One thing I've found about list construction is that Artifacts aren't generally all that inspiring. They're good, don't get me wrong, but I'm interested in seeing what kinds of new builds we can support with just an artifact. For example:

• Heartseeker lets you keep a ranged hero safe, at a steep cost. Not very dramatic, and the price keeps it from being ubiquitous, but this means you can be sure of getting use out of even the most fragile ranged hero, if that's what you're after.
• Reaping Blade is an ok damage boost, and adds some on-demand high-defense mitigation. Good to have available, but probably not build-defining.
• Fortuna's Dice is a pure fixer. Mostly it's just a flat damage boost, but it also lets ranged heroes guarantee an Accuracy result. Very strong, but not all that interesting .
• Shield of Margath is more along the lines of what I'm thinking! It fundamentally changes the attrition math for melee fights, and so directly enables the "thorns" build. Obviously it needs the right platform (Hawthorne, maybe Kingsbone Kethra), but it's a big deal.

So if you were tasked with introducing a new neutral artifact, what would it be?

[insert fancy name here] As an action, give one enemy in line of sight, at any range, in any firing arc the quagmired condition, or move the quagmired condition to it.

The quagmired condition reduces all match and shift actions by one, to a minimum of zero.

Only one quagmired condition card comes with the artifact—it can be moved around but only one unit at a time can be affected. If needed, tweak the rules or note on the quagmired card that a move-0 will not let you enter or exit terrain. (I don't think the rules cover move-0s yet.)

Gloves of Ogre Strength

Unit receives keyword brutal 1 or increases brutal by 1. 12 points.

This is a simple and rather bland artifact, but would make for some interesting new gameplay. It could become too op with heroes like Ravos or Vorun'thul or Faolan, but I think the cost balances it out. Also, using up the artifact slot to simply make a heavy damage dealer would cost over 1/4 of the army.

What would be really cool about it is waiqar could use fallen hero to get a 5 threat Reanihammer.

Shadow Dragon's cloak:

For each wound you would receive the attacker must spend 1 surge to apply that wound to you.

Adds a bit of a dodge element, based on the Shadow Dragon's ability in Descent 2nd ed.

28 minutes ago, Jukey said:

Gloves of Ogre Strength

Unit receives keyword brutal 1 or increases brutal by 1. 12 points.

This is a simple and rather bland artifact, but would make for some interesting new gameplay. It could become too op with heroes like Ravos or Vorun'thul or Faolan, but I think the cost balances it out. Also, using up the artifact slot to simply make a heavy damage dealer would cost over 1/4 of the army.

What would be really cool about it is waiqar could use fallen hero to get a 5 threat Reanihammer.

I like it. Would it be melee-attack-only?

3 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I like it. Would it be melee-attack-only? 

If you imagining that they're throwing rocks their strength would apply.

I think I'd be ok with ranged and melee, both Meagan and Kari use surges for outside the damage pool. Maro could get a bit gross with a dialed in 6 damage, but I say we let maro have his fun, poor guy deserves it.

Edit: I mention the surges because all that extra damage doesn't get affected by brutal, not that I think surges get brutal, just to clarify. ?

How about:

At the start of the game, choose a colour. All modifiers (on the dial of that hero) of that colour are considered white.

That would for example allow Kari to dial in a precision symbol on her ranged attack. Or use her defence in any situation.

Hawthorne could shift-march 2. Or turn-march 2

Ardus would't profit much

Maro could attack at ranged + move 2 or use his ability and move.

Lord vorunthul would get a speed 4 charge.

etc, etc.

Too strong?

17 minutes ago, flightmaster101 said:

Shadow Dragon's cloak:

For each wound you would receive the attacker must spend 1 surge to apply that wound to you.

Red-die-only attackers get shut down disproportionally hard by this, and it would make infantry with an artifact upgrade slot nearly impossible to do any significant damage to.

How about changing the surge to an accuracy (for thematics), and limiting it to once per turn? There's still a significant defense bonus this way, but it can still be worked through.

6 minutes ago, Chaoticus said:

How about:

At the start of the game, choose a colour. All modifiers (on the dial of that hero) of that colour are considered white.

That would for example allow Kari to dial in a precision symbol on her ranged attack. Or use her defence in any situation.

Hawthorne could shift-march 2. Or turn-march 2

Ardus would't profit much

Maro could attack at ranged + move 2 or use his ability and move.

Lord vorunthul would get a speed 4 charge.

etc, etc.

Too strong?

I think it has the potential to be too strong, but I really like it. Especially thinking of reanimates with raven standard and fallen hero armoring up after a melee at I3.

Maybe limit it to 1 modifier instead of a color group.

I would do something more subtle and not just direct damage.

Foresight (or pick a better name)

SKILL: Look at the top STABLE cards of the morale deck. Discard them or place any of them back on the top of the morale deck in a order of your choosing.

14 minutes ago, Chaoticus said:

How about:

At the start of the game, choose a colour. All modifiers (on the dial of that hero) of that colour are considered white

- stuff removed -

Too st ong?

I don't know if it's too strong now, but it would significantly limit future unit designs.

17 minutes ago, Xelto said:

Red-die-only attackers get shut down disproportionally hard by  this, and it would make infan  try  with an ar  tifact upg  rade slot nearly impossible to do any significant damage to.

