Designing the Ultimate Decks

C'mon, that Reed Moccasin joke was stellar.

*cough*bootsofelvenkind*cough*

...Hey, wait a sec - what do you mean non-promo shoes? Are there any *promo* shoes out there???

*cough*bootsofelvenkind*cough*

...Hey, wait a sec - what do you mean non-promo shoes? Are there any *promo* shoes out there???

Merisiel's Footpad's Boots from the iconic heroes might be the promo ones he was thinking of.

I am hoping ultimate magic has some non-Divine blessings to make MM Ezren viable in organized play. And as for favorites: Invisibility. I want that in Ultimate Magic too, for the sake of RotR Illusionist Ezren. Haste is pretty near the tops for for favorites.

I'd like Ultimate Equipment to have some liquid items for the sake of Drunken Master Sajan (and other alchemists and semi-alchemists).

I like the idea of including cards that give an ability that a character otherwise would not have (such as Riffle Scrolls). I also like the idea of including cards that give a character access to a skill (above the d4 level) that they do not possess. Sure, such a card may need to come with a high cost/penalty, but it can be extremely useful when an important skill is missing from a group of adventurers (or solo adventurer).

I have also enjoyed having cards that have an "owner," especially when the cards includes an additional ability or benefit when used by the owner (as opposed to its being used by another character.)

Also, I want to but all of these decks.

Also, please make official character cards for the rest of the iconics!

I am hoping ultimate magic has some non-Divine blessings to make MM Ezren viable in organized play.

Maybe I'm missing something here: How does a character with no blessing slots get access to non-Divine blessings?

I have also enjoyed having cards that have an "owner," especially when the cards includes an additional ability or benefit when used by the owner (as opposed to its being used by another character.)

Our goal is to make Owner cards for all the iconics we design.

Also, please make official character cards for the rest of the iconics!

Our goal is to do that too. The Ultimate line gets us Hayato, Rieko, and Aric the Red Raven, so that's three down.

Dahling, you may have noticed that my deck contains neither fans nor whips. While I so rarely feel the need to lower myself with something as dirty as combat, a lady needs the proper accessories!

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

I am hoping ultimate magic has some non-Divine blessings to make MM Ezren viable in organized play.

Maybe I'm missing something here: How does a character with no blessing slots get access to non-Divine blessings?

MM Ezren can treat blessings without the Divine trait as items when building his deck.

Viable might have been too strong a word. But it would be a lot easier to play him early before some power feats.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

I am hoping ultimate magic has some non-Divine blessings to make MM Ezren viable in organized play.

Maybe I'm missing something here: How does a character with no blessing slots get access to non-Divine blessings?

He probably wants to use this power:

When building your deck, you may treat any blessings that do not have the Divine trait as items.

EDIT: Annnnd Ninja'd.

I'll think about what I'd like for the ultimate decks, but it would be helpful if you could clarify how exactly we are going to use them in OP. It's not clear to me if you just get to unlock single cards of your choice or the complete deck, and what you need to do to unlock them in the first place.

Regarding the characters that come with the ultimate decks, I think it's important that they'll be able to build a thematical fitting deck, both from wanting to building one due to mechanical reasons as well as being able to build one due to number of cards available.
I would be dissappointed if I ended up neglecting Hayatos japanese weapons in favour of all the other cool melee weapons just because they are mechanically better, or if there were too few japanese weapons to make him feel like a proper samurai.
These constraints are automatically fulfilled for all the other class decks, but I feel they will be a challenge here given the scope of cards that need to be covered.

Great News !

I completely agree on cards that have the owner trait, it gives more depth to the character deck.

Some random suggestions :

In the Pathfinder Tales Class deck you introduced some allys that can recharge one another or interact between them (ex: Appleslayer can recharge Zae), having something like that with weapons would be nice, where you can reveal a weapon to do something else than a combat or assist a character in a combat check.

Having some powers or cards that lets you shuffle monsters or banes that you encounter in your deck and then do something could be nice for a vigilante (Ultimate intrigue) something like Devil forms or a Summoner power, where you could use ennemies you fight in your future checks.

(You get it, I really like the idea of cards creating some kind of combo)

Mike Selinker wrote:

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

I am hoping ultimate magic has some non-Divine blessings to make MM Ezren viable in organized play.

