There are a number of cards in the game that people seem to be removing from play to stop "killer combos".

A lot of these are cards that replenish something at the start of your turn, mainly in conjunction with another particular card.

I think it is a bit of a shame that a card should be feature in the game, but am all for amending said cards to make them more playable.

I also believe that a few cards are seriously underpowered, and could do with a tweak.

So...

I would like to hear some opinions as to revised wordings (or even house rules) to help in this regard.

I have in mind a set of overlays to replace the text on certain cards to get more use from them.

There are a lot of cards that seem to be brought up from the City expansion, but there are others too...

Ekor & Shiver Nymph - Nine times out of ten these cards just take up a board space and get moved every time they are encountered.

Flail - A potential beast of a card.

Scribe and Spell Book - Is the problem with one or the other, or indeed both of these?

Everfull Purse & Physician - Ditto!

Lucky & Luna - Ditto!

Battle Hulk, City Watch & Night Guard - Dreary evading... <sigh>

Potential solutions -

I have no problem with the Ekor and Nymph fleeing, but perhaps a bit of rewording might be in order to get them into play at some point. Something along the lines of the Sepulchre Spectre, but perhaps for one similar Enemy card?

The Flail is rather powerful, but perhaps the ability could be similar to the Warrior's battle bonus, though with a cool twist?

Cards that replenish at the start of your turn? How about giving them something completely different effects if they are causing problems? Perhaps they should have limited uses and be discarded at some point?

Should the Spell Book have the same effect as the Scribe, so that people can have the best of both worlds?

Anyway, I am interested to hear your opinions and ideas!

Some potential "fixes" -

While we had some initial problem with the City guards, but after my argument that we aren't playing 2nd edition, everyone agreed, they could be evaded.

I took out the Scribe & Luna, and also Misfortune.

Yeah the Flail is powerful, and there have been character attacks and deaths fighting for it. But we play it as is.

My friends keep all these in, but we agree that Luna is now powerful especially with Dark Fate. But nonetheless they keep it as is.

One of these days I wanna show them the combos you are speaking of, and make them consider removing the cards or changing them. I showed them Misfortune with Reaper. One friend now wants to remove Reaper from the games, he is out voted though. I prefer getting rid of Misfortune which I have done with my copy. There are 3 copies of Talisman in my group.

I've never liked being to evade a card if you didn't actually have that ability. Hence me changing them for my game.

As for Misfortune, you can always rule that nothing can effect the roll on the Reaper chart.

This is the point though. I'd rather change something than leave it out completely.

Any more thoughts?

I like house rules, I may try some, but Misfortune is just plain mean, even if you don't allow it with the Reaper.

Flail seems interesting. Maybe a bit nerfed.

I would definitely like to see Luna fixed!

I like most of these cards individually, but you are right there are combinations that seriously can ruin a game. I will throw in a couple of suggestions that I have thought about.


Flail

A mighty powerful weapon but quite honestly we never had a problem with this card. It makes it so much fun to take it from another player simply because it is so powerful . But we have never been of the opinion that someone runs away with the game because they have one. The Deep Realms has made it perhaps a little better if one (or both!) end up on the Rat’s Nest. For those who do think this is OP, your suggestion would be worth trying out and could well be the solution.

Scribe and Spell Book

Scribe is the only card we took out of the game, and it’s a shame to do that but I think this is the one card that causes the most problems, hence the removal. I think the Scribe alone is an issue and if you add spell book it just gets ridiculous. We always thought about making it a one shot deal. The scribe can be used only once and then must be discarded or placed somewhere . We never did try this though. As far as this deadly combo, what about making it “ …If you have the scribe you cannot have the spellbook… ” and vice versa?

Everfull Purse & Physician

Less of a problem since both have to be randomly drawn (or stolen from an opponent in some way). You can only heal basically at the beginning of your turn so it doesn’t give you total immunity. I think if either have to be changed it should be the physician. It’s generally easy to get gold anyway even without an everfull purse and I think making the physician a one time use then pass to the player on your left would be interesting. “At the start of your turn before you move, you may pay 1 gold to heal 1 life. Once you have done so you must pass the Physician to the player on your left.”


Lucky & Luna

Yep, this is a killer combo! Lucky allows you to replenish your fate so how about: “Whenever you are above your fate value and pay a fate to reroll a die, you choose which result on the die to use instead of rolling it”.

Of course, this makes Luna on her own less effective, but still has a benefit - it would just make you more cautious about when you use it.

