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The Book of Joker (Injustice League)

Ronin

Ronin

Symbiotic
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The Book of Joker (Injustice League)

C3G DC WAVE 38
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED

C3G_JokerIV_comic.png

Comic PDF

C3G_JokerIV_mini.png

Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the World's Finest set.
Its model number and name are #054 / Joker.​

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Character Bio - Stop me if you've heard this one! A clown, a scientist, and a gorilla walk into a bar...
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-Rulings and Clarifications-
  • N/A
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-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:Outgoing Synergy:
  • N/A
Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses:
  • N/A
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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips--Heroscapers Community Contributions-
 
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Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

NAME = JOKER
SECRET IDENTITY = ???

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = ANTAGONIST
PERSONALITY = INSANE

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 5
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 3

POINTS = 245

JOKER'S FALL GUYS
At the start of the game, place a black Injustice Marker on this card for each Unique Hero you control with a class of Antagonist, Criminal, Misfit, or Thief, to a maximum of 3. When a Unique Hero you control is destroyed, you may immediately remove an Injustice Marker from this card to end the current player's turn and move any 3 figures you control up to 4 spaces each. Figures moved with this special power do not take leaving engagement attacks.

PERNICIOUS PRANKSTER
When the 20-sided die is rolled for Joker or a Hero within 5 clear sight spaces of Joker, if X or lower is rolled, you must choose either that Hero or a figure adjacent to that Hero to receive a wound. X is equal to 2+ the number of Injustice Markers on this card.

CHEAT DEATH 11
Whenever Joker would receive enough wounds to be destroyed, roll the 20-sided die. Subtract 6 from your roll if you do not control any other figures. If you roll 11 or higher, ignore those wounds.

Original design:
Spoiler Alert!
 
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Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Comic:
Spoiler Alert!


Mini:
Spoiler Alert!


4566825662_5194ea3b6a_b.jpg
 
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Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Alrighty - I know some people were looking for shuffled/tweaked effects out of the convo in the LCW, but most people seemed generally on board with the take. So I'm starting with pretty much the same design - just a couple power name tweaks so far.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

My thoughts on Fall Guy haven't changed from the LCW, still think it needs something to be more relevant. Just don't see what it does for me at the moment. Too random of a trigger to be reliable.

Haven't been keeping up with the Injustice League discussion, not trying to re-open a can of worms here, but what is the thinking behind the class list. I'm guessing Antagonist is this teams Champion and every 'leader' will have it, but then Misfit and Psychopath seems like his normal circles. I don't know this run at all, was HQ a regular member? I see Psychopath gets you Zoom, who else does it pull that is a regular member? Justice League has ~10 fairly regular members, who are the top 10 Injustice League members we are trying to team up here?
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I mean, it ends the enemy's whole turn on top of giving you all the free moves. It's not 100% reliable, but I've definitely rethought who I'm attacking based on the potential turn derailment of Psychic Defense X.

On classes, I originally had Criminal in there too, but dropped it to keep him from just being the fifth member of the Wrecking Crew.

Antagonist is the staple IJL class, yeah. Psychopath is one that's also been talked about getting used there a lot, so it would give him some more overlap with other hubs. Misfit is for Joker flavor.

There's been a lot of intense dickering and bean counting over exactly which figures should call out which classes in the Injustice thread, and I haven't entirely paid attention either. Down to swap out Psychopath if people think something else would be a better fit there.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I think it's a solid draft. I liked the suggested tweaks in the LCW, but I like what you've got too.

Here's a class breakdown for DC villains I posted in the IJL thread. Not comprehensive by any means but I took all classes I felt could be options.
Spoiler Alert!

I like Antagonist and Misfit. Psychopath doesn't offer Joker much, since only Icicle has a d20 power, but I'm fine keeping it as all the figures involved are pretty classic villains for these teams. Personally I'd add on Crime Lord as a 4th class to get more of Gotham involved (there's a lot of d20 powers there). Count would also be fun as Count Vertigo is pretty underused.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Well, it looks like none of my concerns were addressed. I'll give a quick run down once more, since the more I think about this design the more I dislike it.


To start, nothing about this screams "Joker" to me. Joker is a schemer, and he doesn't do much of that here. Fall guy KIND OF works, but shutting down a turn seems kind of lackluster for him framing one of his goons to die. I'd prefer a bomb or something attached to them. Then it hurts the attacker and provides a distraction for your other units to move. Not a HUGE thing, but it's something. Also a SUPER minor point, but I have a Fall Guy power on my Joker Red Hood write up, but that has dropped in my to do list significantly.


