Input for Custom Hero: Bean Sprout Mage

By Funkfried, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Posted at

Good day to you,

a good friend of mine has her birthday next week. She is regular member of our descent playing group, so we as a group put some thought into giving her a descent themed present. We tried to come up with custom hero. I found templates at boardgamegeek.com. So with some time and photoshop magic we could create a playable custom hero for her, but a simple hero sheet wasn't enough so tried to come up with her own class. Therefore I would like to ask for you opinion regarding the balancing of the abilities and her hero, because it should be playable and fit right in. Additionally I'm interested on how you would print this cards and tokens (Material, cut etc.).

Thanks in Advance

Funkfried

Archetype: Mage

Speed: 3

HP: 8

Stamina: 5

Defense: 1 Grey die

Strength: 1

Knowledge: 5

Willpower: 3

Awareness: 2

Hero Ability: At the start of your turn recover up to hearts, if your hero did not perform a move action in the previous turn.

Heroic Feat: Use at the start of your turn to test knowledge separately for each monster within 2 spaces, if successfull the monster is immobilized.

Hero Class: Bean Sprout Mage:

Equip:
1hd, melee, reach, poison powder {gree + green}
surge: 2 --> target is poisoned even when this attack does no damage
surge: 2 --> +2 damage
Accessory, pouch of herbs, action, exhaust this card to remove a poison or disease condition from you or adjacent hero
Skills
0 exp, Bag of beans, 1 exh, exhaust this card to place a magic bean token on the herosheet of you or an adjacent hero. On his own turn a hero may spend 1 magic bean to recover 1 stamina (Limit once per turn)
1 exp, beanstalk, 1 exh, action, exhaust this card to place a magic bean token on an empty space within 2 spaces of you. This token blocks sight and movement, has 3 HP and throws a grey defense die. There cannot be more than 2 magic bean token on the map at the same time.
1 exp, grow and hold, 1 exh, your next attack gains: 1 surge, immobilize the target
1 exp, piercing vines, 1 exh, exhaust this card to remove a magic bean token from your hero sheet. Your next attack gains: 2 pierce
2 exp, protective branches, every hero adjacent to a beanstalk, adds a brown defense die to his pool of defense dice. Beanstalks get +2 HP.
2 exp, rampant vines, each bean stalk can be activated before or after the bean sprout mages turn to perform a single attack action using blue and red dice.
2 exp, empowering bean, 2 exh, exhaust this card when a hero carrying a magic bean token declares the target of his attack to remove a magic bean token from his hero sheet. This hero may add a green power die to his pool of attack die.
3 exp, deadly vines, the attacks of the beanstalk gain reach and throw an additional green power die. Each attack of a bean stalk gets: 2 surge + 1 Damage and the target is poisoned, even when no damage is dealt.
3 exp, exploding beans, each of your attack gains: remove 2 magic bean token from your hero sheet, the attack gets blast and + 3 Damage
Edited by Funkfried
Posted at

You know, as someone who has absolutely no creative side what-so-ever, I love reading these kinds of posts, as I try to imagine what it is like to be able to think outside of the box creatively ...

I don't want to make any claims as to how this hero would play, if it is balanced, etc., but I will say I enjoyed the post, and I love the creativity that went into making this character ... not to mention the fact that you demonstrate how much you like this individual by going through this effort !

Kudos !!! :P

Posted at

Disclaimer: I think you should design the character however you think your friend will like it. I don't know your friend, so apologies if my ideas are not what you're looking for. :)

I've altered a few of the stats, and several of the skills. Rather than making the bean sprout mage such a powerful damage dealer, I've scaled that back and added some fatigue recovery. Sort of a apothecary/hexer/spiritspeaker/geomancer hybrid.

Archetype: Mage

Speed: 3

HP: 8

Stamina: 5

Defense: 1 Grey die

Strength: 1

Knowledge: 4 (5 book is huge. Some heroes do have it, but I'd suggest instead...)

Willpower: 4 (4 willpower, since the class seems to be healerish.)

Awareness: 2

Hero Ability: At the start of your turn recover 1 heart. (simple, no confusion about move actions, MP, remove and place, nothing.)

Heroic Feat: Action: For each monster within 2 spaces of you, test knowledge. For each test you pass, that monster is immobilized.

