The Book of Dormammu

[Soundwarp SG-1]

Originally Posted by dok

No concerns, although I find it pretty weird that he can inflict wounds to figures like Blue Beetle or Nick Fury or (worst IMO) switch out figures like Phoenix/Banner/Skrulls/etc.

Are there any figures with Astral Form, btw? Searchable index came up empty.

I guess I'm saying I find the first power to be somewhere between pointless (except the "starting on the card" part) and non-thematic, but I have no actual competitive concerns that you won't be able to solve by tweaking the life total as needed.

Astral Form is a power I cooked up for a Doctor Strange II design, though it could go on some other people/ other Doctor Stranges. Basic idea was a lot of Dr. Strange enemies are other dimensional horror types that would probably start off the battlefield, so it seemed like a cool idea for him to be able to effect them early. Batman gave Dormammu his power so that he could hit Strange back, though it also does a good job of representing his general otherworldly conqueror thing (he tends to screw with other extradimensional types a lot).

Personally I don't consider stuff like Fury to be a real theme fail. Not really who the power is trying to net, but Strange and Dormammu are both full of enough magic bs to justify it.

I'd argue Phoenix is actually kinda on theme. The Phoenix Force is (most of the time at least) a separate thing from Jean, Strange or Dormammu cutting to the chase and mystically draining it or what-not feels right on to me.

[IAmBatman]

Yeah, I don't agree with the theme fail there either. He's able to reach out from the other dimension and screw with people's souls to an extent, so you could justify him messing with people in just about any place in time and space.

Utility will be low, but it's more about his direct match up with a Doctor Strange card, so I like enough to keep it.

If folks want some things simplified there, I'm open to considering specific suggestions.

Sounds like the "round" thing is going to stay, likely with Ronin's proposed wording. I'll take a look at where the conversation is tonight and make a full update - but if you have thoughts or concerns, please keep posting in the meantime (I'll be off most of the day in class).

[Scapemage]

Wow, this design is awesome. Attacking figures off the board is super demon-like to me. I also love the D20 roll scaling down as the game progresses. My only really concern is that he doesn't feel like 660 points. He can reliably wound people, but at the cost of Order Markers that do nothing except that. He's a pretty plain 6/6 when he's in play (with Magical Defense to boot), but I'm not sure he'll climb that high. One way to find out, though.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

MD with 13 life and 6 defense will be a chore to take down, especially when you can't even target him early in the game but rather will have to take him down after a bunch of your figures have already been taken out. I'd start higher on the points as a result.

Originally Posted by Scapemage

My only really concern is that he doesn't feel like 660 points. He can reliably wound people, but at the cost of Order Markers that do nothing except that. He's a pretty plain 6/6 when he's in play (with Magical Defense to boot), but I'm not sure he'll climb that high. One way to find out, though.

There are some dissenting views on this. 660 points is very much an estimate built using the Heroscape Point Calculator (it actually had him at 650, but, come on ....). It'll be very open to adjustment during testing.

[Scapemage]

WOOPS 13 life. I was reading 6's across the board. 13 life with Magical Defense is nasty. Carry on.

[Tornado]

How are you going to test the Astral Form aspect when there is no figure with Astral Form?
Test it against Nick and Beetle and call it good?

[Ronin]

I don't think the Astral Form part is gonna drive the cost more than the off-the-battlefield part. Testing it against figures like Bruce Banner and Phoenix will be the key thing.

[Lazy Orang]

Honestly... I'm expecting to see his Life to drop if you want him coming in at anything under 1000. 9 Life is the highest I'd go with Magical Defence, really. (Either that, or you could give him a higher life and an ability that allows him to cast spells but not full MD.)
Otherwise, I love the design!

[dok]

I don't actually consider the ability to inflict off-battlefield wounds to be a balance issue. An OM to do a wound is potentially quite nice, especially on large maps and when paired with figures that don't mind turtling... but it's limited in the matchups it works against and it's really pretty bad once the battle is actually raging. And at 660 points you gave up a lot of other options to enable that one.