My main issue is his leadership power. This is supposed to me him leading the Injustice gang. It doesn't feel like anything Joker would do. It was described to me as him arming his goons with Joker gadgets, but I don't see that at all. For one I'd prefer to name it "Joker Gadgets" or something then. And second, it doesn't make any sense to be tied to d20 rolls. Why would he give Carnage a gadget that he can ONLY use while dodging something with Spider-Sense? And he won't give Green Goblin, he actively uses tools and gadgets, anything? There's just no thematic ties to anything here. A d20 boost to help his crew fight better would make sense. Giving your team a one-per-turn d20 roll to deal auto wounds definitely make sense as gadgets (and I wrote that up in the LCW). But right now it doesn't make any sense, as our game system doesn't define d20 rolls as anything. If all d20 rolls were attacks, or dodges, or whatever, we could key in on them. But d20's are general use, so any theme we try to paste on them doesn't make sense. Again, a static boost could represent a leader helping his crew fight better in general. But an attack keyed off of spider sense just doesn't make sense.


I'm sorry I hate being down on a design, but this doesn't feel like Joker at all, and the marquee power doesn't have any theme at all. So it's just a complete theme fail for me as of now. Some minor tweaks would get it there I think, but it's not there yet.


As for classes, Antagonist being the main Injustice class makes sense, and Misfits and Psychopaths feel spot on for Joker. So no issues with those!
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

For what it's worth, other than Antagonist I would go with two different classes after looking at the list and reviewing the team info on wiki. Looks like HQ doesn't have anything to do with this, so giving Injustice League Joker a specific reason to draft HQ with him is a theme fail for me. If you want to play out the Joker & HQ team up, you can already do that with the other 3 Jokers. This card should represent their time apart and give you a reason for new pairings. Then Psychopath is good for pulling the other 3 Jokers into the mix, so that should go on a card that isn't already named Joker.

Thief & Crime Lord seem like solid pulls if you wanted to maintain some Gotham recruiter flavor. Plus Thief pairs him up with Cheetah, who seems like a core member. I'm seeing Catwoman, Chronos, & Shadow Thief on some membership lists so they are also nice pulls. Crime Lord might be too much a Gotham hook though, might be better to put that one on someone like Lex. In which case Assassin also is jumping out at me. Merlyn and Cheshire are nice pulls.

Didn't really focus on d20 powers with those recommendations though. So an alternate avenue would be to just pair him up with the two classes that net him the most d20 powers to team up with. I can see why you would rule out Criminal though due to the WC.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I'd like to see four classes here rather than three. Antagonist is a must, and I could see Misfit, Thief, Psychopath, Criminal and Crime Lord all working. (Criminal might be a good one to come back if the D20 boost changes - I'm putting it on Lex, but it'd be nice to see it on someone other than Lex too so Battlesuit Lex could be taken in an Injustice build.) I like the idea of the explosion tied to the Fall Guy power.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Arch-vile said:
I think it's a solid draft. I liked the suggested tweaks in the LCW, but I like what you've got too.

Here's a class breakdown for DC villains I posted in the IJL thread. Not comprehensive by any means but I took all classes I felt could be options.
Spoiler Alert!

I like Antagonist and Misfit. Psychopath doesn't offer Joker much, since only Icicle has a d20 power, but I'm fine keeping it as all the figures involved are pretty classic villains for these teams. Personally I'd add on Crime Lord as a 4th class to get more of Gotham involved (there's a lot of d20 powers there). Count would also be fun as Count Vertigo is pretty underused.
Click to expand...

Yodaking said:
For what it's worth, other than Antagonist I would go with two different classes after looking at the list and reviewing the team info on wiki. Looks like HQ doesn't have anything to do with this, so giving Injustice League Joker a specific reason to draft HQ with him is a theme fail for me. If you want to play out the Joker & HQ team up, you can already do that with the other 3 Jokers. This card should represent their time apart and give you a reason for new pairings. Then Psychopath is good for pulling the other 3 Jokers into the mix, so that should go on a card that isn't already named Joker.

Thief & Crime Lord seem like solid pulls if you wanted to maintain some Gotham recruiter flavor. Plus Thief pairs him up with Cheetah, who seems like a core member. I'm seeing Catwoman, Chronos, & Shadow Thief on some membership lists so they are also nice pulls. Crime Lord might be too much a Gotham hook though, might be better to put that one on someone like Lex. In which case Assassin also is jumping out at me. Merlyn and Cheshire are nice pulls.