Maybe I'm missing something here: How does a character with no blessing slots get access to non-Divine blessings?

MM Ezren can treat blessings without the Divine trait as items when building his deck.

Viable might have been too strong a word. But it would be a lot easier to play him early before some power feats.

Sorry, I missed the "MM" there. Yes, I can see that.

Longshot11 wrote:

*cough*bootsofelvenkind*cough*

...Hey, wait a sec - what do you mean non-promo shoes? Are there any *promo* shoes out there???

Merisiel's Footpad's Boots from the iconic heroes might be the promo ones he was thinking of.

Those are the shoes. And yes, I did forget Boots of Elvenkind, but only because Chad did.

The Luchador Mask MUST grant a non-vigilante some sort of vigilante-type power. I'm thinking Kenny from South Park and his Luchador persona, El Pollo Loco here. LOL

I'm somewhat ambivalent about Potion of Healing in OP, simply because it's not Basic so it uses up a valuable upgrade every time you use it. Which means unless the scenario you're playing has a bonus upgrade, you're at best "treading water" in terms of deck advancement if you choose to use it during a scenario. (I ran into this issue a bunch playing Mogmurch in Season of the Goblins) I'd much rather have the Staff of Minor Healing in decks that don't have access to healing spells.

I generally agree with ryric regarding the Potion of Healing, though I also suggest the Surgeon and Shaman (in addition to the Staff of Minor Healing) as contenders for alternatives to the Potion of Healing. In fact, each of the four might appear in a different Ultimate deck.

I'd like to see some of the nifty cards that have appeared in later class/character decks appearing in the Ultimate decks, especially if they might be useful to characters of other classes. Or perhaps cards similar to the nifty cards. For example, the dolls that appeared in the Witch Class Deck were fun, and one or two might prove fun for some non-Witch characters.

It would be nice to see some harrow items appear in decks. The Ultimate Magic deck seems like most likely candidate, but I could see Ultimate Equipment and/or Ultimate Intrigue possibly having a Harrow Deck.

Since the decks will shore up some of the gaps in the class/character decks, especially the earliest batch, I hope that thought is also being given to how gaps in later decks might be shored up. Most of these tend to be in how those class/character decks support the characters from the base sets. One notable example is S&S Seltyiel, who is unplayable in OP using the Magus Class Deck because that deck has a dearth of spells with the Attack trait (there are only 3 - one B/Basic, one 2, and one 6).

And Flenta says "YEAH!!" for Riffle Scrolls! Oh wait... "could be recharged with a skill you have..." *Grumble* *Grumble*

(Still, my Flenta is Tier 5 now and doing just fine, thank you, but... for a moment I had dreams!)

Dave

Shoes... definitely shoes! I can see quite Many lady decks using ingredible Number of them! And a shoe room or chest...
But, yeah those early 7 Are definitely in most need of new cards. There Are some character or builds that definitely would need helping hand.

But don’t forget those shoes! Dancing shoes, walkin shoes, morning shoes, afternoon tee time shoes...

And Flenta says "YEAH!!" for Riffle Scrolls! Oh wait... "could be recharged with a skill you have..." *Grumble* *Grumble*

(Still, my Flenta is Tier 5 now and doing just fine, thank you, but... for a moment I had dreams!)

Dave

Actually, Riffle Scrolls is still pretty good for Flenta. She can display Riffle Scrolls, then play her spells and leave them on the Riffle Scrolls. She still gets to use her power to draw more spells from the box every time she plays a spell with the Arcane trait. And the spells she plays are still just a one time use sort of thing, but with Riffle Scrolls displayed, she never looses any spell she plays and can rebuild her deck with them.

She just leaves the Riffle Scrolls out until the end of the scenario. Then, during the cleanup of the game, she still has them to rebuild her deck. Even if she technically has to deal with the displayed Riffle Scrolls at the end of the scenario, she just buries Riffle Scrolls and buries all the spells displayed on it.

Dave Arlington wrote:

And Flenta says "YEAH!!" for Riffle Scrolls! Oh wait... "could be recharged with a skill you have..." *Grumble* *Grumble*

(Still, my Flenta is Tier 5 now and doing just fine, thank you, but... for a moment I had dreams!)

