Help With Wurdz

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Hope you don't mind Scytale, but I went ahead and transcribed the card's text per Dad_Scaper's earlier request.

FLOWING OOZE
After a Yellow Ooze moves normally or with this special power, you may choose any other Yellow Ooze you control that has not moved this turn and was adjacent to this Yellow Ooze before it moved. Place the chosen Yellow Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control that moved this turn. If possible, you must place it adjacent to at least two Yellow Ooze that moved this turn. A Yellow Ooze moved by Flowing Ooze will take any leaving engagement attacks.

ENGULF
When attacking with a Yellow Ooze, you may add one additional attack die for each other Yellow Ooze you control adjacent to the defending figure.

OOZE REGROWTH
If a Yellow Ooze destroys a figure that is not destructible object with a normal attack, you may place one of your previously destroyed Yellow Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, Scy, for the opportunity to look at one of your excellent customs. I'll have a look at it tomorrow. And thanks, SW, for the transcription.

[Dad_Scaper]

And now, on to Scy's Yellow Ooze.

As Scy knows, I'm a big fan of his customs, but when I saw this one I thought "That guy," the Yellow Ooze, not Scy, "needs an edit."

So, let's see if I can help.

Originally Posted by Scytale

If you would be so kind, I have a card that's particularly difficult to word. I'd like any input I can get.

I love the theme. The manner in which it's implemented in the powers is very clever, but that cleverness comes at the price of simplicity.

FLOWING OOZE
After a Yellow Ooze moves normally or with this special power, you may choose any other Yellow Ooze you control that has not moved this turn and was adjacent to this Yellow Ooze before it moved. Place the chosen Yellow Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control that moved this turn. If possible, you must place it adjacent to at least two Yellow Ooze that moved this turn. A Yellow Ooze moved by Flowing Ooze will take any leaving engagement attacks.

The first thing I was going to suggest was the removal of the "for any reason" language, but that's already gone. Good choice.

After a Yellow Ooze moves normally or with Flowing Ooze, you may choose any other Yellow Ooze you control that has not moved this turn and was adjacent to this Yellow Ooze before it moved. Place the chosen Yellow Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control that moved this turn. If possible, you must place it adjacent to at least two Yellow Oozes that moved this turn. A Yellow Ooze moved by Flowing Ooze will take any leaving engagement attacks.

Yielding:

After a Yellow Ooze moves normally or with Flowing Ooze, you may choose any Yellow Ooze you control that has not moved this turn and was adjacent to this Ooze before it moved. Place the chosen Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control that moved this turn. If possible, you must place it adjacent to two Oozes that moved this turn. A Yellow Ooze moved by Flowing Ooze will take any leaving engagement attacks.

From 82 words, 453 characters, down to 75 and 412. Most of my edits were the removal of redundant words. On a Yellow Ooze's turn, for instance, the only type of Ooze that will be moving (limiting your design space, I suppose, but I doubt meaningfully so) are Yellow ones. So some of the "Yellows" can drop out, and if you can place one next to two Oozes, and there is a third as well, it is still placed next to two, so I dropped the "at least."

My goal here was just to tighten it up. The grammar & spelling & whatnot are all fine, which I'm sure is not a surprise to you.

ENGULF
When attacking with a Yellow Ooze, you may add one additional attack die for each other Yellow Ooze you control adjacent to the defending figure.

OOZE REGROWTH
If a Yellow Ooze destroys a figure that is not a destructible object with a normal attack, you may place one of your previously destroyed Yellow Ooze adjacent to any Yellow Ooze you control.

Scy, I think this card would look more 'Scape-y if you would change it to "an opponent's figure." Then you could drop the awkward "destructible object" language. Sure, you won't be able to devour friendly units to regenerate an Ooze at the front, but that may not be completely thematic anyway. Your call.

I also know you well enough to leave alone the "with a normal attack," though perhaps "with an attack" would serve your subtle purposes more simply. I will leave that in your capable hands.

See how the card looks with the shorter Flowing Ooze. I hope you like it, many thanks for sharing!

[Lazy Orang]

Just my two pennoth about the Marshal name - I'm not really seeing much of a problem, considering the general naming convention for Warforged (seems to fit in with Heirloom and Siege reasonably) - but maybe 'Martial' would be another good possibility? Or most other words that feel fairly militaristic, really.

[Dad_Scaper]

William, I genuinely & warmly appreciate you bringing me something to do when this thread was too quiet.

[Aldin]

Sanity check on Flowing Ooze?

Have you thought about how it works with roads? A single ooze on a road and adjacent to another ooze could potentially slingshot a trailing ooze 20 spaces or more in even a moderately large ooze horde.

~Aldin, going with the flow

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Aldin

Sanity check on Flowing Ooze?

