I was wondering what people thought about overpowered lore cards. The one that I know is Forest Frenzy. I killed twenty five soilder(not units) with that card. (granted we were playing with 29 battalions). He demanded we took the card out of the deck along with Hills Rumble and River Rage. I really enjoyed it. So what are some other overpowed cards?

We have the same discussion over here in Germany.

Well, it is a matter of taste. I do prefer the wizard and the cleric guy. The last one do have overpowered cards, yes.
What can be the answer? If your opponent choose the cleric master (I have not the english version of BL, so I maybe will take not really the correct terms),
you should not take that master. So you can reduce the number of cards for this master!

Could be worth a try?

I think SelbourT has the right idea. Yeah, the notorious cleric terrain cards are harsh, but council set ups can help mitigate the power of them. Going Wizard/Rogue can open up the few "counterspell" cards in the lore deck and limit the number of cleric cards. Otherwise, fight fire with fire and go full cleric to get the chance to get those cards. You site a pretty extreme example when fielding 29 separate battalions but in Epic this card gains more power than when playing on one board.

maybe you limit the card to efecting only one section of the board? they would still be strong but not so that a player could not recover from one

Why do people try to beat a dead horse into the ground? Sure the various terrain cards in the Cleric realm are powerfully and potentially game altering

but one cannot play the game in fear of those cards. This topic has been pretty much analyzed and all that over at the old DoW forums. And DoW did make a ruling that you can played them in different manner (i.e. the spell works differently).

Sure the 3 are powerfull (well the river one less so since rarely does river play a factor in the games..usually it's along one side of the board)..but the game still is very fun. Yes you do have to be aware of them but there are ways to mitgate them - 1) don't be a cleric - that takes 1/2 of the cards away right away. 2) When you get hold of a counter card, keep them for those cards.

Cab

The simple fact of the matter is there are more Lore cards coming. These cards are powerful for one Lore Master but the other LMs will get their power houses as well. This ripened on the vine for so long because DOW never took the next step to get more Lore cards out there.

The arrival of new Lore cards will eventually open the door to another potential issue- Lore card power creep. Those 2 or 3 cleric cards can be devastating but just think if every council member had 3 such cards, I would hate to have games decided mid-stride because someone got the uber lore card first and got lucky rolling the dice. Balancing the game to keep Lore as an influencing effect on the game and not a deciding factor is going to be the key.

Over powered in this case is a game spoiler. This i mean that you CANT counter the HR,FF in Battle Lore. "Don't go to hills..." comoon! Thats the point of the the hills.. and damit.. its over povered party poopper if one CANT use the hills.

As a constructive idea: The spell can only kill as many units as the spell is costing. So HR can kill 7 units. With this way the cleric can decide the attacking units and keep attacking until 7 units are dead or there are no more units to attack. In this idea the good point is that the cleric level will influence the outcome. With level 3 cleric will produce more likely a flag out of this spell than level 1, but the total of kills don't SPOIL the game.

AND PS keep discussing this issue. If FFG has any brain (thay have ) they will look in to this and don't create more over powered cards.

The new lore member or BETTER new spells for the future ??? Any ideas ?

I really dont see the issue here. Sure the card(s) are strong, but surely you are all capable of seeing that if you dont like the effect a card has then create a house rule for yourself. Example, agree with you opponent that it can only effect up to a certian number of untis. Simple, effective and whats more has the ability to provide you with exactly the variation you feel is right for your game.

I am struggling to think of a game that doesnt increase the power levels of cards /abilities/monsters/etc as they release new expansions. If your looking for a reason you only have to check pervious threads to see the number of people wanting to see a Dragon.. I cant imagine that a Dragon would be weaker than other units within the game that have already been released. Lets be honest, when you say the word Dragon it conjours up images of a huge scaled serpent that flies and is always assumed to be the scariest thing around. If people get their way then the power level of the game just went up a notch right there. (I do acknowledge that not all Dragons are huge red spell using things, it depends on the source of the Dragon mythos) Lore cards will presumably be made to help counter that power, which adds power level to the game as a natural consequence. I think we have to face some realities. Creation of more variety in untis will add things to the game, some of them will increase the power levels.