Dave

Actually, Riffle Scrolls is still pretty good for Flenta. She can display Riffle Scrolls, then play her spells and leave them on the Riffle Scrolls. She still gets to use her power to draw more spells from the box every time she plays a spell with the Arcane trait. And the spells she plays are still just a one time use sort of thing, but with Riffle Scrolls displayed, she never looses any spell she plays and can rebuild her deck with them.

She just leaves the Riffle Scrolls out until the end of the scenario. Then, during the cleanup of the game, she still has them to rebuild her deck. Even if she technically has to deal with the displayed Riffle Scrolls at the end of the scenario, she just buries Riffle Scrolls and buries all the spells displayed on it.

Absolutely. In fact I think I'm going to grab Flenta and the Riffle Scrolls from the Tales deck and try her out in a few scenarios sometime soon, just to see how much better she plays. :-D

This will be the exact kind of utility to liven up those first 7 decks. Everyone else had cool cards, now they can have cool cards too!

Usually one of the 4 characters in the early decks wouldn't have quite the right tools. Tarlin has a lack of 2-handed weapons to use, for example. Warrior Vika could take advantage of cards that used the craft skill. And I feel like Darango from the wizard's deck has some potential if some of the early cards are swapped out (I haven't played him since skull and shackles; he had (has?) some survivability issues haha).

I like the idea of having a Cure to add in; I like running with at least 2, for when I inevitably botch the recharge roll. Druid and Inquisitor could benefit from that. I'd also like to see some of the more useful B item cards so we can replace signal whistles / conch shells with them.

Any armors that give options to block damage other than combat are very welcome. Not having that option in MM with the early decks can be quite painful. My alchemist loves that Alchemist's Lab Coat; great for letting those 1 damage attack 'tink' right off you.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Longshot11 wrote:

*cough*bootsofelvenkind*cough*

...Hey, wait a sec - what do you mean non-promo shoes? Are there any *promo* shoes out there???

Merisiel's Footpad's Boots from the iconic heroes might be the promo ones he was thinking of.

Those are the shoes. And yes, I did forget Boots of Elvenkind, but only because Chad did.

Speaking of clothes, I still think you should add some magical pants before you add any more boots - while there are Kilts since MM, pants are still absent ;)

I generally agree with ryric regarding the Potion of Healing, though I also suggest the Surgeon and Shaman (in addition to the Staff of Minor Healing) as contenders for alternatives to the Potion of Healing. In fact, each of the four might appear in a different Ultimate deck.

While I love the Staff, Surgeon and Shaman as much as the next guy, I think it is important to note that starting with AD3, the Potion of Healing stops needing a deck-upgrade when rebuilding your deck, so it is only slightly worse than a Cure for anyone lacking Divine.

I'd like to see some of the nifty cards that have appeared in later class/character decks appearing in the Ultimate decks, especially if they might be useful to characters of other classes. Or perhaps cards similar to the nifty cards. For example, the dolls that appeared in the Witch Class Deck were fun, and one or two might prove fun for some non-Witch characters.

I have to disagree here; starting with the second wave of class decks, every class deck had one or two sets of cards that were exclusive to its deck, and I think this should stay that way. The remaining cards are fair game, but the exclusive sets are a major incentive to buy the decks in the first place, so seeing them all over the place would greatly diminish the value of their original decks.

Speaking of clothes, I still think you should add some magical pants before you add any more boots - while there are Kilts since MM, pants are still absent ;)

The first pants we add will likely be the Werecrocodile's.

I have to disagree here; starting with the second wave of class decks, every class deck had one or two sets of cards that were exclusive to its deck, and I think this should stay that way. The remaining cards are fair game, but the exclusive sets are a major incentive to buy the decks in the first place, so seeing them all over the place would greatly diminish the value of their original decks.

We have discussed this very dilemma, and are keeping it mind throughout the design process.

All my characters use Thieve's Tools until they get items that betterfit their roles (or cover holes in their abilities).

Any character whose Dex is better than their Strength (or uses Ranged over Melee for other reasons) tends to get as many Light Crossbows in their starting deck as I can find. Darago was sad for the lack in the Wizard deck. By extension, Deathbane Light Crossbows are my favorite "upgrade" for those same characters.

Magic Shields tend to be early favorites for ANYONE who can hold an armor card.

Blood Periapts are good(tm).

The "Favor" blessings.

A Sage-Troubadour who Bears Standards. (Which I guess is just a leveled-up Dilettante.)