Didn't really focus on d20 powers with those recommendations though. So an alternate avenue would be to just pair him up with the two classes that net him the most d20 powers to team up with. I can see why you would rule out Criminal though due to the WC.
Click to expand...

Fwiw, the main allure of Misfit for me is the other newer Misfits that Bats has designed, and not Harley.

Thief and Crime Lord seem like reasonable options.

Lord Pyre said:
Well, it looks like none of my concerns were addressed. I'll give a quick run down once more, since the more I think about this design the more I dislike it.
Click to expand...

The more I think about your concerns the more I dislike them. :p

I'm willing to hear you out on this, but I'm not going to treat your opinion as mattering more than everyone else's.

To start, nothing about this screams "Joker" to me. Joker is a schemer, and he doesn't do much of that here. Fall guy KIND OF works, but shutting down a turn seems kind of lackluster for him framing one of his goons to die. I'd prefer a bomb or something attached to them. Then it hurts the attacker and provides a distraction for your other units to move. Not a HUGE thing, but it's something. Also a SUPER minor point, but I have a Fall Guy power on my Joker Red Hood write up, but that has dropped in my to do list significantly.
Click to expand...

I don't understand how tacking an auto-wound effect onto it helps. You can already read the theme exactly like what you're saying. Or is this more of a mechanical/power level concern?

If we wanted to try an alternate approach, I'd be down to do something similar to what's there, but with a d20 mechanic instead of the X OM thing, so it had potential to trigger Joker's d20 auto-wounds.

It was described to me as him arming his goons with Joker gadgets
Click to expand...

It wasn't. I rattled off a few things you could interpret it as, and you latched onto that particular one. The main thematic point of it is just Joker getting at people in weird/unexpected ways. This is a hallmark of the character, in my experience.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I’ll chime in and say I dig the design as-is. (At least from a theoryscape perspective.)

Ending another player’s turn is a way bigger effect than I think we’re giving it credit for. If he can pull that off a few times per game, that’s a pretty decent effect, and you also have to consider the mind games effect it’ll have on your opponent.

Joker League is an abstraction, but I feel like the theme reads pretty clear? He’s the Joker, he makes chaotic stuff happen. Sometimes that helps his team, but also sometimes he hurts his own guys. You could slap a specific theme like Joker Gadgets or whatever on there if it needs to be concrete, but I don’t think it does.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

“Makes stuff happen” is a theme fail for me. You’re doing something specific with the mechanics (not a general boost like Cap or Star Lord), but with no reasoning behind it. I just want an explanation. Cap is a natural leader, and people follow his example. Star lord is great at bringing random folks together. Joker is chaotic, but how does that translate into only a couple of completely unrelated powers gaining an autowound? Like Carnage Spider Sense?
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I like where things are at for the most part. I buy the change of class things to encourage you not playing with Harley and leaving Psychopaths to other IJL members to rope in Jokers.

My biggest thing is that I kinda want there to be even odds on taking or giving a wound from the first power since it feels more Joker to give and receive wounds equally at random.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Lord Pyre said:
You’re doing something specific with the mechanics (not a general boost like Cap or Star Lord)
Click to expand...

That's an arbitrary distinction.

Like Carnage Spider Sense?
Click to expand...

I specifically want it to work on powers like that because Joker has a power like that.

tcglkn said:
My biggest thing is that I kinda want there to be even odds on taking or giving a wound from the first power since it feels more Joker to give and receive wounds equally at random.
Click to expand...

I think at that point he'd be too punishing to draft.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

What if you only had to remove the marker if he dealt a wound to an opponent's figure?
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Is it kinda arbitrary that Joker League works specifically on D20 rolls? Yeah. But it’s also kinda arbitrary that Cap’s inspiration only works on A/D rolls or that Destiny’s probability manipulation only works on D20 rolls. Working on D20 rolls makes the most sense for Joker as a unit and as a parallel to Batman III.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Ronin said:
Like Carnage Spider Sense?
Click to expand...

I specifically want it to work on powers like that because Joker has a power like that.
Click to expand...

I don’t understand what you mean. Talking about cheat Death? We can add it directly to that power with no issues!

Our strong theme is what sets us apart from other games like Heroclix. Each card should tell a story, and I can’t figure out this card’s story. If you can justify the mechanics in ANY WAY, I’ll be totally fine. I just need something here.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

MrNobody said:
Is it kinda arbitrary that Joker League works specifically on D20 rolls? Yeah. But it’s also kinda arbitrary that Cap’s inspiration only works on A/D rolls or that Destiny’s probability manipulation only works on D20 rolls. Working on D20 rolls makes the most sense for Joker as a unit and as a parallel to Batman III.
Click to expand...