One final thought on the Cleric specifically.. It is in keeping with the period for the Cleric to have the most power. The church was immensly powerful, and was keen to spread the thought that they were backed by the power of God. If you assume that the Cleric lore master is part of that then they should indeed have the most powerful lore cards.

Hi, everyone!

This matter has been thoroughly discussed in the forums of Days of Wonder (and probably elsewhere).

Take a look at the thread: Problems with Forest Frenzy, Hills Rumble & River Rage

Cheers,

Silverheart

I don't have a problem with the cards. I just think you'd be a idiot to play without a levle three cleric. You have bless divine terror Forest frenzy hills rumble and river rage. All of those cards are amazing. Theres also only one foil in the deck. Here's what one of the guys said on the DoW thread.

Problems with Forest Frenzy, Hills Rumble & River Rage	Fri, 25 May 2007 02:02
I have been promising to write a comprehensive article detailing all the reasons that a good portion of the BattleLore playing community think that DoW should issue an "official" fix to the Cleric Lore cards Hills Rumble, Forest Frenzy and River Rage. Listed below are the problems that these cards cause in an otherwise very well rounded game. 1. The cards' two separate scaling mechanisms can cause them to be too powerful. Out of all the Lore cards, only these three have two mechanisms that change their power level so significantly. They scale with both the level of the player's Cleric Lore Master and with the particular battlefield's terrain density. This causes a problem in that when both scales are on the high end, these cards just become ridiculously powerful. Why do these cards have two scaling mechanisms when almost no other cards do? Did they need to be this overly powerful in these situations? DoW may have been acknowledging this issue with their suggested "house rule" by limiting the dice rolled to two for each unit regardless of Cleric level. With the official Lore decks as written the Cleric has 6 cards that scale with level, while the Wizard has 4 and the Rogue and Warrior have two each. The house rule suggested by DoW lowers this to 3/4/2/2 which brings it closer to balance between the Lore Masters, but most players feel that there should be more Lore cards for all characters that scale with level and not fewer. The proposed fix, although somewhat better, is still unofficial and still has very strong damage potential on maps with a high terrain density. It has been noted several times in various on line forums that these spells can still be quite powerful even without a Cleric (2 dice rolled per unit). 2. The low-probability, high impact card effects increase the luck factor drastically. This particular problem is the fundamental idea behind the card and why they are as powerful as they are. The game designers made these cards to be very situational, but when a good situation arises, these spells can often cause the game to swing dramatically. DoW has stated that this is the intent and indeed most of us agree that it can be a decent mechanic. But with these cards, especially Forest Frenzy and Hills Rumble, the situation comes up a too often and the damage they can deal to a player's army can be game breaking. This causes several issues with the game but the one that is the most important to keep in mind is the luck factor. More than any other Lore cards these three are either not very good or too good. They can demolish an opponent that is using the terrain to his advantage or on a terrain heavy battlefield. On the other side, if a player draws a Hills Rumble on a battlefield with no elevated terrain or a River Rage on a field with no water, then it is a wasted draw. The cards are highly situational and therefore increase luck in the game. It is feast or minor hunger pangs with these cards. 3. The cards are out of balance with themselves. We've established that these cards increase the luck factor because they are situational. They are either good or bad, but when they are good they can be really good, and when they are bad, they are merely inconvenient. Drawing one of these cards when they are useless is not nearly as game breaking as a getting a Forest Frenzy off and rolling 20 to 40 attack dice against your opponent's army. A wasted Lore card draw is unlikely to cost anyone a game of BattleLore. But losing 8 or more figures to one lucky card pull often is. Therefore these cards are not well balanced even within themselves. 