• Welcome to the Heroscapers 2.0 site! We've still got some dust to clear and adjustments to make, including launching a new front page, but we hope you enjoy the improvements to the site. Please post your feedback and any issues you encounter in this thread.

The Book of Lady Shiva

Griffin

Founding Member of C3G and C3V
Site Supporter
The Book of Lady Shiva

C3G DC WAVE 12
LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT

C3G_LadyShiva_comic.png

Comic PDF

C3G_LadyShiva_mini.png

Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a Heroclix figure from the Cosmic Justice set.
Its model number and name are #058-060 / Lady Shiva.
Its model number and name are #220 / Sandra Wu-San.

_________________________________________________________________​
Character Bio - Shiva was born and raised to be a warrior and protector of her small village. Eventually, Shiva fled the village with her sister.
The sisters moved to Detroit, Michigan, using the names Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San. There, they devoted their time to practicing the martial arts. Because of the girls' young age, talent, and unique bond as sisters, their practice evolved into a secret, perfected language that only they could share. Out of love for her sister, Sandra held back in her spars with Carolyn. The assassin David Cain saw this restraint in Sandra one day when he visited Detroit to see the siblings perform. Considering Sandra a kindred spirit, Cain murdered Carolyn, in order to remove the obstruction that blunted Sandra's true potential.
Discovering that David Cain had murdered her sister, Sandra hunted him down, only to be lured into an ambush by Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins, of which Cain was a member. In the heat of a losing battle, Sandra realized how Carolyn had held her back, and how much undeveloped potential she had. Cain spared her life, and in exchange, Sandra agreed to bear Cain a child, and leave it for him to raise. The child, Cassandra Cain, was to be Ra's al Ghul's "One Who Is All," a perfected bodyguard, whose only form of communication was literacy in body language, and whose sole instinct was for hand-to-hand combat. With Carolyn gone, Cassandra and Sandra were the only two humans known to share this gift. The day of Cassandra's birth, Sandra set out to become reborn as the Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer.
_________________________________________________________________

-Rulings and Clarifications-
  • N/A
_________________________________________________________________

-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:Outgoing Synergy:
  • Lady Shiva can change a Unique Vigilante Hero's class to Assassin with her Assassin Training special power. Current Vigilantes.
  • Lady Shiva allows Assassins you control to move through other figures and ignore leaving engagement attacks. Current Assassins.
_________________________________________________________________

-Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses-

Immunities
  • N/A
Benefits
  • N/A
Weaknesses_________________________________________________________________

-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-
  • N/A
-Heroscapers Community Contributions-
 
Last edited by a moderator:
NAME = LADY SHIVA
SECRET IDENTITY = SANDRA WU-SAN

SPECIES = HUMAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = ASSASSIN
PERSONALITY = DEADLY

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 4

LIFE = 4

MOVE = 6
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 5
DEFENSE = 4

POINTS = 175


ASSASSIN TRAINING
At the start of the game, you may choose one Unique Vigilante Hero you control. While Lady Shiva is in play, the chosen figure's class is Assassin instead of what is on its card, and all Assassins you control can move through all figures and are never attacked when leaving engagements.

LEOPARD BLOW SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 3.
Figures roll 3 fewer defense dice against this special attack. When attacking with this special attack, if the defending figure receives 3 wounds, it is destroyed.

MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST
When attacking an opponent's adjacent figure with a normal attack, add one automatic skull to whatever is rolled. When defending against a normal attack from an adjacent figure, add one automatic shield to whatever is rolled, and all excess shields count as unblockable hits on the attacking figure.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

looks good.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Looks cool. :up: Batman + Hand Ninja will be really fun to play.

The one thing I worry about with her is her frailty against ranged attacks and being able to protect her cost.

I'm also curious to know what the odds are for rolling 3 skulls on 3 dice.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

12.5% or 1-in-8 (if the math part of my mind still works).
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Looks like a solid design to me.