It's really not arbitrary. Cap inspires you to fight harder by example. It's a very clear theme. Destiny can see the future so she can help the odds of your mutants doing whatever. Batman is a bit more abstracted, but it's still just a general boost, with the same theme of Bats being a good leader and teaching your folks to fight better.


But Joker just... doing "stuff" with certain people? No theme at all. Why is Spider sense weaponized? I just need to know WHY and then I'm gold. Joke is chaos sure, but he's very organized and scheming chaos. I just don't buy him doing "stuff"
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Yeah, I'm also happy with the current draft. I would probably slide Thief into his class lineup, which brings in some other Gotham types without roping in the whole Criminal faction.

Fall Guy in particular I like as-is - I don't think it SHOULD wound, because so many Joker pranks are harmless on the face. Like, you find a birthday cake with a head in it, you find out the dude you just killed was actually the mayor in a Joker mask, the bomb was just a balloon filled with confetti... but meanwhile Joker is using the distraction to set up his REAL plan. Ending a turn is fun, fairly impactful, and works great narratively - imagine the slow zoom in on GCPD officers looking at each other confused.

For the first power... like, could we name is "JOKER GIVES EVERYONE JOY BUZZERS" or "JOKER THROWS A BOMB WHENEVER SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENS" or "THE BATTLEFIELD IS WHITTLED WITH WHOOPEE CUSHIONS THAT JOKER SETS OFF AT INTERVALS ONLY HE UNDERSTANDS" - sure! But I don't mind going with a fun mechanic that pushes Joker to work with interesting allies that I can make mean whatever I want.

Don't think of it as the card telling a story, think of it as the card providing a canvas that lets you tell your own story.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

I think the Batman d20 'theme' was that he likes to be well prepared ahead of time. Keeping detailed files on everyone and everything, such that he can help his team improve the odds of success, not by seeing the future but rather by predicting the future based on past events.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

Lord Pyre said:
Ronin said:
Like Carnage Spider Sense?
Click to expand...

I specifically want it to work on powers like that because Joker has a power like that.
Click to expand...

I don’t understand what you mean. Talking about cheat Death? We can add it directly to that power with no issues!

Our strong theme is what sets us apart from other games like Heroclix. Each card should tell a story, and I can’t figure out this card’s story. If you can justify the mechanics in ANY WAY, I’ll be totally fine. I just need something here.
Click to expand...
D20 rolls in our game represent moments of chance, where big probability-defying swings can happen that can totally change the outcome of a battle.

These moments are where Joker does his best work, subtly using various Joker-y methods (gadgets, poison, social manipulation, etc.) to achieve whatever his goals are. He has less ability to affect the more mundane parts of a battle, like two dudes punching each other.

I was typing out a bit about more specific theme, but I see Johnny covered most of what I wanted to say. There’s plenty of situations I can conjure up in my head where Carnage dodging leads to him or another character receiving wounds because of Joker’s influence. Maybe Joker secretly poisoned him during the battle, which slows his reaction time and causes him to take a hit while dodging. Maybe Joker jazzed Carnage up to be even more ruthless than usual, so he gets an extra hit in before dodging. Joker has a billion tricks up his sleeves, so it’s not hard to imagine whatever scenario might happen.
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

What if we made it feel more like sabotage?

JOKER LEAGUE OF ANARCHY
At the start of the game, place a black Injustice Marker on this card for each Unique Hero you control with a class of Antagonist, Misfit, or Psychopath, to a maximum of 6. Before the 20-sided die is rolled on for a special power on a Unique Hero's Army Card during another Player's turn, you may remove an Injustice Marker from this card. If the roll is 5 or lower, that Unique Hero receives a wound. If the roll is 11 or higher, you must choose a figure adjacent to that Unique Hero to receive a wound, if possible.

Not sure if that crystallizes things more or not, but I think it gives it at least a little more of a "Joker screwing with your plans" feel to it.

I can see LP's perspective that the "story" being told here isn't quite coming through yet. I'm against the "blank canvas for your own story" logic, because that could be applied to any card, including one that's just a stat block. :p
 
Re: The Book of Joker (IV) (Design)

One of my issues I didn’t communicate well (I’m not that great at communication in general), is that the power didn’t represent JOKER doing thing. It very clearly was Carnage doing something with his senses, not Joker. And I didn’t see how Joker helped Carnage.

What Bats has would perfectly help me out here :up:

My thoughts on Fall Guy aren’t really issues, I’m fine with it. I just think it’s more evocative and colorful if it’s a bomb. Joker likes bombs :lol:
 
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