Battle Hulk, City Watch & Night Guard

Sometimes the fact that you can evade is a life saver! But I know what you mean. It would be good if there were some way you could evade if you were able to fulfill some kind of criteria. What about. “You may either attack the City Watch or attempt to evade it by rolling a die. 1-2 evaded 3-6 thrown in Jail ”

II like Misfortune as is and wouldn't change it except with Reaper. I have had that cast on me while rolling on the reaper many times. I'm OK with this but I know one or two players that will probably never play again if that happened! It's the kind of spell that people save specifically for the Reaper. The best solution to this would simply be a house rule.

I think whenever Luna and Lucky end up with the same character, they should fight, cuaseing the character to loose 1 life, replenish thier fate, gain 1 fate on top of that, before both of them are discarded (to be reshuiffled into the pet deck).

For the Ekor/Shiver Nymph, perhaps introduce a system where after they flee 1 space, give the character the option to pursue them to the new space. They encounter the space as usual, and word the Ekor/Shiver Nymph in such a way that they can only flee once per turn. I'm just not sure of a concise way to word this and keep the card text readable.

Amending the Battle Hulk I'm fine with. Not so much the Watch cards though, if you are unlucky being jailed is a serious and utterly boring waste of time.

For my playgroup's games, the Spellbook and Flail are played as is, but Luna and the scribe are limited to three uses. Period.

To be honest, the penalty in the jail is only a small inconvenience and perhaps the risk of being messed about a bit will prevent a few cheap trips to the City to stock up on OP stuff.

As for Ekor etc, I'm pondering having them flee when first encountered, but staying from then on.

I have seen 2 characters die in jail.

Better save up a bit of fate and gold to tip the balance then...

Lucky & Luna

Yep, this is a killer combo! Lucky allows you to replenish your fate so how about: “Whenever you are above your fate value and pay a fate to reroll a die, you choose which result on the die to use instead of rolling it”.

Of course, this makes Luna on her own less effective, but still has a benefit - it would just make you more cautious about when you use it.

We never really had this problem but I can see this combo ruining the game. And, to be honest I've always thought that Luna is a bit too good. However I think adjogi's fix is a bit to much. I've been thinking about changing the text to "Whenever you pay a fate to reroll a die you may add or subtract up to 1 from the score". Perhaps you can add adjogi's text afterwards. "If you're above your fate value when the fate is paid you may choose the result freely".

As for the other suggestions I particulary like the new wording on the flail. I think I will present it to my group next time we play.

Some combinations are very rare (or impossible) to get, especially for us who doesn't use everything all the time. So if my fellow players are lucky enough to get such combinations I would just do my best to stop them.

As for the enemies you can choose to evade and Ekor/Shiver Nymph we just go with the text. We've never had anything to say about them - good or bad. I can't really see the problem with them. Same for misfortune. I think toadings are to rare since fate was introduced anyway. As for using it on the reaper card, I can see the problem - but on the other hand, the possibility that someone has the misfortune when a player is rolling against it is slim and therefore I've no problem with this either.

I don't know if you guys just play more than me or if there's something I've not understood about achieving specific cards but it sounds like some of these things are common in your games...

I have had characters die in jail, but that is not the tedious part. The tedious parts is spending multiple turns in there doing nothing, or dying ANYWAY after several turns doing nothing. In between Corrupt Sheriff, Drunken Revelry and Jailor it does not even matter if you are in the City, so I fail to see how an unavoidable watch would provide a deterrence. To be honest.

Ekor and Shiver Nymph we play as they get one escape, then encounter people normally.

With regards to the Battle Hulk, City Watch & Night Guard why not say this:

Enemy that allow characters to evade them cannot be evaded if a player has a bounty that either lists the enemies’ type or the alignment of the character evading.

That way it makes bounties more interesting and fixes the prob too. You could even say the bounty can also be on the city gate as well "face up".

I guess I have a bit of a different view on things.

Other than the dragon expansion, because it is just way too fiddly, we play with all cards and all rules as provided.

I kind of see it like this...

1. All players begin with equal footing. Everyone has a chance to draw a better character or get to a good item first.

2. If a player gets, lets say, the alchemist or assassin - then we instantly know he's going to be a target for the game

3. If a character is pushing to get a flail, well, we go after them or prepare ourselves for it

I understand the frusterations of some over-powered cards, but I find if I think in these terms, that the game kind of works itself out.

Ultimately, if a player gets very lucky and very stacked in a game - there is always next game for revenge.

To be honest, my main focus was to tackle the more dreary cards, rather than the overpowered stuff.

When I had a look around though I saw that people had various issues with the City and decided to see what could be done to help, rather than see cards being consigned to the box.

I've had my eye on streamlining Dragon too for a while.