VI think Master Martial Artist should be a power that we use less frequently than Close Combat Expert. So far all the designs we've used it on have been deserving, just something to keep in mind.
 
LEOPARD BLOW SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 3.
If you roll a skull on every die, the defending figure is destroyed unless it has the Super Strength special power. A figure without the Master Martial Artist or Close Combat Expert special power rolls 2 fewer defense dice against this special attack.

MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST
When attacking an opponent's adjacent figure with a normal attack, add one automatic skull to whatever is rolled. When defending against a normal attack from an adjacent figure, add one automatic shield to whatever is rolled, and all excess shields count as unblockable hits on the attacking figure.

ASSASSIN TRAINING
At the start of the game, you may choose one Unique Vigilante Hero you control. For the rest of the game, the chosen figure's class is Assassin instead of what is on its card. Lady Shiva and all Assassins you control, never take any leaving engagement attacks.

Leopard Blow is pretty powerful, probably too much so. A 1-in-8 chance of destroying:
M.O.D.O.K., Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch, Deadpool, Deathstroke, Mandarin, Wolverine, Iron Fist, Flash, Professor Zoom, Storm, Captain America, Zatanna, Winter Soldier, Shang-Chi, Blade, Hush, Kingpin, Nick Fury, Professor X, and Red Skull (all at or above her point value).

Only Psylocke has both SS (so she's not auto-destroyed) and Master Martial Artist (so she doesn't have to reduce her defense dice). Every other figure with SS would be rolling fewer defense dice.

Everyone who currently has Close Combat Expert does not also have Super Strength (so they would be auto-destroyed and wouldn't be worrying about how many defense dice to roll).

And I'm not sure how some figures' special defense powers could work, since the destruction of the figure is automatic upon her rolling 3 skulls.

I like Assassin Training, but you can drop the "Lady Shiva and" from the last line, since she already is an assassin.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

In regards to her threat of whiffing on ranged Defense - She has to have a weakness to compensate for her extreme deadliness.

In regards to her extreme deadliness - She is really that good. Her Leopard Blow in DC can kill someone fairly easily. She is arguably DC's best fighter. So we may be at a risk of "over poweredness" but if so, playtesting should tell us so. Otherwise, this card needs to represent her only attribute - she is a killer. I could always reduce her use of the SA to once per round, and that would make sense for her since she doesn't just constantly throw "leopard blow after leopard blow", and it would give her normal attack some more use as well.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Once per round is probably a good adjustment.

Regarding the opponents' defensive abilities:
Is it the intent that "automatically destroyed" bypasses Flash's Speed Dodge, Professor X's Psychic Defense X, M.O.D.O.K.'s Psionic Forcefield, etc.?
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

What if the language were changed from "automatically destroyed" to "instead of placing wounds, destroy the defending figure"? This allows those superhuman abilities like speed dodge and spider sense to bypass it, which is totally thematic. She literally hates getting involved with superpowered folks.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

I could go with that, but I was kinda wanting supers to be afraid of her. Thoughts?
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

You could make it like Gambit, a skull on every die gives you double skulls, so 6. That would be against a figure rolling -2 defense most of the time, so it should kill most figures is one hit.

Also, I think once per round is a good idea.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Nice looking design for sure Griff :D

I kind of share some of the concern with the auto kill so easily. Each number on a D20 is 5% so at 12.5%, of getting 3 skulls, it's better odds than hitting a 19 or 20 on a d20. That kind of stuff from classic scape was something that was a negative when mixing C3G and Classic, because of the insta-kills taking out expensive units.

Granted, she is vulnerable to range, but I worry that she may be kind of swingy where she kills 400 points of opponents in one game but then gets killed by single turn of Street Thugs in round 1 of another game.

Also, I have only seen her a few times in Birds of Prey comics, so I don't really know her. While she may be an awesome assassin, has she killed a lot of superheroes in the comics, is that something she does? I do remember seeing Deathstroke being a "cape killer" type, or called that anyway by Black Canary once.