How about changing the surge to an acc  uracy (fo  r thematics)  , and limiting it to once per turn? There's still a s  ignificant defense bonus  th  is way, but it can still be worked through. 

Red dice dont have accuracy either, so changing it any other symbol other than hit or morale will hurt red die attackers.

Also I'll let you in on a secret:

I'm not actually a game dev. I dont have any authority to make this an actual card, its just an idea off the top of my head.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

I would do something more subtle and not just direct damage.

Foresight (or pick a better name)

SKILL: Look at the top STABLE cards of the morale deck. Discard them or place any of them back on the top of the morale deck in a order of your choosing.

Could make it discard the top cards=stable or look at and rearrange the top cards=unstable.

This would let you see ahead of a triple panic on good turns, and let you choose between burying a card or setting it up to discard the next turn. It would also inadvertantly help against uthuk onslaughts as you could prime the deck on speedy uthuk turns.

Ardus would like this card.

Oh wait...which morale deck?

1 hour ago, flightmaster101 said:

Red dice dont have accuracy either, so changing it any other symbol other than hit or morale will hurt red die attackers.

The important part, for me, was making it a once per turn item. The change to accuracy was partly for thematics, and partly so that it didn't get nerfed too far.

Quote

Also I'll let you in on a secret:

I'm not actually a game dev. I dont have any authority to make this an actual card, its just an idea off the top of my head.

I couldn't tell if this was because I offended you or not. If so, I apologize; it certainly wasn't intentional. I was simply playing around with game ideas.

2 hours ago, Xelto said:

I couldn't tell  if this was because I offended you or not. If so, I apologize; it certainly wasn't intentional. I was simply playing around with ga  me ideas.

I’m not offended, I didn’t mean to come off bu++ hurt.

I just think trying to refine “fan made” stuff isn’t very effective. I think everyone is throwing out ideas based on the previous runebound (or otherwise) themes and mechanics they enjoy. It’s ok if they’re broken, half baked or unworkable. But I know they won’t find themselves in the game, so I’m not gonna think harder the “it’d be cool if...”.

Runebound Modification

You may equip one {equipment} upgrade with "Rune" in its name.

------------------------------------------------------

This allows heroes to wield runebound shards like Fire Rune and Wind Rune. It makes them feel more like heroes from the lore.

Draught of Sylvendale

Skill: Exhaust this card to recover 1 wound.

Emboldening Charm

While suffering a morale test, if you are not dealt a morale card, you and each ally at range 1-3 receive 1 inspiration token.

21 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

Shadow Dragon's cloak:

For each wound you would receive the attacker must spend 1 surge to apply that wound to you.

Adds a bit of a dodge element, based on the Shadow Dragon's ability in Descent 2nd ed.

16 hours ago, flightmaster101 said:

I just think trying to refine “fan made” stuff isn’t very effective. I think everyone is throwing out ideas based on the previous runebound (or otherwise) themes and mechanics they enjoy. It’s ok if they’re broken, half baked or unworkable. But I know they won’t find themselves in the game, so I’m not gonna think harder the “it’d be cool if...”.

I will start with your second quote in there. Honestly out of all of these, your idea is probably the one that would have the best odds of joining the game. I love the idea of the dodge factor. I have input some thoughts that may make it more feasible. I really like the dodge idea honestly.

This is my favorite idea in this thread, but it seems way OP as is. I only say that because you get a good roll that is all hits, and you're about to do 12 damage and kill Ankaur Maro in one hit. However you rolled zero surges, so now you do zero wounds to him... I like the idea of dodge, but it needs to favor the attacker not the defender. Maybe instead of the attacker spending surges, the defender must roll surges.

You get an option of something like: Each attack that would provide at least one wound, you may roll one blue or white die (depending on what odds we want to give this cloak) and you may dodge one wound for every surge rolled. This item must be exhausted. This means that each unit attacking you, gives this opportunity to be used, but not for each wound inflicted. Maybe instead of item is exhausted it's place two wounds on this card and each use takes one and you can rally, or spend inspiration tokens to add more wounds. That gives this ability two uses without having to unexhaust.

21 hours ago, Chaoticus said:

How about:

At the start of the game, choose a colour. All modifiers (on the dial of that hero) of that colour are considered white.

That would for example allow Kari to dial in a precision symbol on her ranged attack. Or use her defence in any situation.

Hawthorne could shift-march 2. Or turn-march 2

Ardus would't profit much

Maro could attack at ranged + move 2 or use his ability and move.

Lord vorunthul would get a speed 4 charge.

etc, etc.

Too strong?

21 hours ago, Jukey said:

I think it has the potential to be too strong, but I really like it. Especially thinking of reanimates with raven standard and fallen hero armoring up after a melee at I3.

Maybe limit it to 1 modifier instead of a color group.

I think this is cool. Obviously how to quantify the points needed to get this would be difficult, because it holds different value for different units, like you explained. This is a cool concept though. I like the idea of choosing one modifier only because this will lower cost of this upgrade.

Another interesting mechanic would be to interact with the dail.

An artefact that would allow the hero

1) to look at any unrevealed dial. This would have to come at an early initiative.

and/or

2) change a modifier (or even the whole dial) on one friendly unit (or a unit in range 1-x)

Would be a very interesting (non pure damage/recovery) mechanic, messing with a core feature of the game: the guess what I have dialed in game-of-chicken. As this would be very strong, the artefact should exhaust when used.