Black Panther (Avengers)

[Arkham]

And I do appreciate that. Would be pretty lame if it was a mad dash to convert things to gain control of the wheel, so to speak.

Since most are just going off Avengers, not calling out Visionary or King/Ruler, how do Professor X and Black Bolt figured into things, as likely non-Avengers? And Reed?

Is it a matter of needing Iron Man to recruit?

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Arkham

Since most are just going off Avengers, not calling out Visionary or King/Ruler, how do Professor X and Black Bolt figured into things, as likely non-Avengers? And Reed?

Is it a matter of needing Iron Man to recruit?

Here's a quick and dirty rundown of outgoing synergy:
Beast: Synergizes with Avengers + Mutants. No recruitment.
Doctor Strange: Synergizes with Avengers. No recruitment.
Iron Man: Synergizes with Avengers. Can recruit 3 figures.
Namor: Synergizes with Avengers, but if there's no Avengers around he can instead pick a Rival. No recruitment.
Reed Richard: In 1.0, worked with Visionaries. In 2.0, may work with Avengers + Visionaries, or maybe even Avengers + Science keyword?
---
Captain America: Fighter. Synergizes with Avengers. Can recruit 2 figures.

So tl;dr, yeah - builds w/ Xavier or Black Bolt are probably pretty dependent on IM for recruitment. But most build are also pretty dependent on him as their main source of turn efficiency anyways, so I'm not sure how many effective builds you're making without him.

[Arkham]

Gotcha.

I'm willing to compromise with that if we go Royal for the callout. That's fine.

[japes]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

Thinking about it for a bit, I think I'd personally prefer to stick with Ruler. One of the things we talked about when we created that Royal/Ruler divide was that they have different feels - Royals are just anyone with enough title (so we can play off certain tropes like Regal Decrees) while Rulers are characters who are actually leading or feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. I think there's some's thematic oddness in the Illuminati suddenly expanding to include Starfire or Etrigan or whoever. (Admittedly there's also some oddness to Mole Man hitching a ride on the Ruler train, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about that.)

Mechanically, I feel like all those new additions lose sight of the theme a little bit - we had some crossover Kings/Visionaries in 1.0, but Royal is already one of our bigger tags in 2.0, and it's likely to only get bigger. So it's a pretty big shift in terms of the group it's calling out.

That said, in practice we're looking at a tiny initiative boost here and recruitment on Black Swan, in terms of existing Ruler/King synergy on Illuminati stuff. Obviously, future things could come along. But it's not like it's severely shifting things if BP gets initiative boosts cause Geo-Force is around. The Black Swan thing is honestly more of a concern to me.

On BP's class, I'm not totally digging Fighter - T'Challa does sometimes hang around NYC as a more street level dude, but that feels like a fairly divergent take from the super strategist with the MCU-style knockback power it feels like we're representing here. So I guess I'd worry that he'd end up in the same Protector/Champion wheelhouse that Eric's BP conversion did.

So I dunno, I lean towards staying the course here, but I can see the other side.

This is my understanding as well and would be one reason I'd lean against Royal over Ruler.

I think both Visionary and Ruler fit fine for BP personally. I think Ruler is pretty ambiguous when it comes to good or bad.

As far as Namor and BP being enemies...isn't that the whole deal with Illuminati. Namor and Reed have way more history as enemies than BP and Namor and they manage to do this thing together.

Not as invested here as you guys are though and only know the faction from the few summaries and the workshop thread with no play experience so take it for what it's worth.

[MrNobody]

I think Royal is a fine compromise. Updated, let's go to Sanity Testing!

[IAmBatman]

Yea

[Arch-vile]

yea

[Arkham]

yea

[Karat]

Nay I still think FD should be based on the attacker and not the defender.

[Arkham]

If you want a light nerf on it, I don't think that's a big issue fwiw. I'd be fine with it.

Here's what you'd want if you go that direction, I believe:

FENDING DAGGERS 14
When an enemy within 4 clear spaces moves into engagement with Black Panther or an ally, you may roll a d20. On a 14+, that enemy takes 1 wound.

[IAmBatman]

Fending implies defensive/warding someone off. Not sure how it'd be fending daggers if you're using it aggressively?

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Fending implies defensive/warding someone off. Not sure how it'd be fending daggers if you're using it aggressively?

I believe Karat is suggesting the enemy that's moving into engagement, should be the one within 4 spaces, not the defender. The difference being, if it's the enemy within 4 spaces, that's his max range, and equals his range on his card. If it's the ally that needs to be within 4 spaces, the attacker could be up to 5 spaces away. It's a minor difference ultimately, but if that's a sticking point I don't think it's a big deal acquiescing.