Leveled-up Dilettantes.

More canines with the Mount trait.

Felines with the Mount trait (which trait can be removed at the whims of capricious fate... Think Aprocrypha Fae mechanics).

More as I think of them.

I'd love to see a Major Cure & Remove Curse in at least a couple of the decks, not just in Ultimate Magic, because there are plenty of hybrid casters who will want those cards, but might prefer to run with a different Ultimate box. I think a lot of the older arcane casters would love to have access to Elemental Bombardment.

As for new cards, I'd love to see a multi-character heal spell. Maybe something like 1d4 for each character at your location? Or a static 1-2 for all characters (regardless of location)? I'm sure they'd need to be AD 5 or 6 cards, but they'd definitely be something I'd want to carry with pretty much any divine character.

I'd also love to see a card that lets you un-bury cards. I know the digital version has the Shovel card (banish to recharge 1 of your buried cards). Maybe something in a higher AD# that banishes to recharge 2 buried cards? It's something that most characters won't take as a regular thing, but I could definitely see some of the Barbarians or Summoners wanting something like that. It could be useful to grab if you know you're heading into a scenario where you'll be burying a bunch of armor or the henchmen have a ridiculous BYA check to avoid burying cards...

There are several banes that have you roll 1d4 to change the powers on the card, and it would be really cool to see something like that on a boon. Maybe a "wild magic" combat spell that will 1) add a die to your combat check, 2) add an elemental type &/or ignore immunities, 3) recharge the spell automatically, or 4) recharge X cards from your discard pile. (or you could add a risk to it, and have one of the options increase the difficulty of the check or cause you to take a damage after you act or something). Or an item that will 1) recharge cards from your discard pile, 2) let you search your deck for a card of your favored type, 3) recharge X cards from your hand & draw the same number, or 4) explore your location. Even if they have completely different options, I just think it would be cool to see a few more boons with a bit of chance to them.

And I agree with Robb the Pathfinder above about seeing more owner cards with extra bonuses if you're the owner, but I'd also love to see more cards that have extra bonuses for specific classes. I'm not sure that the Ultimate decks are necessarily the place to put them (since that would mostly force certain classes into using certain decks, which may not be want you want), but I figured I'd mention it.

I'd like Ultimate Equipment to have some liquid items for the sake of Drunken Master Sajan...

I read this as "for the saké of Drunken Master Sajan..."

I'll think about what I'd like for the ultimate decks, but it would be helpful if you could clarify how exactly we are going to use them in OP. It's not clear to me if you just get to unlock single cards of your choice or the complete deck, and what you need to do to unlock them in the first place.

If you're playing in organized play, you'll be able to use a character deck—say, the Wizard Class Deck—and one Ultimate deck. If you'd like to play the character that's in the Ultimate deck, you can supplement that character with the cards from one other character deck.

It's as simple as combining 1 Ultimate deck with 1 non-Ultimate deck.

We are contemplating allowing you to add an *additional* Ultimate deck after you have officially reported a certain number of scenarios for your character (and we do not yet have a specific number in mind). Feel free to offer up your thoughts on that idea as well.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

I'd like Ultimate Equipment to have some liquid items for the sake of Drunken Master Sajan...

I read this as "for the saké of Drunken Master Sajan..."

Sounds like an idea for a promo card!

I would love to use multiple Ultimate decks. It could be neat if you had a "primary" deck that you used starting from AD1, and then after completing AD3, you added a secondary deck.

But, I'm one of those ACG weirdos that was looking forward to playing each deck with 4 ultimate decks so take that with a grain of salt.

Charisma blessings to make up for their absence in the Bard class deck.
A Ruby of Charisma, as it's lacking in the Sorcerer class deck (also would be useful for Talitha in the Magus class deck, and perhaps other off-stat characters).

I actually think a lot of the cards in the PACG app are really cool, and would love to see some of them make an appearance sometime. All those different blessings ("doctrine of" and whatnot), unusual spells (Greater Aid) - there is a lot of cool stuff in there.

There are so many good cards that it's hard to decide. I know the Bard deck definitely needs more elemental spells besides electricity. Besides the base Cure, Major / Mass are noticeably absent in many class decks with divine characters.

Speaking of items, I wish there were more instruments. We have rings and gloves and hats and belts and crowns / headbands, but besides a flute and maybe a horn or two...I think there was a mandolin of some sort in the PACG app - that was nice.

Potions of Healing are good for characters that can discard or recharge them (e.g., alchemists). The Canteen card also makes them much more viable.

I will have to think about other cards that are awesome. Somehow, I doubt that Letter of Marque will make an appearance.

And yes, I did forget Boots of Elvenkind, but only because Chad did.

That's okay. Whoever wore them when Chad was looking for footwear probably recharged them to succeed at their Stealth check.

Hum, wouldn't want to spoil the fun but.....

For those of us who are in home play and not OP, we already have tons of standard cards like potion of healing, greatsword, remove curse and the like.

I would hate buying 4 more decks of those.

If it's just a matter of allowing certain cards for certain class decks in OP, can it just be done by rules (like issuing a list of allowed cards by OP character) rather than having to pollute incoming decks with already existing cards?

I was really looking into 4 full decks of new fun cards to renew the interest while we are waiting for the next base set.

If you really need a new healing item, OK, but I would really really rather have something different than the standard healing potion. Just for the fun of changing a bit things. There a thousands and thousands of ideas for boons in the RPG, not including what we can think of on top of the RPG.

Furthermore, and for me it's key, the first 7 class decks are weak, we all know that. I was expecting that to boost them and having them as appealing as the new ones, we would gave them through the ultimate decks the opportunity to reach stuff that other class don't have (idea not being to make them more powerful, let's not start an arms race, but giving them variety of options that others don't have). If we just copy stuff existing, we are missing the point.

IMHO seen from abroad.

Doppelschwert wrote:

Speaking of clothes, I still think you should add some magical pants before you add any more boots - while there are Kilts since MM, pants are still absent ;)

The first pants we add will likely be the Werecrocodile's.

That's actually a great idea, and I (seriously) hope you will also call them 'Werecrocodile's Pants' while you are at it. Might give a bonus while the top card of the blessings discard pile has the basic trait.

It's as simple as combining 1 Ultimate deck with 1 non-Ultimate deck.

We are contemplating allowing you to add an *additional* Ultimate deck after you have officially reported a certain number of scenarios for your character (and we do not yet have a specific number in mind). Feel free to offer up your thoughts on that idea as well.

Thanks for the clarification! That sounds rather powerful, as I was expecting to only unlock single cards once in a while, but I won't complain about being able to give katanas to everyone. :D

Yep. Does it change the power balance! Do we need harder scenarios to compensate the new power level?
How about those who don’t have these new upgrade decks. Are They outgunned in the future? Many interesting questions!
I supose that we will cross that bridge when we reach it, but good points to speculate and taken care of somehow.

New cards are great incentive to buy "Ultimate" decks, but some cards are a must or no-buy, like (mass/major) cure, augury and sweep spells in Ultimate Magic. And maybe haste too. These cards are superb and useful for anybody. Of course, someone might say, i you want them, buy older class decks, but why should I buy let's say Wizard Class Deck just for one Swipe.

Magic Shields tend to be early favorites for ANYONE who can hold an armor card.

I'm playing PACG since the beginning and NOBODY uses shields, except very specific ones, like Scarab Buckler. And we are treating such armors more like items that use armor slot, than actual protective equipment. Most of the time, we even don't care if we manage to acquire magic shields, and only use we have for them are situations when somebody must banish a boon.

More canines with the Mount trait.

Felines with the Mount trait (which trait can be removed at the whims of capricious fate... Think Aprocrypha Fae mechanics).

And who is going to use them? From about 130 characters in PACG there are only 2 of them who need mounts. Maybe such mount isn't completely bad idea, but let's wait for cavalier class deck for such allies.

Hum, wouldn't want to spoil the fun but.....

For those of us who are in home play and not OP, we already have tons of standard cards like potion of healing, greatsword, remove curse and the like.

I would hate buying 4 more decks of those.

If it's just a matter of allowing certain cards for certain class decks in OP, can it just be done by rules (like issuing a list of allowed cards by OP character) rather than having to pollute incoming decks with already existing cards?

Having cards with new names that are close to the functions of the old ones isn't really new, and if you keep designing new cards, you'll exhaust design space. Would you really think a Potion of Healing that healed 1d4 - 1 cards and another Potion of Healing that healed 1d4 + 1 cards to be that different from the regular Potion of Healing? I feel like a lot of those cards will be created if you request all cards must be new or else.

