Custom Guardians

By dkw, in Fan Creations

It looks like an interesting take on elemental powers, but I'd change the artwork to something a little more Arabian.

http://www.encore-editions.com/frank-earle-schoonover-aladdin-and-the-genie-original-size-36x28

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s228/zetakai/Experience%201/9-AnotherBoundGenie.jpg

http://www.oceansbridge.com/oil-paintings/product/63171/fishermanandthegenie1863

Also, if you're linking the elements to specific planets / ancient gods I'd recommend using a gif of a generic planet and a colour scheme, rather than the cartoon images. Obviously, it's a matter of personal taste, but I prefer artwork that was more in keeping with the current design.

It looks like an interesting take on elemental powers, but I'd change the artwork to something a little more Arabian.

http://www.encore-editions.com/frank-earle-schoonover-aladdin-and-the-genie-original-size-36x28

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s228/zetakai/Experience%201/9-AnotherBoundGenie.jpg

http://www.oceansbridge.com/oil-paintings/product/63171/fishermanandthegenie1863

Also, if you're linking the elements to specific planets / ancient gods I'd recommend using a gif of a generic planet and a colour scheme, rather than the cartoon images. Obviously, it's a matter of personal taste, but I prefer artwork that was more in keeping with the current design.

Not my call on the art style. Similar to how my Isaac investigator concept is based on the video game " The Binding of Isaac " and not directly on the biblical story, these Djinn are stylized and pulled from an old RPG called " Golden Sun ".

The elements in that game are referred to by the Roman gods as opposed to just the name of the planets.

I'll read over the bulk of the cards while I'm at work and give my main thoughts then. However, for the moment the main thing I see as being out of sync here (and for once I am arguing /for/ theme) is that you SHOULD be able to trade the Djinni. In the game itself, you can exchange them between characters--that was sort of their appeal. By combining them with certain characters for any given situation, it created unique combinations that allowed for certain spells/abilities. By removing that option, it sorta takes away the uniqueness of the Djinni and instead makes them 'just another item'. One could argue this keeps certain Investigators from getting potent combos BUT that is where you could limit it elsewhere. Perhaps something like, 'Investigators cannot have two of the same type of Element/Color' instead of keeping them from trading.

Another thing that might be a bit troublesome is the timing for it; there are A LOT of things to keep track of in any given game of Arkham Horror, and having to remember every two-turns to plop down another card from the pile can be difficult. I guess it's just personal experience but I can't tell you how many times I've missed out on Hypnos' cards simply because there are so many things to take care of in any given Upkeep/Mythos phase.

Anyway, like II said, that is my surface notes, I'll look over it and post my full read-through response when I get to work and have time to really examine the cards in detail. (Which means today is likely going to be busy as heck).

First thing I noticed; why are some cards noted to be discarded specifically and why do others simply say 'Don't refresh'?

Chasm. How would this work on say, a Mask monster or the Dunwich Horror? Especially if the Dark Pharoah or the Dunwich Horror are the heralds?

Corona: Why would anyone chose to discard it based on its ability?

Flash: Exhaust and discard is a bit redundant. Could probably just say 'Discard'

Fury: I would almost say do the inverse, in keeping with 'Fury'. Everytime you FAIL a Fight or Will check, gain a +1 to the check.

Brand: Same as the first note--why not just discard it after use instead of exhausting and not refreshing?

Fugue: Same as Brand

Zephyr: Do you lose the +1 Speed if you exhaust it?

Breeze: Does this include being in an Other World? Would it mean I could read a Tome?

Gasp: Again, does this apply to the Dunwich Horror as well? If it does, this may or may not be an easy way to deal with it largely by letting it simply die, especially if playing with someone like Charlie.

Sirocco: A redundant effect--essentially, you turn what may be an Evade [1] check into an Evade [2] since you have to actually rolls Successes twice for your one failure. Moreover, does a Blessing effect whether you get that second re-roll?

Luff: This is just semantics, but I would suggests reversing the order of options since the latter usually will come up far more often than the former.

Gust: Again, I would suggest flipping this around to getting the 'boost' after a failure, not a success.

Sleet: This one is a more obscure situation but definitely not one that wouldn't come up. If you've got someone with a high speed and/or vehicles or Movement boosting items/skills, by moving into a Location and back out again, one could effectively be able to move from one end of the board to the other. Finn with anything that boosts his Speed by even 1 will effectively be able to move from the Historical Society to the other end of the board and around half-way again at that rate.

Eddy: This is semantics again but perhaps changing the wording to something like 'One of the dice you roll during a check is Blessed' since I know I don't roll dice one at a time but rather all at once. Superstition.