4. The cards are out of balance with the other Lore cards. These cards cost 7 Lore to play "in character." The other Lore cards that deal damage directly to units cost 8-10 Lore to play and have generally less upward damage potential. Granted that Fireball, and Creeping Doom are not situation dependant, but they can roll a maximum number of dice far below that of Hills Rumble, Forest Frenzy and River Rage. Only Chain Lightning has similar damage potential, but it is dependant on two circumstances that are less likely than having units near terrain. It needs all targeted units to be in a line or cluster and to continue to roll a hit with every sequential target. It seldom finds more than 5 or 6 units in such an unbroken line and will often fail to roll a hit, ending the spell. This damage potential is little compared to the 10 or more units that the terrain Lore cards can hit in a given situation. It will be noted that these other direct damage Lore cards are more precise than the terrain Lore cards that deal their damage over a wide area and some may say that this helps balance these cards with each other. It must be taken into consideration that players will often cluster their troops around terrain in order to utilize its defensive properties and this common strategy. 5. The cards break thematically from the role of the Cleric character. The Cleric is a fantasy priest that gets it's origins from role playing games; most notably the Dungeons & Dragons game. Their magic comes from a divine source and is centered on healing, protection and destruction of opposed theologies (good vs. evil). Although there are spells that can cause damage to others, most of them are weak when compared to the spells of the wizard and sorcerer classes. The class in D&D that has spells revolving around the land and the natural world is the druid. The druid is also a divine spellcaster so thematically the Cleric in BattleLore is the closest fit for the spells Forest Frenzy, River Rage and Hills Rumble. In this the Cleric fits, but how it doesn't fit is that these spells, and in this case Chain Lighting joins them, are more powerful or on par with the spells of the Wizard Lore Master. The healer and holy man should not outshine the Wizard in his damage dealing potential. Not only do these individual cards show themselves to be more powerful than the Wizard's two direct damage Lore cards, but the Cleric also has two more direct damage spells than the wizard does (Cleric's 4 to a Wizard's 2). Also, to better illustrate that the Cleric is misthemed in BattlLore, I should point out that in D&D the Chain Lighting Spell is a high level wizard spell that the cleric does not have access to. 6. The cards cause terrain that should be used advantageously to become a major liability. Nearly all war games have some system to designate how the terrain affects a battle. It is an important part of strategy in both real life combat and games made to simulate combat. BattleLore is no exception. The game is designed so that units can take cover in a wooded terrain hex or on top of a hill to gain a defensive advantage. These locations are often used as a strategic defensive position and are very important to the intricacies of the game. The power of the terrain attack Lore cards ruins this important strategic element. Many players and DoW themselves have suggested avoiding placing units in or next to terrain as a counter strategy to these contested Cleric Lore cards. The presence or mere possibility of these cards being in the Lore deck causes many players to toss aside traditional war game tactics just out of fear of these overpowering cards. Avoiding terrain, may at times limit the destructive capabilities of these cards, but a player also takes a strategic disadvantage by not being able to implement terrain tactics to his benefit. No other Lore cards in BattleLore cause such a disruption to the standard play of the game. Not only does avoiding terrain break traditional tactics, but often you can not avoid terrain when you would want to. Certain scenarios are packed so tightly with terrain that a player would not be able to circumvent every forest and hill hex on the map and still expect to fight a battle. There is also nothing stopping a Cleric playing opponent to hold his own troops in or behind a series of terrain hexes and force the fight on his turf just to use these cards to full effect. 7. The game can become a cat and mouse between the Cleric and anti-Cleric war council strategies. These cards are often so powerful as to make many players favor the use of a 3rd level Cleric on their war councils in every game with a decent amount of terrain. A tactic often suggested to combat the Cleric and these powerful cards is to choose a war council that has a good chance to counter these cards and does not have a Cleric. By not taking a Cleric you decrease the chances of these cards finding their way into the Lore deck by diluting it with other cards. This tactic has been suggested by the designers and play-testers as well as many players on the forums. Most players suggest taking levels of Wizard and Rogue for the chance of getting Dispel Lore and Foiled as well as Spy. Some suggest taking all three of the non-Cleric members to further dilute the Lore deck. These are solid strategies to be sure, but the problem is that it causes a dichotomy where one player always takes the Cleric and the other plays anti-Cleric. Since players choose their war councils in secret the players might both end up with anti-Cleric councils or both have 3rd level Clerics. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as some players claim that taking a 3rd level Cleric and hoping that you get the killer card first is the best way to combat a Cleric council and the anti-Cleric councils are not necessarily weak against other non-Cleric councils. Most of the time strategies and counter strategies are healthy for a game, but in this instance that is not the case. The problem here lies in the fact that anti-Cleric councils exist and are frequently discussed when no one ever suggests an anti-Warrior council or and anti-Wizard council. Why? Because these other Lore masters do not have ridiculously powerful cards that need to be strongly combated with counter tactics as the Cleric does. This is a clear sign that these cards are a problem and often unbalance not only an individual game of BattleLore, but the entire metagame surrounding it. 8. All suggested countermeasures are either inane, reliant on luck, or force avoidance of otherwise desirable tactics. There is plenty of talk about how to avoid or lessen the effect of these cards on one's army both during set up and play. All of these countermeasures contain some sort of flaw or are far from guaranteed to work. The suggested tactic of avoiding units in or next to a terrain hex breaks the basic strategy of the game and puts the player at a defensive disadvantage when unable to use terrain strategically. Many times avoidance is impossible or severely limits movement on the board. Creating an anti-Cleric war council in order to thin out the Lore deck and hope to draw counters not only creates a poor metagame, but it is also unreliable. Sure, you have decreased the odds of the cards coming up, but dumb luck may allow your opponent to draw the card he needs and essentially end the game with a single Hills Rumble or Forest Frenzy regardless to your countermeasures. If you don't have one of those key counter cards your council may provide, your opponent's good luck could still wreck your army. There is no way to avoid these cards completely and they can be so powerful that when chance still doesn't go your way, you may as well give up when the land turns against you. Another tactic that has been suggested several times is to use your Replenish Lore action to take two cards and discard one. This tactic is meant to dig quickly through the Lore deck trying to get these terrain attack cards into your hand before your opponent acquires them. You could potentially do this, but there is nothing stopping your power hungry opponent from doing the same thing, which puts you back into the battle of luck you were in to begin with. You might get lucky and you might not. None of these tactics work reliably and lose you something in return. Although these kinds of tactics are not necessarily ineffective against a non-Cleric war council, there is little desire or suggestion for players to do so. It is only these three Cleric cards that demand this sort of attention to countermeasures and that is a clear issue. 9. The cards often suck the fun out of a game of BattleLore for both players. This is probably the worst part about these cards and their effect on the game. Most games of BattleLore are exciting and engaging throughout. Even if the dice are just not going your way there always seems to be something holding your attention to the game. This all changes when a devastating Forest Frenzy or Hills Rumble is played. A close game can go to a landslide victory in a single lucky draw. A player feels so helpless and pathetic to lose 14 figures to a single card when there was little he could do to stop it. Even if all suggested counter measures were taken, this could happen to anyone with the luck of the draw. It is not fun to lose a game to a single card like this. It is an unsatisfying game experience and it will leave most players with a hollow feeling in their stomach. Many players have felt this from the other side as well. Unassumingly a player plays a Hills Rumble for the first time knowing it is going to be a powerful play and it ends up being stronger than they expect. Both players are dumbfounded as the game suddenly swings so wide that it is nearly over. Maybe the players are more experienced and one of them draws a Forest Frenzy and looks to see that 11 of his opponent's units will be affected. Many players have reported feelings of guilt as they play the card, knowing that it will decide the game. It feels cheap and unfair, leaving cold feelings not toward either player, but toward the game of BattleLore for allowing such a thing to happen. "That sucks, man. Want to try it again?" "Not really." 