Using rules to regulate OP legality is madness. It puts an incredible amount of burden on the organizers to do that, and you can't use the box while that's happening, so you're in essence making organizer get two boxes to make their characters work. And then people might lose a single card in the mix and their box is suddenly broken. In a TCG, you can just get another copy of the card, but you can't do that here.

There are a few cards I'd like to se show up first is the enervating pistol from skull and shackles an ok weapon for ranged characters a useful utility card for arcane casters and for characters with bolth arcane skill and the ranged skill (myrmidarch seltyiel) it's one of the best weapons you can get hell some of the bards would love this weapon

Glacial kopesh +1 the regular kopesh is fun but a little under welming later into the game this one on the other hand levels with the game pretty well especially with the magus deck and ramxes from the oracle deck that are pretty good at adding dice to the check and sometimes suffer from it when against villains that macke you roll -1 for each die if the check has a certain element (ramxes had this problem multiple times in MM)

More sword canes or other weapons that allow you to use your stealth skill for the combat check would be greatly appreciated by some rouges out there

Basically any blessing from MM since I felt these were some fun ones particularly blessing of matt and horus are particular favorits of mine

Maybe it's just me but I remember aquiering the spellcasters shield in WotR and thinking it was a grate early armor for any spellcaster like my sorcerer and even now having seen the armors in MM I still think this is an amazing early game armor for all characters who rely on spells for damage (and for extra credit you can make a variant that blocks more damage type than just combat)

Something els that would be great to see is the druids I.e. Druid of the storm and Druid of the flame these were grate card for casters as well as ramxes (man I bring this guy up a lot) who have skills to add to combat checks but also add an element to the check would love this another option would be items and such that also ignore imunites on that note not would a poison variant be to much to ask for

As to the potion of healing, shaman, surgeon, and staff of healing. I like the idea of putting a different 1 in each ultimate deck.
I was thinking Surgeon in UC, Shaman in UM, staff in UE, and Potion in UI.

Dave Arlington wrote:

And Flenta says "YEAH!!" for Riffle Scrolls! Oh wait... "could be recharged with a skill you have..." *Grumble* *Grumble*

(Still, my Flenta is Tier 5 now and doing just fine, thank you, but... for a moment I had dreams!)

Dave

Actually, Riffle Scrolls is still pretty good for Flenta. She can display Riffle Scrolls, then play her spells and leave them on the Riffle Scrolls. She still gets to use her power to draw more spells from the box every time she plays a spell with the Arcane trait. And the spells she plays are still just a one time use sort of thing, but with Riffle Scrolls displayed, she never looses any spell she plays and can rebuild her deck with them.

She just leaves the Riffle Scrolls out until the end of the scenario. Then, during the cleanup of the game, she still has them to rebuild her deck. Even if she technically has to deal with the displayed Riffle Scrolls at the end of the scenario, she just buries Riffle Scrolls and buries all the spells displayed on it.

Ahhhh! Yes! I hadn't thought of that! Very nice. Of course, by the time I get this deck, she will probably have completed Seasons of Plunder and retired to her halfling home to regale everyone with the stories of the days she smited the Behemoth Golem! :)

Dave

Frencois wrote:

Hum, wouldn't want to spoil the fun but.....

For those of us who are in home play and not OP, we already have tons of standard cards like potion of healing, greatsword, remove curse and the like...

Having cards with new names that are close to the functions of the old ones isn't really new, and if you keep designing new cards, you'll exhaust design space. Would you really think a Potion of Healing that healed 1d4 - 1 cards and another Potion of Healing that healed 1d4 + 1 cards to be that different from the regular Potion of Healing? I feel like a lot of those cards will be created if you request all cards must be new or else.

Using rules to regulate OP legality is madness. It puts an incredible amount of burden on the organizers to do that, and you can't use the box while that's happening, so you're in essence making organizer get two boxes to make their characters work. And then people might lose a single card in the mix and their box is suddenly broken. In a TCG, you can just get another copy of the card, but you can't do that here.

Sorry zeroth I wasn't clear.

I don't ask for d4-1, d4+1, d3 or whatever healing potions. I fully agree with you that that doesn't add fun.