I just find it weird on theme that you could kill off Skrulls that are theoretically not a distinct being. Same with Banner who is theoretically part of the Hulk. But again, not a real balance concern, and if I'm the only one finding this strange then I can certainly get past it.

I actually agree that wounding Fury isn't that bad on theme, but by that logic, why limit it to figures not on the battlefield at all? Just let him wound anybody. Of course the answer would be that then it would be a balance concern. So, uh... yeah, don't do that, and aside from that you can ignore everything I've written up to now.

---

OK, back to doing my actual job: do we want to encourage the use of squads or multi-attackers or bonding builds here? Because the current wording of Ritual Summoning strongly encourages builds that can inflict damage multiple times per Order Marker. If we don't want that, you could re-phrase it something like:

RITUAL SUMMONING
After revealing an Order Marker on a figure you control and taking a turn with that figure, if you inflicted one or more wounds on an enemy figure that turn with an attack, roll the 20-sided die. Add the current round number to the roll, and add 1 to the roll for each wound you inflicted with the attack. Add 2 to your roll if the attacker has the Magical Defense special power. If you roll 21 or higher, place Dormammu on any empty spaces on the battlefield adjacent to a figure you control and take an immediate turn with Dormammu.

I added the line from Dracula's card too, because clearly this power needs more clauses.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Honestly... I'm expecting to see his Life to drop if you want him coming in at anything under 1000. 9 Life is the highest I'd go with Magical Defence, really. (Either that, or you could give him a higher life and an ability that allows him to cast spells but not full MD.)
Otherwise, I love the design!

I wouldn't be surprised if life comes down quite a bit too, but it's a very easy dial to adjust so I figured a close look in testing should suss this out.

[japes]

Originally Posted by dok

I don't actually consider the ability to inflict off-battlefield wounds to be a balance issue. An OM to do a wound is potentially quite nice, especially on large maps and when paired with figures that don't mind turtling... but it's limited in the matchups it works against and it's really pretty bad once the battle is actually raging. And at 660 points you gave up a lot of other options to enable that one.

I just find it weird on theme that you could kill off Skrulls that are theoretically not a distinct being. Same with Banner who is theoretically part of the Hulk. But again, not a real balance concern, and if I'm the only one finding this strange then I can certainly get past it.

I actually agree that wounding Fury isn't that bad on theme, but by that logic, why limit it to figures not on the battlefield at all? Just let him wound anybody. Of course the answer would be that then it would be a balance concern. So, uh... yeah, don't do that, and aside from that you can ignore everything I've written up to now.

---

OK, back to doing my actual job: do we want to encourage the use of squads or multi-attackers or bonding builds here? Because the current wording of Ritual Summoning strongly encourages builds that can inflict damage multiple times per Order Marker. If we don't want that, you could re-phrase it something like:

RITUAL SUMMONING
After revealing an Order Marker on a figure you control and taking a turn with that figure, if you inflicted one or more wounds on an enemy figure that turn with an attack, roll the 20-sided die. Add the current round number to the roll, and add 1 to the roll for each wound you inflicted with the attack. Add 2 to your roll if the attacker has the Magical Defense special power. If you roll 21 or higher, place Dormammu on any empty spaces on the battlefield adjacent to a figure you control and take an immediate turn with Dormammu.

I added the line from Dracula's card too, because clearly this power needs more clauses.

Just posting to go on record, and let you know...you aren't the only one that thinks it's a little odd, I just don't have an alternate to propose.

[Ronin]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Honestly... I'm expecting to see his Life to drop if you want him coming in at anything under 1000. 9 Life is the highest I'd go with Magical Defence, really. (Either that, or you could give him a higher life and an ability that allows him to cast spells but not full MD.)
Otherwise, I love the design!

Yeah, I almost suggested a pseudo-MD power, but this is a complex card, so I figured it made more sense to just keep MD and turn that dial on the Life, unless MD turned out to be a huge issue.