merihem from that list as most looking like and having nature of this figure and powers we have, as well as cool names.

[All Your Pie]

Apologies for being slow to respond to this. Wasn't able to formulate my exact objection at first so I let things sit too long.

I do, however, feel strongly that not everything we come up with should be a reference. In fact, I feel it's most scape-y for referential names to be few and far between. Plot and theme hasn't been quite ironed out for this set, but there was some discussion about this unit being the main villain, yes? If so, the set will have a lot more character and identity if we come up with our own name rather than lifting one from mythology, however obscure.

I'd be happy to go with Malacoda and corrupt it some to give it a little more flavor, or to stick with Velkhor as previously discussed. But since I'm sure plenty of this units in this set will be discussed as having potentially referential names (and, indeed, several already do) I'd like to push back on that trend where I can.

[Pumpkin_King]

I like Malacoda, for what it's worth.

[NecroBlade]

Just passing through and had a couple comments:

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

18. Is it clear which powers are mandatory and which are optional? Frailty Aura is as mandatory as other defense-reducing powers. It's not clear if Demon's Vulnerability Spirit is mandatory or not, though the FAQ makes it clear other Spirits are optional, so that would apply here as well. Does anyone mind if I add a "you may" to Demon's Vulnerability Spirit to make it clear?
I do like adding "you may" as otherwise if none of your opponent's have uniques left then you'd have to put on yourself.

All powers are optional unless otherwise stated, so there's no need for "you may" here.

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

21. Does any power's name or wording unintentionally prohibit the power's reusability? Frailty Aura is nicely reusable. Do we need "Demon's" in front of "Vulnerability Spirit?" "Demon's" doesn't seem to add anything, and makes the power name less reusable (and longer).
I'd be OK with removing "Demon's" and also we can add "2" to the end, so "Vulnerability Spirit 2" but maybe not.

I should think some kind of "X's Vulnerability Spirit" would be preferable, as a throwback to RotV and Thorgrim and Finn's "Warrior's Armor Spirit".

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

All powers are optional unless otherwise stated, so there's no need for "you may" here.

Not true, rather the opposite in most circumstances. For example, anything that gives or removes attack or defense dice, for example, in inherently mandatory.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Not true, rather the opposite in most circumstances. For example, anything that gives or removes attack or defense dice, for example, in inherently mandatory.

I was thinking of Grimnak's ruling, but the Anubian Wolves ruling contradicts that, which is a shame because I like anything that can save words. Oh well.

[Astroking112]

Something that came up in recent testing is that the Frailty Aura power text can be misleading. It sounds pretty good to me right now, but considering that this is a Master Set meant to hopefully introduce new players to the game, I figured that it was worth running this suggestion by the pod:

FRAILTY AURA
When an opponent's figure within 4 clear sight spaces of Atrixus rolls defense dice against a normal or special attack, if more than one shield is rolled if two or more shields are rolled, subtract one from the number of shields rolled.

There's no mechanical change, but it reduces the room for misinterpretation and hopefully makes the intent clearer. Given that our intended audience is going to have plenty of other stuff to focus on, I think that it's worth consideration.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

Something that came up in recent testing is that the Frailty Aura power text can be misleading. It sounds pretty good to me right now, but considering that this is a Master Set meant to hopefully introduce new players to the game, I figured that it was worth running this suggestion by the pod:

There's no mechanical change, but it reduces the room for misinterpretation and hopefully makes the intent clearer. Given that our intended audience is going to have plenty of other stuff to focus on, I think that it's worth consideration.

Doesn't seem any better or worse to me. I'm fine with it.