HoME Design Thread

[White Knight]

Summary so far:

Inspire Hope Suggestions
- limit it to one hero (Caps, Faure)
- all friendly unique heroes (WK)
- all friendly unique heroes w/dice roll (Underling)
- no Inspire Hope (SoA, IS, Caps)

Leadership
- small and medium only (IS, WK)

Normal Range
- Range 1 (Underling)
- Range >1 (Caps, Faure)

More Input Needed
I'd like more input from the other members about the above suggestions.

I'd be OK removing Inspire Hope. I just worry that Gandalf becomes a little plain (but maybe simple is good).

I agree Leadership should be limited to 4 spaces and should be restricted to small/medium figures (no lugging Q9 around).

If we change Gandalf's normal range to 1, I'd prefer to boost the attack to 6 (similar to Agent Carr or Sgt. Drake).

[caps]

I'm opposed to removing Gandalf's normal range. Strongly opposed.

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

I'm opposed to removing Gandalf's normal range. Strongly opposed.

Reasons?

(I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'd like to have good rationale for why we choose what we choose--especially for people who check in every once-in-a-while and don't understand why we made those choices.)

[faure]

I'd be OK removing Inspire Hope. I just worry that Gandalf becomes a little plain (but maybe simple is good).

I agree that it would make him somewhat plain -- you want some additional edge/distinction with Gandalf.

I agree Leadership should be limited to 4 spaces and should be restricted to small/medium figures (no lugging Q9 around).

Both of these restrictions are fine with me.

If we change Gandalf's normal range to 1, I'd prefer to boost the attack to 6 (similar to Agent Carr or Sgt. Drake).

I'm opposed to removing Gandalf's normal range. Strongly opposed.

I'm with Caps on this one -- I'm strongly opposed to reducing the range to 1.
Why? He's a wizard! It feels thematic for a wizard (like Sonlen, Arkmer, etc) to be able to affect more than just the immediate spaces around him. While the book doesn't overly describe his battle with Sarumon, I'm inclined to picture the movie version where they fought each other at Isengard with powers from their staves at range. I don't think it's a great range, no long-distance spell casting, but I think we have enough examples to justify.

[caps]

Originally Posted by White Knight

Reasons?

(I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'd like to have good rationale for why we choose what we choose--especially for people who check in every once-in-a-while and don't understand why we made those choices.)

Well, I think I've given my reasons before. All I really have to say right now is that it represents another aspect of his magical prowess and captures a number of moments in the book where he injured people from a distance..

[boromir96]

I'm fine with removing Inspire Hope to keep his points down.

I'm opposed to a range of 1.

Small and Medium heroes foe Leadership is good.

[underling]

For the sake of being able to move forward I'd say the following.

Keep the number of SAs at three. These guys (the heroes of Middle Earth) are supposed to be special. Every figure in the game has one special ability anyway. To give a hero like Gandalf only two doesn't seem quite special enough.

Keep his range at 4.

Slightly reduce the movement bonus of his Leadership ability to 4, as Cap has suggested. Also my logic for this would be that most normal movement of figures in this variant will probably be in the four to six range anyway, and I don't think a figure moving with this ability should be able to possibly move faster than their normal movement. A bonus of four will probably be at the bottom value of what most normal movement values will be.

Kevin

[Son of Arathorn]

I agree with keeping Leadership to Small and Medium Heroes, though I'd like to see the movement kept at 5.

The range should stay at more than 1, and 4 sounds fine. Some people interpret Gandalf differently, and an ambiguous ranged attack allows them to think of fire, lightning, the force he used against Saruman, whatever they like. It's also consistent with most Classic 'Scape wizards, and besides that, Blazing Strike isn't quite as special if you're going to use it all the time, which most people will if their only other option is an adjacent attack of 3.

I'm still in favor of either removing Inspire Hope or altering it. If we went with the second route, I'd like to see a defense dice re-roll aura, or perhaps a straight-up weak defensive aura.

[faure]

Sounds like we are moving towards:

Range 4

Leadership: small/medium Unique Heroes, move of 4-5

Inspire Hope: most seem to be in favor, but perhaps still some modification?
Options:
1) as is, choose one unique hero start of round, +1 attk/def for duration of round [good bonus even if Gandalf dies]
2) re-roll defense dice [or maybe re-roll all defense dice that did not show shields?]
3) defensive aura [I'm not inclined to this -- seems too plain, too broad an overlap with Raelin]

Here's another option:
At the start of the round, choose 1 Unique Hero within x spaces of Gandalf. For the duration of the round, add +1 to any two of the following for the figure: Move, Range, Attack, or Defense.
Reasoning: hope may affect different figures in different ways at different times -- Legolas attacks farther, Gimli fights harder, Hobbits flee farther, etc.

[caps]

Originally Posted by White Knight

NAME = GANDALF
GENERAL = JANDAR
SPECIES = MAIA
PLANET = ARDA
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = WIZARD
PERSONALITY = WISE
SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

STATS, MASTER/BASIC
LIFE = 7
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 4
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 3
POINTS = 180

BLAZING STRIKE SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 3.
All opponents' figures adjacent to Gandalf are affected by Blazing Strike Special Attack. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense dice separately. At the end of your turn, after using Blazing Strike Special Attack, you may move Gandalf up to 4 spaces. Gandalf does not take leaving engagement attacks when moving this way.

INSPIRE HOPE
At the beginning of the round you may choose one Unique Hero within 4 clear sight spaces of Gandalf. Add 1 to that figure's attack and defense until the end of the round.

LEADERSHIP
After taking a turn with Gandalf, you may move up to 3 Unique Heroes you control up to 4 spaces each. Any figures moved by Leadership must end their movement adjacent to Gandalf.

Based on our conversation so far, this seems like our best--unless we want to drop Inspire Hope.

Where are all our playtesters? B96? JS?

[boromir96]

Yes Alpha! Oh, I mean um... I'll get on it right away.

[faure]

I figured I'd wait until we had reasonable consensus.
Seems like we're close, so I'll go ahead with the above to playtest.