That's about all I see from the actual cards themselves. Cheers on being one of the few people I know that remembers this gem of a game pair (I don't much care for the third since it was a bit dry in the dialogue department and largely just a rehash of the original--it's a Disney sequel to what was otherwise a great little series).

Regarding the trading of Djinn thing, I went through a few iterations of this Guardian in which you could trade the Djinn, and while it was cool and players enjoyed doing it, it also gave everyone way too optimal a setup for the game. It also just makes it so that everyone picks up all the Djinn at the start of the game, regardless of element, and trades them to get optimal setups. I know that's within the flavor of the original game, but it's a little too powerful for Arkham Horror.

Instead, the design approach I used was designating each element towards a particular facet of the game:

Earth - Combat effectiveness, tools against monsters, and general bonuses to being a monster fighter.

Fire - Self-improvement, energizing, effects that generally give you stronger abilities.

Wind - Evasiveness and trickery, provides free reign of movement and designed for running gates.

Water - Support and healing with some monster control, designed to help other investigators.

With that knowledge in mind and by removing the trading option on Djinn, what I wanted to encourage players to do was leave Djinn that would benefit certain players for them to pick up. Even though you don't know exactly what it does until you pick it up, you know more or less what it's tailored to do. Only pick up Djinn of a particular element if you are employing that facet of the game.

For the record, every time we've played Djinn, we only forgot a single Upkeep trigger. You can use a token or die to help keep track of it, but I didn't find it to be that problematic. So, now onto specifics:

Chasm - I guess I didn't think about that. Guess I'll change it to "Non-spawn monster". If that happens to include the Dunwich Horror, great. Otherwise, I think I'll leave that one be as a "crazy feature"

Corona - Well okay, that one is supposed to include the line "Doesn't refresh during upkeep". Don't know why it doesn't, but there ya go.

Flash - I'm just using the wording that most items of a similar nature use, like discardable weapons. Exhaust and discard is on all of them.

Fury - That's definitely a neat idea and I will think about it.

Brand - In this case it's a balance issue. You get to use Brand once, and you also get to use Flash once, but Brand is providing you with much more long term benefits as opposed to Flash where you get only one use. The balance here is that when you're done using Brand, it sits in your inventory and may prevent you from collecting further Djinn until you release it. Since Flash is so temporary, I figure it should at least save you the time of trying to release it.

Fugue - Look at Flash

Zephyr - Nope, the Speed +1 clause is separate from the exhaust effect, which means it always gives Speed +1.

Breeze - Technically no, since if you start your movement phase in an Other World, you just automatically move forward and aren't given any movement points. I don't know if the rules specifically lists it as "Reduced to 0 movement" or "Don't start with any Movement", but in either case Breeze was not intended to give you movement points in the other world. I think I might need to check the rules regardless since if you are assigned movement points at the start of movement, then I need to rework the way Breeze functions.

Gasp - I know that version of Gasp is a little out of date, but I'll assign the same solution as with Chasm. If it doesn't include the Dunwich Horror, I'm actually fine with it for the most part since the odds of both coming up in the same game are pretty low.

Sirocco - The effects are a little redundant, but they also have very different levels of power. One effect only comes up once in a while and carries with it no guarantees of success, while the other effect is super strong and guarantees success but at the cost of only being usable once. Sirocco is specifically designed to make people who are good at Evading even better at doing so. If you aren't good at evading, it's not going to make you much better.

Luff - That's a fair point.

Gust - In the case of Fury, I think it makes sense, but with Gust I wanted it to feel like building momentum. So, while I think the change to Fury is a good one, I also think I'd rather keep Gust as is.

Sleet - Yes, I agree the mobility granted on Sleet is ridiculous. It's also temporary. Sleet grants a total of 5 movement points over the course of an entire game, which is quite a bit, but also with minor restriction. It may sound crazy powerful, but there's a trick: It's not actually that great on a high speed character since they already dash across the map. It's amazing on a low speed character though, at least for a while. Additionally, the situation you mentioned doesn't work because it only tracks your first movement point spent. If you move from a street into a location, Sleet counts nothing for the turn.

Eddy - Regardless of how you word it, you're going to need to set one die aside for the roll. I just choose to say the first die so no one ever forgets to factor it in.

Looking at that picture, it is worth mention that some of those Djinn are out of date, and more importantly there's 3 Djinn missing from each element since I made even more :)

Nice ideas. :)

Great work.
Are you still working on them? Or is this already the final version?

I actually am refining the Djinn Guardian.

I'll have a full release ready by September in my thread

Edited by Shining Aquas

Nice ideas. :)

Great work.

Are you still working on them? Or is this already the final version?

I did finally finish the final version, which ended up looking like this .

All the stuff is in my thread, or there's a download here .