From GoodPig
You could make it like Gambit, a skull on every die gives you double skulls, so 6. That would be against a figure rolling -2 defense most of the time, so it should kill most figures is one hit.

Also, I think once per round is a good idea.
That might be a possibility. She'd still have a good chance of getting a 4 skull roll a lot and against -2 defense to boot, but when she rolls 3 skulls for 6 and the -2 to defense, that is enough to make her quite deadly. But at least Flash has 2 dice to dodge and other figures have some kind of chance. Other figures with special defenses would also have s chance too, but if their special defense failed them, they could be toast with -2 defense, like Bats and DD with 3 defense and 4 lives not looking so good vs. a 6 skull roll.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Personally, I like the auto kill aspect, and it is currently somewhat similar to Elektra's ASSASSIN'S MARK power in terms of its success rate.

How often do you guys think you can destroy a non-Super Strength figure with a once per round 3 skull roll? About as often as Elektra can IMO, or Red Skull's Dust of Death.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Well I can roll with it Griff as is. I trust your playtesting to bear out any issues.

You are right about Elektra's Assassin's Mark being somewhat comparable. I'm glad you mentioned that because I'd forgotten about that, though Elektra has to inflict a wound first, so special defenses have a chance to bypass it. Also, Assassin's Mark doesn't reduce opponent's defense either. The only thing Assassin's Mark has that's better is that it's a ranged attack.

Shiva's is a Special Attack that will bypass many special defenses as well. So I'd say Shiva's special attack has more going for it than Elektra's Assassin's Mark, which I have yet to auto-kill with in 15 or so games played with her. :(

Elektra has 1 more life and 1 better defense against all attacks. So she's got a little bit more survivability against ranged attacks that might be the bane of Shiva. Shiva can also be countered with meat shields that might be easy kills for her, but keep her from the higher priced units.

That all said, I support the direction Griff wants to go with Shiva and I trust that he will make any appropriate changes during the initial testing if any need to be made one way or the other.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Personally, I like the auto kill aspect, and it is currently somewhat similar to Elektra's ASSASSIN'S MARK power in terms of its success rate.

How often do you guys think you can destroy a non-Super Strength figure with a once per round 3 skull roll? About as often as Elektra can IMO, or Red Skull's Dust of Death.

Yep I am not concerned now that it will be a once per round attempt.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Cool beans. I will be sure to take my time and be extra thorough on the HH tests.... one day.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

If any adjustment is needed in the future (and not sure it will be), you could always remove the once per round restriction and make it so that if she rolls all skulls and inflicts one or more wounds with the special attack, the auto destroy happens. This still allows powers like Evasive Strike and Speed Dodge to escape her killing touch (which would make thematic sense) and doesn't force a limit on how often you can use it.

In fact, any way I can convince you to go with this change now ... ? :)
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Sorry, but no. That is far too difficult to pull off to make it very relevant.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Sorry, but no. That is far too difficult to pull off to make it very relevant.

Really? I'd think that most of the time when she rolls all skulls, she'll wound someone ... and if she doesn't wound someone, she's not really "hitting" on the power anyway, so her auto destroying them doesn't make sense for me.

With my version, you'd be able to roll for it 3 times a round, dramatically increasing your odds of landing 3 skulls. You'd also be subtracting defense dice from anyone who didn't have Master of Martial Arts, making for fairly good odds of landing a wound on an all skull roll. All the change would be doing is lessening the thematic and mechanical confusion involved with special defensive powers that let you ignore the attack and giving some power back to a handful of them against her.

I think you're missing a great opportunity here ... please think on it a bit more before deciding.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Well I didn't know that you were suggesting dropping the "once per round bit". I just didn't catch that. With that said, to my eyes, you were only altering the odds by requiring a wound infliction - making the power more difficult to pull off.