I ask for stuff that does things really differently. For example a potion of healing-heroism-like that would send maybe d3 random cards from your discard to your hand and one from your discard to banish/bury.
Or a repeal-rather-than-remove curse that would cure 2 curses but send them back in a location or in the blessing deck for example.
Or a dusty greatsword that would break (= bury?) if one of your die rolls 1, but that would have a valuable additional effect somehow.
Or whatever.

I mean something really different, but still somehow fulfilling the need in OP to give some needed power to existing classes !

Because that would be more fun than 12 potions of healing, 10 greatswords and 8 remove curse

IMHfrenchyO.

I think that we need to see an appropriate blend of existing (old & more recent) and entirely new cards. After all, in addition to supporting the characters in the existing class/character decks, these decks will also support brand new characters. It's conceivable that someone might play one of the Ultimate Add-On Decks alone - just that deck to support the included character. In that situation, there should be handy (and appropriate) older/existing cards in the deck. Newer cards should probably outnumber the older ones, however, providing all characters with additional options.

And while I agree with the principle that existing class/character decks shouldn't have their distinctiveness watered down, I disagree with the notion that including some of the cards from the newer decks will render that outcome. Having one or two here and there doesn't, in my opinion, threaten the distinctiveness; and this is really a level of reciprocity, giving older characters the option to take cards that weren't available at the time that they were made. Also, my suggestion isn't just to take existing cards (e.g., the Creepy Doll from the Witch CD), but also implies creating new cards that fit within those cycles if they are appropriate to the add-on deck and they don't detract from the CDs from which they draw their inspiration. So sticking to the dolls from the Witch CD as my example, the designers might include a completely new type of doll (presumably in the Ultimate Magic Add-On Deck, but an argument might be made for one or two of the others) that is appropriate to the add-on deck and appropriate to the types of characters (probably spellcasters, but Flenta might like a doll) that would use them. It might even provide an entirely new set of powers (though perhaps a bit less specialized than those in the Witch CD), making it similarly attractive to the Witch CD characters.

Xexyz reviewed a few of the older class decks (Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard). Those reviews and the problems they identified look like a good starting point to me - identifying where a CD doesn't support good character builds and then developing a list of possible cards to fill those gaps as the first priority (after ensuring that the Add-On Deck characters are supported). There should still be room for more cards after that, so then I would look at where newer concepts can be incorporated to give the older decks the flexibility to make them as attractive to players as the newer decks. After that, I'd look at where newer decks might be tweaked a little, either fixing problems (such as the lack of support for S&S Seltyiel in the Magus Class Deck) or boosting flexibility a little bit.

Admittedly, there's a lot of "art" in this, and I'm leery of any tendency to build optimal decks. If we assume that the newer class/character decks represent a target in terms of potency/flexibility, while the older (especially the oldest) decks are lower than that in comparison, then the add-on decks should ideally level the playing field. This means that they need to bring the least powerful decks up to the bar without moving that bar out of their reach by making the most powerful decks even more powerful. So the newest decks should find the add-on decks fun and useful, but without seeing them as essential to their optimal builds.

Just my opinion (I know I haven't provided more concrete recommendations on specific cards, as requested, but I'm fishing to see if I need to adjust my strategy).

Xexyz reviewed a few of the older class decks (Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard). Those reviews and the problems they identified look like a good starting point to me - identifying where a CD doesn't support good character builds and then developing a list of possible cards to fill those gaps as the first priority...

+1 to this.

If you guys want to identify specific needs for those characters, I'm sure it could be helpful. While the designers have played a bunch with these characters and have our own theories, you guys have collectively put more hours into these decks in OP than we _ever_ could :)

Ex:
Zarlova: AD 1-4 Attack spells
Rangers: 3 Basic Melee and 3 Basic Ranged
Wrathack: ~4 B 2-Handed Melee weapons
etc.

I'd love to see Ultimate Equipment bring to the foreground that stuff that every adventurer packs and uses but no one talks about usually except for that one time it super saved their lives and/or was epic & awesome.

Like the 50ft of silk rope that got attached to a few Alchemist fire flasks that allowed the party to blow a hole in the unkillable Vampire's lair and kill him with sunlight.

The climbing piton that got seal of teleport attached and loaded into a crossbow to send a boat of goblins across the universe.