Hero Class: Bean Sprout Mage:

Equip:
1hd, melee, reach, poison powder {gree + green} (do you mean blue/green, or 2 green? I'd recommend blue/green.)
surge: 2 --> target is poisoned even when this attack does no damage (awesome)
surge: 2 --> +2 damage (You could make it a ranged weapon with 2 green, and then change this to +1 range, +1 damage. If melee, leave it as is.)
Accessory, pouch of herbs: Exhaust this card to remove a poison or disease condition from you or adjacent hero. (I vote no action cost. I've added action cost to some skills, though.)
Skills
0 exp, Bag of beans, 1 exh, exhaust this card to place a magic bean token on the hero sheet of you or an adjacent hero. Once during his turn, a hero may discard 1 magic bean from his sheet to recover 1 fatigue.
1 exp, beanstalk, 1 exh, action, exhaust this card to place a magic bean token on an empty space within 2 spaces of you. This token blocks sight and movement, has 3 HP, can be targeted and affected by attacks , and throws a grey defense die. There cannot be more than 2 magic bean token on the map at the same time.
1 exp, grow and hold, 1 exh, Action: Perform an attack. This attack gains: 1 surge, immobilize
2 exp , piercing vines, 1 exh, Exhaust this card when you attack a monster within 2 spaces of a magic bean token, after rolling dice. Discard that token. Your attack gains 2 pierce.
2 exp, protective branches, Each hero adjacent to a beanstalk, adds a brown defense die to his defense pool. Beanstalks get +2 HP.
2 exp, rampant vines, Action: Exhaust this card. Each bean token on the map may immediately perform a melee attack using blue and red dice.
1 exp, empowering bean, 2 exh, Exhaust this card when a hero carrying a magic bean token declares the target of his attack to discard a magic bean token from his hero sheet. This hero may add a green power die to his attack pool.
3 exp, deadly vines, the attacks of the beanstalks gain reach and add an additional green power die. Each attack of a bean stalk gets: 1 surge + 1 Damage, and 1 surge poison.
3 exp, harvest: 1exh Action: Exhaust this card to discard any number of magic bean tokens from the map. Each hero within 2 spaces of a discarded bean token recovers 2 fatigue. Each monster within 2 spaces of a discarded bean token suffers 2 damage.
Edited by Zaltyre
Posted at

First thanks for your input. I really like the fact that green green can't miss.

Removing a condition without any kind of penalty seems rather strong

I like the change to grow and hold.

My idea regarding this class was to give her two very different ways to spend experience- one powering up the bean stalks and one using the beans to buff yourself and the party. The way you changed some of skills force the hero to pick up the skill bean stalk for 1 exp or just be just not effective. In that case it would make more sense to make bean stalk the 0 exp skill and bag of beans the accessory. That's the reason why I don't like the change to piercing vines and the new skill harvest (though the skill itself is pretty awesome)

Th change to rampant vines sounds fine.

Looks like my original deadly vines skill was to strong. One of my friends proposed the same change you did ^^ so we probably will alter it.

Posted at

Ah, I see what you mean- I made both 3XP skills related to the bean tokens on the map. What about forget my harvest skill and make it:

Master Gardener

3XP: Apply plus 1 to your stamina.

When you exhaust bag of beans, you may choose 2 heroes to receive bean tokens. Additionally, when hero discards a bean token from his hero sheet, he recovers 2 fatigue imstead of 1.

Posted at

Master Gardener looks pretty cool. It would still only affect adjacent heroes correct?

Posted at

Master Gardener looks pretty cool. It would still only affect adjacent heroes correct?

You and/or adjacent heroes, just like the base skill. The idea is similar to the disciple's " Holy Power ." It's an upgrade to the base skill, and allows it to target more heroes per turn. I guess if you want to use wording consistent with other skills already in the game, it would be:

Master Gardener
3XP: Apply +1 to your stamina.
Your Bag of Beans may now affect 2 different heroes. Additionally, when hero discards a bean token from his hero sheet to recover fatigue, he recovers 1 additional fatigue.
EDIT: For the record, this is a really interesting hero. I'm tempted to classify it as a healer, but it really isn't- it's a mage that has a great capacity for fatigue regeneration, but not damage recovery, which is a more magey thing to do.
Edited by Zaltyre
Posted at

Yeah I was tempted to change the archetype to healer because it is really more of support / recovery char. But the summoning aspect suits a mage far better. I'm really grateful for your input Zaltyre.

Posted at

If you want to do a custom hero, a metamorph would be cool, something like the druid of Diablo 2

Posted at

Regarding the weapon: I have nothing against green/green, so as to have a no-miss weapon, however 2 surges for the surge powers seems a bit costly as I don't recall 2 surge faces on the green die. This mean any attack will have at most one boost, or even none if you roll no surge on one face.