10. The cards have the potential to scare new players away from the game through a bad experience with them. Several players have told stories where they were teaching the game to new players and the game was killed by an untimely Forest Frenzy or Hills Rumble. In these instances, when the new player saw himself lose to an overpowered and destructive card and by no fault of his own, it created a sour opinion of the game. Not only do these gamers not become avid fans of BattleLore and buy their own copy, but their friends often have a hard time convincing them to play again. Some players are pensive about teaching the game to new players while using the Cleric Lore Master, because they don't want them to be turned away from the game. If this sort of game ending potential existed in many of the most popular multiplayer boardgames of today, many of them would not be played. Even with a low likelihood of occurrence (even much lower than the potential of HR and FF) they would be considered too luck based and random. Most players would choose not to play it after witnessing a near complete luck based win. 11. These cards are the only elements of BattleLore that are seeing a fervor of debate regarding a problem in the design. There is obviously some sort of problem with these cards. This is evident for many reasons, but the one that stands out the strongest is the debate about them and the number of players who have complained or shared a story about how these cards have ruined their enjoyment of an otherwise great game. Although it is true that many players do not consider these cards much of a problem, some of these players tell how they combat these cards by taking an anti-Cleric council, avoiding getting near the terrain and by digging through the Lore deck to grab these cards before your opponent gets them. There are several threads on the Days of Wonder forums, the Boardgamegeek.com forums and Battleloremaster.com forums about this issue and it is been hotly debated for months. Players have been calling for change and official rulings while others have stated that the cards are not a problem. Days of Wonder representatives, including Richard Borg, have made appearances to give advice and statements as to their take on the subject and finally loosely suggesting a house rule for those of us who think that these cards are too powerful. All this talk and discussion; all these arguments and house rules, have been caused by these three thematic and mechanically similar cards. No other part of BattleLore has been subjected to this type of scrutiny and debate. Problems with the rest of the game are minor or non-existent. It is these three cards that are a broken part of an otherwise near perfect game. They are broken and un-fun and the public has acknowledged the problem repeatedly. Even those forum posters who disagree have only justified a fix by increasing the visibility of the issue through continued debate. 12. Proposed house rule and countermeasures don't actually fix the problem. Taking an anti-Cleric war council only succeeds in making a "too powerful" but situational card, more dependent on luck. The cards are stronger than they should be and no matter what steps you take to avoid them, when they do appear, even if they appear less often, they can seriously ruin a game. Avoiding terrain does not fix the problem either. The problem is inherent in the necessity to take these steps to avoid or lessen the effects of the cards. Short of changing how the card works in the game, nothing in the game can fix the problem. In order to curb some of the heat they were taking on these cards DoW wisely decided to issue a "suggested house rule" although denying the need for one. They propose that people who are unhappy with the way the cards work should limit the cards to two dice against each target regardless of Cleric level. They may have chosen this house rule for several reasons. They may have chosen it to reduce the level dependent Lore cards to a more balanced level between the Lore Masters. They may have chosen it based on the argument that the spells have too much damage potential in the hands of a 3rd level Cleric. Or they may have chosen this house rule, because they could claim it as original because no one on the forums had posted that particular idea as a house rule proposal up to that time. Who knows? But does it fulfill the need we as a community were asking for? Many would say that the spells are still powerful in this "fixed" incarnation. It still targets the same number of units and only reduces the total amount of dice rolled against them. It has been noted (and eluded to by R.Borg) that even without a Cleric on your council; these cards can be quite strong. This fix only reduces these spells to this level of power. That might be good enough for some players, but what may not be good enough is its unofficial status. Most players highly dislike house rules. They want to play only by the official rules and some gamers are resistant to official errata from sources they have not read themselves. If someone where to run a BattleLore tournament and wish to institute this house rule, he would probably come up against resistance from the players because it is "not official" or "the that's not what the card says." When teaching the game to new players, no one wants to say, "I'm playing these three cards with this house rule because they were too powerful." It doesn't shine a very good light on the game. For these reasons many players want a more official fix to the problems with these cards. Whether DoW issues official errata or, more desirably, reprints the cards and makes them available in a future expansion or through the mail, either would do a lot to cool the fervor created by dissatisfaction with these cards. And that is all I have to say.

