Hexes and Foes!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

It's Class Deck preview time again! Before we dive into the mysteries of the Witch, I want to note that the monthly parade of Class Deck releases will go on hiatus for a little while starting in November. We had originally intended to put Class Decks on hiatus during the six months that we're releasing Mummy's Mask, but production delays earlier in the year caused the Summoner Class Deck to slide into October alongside the Mummy's Mask Base Set and Character Add-On Deck. We're therefore starting the hiatus a month later than we had intended.

Now, on with the hexing.

Witch Design Brainstorming

We knew even before we started designing this deck that we wanted to do a version of the witch that played up familiars, and we already had the cohort technology to do it. We looked at the critters available to witches, to see what we wanted to do in addition to Daji, and the following exchange occurred:

Mike: Let's see... they've got access to the standard wizard familiars, so bat, cat, rat, weasel, to—
Tanis: I JUST SEARCHED FOR "FAMILIAR" IN THE BESTIARIES AND FOUND A DINOSAUR THEY CAN HAVE A DINOSAUR FAMILIAR WE'RE DOING IT WE'RE DOING IT
Mike: Hold that thought.
Tanis: Don't make me go get Gary.
Mike: Okay, fine, we're doing it.

Behold the compsognathus:

That's also the face I made when I saw the art.

As you can see, we decided to give the cohort some strategic implications by moving the witch's casting skill onto the familiar. This cleanly models the notion that witches gain their power through a pact with a patron represented by a familiar. The deck has several cohorts, and the non-Feiya characters get to choose which familiar they'll use at the start of each scenario. (Feiya has already chosen Daji, of course, but those of you who are QQing about that should look into her Beast-Bonder role.)

New Characters

In addition to a cohort-ified version of Feiya, we've added Kasmir, an itinerant healer who overcomes prejudice with his magnificent hair and many belts. Kasmir likes to use power efficiently, and his hex is similar to a selfish version of the original Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck Feiya's.

Kasmir is all heals, all the time. Cure spell in my discard? I'll take that. Get wiped out off-turn? No worries, I can still draw a card to get my heal off. He's fun to play and easy to kill, like so many of my favorite characters in the ACG.

We've also got the Blue Person, as the forums have noticed. She is indeed a Samsaran, and her name is Raheli.

The other thing that made me all-caps at the design team early in this process was the White-Haired Witch archetype. This archetype lets you fling objects at your enemies with your friggin' hair. If I had that power I would spend all day chucking pens, dice, and small action figures at my office-mates Vic and Lissa, so it's probably a good thing that magic isn't real.

Raheli's pretty much a one-trick pony, but since that pony is named Make Sure We Collect All the Boons, I think she's a pony you'll enjoy. Well, that got weird quickly. Onward!

Creepy Dolls

Since we're fond of designing cycles these days, I threw a set of creepy dolls into the Witch Deck that have a few different abilities.

It's got a ruined eye that's always open...

Since we're Paizo, we already had several creepy doll illustrations laying around, and they basically designed themselves. They sit there for a turn, do their creepy thing, and then act like spells.

The Witch Class Deck comes out at the end of the month. You can preorder yours here!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer