The Book of Shade the Changing Man

[MrNobody]

The Book of Shade the Changing Man

C3G DC WAVE 39
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED


Comic PDF


Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Justice League - New 52 set.
Its model number and name are #012 / Shade the Changing Man.

_________________________________________________________________

Character Bio - Rac Shade is an alien from the planet Meta, recruited by Changemaster Wizor and given the reality warping Madness Vest. Sent to Earth without a single objective, Shade possessed the body of Troy Grezner, a convicted murderer about to be put to the electric chair. Now on the run from the law, who still believed he was Grezner, Shade met Kathy George, the daughter of two of Grezner's victims. After convincing her that he was not Grezner, the two quickly found themselves facing the threat of the American Scream, a corrupted spirit of the dark underbelly of the United States, and later many other threats.

Shade's Madness Vest taps into the chaotic energy source known as the Madness, granting him nearly unlimited reality warping potential. However, the Madness is extremely fickle, often reacting strongly to the emotional states of Shade and those around him and complicating their lives.
_________________________________________________________________

-Rulings and Clarifications-

• N/A

_________________________________________________________________

-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• N/A

Outgoing Synergy:

• N/A

Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses:

• N/A

_________________________________________________________________

-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• Shade is a good pairing with his on-again off-again ally John Constantine or their other Justice League Dark ally, Zatanna.

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Versions used listed in posts)
• Second playtest: Karat (@210, version used listed in post)
• Third playtest: Arch-vile (@225)
• Fourth playtest: LordVenoc (@215, Madness Vest roll dropped to 11 after 1st game)
• Fifth playtest: MrNobody (@195, D20 subtraction on Changing Man dropped to -2, Madness Vest failure mechanic changed)
• Sixth playtest: MrNobody (@195-190)

NEW VERSION

• Seventh playtest: MrNobody
• Eighth playtest: IAmBatman
• Ninth playtest: MrNobody
• Art: Comic, Figure, Background
• Art by Soundwarp SG-1

[MrNobody]

NAME = SHADE THE CHANGING MAN
SECRET IDENTITY = RAC SHADE

SPECIES = METAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = POET
PERSONALITY = MERCURIAL

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 5

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 4
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 185

CHANGING MAN
At the start of the game, place a combat die on this card. At the start of each round, roll the combat die. While the result is:
-a skull, add 1 to Shade's attack.
-a shield, all enemy figures must consider Shade a friendly figure.
-a blank, the most wounds Shade can take from an attack is one.

MADNESS VEST 11
Instead of attacking, you may choose 2 Unique Heroes within 4 clear sight spaces and roll the 20-sided die. Shade may be one of the chosen figures. If you roll 11 or higher, move a Wound Marker from one chosen figure’s Army Card to the other. After using Madness Vest, you may use it one additional time, choosing figures you haven’t chosen yet this turn.

GOOD TRIP, BAD TRIP
When rolling the 20-sided die for Shade’s Madness Vest special power, if Shade is not one of your chosen figures, you may add 2 to your roll. If you roll a 3 or lower for Shade’s Madness Vest special power, Shade may not move, attack, or use his Madness Vest special power for the rest of the round.

[MrNobody]

Comic Art

Spoiler Alert!

Feels like the comic art definitely has to be one of the long red-haired versions, as that's kind of his standard look and what the mini portrays.

My top preference would be to get some of the original Bachalo art on there, but the original run wasn't really big on doing big splash pages and stuff there aren't many great options.

Spoiler Alert!

I could probably find a few more if we needed them, but I've flipped through basically Bachalo's whole run and there's only a few really clear poster-y images of the character.

Next alternative for me would be just some random images of him from various places.

Spoiler Alert!

I don't really like Mike Alred's art style, but it is a nice clear image.


This one is technically Flashpoint Shade, but does anybody but me really care about that? They look the same.

Lastly, the mini is technically of N52 Shade. There are a few nice shots of him in Justice League Dark, but IDK, this version doesn't really "pop" to me.

Spoiler Alert!

Mini background

Spoiler Alert!

Eh, do whatever looks best with the mini. A surrealist look would be cool, but there's plenty of non-surrealist things that would work too.

[MrNobody]

Okay, here we go! Big passion project for me, so I just want to thank everybody who helped me come up with the ideas and all that.

Implemented some changes from LCW. Specifically, I removed the line about destruction from Madness Stream and also specified that Madness Vest is activated before rolling the attack dice.

My main worry is text space. He's reaaally pushing it, by my count. Maybe he'd be able to make it, but I'm not sure barely squeezing by on text space is my goal when designing.

[johnny139]

Really liked this guy back when we were brainstorming him, so it's cool to see him started. Here's my attempt to trim the wording a bit - I don't think it's too far beyond the pale.

CHANGING MAN
At the start of the game, roll a combat die and place it on this card. Any time Shade receives one or more wounds, re-roll die. While the result is:
-a skull, subtract 1 from Shade's attack and defense.
-a shield, all opponent's figures are considered friendly to Shade.
-a blank, the most wounds Shade can take from an attack is one.

MADNESS VEST
Shade rolls 2 additional attack dice when attacking an Insane, Troubled, or Unstable figure. Before attacking with Shade's normal attack, you may choose to count all skulls rolled as blanks. If you do, and you rolled more blanks than the defending figure rolled shields, you may either remove a Wound Marker from this card to inflict a wound on the defending figure, or remove a Wound Marker on the defending figure's card to inflict a wound on Shade.

MADNESS STREAM
At the end of the round, you may choose up to one figure you control adjacent to Shade and roll the 20-sided die. Place Shade on an empty space exactly X spaces away from his original placement, where X equals the number rolled, then place the chosen figure on an empty space adjacent to Shade. Figures moved with this special power will not take any leaving engagement attacks.

[MrNobody]

All seem like solid changes except for this part;

Originally Posted by johnny139

CHANGING MAN
At the start of the game, roll a combat die and place it on this card. Any time Shade receives one or more wounds, re-roll die. While the result is:
-a skull, subtract 1 from Shade's attack and defense.
-a shield, all opponent's figures are considered friendly to Shade.
-a blank, the most wounds Shade can take from an attack is one.

My intention with wording it the way that I did was so that potential future "Madness: designs could all interact with each other. If American Scream places a die on Shade's card, Shade gets 2 effects. So on and so on.

But if we need to cut that to make the current design work, I'm ultimately okay with it. Not planning to do the two additions in the immediate future, so seems better to focus on the present.

[Arch-vile]

He's definitely an odd one. I don't know the character, but I don't see any real concerns.

[Yodaking]

So he kind of has a Raven thing going on where he can attack his own allies in order to heal them, but takes on the wound himself, then can attack and opponent to transfer that would over to them. Interesting, since Raven can do it much more effectively it should'nt be anything concerning.

Don't know the theme well enough to say one way or the other, but Madness Stream seems ripe for a 'must' power rather than a 'may' power. Then it's less tactical in nature and I can see one ally say, "What's he doing?" then another says, "He doesn't know, he's mad!"

Just in case I make a William Wallace card one day, will poets have synergy with warrior poets?

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

So he kind of has a Raven thing going on where he can attack his own allies in order to heal them, but takes on the wound himself, then can attack and opponent to transfer that would over to them. Interesting, since Raven can do it much more effectively it should'nt be anything concerning.

There are 3 already-existing wound movers to my knowledge, with each of them being slightly different.

Raven
+Can move any number of wounds to herself
+Can move wounds to herself then to an enemy on the same turn
-Once per round and makes you lose all OMs on her card
-Faction specific

Red Skull/Cosmic Cube
+Generalist
+Can move wounds from allies to enemies
-Easy to lose the Cube
-Once per round

Trigon
+Can move wounds from allies to enemies
+Usable multiple times per round
-Only activates when a Demon is destroyed

And Shade would be something like;

Shade
+Usable multiple times per round
+Can be used to re-roll his Changing Man ability
-Can only move wounds to or from himself
-Requires rolling the dice right

I could see the multiple times a round thing being a problem, but being restricted to moving it to or from himself is a big limiter. Raven can take a wound off Nightwing and put it on an enemy in a single turn. If Shade wants to do that, it takes 2 turns and it even has the potential to fail.

Don't know the theme well enough to say one way or the other, but Madness Stream seems ripe for a 'must' power rather than a 'may' power. Then it's less tactical in nature and I can see one ally say, "What's he doing?" then another says, "He doesn't know, he's mad!"

In the first 18 issues of the book, he actually doesn't have any control over it. It yanks him where he needs to go to fight the villain. But after that he gains more control, and pretty much every appearance has shown him being pretty pinpoint in his control. I think choosing when to use it is a good middleground, cause you already don't get to choose the distance.

Just in case I make a William Wallace card one day, will poets have synergy with warrior poets?

A faction of Warrior Poets would actually be really fun.

[Ronin]

If we have to trim something for space here, I'd be looking at Madness Vest:

MADNESS VEST
Shade rolls 2 additional attack dice when attacking an Insane, Troubled, or Unstable figure. Before attacking with Shade's normal attack, you may choose to count all skulls rolled as blanks. If you do, and you rolled more blanks than the defending figure rolled shields, you may either remove a Wound Marker from this card to inflict a wound on the defending figure, or remove a Wound Marker on the defending figure's card to inflict a wound on Shade.

It's lengthy for what it's doing, and it's bit hard to track? Like definitely a power I had to read a couple times to get the gist of what's going on here. This is already a card that requires a not-insignificant amount of player management and I think it'd be good to streamline this for ease of play.

Like, if you throw out the "attack your own figures to heal them" mechanic, you can get it all the way down to something like:

MADNESS VEST
Shade rolls 2 additional attack dice when attacking an Insane, Troubled, or Unstable figure. When Shade attacks and you roll more blanks than the defending figure rolls shields, you may remove a Wound Marker from this card to inflict a wound on the defending figure.

You've indicated that the healing is pretty important to you, so I'm still kind of mulling over the easiest way to keep that intact. Maybe something like:

MADNESS VEST
Shade rolls 2 additional attack dice when attacking an Insane, Troubled, or Unstable figure. When Shade attacks and you roll more blanks than the defending figure rolls shields, you may choose to ignore any wounds the defending figure would have received and either remove a Wound Marker from this card or the defending figure's card.

Loses the 'transference' and switches to straight healing, so it'd be more powerful on friendlies and less on enemies. (Dropping the "count skulls as blanks" stuff does make it less likely to trigger, though, admittedly. One thing I wasn't thinking about in that initial rewrite is that you're not getting guarantees about not hurting them. That pushes him toward MD allies, though, which is nice)

[MrNobody]

Here's some thought just to share where I'm thinking.
-I really like where it's at now. I totally get what you're saying about overcomplication, but my end goal is going to be to keep as much of the "soul" of that power as possible.

-I want to keep transference if at all possible. Shade's power source isn't really a constructive force, it's a destructive one. It's a fairly major plot point that despite all his raw power he can't bring people back from the dead. So direct healing feels wrong to me. Transference makes more sense for how his powers work (he can't stop the hurting, just redirect it) and lines him up with other reality warpers like the Cosmic Cube and Trigon. Plus I really like the interplay between that and re-rolling the die on Changing Man every time he gets a wound.

-I don't think it helps at all that weird overcomplicated nonsense is kind of the Shade brand. The more streamlined and playable we make it, the less Shade it is.

What about something like this?

ATTACK = 3

MADNESS VEST
Shade rolls 2 additional attack dice when attacking an Insane, Troubled, or Unstable figure. After a figure rolls defense dice against Shade's normal attack, if Shade has more blanks than the defending figure, you may either move a wound from this Army Card to the defending figure's Army Card, or move a wound from the defending figure's Army Card to this Army Card.

It's closer to Zatanna's Sleight Of Hand than I'd like, but I suppose the power always was, just in disguise.

We could also do it without involving actually attacking at all.

MADNESS VEST
Instead of attacking with Shade, you may choose a figure within 4 clear sight spaces of Shade. Either move a wound from this card to the chosen figure's card, or move a wound from the chosen figure's card to this card.

We'd probably need to add some sort of qualifier like a D20 roll or something, and it gets rid of the bonuses against those affected by Madness. Overall not my favorite solution.

[Karat]

Definitely like that second one better.