Wow that was a lot of words. Too many for me to read in one setting.

I don't think we have to worry about Lore Power creep or whatever somebody said. I think we will see equally powerful cards in each Lore master's bag of tricks but I also think we will see a lot of powerful counters to these cards as well. In addition, there will be a certain balance in that a Level 3 Cleric is not a sure thing to have because maybe people want a Level 3 Warrior (I think it was the warrior that lacked any real level-dependent spells). And because it is not longer a great benefit to have just a Level 3 Cleric, peopel might reduce the Level they assign to a certain master and again spread it out. Which will also help balance some of the cards from being too powerful.

Yeah, I agree with what ColtsFan76 Brian said. Once we see the other stuff roll out the balance should be there. The "overpowered" cards haven't bothered me anyway, as the game is short enough to play that I don't mind seeing half my center taken out by rumbling hills.

Now if this were to happen in a game of Command And Colors: Ancients, I WOULD be annoyed. But that's why I have both games.

I think this is a good topic to bring up every now and again, especially with the change over to FFG and the resulting new players that the switch in publishers will bring and has already brought.

HonorforONEFilms reposted one of the first posts from a thread on the DOW forums providing some discussion on the subject - I won't repost all the remaining ones but here are the links to a few threads that do broach the topic:

maybe too powerful

Problems with Forest Frenzy, Hills Rumble & River Rage

Hills Rumble / Forest Frenzy Broken or not ?

Example of Cleric being too powerful

[house rule proposal] HR/FF/RR: Stop the Madness!

I'm sure there were a few more, and points within these threads will be made over and over again, but usually with a bit of a fresh vantage. Might be worth some's while to read through a bit and play a lot before coming to conclusions.

Informed and measured opinion.. I guess i could manage that if you forced me to.. but being reasonable aint nearly as much fun as rabble rousing

(besides, at my age its the most fun i get in a week..hehe)

Andy

Hi there!

New Lore-Cards are coming? Guess I missed that...
Do you know something more in detail?

Ahh, Ye Olde HR/FF/RR debate. Oh how I missed thee. . .

Ok, maybe not.

Let's distill.

From heavy coverage on the DOW forums, there developed five disparate factions:

1. "Too Powerful"
2. "No, they aren't"
3. "Are too, let me explain it in endless hypothetical scenarios, and use lots and lots of words to convey my passion and superior logic. . ."
4. "Whatever, you whackjob. Suck it."
5. "Don't Care"

Many of us ended up in faction five after having sided with one of the previous factions.

Did I miss something? Coltsfan, Caboose?

Zeal

Nope I think that sums up the five camps very nicely, though I think your starting camp depends how often you're on the receiving end before you clock up the games to see overall its really not that important

Chris

Zeal you covered them quite well...I think that are the 5 basic camps. And I agree, over time, the cards aren't that powerful if you are aware of them and what to do. But that initial shock of seeing them against you is never good, especially if you aren't aware of what they can do.

But I think you forgot the special case for you - "Goblins aren't that powerful are they?? Wait, what's that..Mounted Goblins..argh!!" <G>

(for those not in the know, I showed Zeal the power of Goblins with the use of a few tactical Mounted Attack cards

Cab

HonorforONEFilms said:

And, just wanted to address this point a little. While I wouldn't say idiot , if you mean that if one is going to take a cleric at all, better to take it all the way to level 3, I would agree with that. If what is meant is that anyone who does not take a level 3 cleric everytime playing a customizeable war council with 3 or more levels avaible is an idiot, then I wouldn't agree at all.

Another point that is often lost is that playing with customizeable war councils is but one way to play this widely variable game. There are plenty of instances with set adventures where a level 1 or 2 cleric would be selected by the author of the adventure in order to obtain the desired set-up.

I was harsh and unclear. If you have 6 counclil levles then I would always a levle 3 cleric. Always. But it helps that I play without the wizard. I've never used his cards so I don't know how good he is.

HonorforONEFilms said:

And I believe that is why your blanket statement of "always use a lvl 3 cleric" needs another look (or quite a few more games). Play the wizard or other council members and then make your point about why one should always play a lvl 3 cleric, you might find that you've changed your mind. In the very least, you'll at least lend more weight to your argument by having a more rounded perspective on the Lore council.

HonorforONEFilms said:

There are very few instances where I would rather have a Level 3 Cleric and one of the HR/FF/RR cards than a Level 3 Wizard and either Portal, Greater Portal, or Creeping Doom. With the Cleric spells one is at the mercy of the opponent's postioning upon the board - there's little to no escaping the Wizard's reach

The ONLY time I take a level 3 cleric is when I'm sure my opponent is as well. The players who obsess over these 3 cards are also terrified of them, and with a 50% chance of drawing them myself, I can either play em or hold them out of play as the ultimate threat, watching my opponent spend all his command points fleeing terrain and paying little attention to my plans...

Myself, I much prefer the wizard, like Toddrew.

Zeal

Caboose said:

Yes I greatly fear 4 consecutive mounted charges far more than a HH/FF/RR card played against me. . .scaly green bastards. . .

Z