The set of traveller's/fine clothes that got dyed to match the color of the cultists robes to sneak in with the crowd.

The rations that tamed a hungry griffon.

If you ask around, you'll defintely hear stories of that forgotten item on the "EQ" section of the sheet that created a memorable moment.

Suggestions for Siwar (Bard CD):

Weapons: An AD4 Dexterity Weapon with no proficiency penalty, as there's no good upgrades for her between AD2 and AD6. Theme-wise, whips and daggers.

Spells: The Spells are fine, though whatever ones are added to the deck her player chooses will be appreciated.

Armors: N/A.

Items: Almost anything! Damage reduction below AD6 is the boring numbers-based one. Theme-wise, fans.

Allies: The Bard deck Allies are serviceable as most of them have "Discard to explore" as a power. Like the Spells, variety is cool.

Blessings: Pharasma, Iomedae, Sivanah, other Charisma/Arcane/Divine blessings that also let you explore.

I've got a couple others I think I know well enough for suggestions, but I have to dig up their decks first.

I agree that I would like to see a decent number of new cards, not just reprints of all the old stuff. I understand this set needs to appeal to OP, but I think those of us who use these decks to tweak our box would love some new boons to mix in and keep things fresh.

One thing which would be a wonderful addition to Ultimate Magic are familiars as allies.

I hoped that the Magus deck would include Seltyiel's fiery familiar, but it would also be nice to see the little fellow in UM instead... ;-)

One thing which would be a wonderful addition to Ultimate Magic are familiars as allies.

... or even better as cohorts.

If you guys want to identify specific needs for those characters, I'm sure it could be helpful. While the designers have played a bunch with these characters and have our own theories, you guys have collectively put more hours into these decks in OP than we _ever_ could :)

Ex:
Zarlova: AD 1-4 Attack spells
Rangers: 3 Basic Melee and 3 Basic Ranged
Wrathack: ~4 B 2-Handed Melee weapons
etc.

• Weapons that interact with spells (e.g., Spelldagger)...or just any ranged weapon besides the Deathbane Light Crossbow. I know I raved about that thing in Runelords, but when I got this deck and saw it was the only viable ranged weapon until that spear in deck 6, I was sad.
  
• Needs different elements besides Electricity and Poison - all the different elemental basics (Unshakeable Chill, Acid Splash, etc.), or I think there were powered-up versions of Lightning Bolt (but with fire or something) in later sets. I took this guy in the Wrath season and it was so annoying that everything was immune to all the damage-dealing spells in the bard deck.
  
• Would be great to get Life Drain at a lower deck #. The only offensive Healing spell is deck 5 (Life Leech).
  
• Needs spells that can handle multi-check monsters. This guy can't be wasting 2, 3 of his 6(!) spells on one encounter - it is so painful and expensive, and so often I found that I'd be able to hit the first check but then I'd be hosed on check 2. Aqueous Orb and stuff like that. Form of the Dragon would be awesome. I know I can team up to mitigate, but there are still those times when you just can't be clinging to other peoples' skirts.
  
• I often found this guy without a way to do damage in his hand - there's no reliable way to get that weapon right off the bat; his favored card type is spell, and if you are going with his Tent Preacher role, then your spells will be Cure spells and whatever (and there's not much divine offense in this deck!). Something that lets you search your own deck would be great (Dagger of Doubling, Channel the Gift, whatever). Or even that Silver Raven that allowed someone to give you a weapon...I'd buy that for a dollar.
  
• Spell-like items that do damage and recharge like a spell - the wands, that awesome Necklace of Fireballs, whatever. I think there were cool horns in Wrath - I can't remember what they did though. But man, why doesn't my bard have a battle horn?!
  
• On that note, the Key of the Second Vault would be like that with barriers - I like that card.
  
• No other character has ever needed more those Healing blessings from Mummy's Mask. They would be so perfect for his power. I just loved that power. Was there any Healing armor? He dances a little jig and recharges a card with Healing and it's just magical. Wait a minute - can he have a Healing musical instrument? That would be mind-blowing!
  
• Of course, I'm mentioning all those Healing cards largely because he was getting slammed so often that he needed it. Maybe better just to get him a spell to avoid damage (which IIRC this deck didn't have...wait I just checked. Arcane Armor doesn't really count; it's a one-shot and only for Combat).