Have you thought about how it works with roads? A single ooze on a road and adjacent to another ooze could potentially slingshot a trailing ooze 20 spaces or more in even a moderately large ooze horde.

Even without roads an ooze can be slingshot 20 spaces or more with a sufficiently large blob. In practice, though, it's much more difficult than you'd think. Nor valuable; rushing your blob headlong into your opponent's forces just gives you lots of dead oozes.

Your point about roads is a valuable one. It's a bit nuts how well an ooze can move along a road (due to the flat +3 along with the relative flatness of roads). But it's not worth trying to force another power on the crowded card to prevent it.

[Aldin]

No worries, Scytale. It's not like I'm sitting here thinking it's overpowered, just that there are some stupid ooze tricks that can be played. Moving your ooze becomes an exercise in marble madness, banking off height changes, sliding along roads and bouncing just right into bottlenecks

Fun!

~Aldin, getting oozed to the idea

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by Aldin

No worries, Scytale. It's not like I'm sitting here thinking it's overpowered, just that there are some stupid ooze tricks that can be played. Moving your ooze becomes an exercise in marble madness, banking off height changes, sliding along roads and bouncing just right into bottlenecks

Fun!

Exactly right. It seems so simple to roll up and Engulf somebody... until you actually try it. The "adjacent to two" restriction makes it surprisingly tricky when it's anything but a flat, open map.

And thank you D_S, for the wording suggestions. Numerous suggestions in my customs thread helped to refine the wording and your suggestions will help even more. It's still a complicated power, but that's the price I'm willing to pay for how well it works.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Scytale

Exactly right. It seems so simple to roll up and Engulf somebody... until you actually try it. The "adjacent to two" restriction makes it surprisingly tricky when it's anything but a flat, open map.

And thank you D_S, for the wording suggestions. Numerous suggestions in my customs thread helped to refine the wording and your suggestions will help even more. It's still a complicated power, but that's the price I'm willing to pay for how well it works.

You're welcome, Scy, thank you for the opportunity to leave my fingerprint, however light, on one of your excellent customs. I don't think it's bad that it's a complex power. I was commenting on its complexity only as an introduction to how I saw my task, in relation to this particular card. It looks like a lot of fun; I hope it plays the way it looks like it wants to.

As you noted in your own customs thread, the scariness of Engulf is at least partly mitigated by the fact that it's Ooze with the OM on it that has to do the attacking. That, along with the preference for placing a flowing Ooze alongside two of its brethren, where possible, should keep the power from dominating a game.

[Tornado]

Looking forward to trying the Ooze out as a neutral foe in a free for all game. It as an extremely creative design and looks like it would be super fun to get in a game. We usually play C3G though, so I may bump up its stats a tiny bit. Well done.

[Dad_Scaper]

IshMEL's Lord Revadac:

Lord Revadac

Miasma of Pestilence 11
When Lord Revadac receives one or more wounds from an adjacent figure's normal attack, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll an 11 or higher, the attacking figure receives one wound. Miasma of Pestilence does not affect Undead, Construct, or Soulborg figures.

Fit of Madness
Before taking a turn with Lord Revadac, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-2, Lord Revadac must either attack a friendly Squad figure this turn, or take one wound at the end of this turn.

Undead Attack Aura
All friendly Undead figures adjacent to Lord Revadac roll an additional attack die when making a normal attack.

Thanks, IshMEL, for sharing this excellent custom with the SoV and with the rest of us who follow that thread.

I like the name of the hero. When I think "cadaver," I normally think of something a medical student would dissect and not a mighty undead fiend, but it mostly works.

I have three problems with "Miasma of Pestilence 11," all of which have to do with the name of the power. First of all, this is a power that is clearly named especially for this unit. So the "11" can (and should) be dropped, in order to get the most out of the punch of the colorful name.

Second, a "miasma" is a cloud. It does not come and go. You explained that the idea is that it's like dust bursting from a cushion, which makes sense thematically. I don't think it's properly a "miasma," though; perhaps a "vapor" or a "fume." Also, I *love* the idea of a power using the word "miasma." If the canon is really missing one thing, it's that word, which is a good one.

Third, the "of" doesn't work there. Unlike "Fit of Madness," the second thing (pestilence) isn't really a type of the first thing (miasma). If you want to use the two words together, there is a simpler way: Pestilential Miasma. That works.

The cleanest resolutions for the second issue involve dropping the word miasma or changing the power, and I'm not crazy about either of those options. Either make it a proximity thing, or change it to "Pestilential Fumes" or something, but if you really like "Pestilential Miasma" I'd understand.

My ideal solution, as an editor and not a designer, is make Pestilential Miasma something that hits when you come next to him, maybe regardless of whether you are friend or foe. That would be cool. But that's not the unit you created.

Thanks again for sharing!