I'd recommend going:

poison powder: exotic, 1hd, ranged, {green + green}
+1 range
surge: 2--> target is poisoned even when this attack does no damage
surge: 1 --> +1 range, +1 damage.
Compare to the apothecary's Poison Vials: Exotic, ranged, 1hd , blue green, 2 surge +3, 1 surge poison
or teh conjurer's Primsatic staff: magic, staff ranged, blue green 1 surge +1, 1 surge +1, 1 surge stun
Posted at

Regarding the weapon: I have nothing against green/green, so as to have a no-miss weapon, however 2 surges for the surge powers seems a bit costly as I don't recall 2 surge faces on the green die. This mean any attack will have at most one boost, or even none if you roll no surge on one face.

The green die has a surge on 4 of its 6 faces, so rolling green/green, you've got:

1/9 chance 0 surges.

4/9 chance exactly 1 surge.

4/9 chance 2 surges.

For comparison, the blue only has 2 surge faces, so blue/green works out:

6/18 chance 0 surges (with half of that being X)

8/18 chance exactly 1 surge

4/18 chance 2 surges

So, with green/green, you've got double the chance of rolling 2 surges (nearly 50%) than you do with blue/green.

Edited by Zaltyre
Posted at

Regarding the weapon: I have nothing against green/green, so as to have a no-miss weapon, however 2 surges for the surge powers seems a bit costly as I don't recall 2 surge faces on the green die. This mean any attack will have at most one boost, or even none if you roll no surge on one face.

The green die has a surge on 4 of its 6 faces, so rolling green/green, you've got:

1/9 chance 0 surges.

4/9 chance exactly 1 surge.

4/9 chance 2 surges.

For comparison, the blue only has 2 surge faces, so blue/green works out:

6/18 chance 0 surges (with half of that being X)

8/18 chance exactly 1 surge

4/18 chance 2 surges

So, with green/green, you've got double the chance of rolling 2 surges (nearly 50%) than you do with blue/green.

Yes, but you still can't roll more than 2, since the green die has no face with 2 surges. :P

and it does a lot less damage, and a lot less range.

That's why I left the free poison condition at 2 surge, since that's obivously how the damage is going to be dealt.

Posted at

The Intention of this weapon is not to do lots of damage, it is weapon made for harassment via the poison condition. Green / green is simply there to assure that the poison is applied, as a miss would keep the weapon from poisoning and green / green has the highest chance to generate two surges with two dice.

If anybody tried this hero in campaign I would welcome the feedback :-)

Posted at

The Intention of this weapon is not to do lots of damage, it is weapon made for harassment via the poison condition. Green / green is simply there to assure that the poison is applied, as a miss would keep the weapon from poisoning and green / green has the highest chance to generate two surges with two dice.

If anybody tried this hero in campaign I would welcome the feedback :-)

As I figured. However, there's still a slim chance that you get no surges, or even just one surge. That's why I suggested putting the second surge power's cost at just one, and adding a "free" +1 range

Posted at

As I figured. However, there's still a slim chance that you get no surges, or even just one surge. That's why I suggested putting the second surge power's cost at just one, and adding a "free" +1 range

I don't particularly disagree with your proposed changes- but swapping out the blue already makes it a short range weapon- max unsurged range of 2- so I kind of like classifying it as a melee weapon with reach- that way, you can ignore the need to spend any surges for range, and the low damage green dice are offset by the certainty that the weapon cannot miss.

Edited by Zaltyre
Posted at

A blue green could do 7, without spending any surges.

With the free +1 range and the +1 range on the second surge power, the most green/green can do is range 4. If you're facing Verminous or wendigos, you'd always miss unless you used both those options.

Posted at

A blue green could do 7, without spending any surges.

With the free +1 range and the +1 range on the second surge power, the most green/green can do is range 4. If you're facing Verminous or wendigos, you'd always miss unless you used both those options.

Ahh, good point, I hadn't considered stealthy- you'd need to have 3 range to hit them with a melee weapon, so you'd need some kind of range bonus on top of green/green(it IS weird having a range bonus on a melee weapon.) Maybe the bean sprout mage just doesn't like wendigos or rats. One is frosty, and the other probably eats beans.

Edited by Zaltyre
Posted at

I have to admit that I did not think about wendigos or our beloved rat lieutanent. Maybe I will change the weapon to blue/green and adjust the + damage component to 1 surge. Nether less I would prefer to keep it green green.

Posted at

I have to admit that I did not think about wendigos or our beloved rat lieutanent. Maybe I will change the weapon to blue/green and adjust the + damage component to 1 surge. Nether less I would prefer to keep it green green.

Solution: blue green green, but make it 2-handed. I'm only about 48% serious.

Posted at

I still think green/green is feasible...

You just have to give it a slight range boost...

maybe make Poison the free power and drop the "no need for damage requirement"

and make the surge powers 2 x "+1 range +1 damage"

Or maybe +2 range and +2 damage, for more flexibility?