To be honest, I think this SA is one where I will be taking all of the suggestions from everyone under advisement when I test it. I am not really sold on much here or there at the moment. I kinda want to keep things flexible and let the test results do some talking.

Put me down for "all ears" though, for sure.
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Cool. As long as you're keeping an open mind, I'm happy. :)
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

C3G INITIAL PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE TEST UNIT Lady Shiva

- THEME TEST/ Check to see if there are any powers or stats on the test unit card that does not accurately reflect the theme or likeness of what the character would and could do. Also consider destructible objects, and whether or not this characters powers should affect them.
Pass

- MIRROR TEST/ Check to see if the unit were played against itself, if there would be any loops that would upset the balance of the Game.
Pass

- BONDING TEST/ Compare the unit card with all possible currently existing Bonding abilities to make sure there are no continual Bonding possibilities that do not stop appropriately or do not stop at all. This is to prevent loops in Bonding.
Pass

- SYNERGIES TEST/ Compare the unit card with all possible currently existing synergies to make sure there are no factors that could break the game by making any unit too powerful or too weak.
Pass

- POWER CHECK/ Consider the test unit and all existing units and all glyphs to compare to and check for any powers that could be over amplified and break the game. Each power must define when it takes place, who or what it affects, and What are the stipulations on the power if there are any.
Pass

- FUN TEST/ Consider whether or not the design was fun to play.
Pass

- FUN COMPETITIVE TEST/ Consider whether or not the design was fun to play against.
Pass

- DRAFTING TEST/ Consider whether or not this design is worth drafting.
Pass

- USAGE TEST/ Consider whether or not all of the powers on this card were used or at least usable.
Pass

- STRATEGY TEST/ Consider whether or not the design offers any real strategy or interesting tactics to the overall game.
Pass

Heavy Hitter or Mid-Level Hero Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 175.
- Give a brief overview. I felt that Shiva was the most on par with Bullseye in these tests. She is a big hitter for 175, but with no range or "flying" powers, she can be a sitting duck at times which is bad since her defense powers don't work on ranged or Special Attacks.
Spoiler Alert!

_____________________________________________________________​


Squad Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 175.
- Give a brief overview. She is a good killer for anyone with low defense. She doesn't stand up well to ranged attacks though.
Map: Custom.
Units: Lady Shiva - VS - Science Police x2.
Spoiler Alert!

_____________________________________________________________​


Squad Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 175.
- Give a brief overview. Shiva is a guaranteed squad killer with that SA, and I love that as she needs to have that "oh crap here comes Grimnak's Chomp" feel. However, she is easily countered by ranged and multiple attacks.
Map: Custom.
Units: Lady Shiva - VS - Bad Cops x2.
Spoiler Alert!


_____________________________________________________________​



Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 180.
- Give a brief overview. She is a finisher for wounded Heroes, a killer for squadies, and an army changer for Vigilantes who want to bond with ninjas.
Map: Custom.
Units: Professor X, Jean Grey, Ice Man, Angel, Cyclops, and Beast (1,000) - VS - Lady Shiva, Ra's al Ghul, Talia, Batman, Hand Ninja x2, and Elite League Assassins (1,005).
Spoiler Alert!

_____________________________________________________________​


Army Test
- Does it pass, Yes or No? Yes.
- What should be the unit's point value? 180.
- Give a brief overview. She affected the game all game long by letting Punisher be an Assassin, then she was great clean up, though she struggled against the defense reducing Piledriver, but he was wounded and she was healthy, so she won.
Map: Custom.
Units: Shiva, Kingpin, Punisher, and Lady Deathstrike (820) - VS - Wrecker, Thunderball, Piledriver, Bulldozer, and Fire Ants x2 (820).
Spoiler Alert!
 
Re: The Book of Lady Shiva - Designing

Looking forward to updates on where you go with Leopard Blow.
 
Back
Top