The Book of Beyonder

[Hahma]

Seems like the proposed changes should help Bats. He can still feel like Beyonder but not feel so much like Beyonder that he totally sucks to play against. I can imagine how lame it would be to sit there and watch your army kill each other and not have any control or recourse and can't even get out of your own starting zone.

Perhaps healers like Wolvie and Deadpool as well as some special d20 defenses to help keep your army alive when they fight each other. You kind of have to build an army that counters itself against it's units to help minimize damage when Beyonder is doing his nasty work.

Nice work on this by the way you playtesting machine

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by Hahma

Nice work on this by the way you playtesting machine

Thanks. I took the day before yesterday off, though!

Originally Posted by Hahma

Seems like the proposed changes should help Bats. He can still feel like Beyonder but not feel so much like Beyonder that he totally sucks to play against. I can imagine how lame it would be to sit there and watch your army kill each other and not have any control or recourse and can't even get out of your own starting zone.

Yeah, it was pretty rough. A lot of fun for the Beyonder side of things, though, and definitely felt thematic! I just think it needs to be reeled in a bit.
Also, it seems silly, thematically, for Beyonder to make guys fight when he can't even see them. He'd want front row seats!

Originally Posted by Hahma

Perhaps healers like Wolvie and Deadpool as well as some special d20 defenses to help keep your army alive when they fight each other. You kind of have to build an army that counters itself against it's units to help minimize damage when Beyonder is doing his nasty work.

Yeah, with almost 2,000 points, it's hard not to take units that can devastate your own guys! For instance, Thor was forced to use his God of Thunderstrike in his startzone, and Red Skull Dust of Deathed Silver Surfer. Doom's Elaborate Pit Trap did at least stop a turn or two in there, which was nice, though.
Spidey having his D20 power and being the last figure left besides Thor (and not being very good at hurting Thor) helped keep those two alive several more rounds, though. It took me about two rounds too long to realize that with just Thor and Spidey left I shouldn't bother with Mere Pawns anymore, and should switch to using Beyonder's normal attack from height on Thor. If I'd done that sooner, I doubt Beyonder would've taken more than like 15 wounds. Beyonder, on perpetual height, would've been 8 attack/7 defense, against Thor's 8/8, meaning Beyonder would probably just take a few more wounds than Thor before finishing Thor off.

[GreyOwl]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Also, it seems silly, thematically, for Beyonder to make guys fight when he can't even see them. He'd want front row seats!

I think this is perfectly thematic, because he's omnipotent. He has front-row seats even he doesn't have line of sight.

That being said, I think all your suggested changes are good. I knew he'd have to be tweaked some way or another, it was just hard to say how without the playtesting.

[IAmBatman]

Cool. Well I'll wait until the OP is updated with the changes and resume testing at that point.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by GreyOwl

I think this is perfectly thematic, because he's omnipotent. He has front-row seats even he doesn't have line of sight.

That being said, I think all your suggested changes are good. I knew he'd have to be tweaked some way or another, it was just hard to say how without the playtesting.

Yeah, there has to be a little break in theme for the sake of gameplay as it doesn't do us any good to design a unit that nobody wants to play against because it's totally unfair and not any fun. Glad you agree with the changes Bats suggested as I think it's important to have playability and fun while maintaining as much theme as we can in achieving the playability aspect.

[GreyOwl]

Okay, I think I got all the changes updated. You might want to make sure I didn't miss any though.

[IAmBatman]

Looks good. Just a couple of small wording nitpicks - the second "instead" is redundant in Mere Pawns. Also, I think you should say "up to 2" and "up to 3" unique heroes so it's clear that he can use the power even if he's choosing only one unique hero.

[GreyOwl]

Done.

[IAmBatman]

OK, I retested the second test and added it to that spoiler. Please check it out for questions on direction moving forward!

[Hahma]

Hmmmmmmmm............. well after reviewing your latest test results and comments Bats, there are two ways to look at this.

1. We move forward with him at 2000 points with 35 lives, which will afford the use of option 1-13 for Mere Pawns more often as at 2000 points you will be more likely to have other Heroes in your army than at 2200 or higher.

2. We move forward with him having 40 lives and maybe 300 more points and a little less likely to have other Heroes in his army unless people are playing 3000 point armies.

I guess option 1. would be more likely to use all of his powers, thought goodness gracious he'd be scary with Mister Mixosplsyxt in his army

[IAmBatman]

Yeah ... I guess I'm not too worried about him having anybody else in his army or not, so I don't mind seeing us rocket past 2,000 here. But 2,000 is a nice round number too and I think he could come in there with the life back down to 35.

[Hahma]

I guess not having someone else in his army isn't too bad either as it would make the roll for Mere Pawns more of a risk and not an auto benefit for him. Even if we did go higher it would be a good idea to keep that 1-13 option just in case people have a massive Event Hero beat down with Anti-Monitor and a bunch of heroes vs. Beyonder and a bunch of heroes.