What would you do if you were at the Glassworks? Or other scenarios/locations that might have the same sort of mechanic?
I assume you mean that you don't want to acquire random spells or items so that you can take a card feat and go to the box for a card 2 adventure decks or lower? Seems to me like a house rule that you don't end up with random spells so you can maximize your deck isn't quite in the spirit of the game. But it is your game, so house rule it if you want.
I think if you house rule it, you should house rule it that way, by adding "may". That way any penalties for failing a check would still apply, which I think might be key. But you should have to decide on whether you would or not before you draw the random cards. No seeing what you draw and then deciding.
But now that you mention it, I think the fact that you could get stuck with cards you'd have a hard time using might be sort of what makes it a bane. Sure, we mostly think about them as "good" or "friendly" barriers, but Seelah getting 1d4 random items, rolling a 4, and getting all ranged weapons probably doesn't think that chest was too friendly. The fact that it can potentially clog up your deck is definitely not a friendly thing.
Maybe you aren't sure if the villain is hiding in that chest? Or maybe you wonder if that mystic inscription might be a note from the villain to a henchman telling them where to meet up? And then you open the chest and see its a bunch of weapons and think, "Well, I shouldn't leave these lying around for some kids to find and hurt themselves. Or the forces of evil either. I don't want the forces of evil having all these crossbows. So into my pack they go."
I don't know. But hey, like I said, do you what makes you happy. I think on the "Card Game/RPG" spectrum, I'm much closer than many to the Card Game end. I love the fact that it feels sort of like an RPG, but having not played and RPG in 20 years or so, I can't even remember everything about RPG to even bother trying to make it fit thematically.
You'd have to have Scorching Ray or at least Holy Candle to do such a thing.
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I can see some strategy besides "box fishing" to wanting to just fail these barriers.
You could draw a bunch of cards that are bad for your character's playstyle, like weapons on Ezren. If your hand is nearly full they just end up in your discard, but if your hand is low now they choke up your hand instead of actual useful cards.
If you do discard them then get healed, now they are in your deck to mess up your card draws. I've had this happen with Kyra when she managed to pull something like 4 ranged weapons from one of the chests.
That having been said, in general it should be pretty easy to fail these things. Just roll the check you're worst at and don't bump it.
I have to agree that "friendly" barriers seem counter-intuitive to what a barrier card is. Barriers, by their very name, are something that gets in your way to block your progress. A pit trap or collapsing ceiling. Heck, even a bad case of the skeletons will stop you until dealt with. Something like a chest doesn't block your path, and the desire to open it would depend on your goals and needs.
In my (non game designer) mind, chests, runes, and other beneficial objects should be their own type of cards. But I understand that will never happen because of the added complexity and logistics of game design. Plus I don't think there are currently enough "friendly" barriers in the game to become it's own class of cards, let's say "Stashes" or something. And adding more would upset the balance, require another type of card on the deck setup, etc.
In the meantime, I've never run into a problem with friendly barriers. If you don't want the stuff, roll your worst skill for the check and don't add any dice. I tend to see failed checks even when trying to obtain the boons inside. And if you do get the stuff you don't want, there are ways to be rid of it: Give spells to non-casters to one-shot use. Use them as fodder when required to banish cards. Hide them under the bag of chips...
I have to agree that "friendly" barriers seem counter-intuitive to what a barrier card is. Barriers, by their very name, are something that gets in your way to block your progress. A pit trap or collapsing ceiling. Heck, even a bad case of the skeletons will stop you until dealt with. Something like a chest doesn't block your path, and the desire to open it would depend on your goals and needs.
In my (non game designer) mind, chests, runes, and other beneficial objects should be their own type of cards. But I understand that will never happen because of the added complexity and logistics of game design. Plus I don't think there are currently enough "friendly" barriers in the game to become it's own class of cards, let's say "Stashes" or something. And adding more would upset the balance, require another type of card on the deck setup, etc.
In the meantime, I've never run into a problem with friendly barriers. If you don't want the stuff, roll your worst skill for the check and don't add any dice. I tend to see failed checks even when trying to obtain the boons inside. And if you do get the stuff you don't want, there are ways to be rid of it: Give spells to non-casters to one-shot use. Use them as fodder when required to banish cards. Hide them under the bag of chips...
I think they do have their own trait, and I want to say it is "stash," lol. It might be cache. I don't remember.
I'll echo, however, that I've never had trouble intentionally failing the checks, however.
I think that it comes down to knowing what you will get from the chest. I think that it would be more interesting if you had no idea what would come out of the chest. Imagine if the card required you to roll 1d4 and based on the roll you would get:
1) Nothing, the chest was empty.
2) 1d4 of random weapons from the box.
3) 1d4 random items from the box.
