Ok, heres my list of custom characters. any feedback would be appreciated. note- when I refer to an "item", that is either one gold, or one card.

1 Sabotuer- Choose a character to sabotage. that character may not take an action or have a build phase, he may still use special abilities.

2 Beggar- receive one gold from the player with the most, or one card from the player with the most. in the case of a tie, both players must donate

3 Illusionist- May build duplicate districts. receives one gold per purple district and/or duplicate district.

4 Anarchist- There is no king counter for the round. the order of picking is determined by die roll, highest roll picks first and so on. at end of round, the player that picks last receives the king counter for the next round. the anarchist may loot any 2 items from any combination of players.

5 Paladin- paladin cannot be bewitched. red, blue, and yellow districts cost one less to build. ( must always at least pay one gold for a district )

6 Tycoon- Tycoon gets no action, he may sell one district card from his hand to the bank for its gold value.

7- Imposter- choose a color. receive gold equal to the number of districts you control of the chosen color + 1

8- False Prophet- pay gold equal to i/2 the cost of chosen enemy district ( round up ). place a marker there. if the marker is there at end of game, you receive 1/2 the points for that district ( round down )

9- Doppleganger- Choose a character that played this round. imitate that characters turn fully, except that you may not receive the king counter, assasinate, bewitch, or steal.

well, there they are. let me know what you think

darthmax said:

1 a decent downgrade for the assassin.

2 a good combo of thief and magician/wizard except for getting bad cards, which is thematic enough and for the desparate in that case. Maybe force the user to take that which they have the least of?

3 too powerful. First, either give him gold for purple OR duplicate districts (which you might make purple for this purpose). Second, the warlord can destroy duplicates for free and if the Diplomat takes one the other is destroyed. Third, Quarry can't be used in the game. Fourth, duplicates aren't counted toward the eight needed to complete your city.

4 Interesting, but who gets money for yellow districts then?

5 kind of lackluster. Most people I know don't bother with the witch and, though a good ability, paying less lacks the omph expected from a paladin

6 you mean build action or draw money/cards?

7 too little here. Maybe collect from another player's city? In that case I'd switch him with the beggar and the player/character chosen (excluding 1) doesn't get money from their districts. Maybe they can't use their ability since people are confused or something

8 Neat. Not sure how much play he'd get though.

9 Do you have to draw what they drew? If they didn't build can you not build? Or is this just the witch going last?

each gold or card in the game is significant, i think, and losing any hurts, so i think the beggar wins all around, he doesnt have to pick and hope he gets someone, its automatic, and he doubles up on ties

i see your point w/ the illusionist. i like your idea of duplicates not counting towards the 8, but duplicates ,while a nuisance, hardly offer enough of a problem to justify a character whose only power is with them. maybe get gold for purple, and build duplicates with your limitations

noone gets gold for yellow, just like the alchemist. anarchist loots 2 items instead

maybe add that the paladin is also immune to the false prophet. we use the witch as often as any other card

tycoon gets no action phase (draw/gold )

doppleganger just choose a character and plays with that characters abilities. it doesnt matter what the player who had that character did on their turn. if someone played the architect, then you may choose him and play him as you like

thanks for the feedback

btw, originally, i had the paladin receiving a gold and a card if he had out at least one each of red yellow and blue. i thought this was over powered , and i like the cut rates on these colors better.

any other thoughts or ideas out there?

darthmax said:

I don't know how I like this character. He's not overpowered or anything, but his ability strikes me as somewhat pointless since the Assassin does the same thing AND nixes the special ability (and the special ability is often why a particular character gets hit in our games.) Maybe if you're playing with a group that takes offense to being assassinated this would be a good compromise, but otherwise it's not a character I would ever want to include.

darthmax said:

Sounds good on the surface. What happens with multiple ties? ie: three people are tied for highest gold and two are tied (with the same amount) for highest cards. Possibly one or both of the card holders are also among the gold holders. Does the beggar get 3 gold and two cards in that case? Or is he required to choose gold or cards up front? I'm not sure how often a situation like that would arise, but it's worth knowing the answer beforehand. I don't think it's overpowered since how good it is largely amounts to luck, although it should probably be choose cards or gold, if that's not what you meant anyway.

darthmax said:

I agree with Gatha's assessment of this character. Perhaps, instead of this ability have something like "instead of taking a regular turn, the illusionist may discard any one district card in order to search the district deck for a card of his choosing and immediately build it (he must be able to afford to build the card he chooses.)" Notably, the illusionist would skip his Action to do this, so he'd need to have all the gold he wants ready to go beforehand, and it also leaves him vulnerable to beggars, thieves, etc before his turn begins.

darthmax said:

I like this guy. A little crazy, would probably confuse a few people the first time he was used, but I think it'd be a lot of fun in the end. I like the looting bit at the end.

darthmax said:

Good start. Not being witchable makes sense thematically, although we never use the witch anyway, so it doesn't do our group much good. Instead of all those colours costing less, I'd suggest this: "Red districts cost 1 less to build (minimum 1), may tax Yellow AND Blue during his turn." I think that gives hima little extra "oomh", and used in combination with the Anarchist it keeps all colours taxable. If all these bonuses sound like too much (I think they might be), then add "The Paladin must return 1 gold to the bank at the end of his turn, if able." Paladins probably give back to the community, after all.

darthmax said:

Interesting. Sounds similar to the Alchemist, except he gets no Action. Personally, I'd be inclined to go with something like "The Tycoon draws one District card in addition to taking an Action. May tax Green." Like the Merchant, only he gets a card instead of a gold. That's just me though.

darthmax said:

I agree with Gatha on this one, and I like his suggestion, although it would require this guy to down into the 1-3 range to ensure he acts before any other taxers. Maybe bring the Beggar up to 7?

darthmax said:

Considering leaders change hands every turn, how does this work? Does the person who has the False Prophet in the last turn claim ALL the markers, or does each player need his own markers and gets what he set up during the game? If it's the former that means the Prophet will turn into a hot potato towards the end of the game. Could be interesting. If it's the latter, that's a lot of marker to keep track of when scoring time comes.

Other questions: Does the False Prophet "getting half" of the points mean that the owning player also only receives half (rounded up, presumably?) What if two players put a marker on the same district in a third player's city during the course of the game? As written, I don't see any way for a marker to be removed after it has been placed, so I don't see the point of the "if it's still there..." part. The Prophet is #8 which means no Warlord or Diplomat in the same game.

It's an interesting idea, but I think it might be borked (especially if one player claims all markers at the end.) During play the Prophet is somewhat lackluster, but at the end of the game he makes a big mess of things. Assuming there's any significant number of markers on the table at the end, and assuming only one player gets all the points, then whoever has the False Prophet in the last turn probably wins. At first people might ignore him because they don't want to go putting markers around town if someone else will get to reap their reward at the end, but all it takes is one person who's willing to spread the markers around and suddenly this guy becomes a kingmaker.

darthmax said:

So this is the Witch going last and not pre-empting the other player's turn in the process. Like the Saboteur above, I don't think I would ever use this card unless someone it the group was overly sensitive about being bewitched. The inability to effectively clone some leaders because he goes last also hurts his coolness. Allowing him to move the King counter at the last minute would at least add a little spice to the character, but I'm still not sure I'd use him.

Overall, I'd say this is a good effort. Better balanced in general than a lot of other proposed "new characters" I've seen in my time. I'd have to apply a few tweaks before using them myself, but you've stirred the imagination pot, so that's good. =)