4) Summon and encounter a random monster. If defeated, you may draw a random armor from the box.
Now the chest is interesting. The chests could have different checks to defeat and roll items on them. There would be no reason to intentionally fail the check, because you have no clue what you might get. It also mean that you do not know if you should waste cards on it, either, so it is a little tricky.
Back to what seems to be the heart of the argument, is why these are no optional thematically, and not mechanically as it has been taken. I do not think that a rule needs to be written on edge cases. In most cases, if people do not want to try for the chest, then they will just throw a d4 of their lowest skill to get the chest or runes, and it doesn't matter, but i would agree that if Valeros see a Mystic Inscription, then he might as well not even try to figure out what they say. He would just walk on by. 'Oh look, somebody wrote on the wall... Whatever.'
Personally, I never pass up a chance to add health to my deck. Even 4 junk cards is 4 more hit points. If you pick up 4 useless items, just discard them during reset and draw new cards. Until you are healed, your deck is not impacted. Never underestimate the power of a junk card. I don't know how many times I kill a henchmen and then the close requirement is banish a card, and I have all nice cards... don't want to banish anything. Perfect place for a darn caltrops or chainmail or basic dagger.
When opening a chest, I think there should be a random chance of summoning and encountering a Level 61 Meat Popsicle!
(Obscure reference?)
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When opening a chest, I think there should be a random chance of summoning and encountering a Level 61 Meat Popsicle!
(Obscure reference?)
Please place your hands in the yellow circles.
Um, actually yes... great movie indeed! My reference was to the high-level loot midget that would jump out of the loot chest in Borderlands (I forget which DLC). But then again, Borderlands was full of pop-culture references, hence being able to trace this one back to Fifth Element.
An obscure reference within an obscure reference! What do I win? (1d4 armor cards from the box, no doubt.)
Um, actually yes... great movie indeed! My reference was to the high-level loot midget that would jump out of the loot chest in Borderlands (I forget which DLC). But then again, Borderlands was full of pop-culture references, hence being able to trace this one back to Fifth Element.
An obscure reference within an obscure reference! What do I win? (1d4 armor cards from the box, no doubt.)
If going for Borderlands, you should have said "midget loot [noun]."
I recognize the yellow circle part; where's "meat popsicle" in 5th Element?
Correct, this is Borderlands and Fifth Element. And Fifth Element was out before Borderlands. Both were good in their areas. I still play some Borderlands when I get bored, and I just get a hankering for Fifth Element every now and again. Hehe.
Interesting question on this topic. Will we ever see a mimic? I don't know how that would work, but it would be interesting to see that type of mechanic.
I recognize the yellow circle part; where's "meat popsicle" in 5th Element?
After the "cops" tell Korbin Dallas to put his hands in the yellow circles, they ask him if he's human. He replies something like "Negative. I am a meat popsicle."
Also
I think they do have their own trait, and I want to say it is "stash," lol. It might be cache. I don't remember.
Yup, it's "cache". They're a currently a mixture of only-good, good-and-bad, and risk-and-reward. Originally, they were barriers because they didn't have the "If undefeated, you may banish this card." power, but it felt wrong that you couldn't just walk past them.
As it is now, I tend to think of them as a mixture of an old RPG trope about miserly DMs ("You find 4 copper pieces and a rusty spoon."), and a scene from the Charlie Brown Halloween special ("I got... a rock.") - at least, I do when I don't get something good from them. I often find something that someone at the table wants, and that's a good feeling, because I know it's going to help us in the future.
Imagine if the card required you to roll 1d4 and based on the roll you would get:
1) Nothing, the chest was empty.
2) 1d4 of random weapons from the box.
3) 1d4 random items from the box.
4) Summon and encounter a random monster. If defeated, you may draw a random armor from the box.
I'm not saying that this idea is impossible, but take a look at the few cards we've made that have tables on them (Ogrekin, for example), and think about what this kind of card would need to say.
As a practical matter, we'd be more likely to give you a chest that did #4 on that list than have it be one of four possible outcomes. Something like "Summon and encounter a random monster from the box. If you defeat the summoned monster, summon and encounter 1d4 random items from the box." comes closer to fitting, but even that concept is missing some important mechanical support.
In summary, there are a lot of good, interesting ideas that are hard to pull off in a card game. As a guideline, if you can't fully express the idea in two tweets, then it probably won't fit on a card.
That said, I have a few different ways that we might see a Mimic. It's on my list. :-)
I don't think that the Ogrekin is too crowded, and the mechanics are easily translated. I can understand that the chest might be a little difficult if you want to keep the lines about increasing the difficulty by the adventure number and ability to banish or keep it. however, if you removed all of that text, I think that it might fit.
Mimic is on the list, huh? That is exciting. It also means that it is not a card yet, which is a little sad, but I can wait.