Allies from Characters (RotR)

[BobSagat]

In preparation for my group beating RotR and take on Mhar of Leng I though I would try something different. I wanted something more interesting than just random loot for the rewards so I though I would try making allies out of the characters that my group isn't playing. Then I went ahead and did it for all of the characters. What do you guys think of them?

Amiri
Discard to explore your location or move to another location and then explore. If you make a combat check during that exploration, add 1d12+2 to your check.
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Sajan
Recharge to draw three random potions from the box. Display them in front of you. You may use them as if they were in your hand until the end of the scenario. You may only play this ability once per scenario.

Discard to put a blessing from your discard pile into your hand.
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Kyra
Discard to choose a character at your location to shuffle 1d4+2 random cards from their discard pile into their deck.

Treat this card as if it were a blessing of Sarenrae.
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Harsk
Recharge to look at the top three cards of a location deck and put them back in any order.

Discard to explore your location.
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Seelah
Display to explore your location. Add 1d6+3 to the first check you make during that exploration. If you succeed that check, recharge a random card from your discard pile. Discard this card at the end of your turn.
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Lem
Discard to draw a card.

When you add Lem to your deck you may gain a card feat which does not count towards your card feat limits. When you banish Lem, lose that card feat.
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Lini
Discard to acquire a random Animal Ally, or to succeed a check to acquire an Animal Ally.

Discard to search your deck for an Animal Ally and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck.
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Seoni
Recharge to add 2d6+2 with the Magic and either fire or Acid trait to your combat check at your location.

Discard to Explore your location.
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Valeros
Reveal to add 3 to a strength check.

Recharge to succeed a check to acquire a weapon.

Discard to explore your location.
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Merisiel
Recharge to succeed a non-combat Dexterity or Acrobatics check.

Discard to Evade an encounter and explore again.
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Ezren
Discard to succeed a check to acquire a spell.

Recharge to succeed a check to recharge a spell.

[Frencois]

Hi Bob. My $0.02 thoughts without really taking the time needed :

1) You have to give an AP number to those allies so we can check if under/over powered. Meanwhile I did review with an AP number 3 in mind.

Amiri
Discard to explore your location or move to another location and then explore. If you make a combat check during that exploration, add 1d12+2 to your check.

> Good idea. Too powerful. Allies usually add 1d6 to combat.

Sajan
Recharge to draw three random potions from the box. Display them in front of you. You may use them as if they were in your hand until the end of the scenario. You may only play this ability once per scenario.

> Good idea. But if you need to say "You may only play this ability once per scenario" it's because you didn't want to say "banish". As such, too powerful. You should say banish. And then cards that allow you to find an item should only give you one. So I would indeed draw three but then only display one and banish the others.

Discard to put a blessing from your discard pile into your hand.

> Powerful but may be OK. Need to test.

Kyra
Discard to choose a character at your location to shuffle 1d4+2 random cards from their discard pile into their deck.

> 1d4+1 and not 1d4+2... why always try to push it?

Treat this card as if it were a blessing of Sarenrae.

> Why not... but... A card that does what another already powerful card does plus additionbal things is by essence overpowevered. I would say something like "You may treat this card as if it were a blessing of Sarenrae. If you do so, banish this card". Then maybe it's OK.

Harsk
Recharge to look at the top three cards of a location deck and put them back in any order.

Discard to explore your location.

> Good.

Seelah
Display to explore your location. Add 1d6+3 to the first check you make during that exploration. If you succeed that check, recharge a random card from your discard pile. Discard this card at the end of your turn.

> Powerful but why not.

Lem
Discard to draw a card.

When you add Lem to your deck you may gain a card feat which does not count towards your card feat limits. When you banish Lem, lose that card feat.

> Totally broken as such. I can pass it between characters and everyone wins a card feat each turn without any limit....
I see an interestning idea (Lem to allow you to get one more card when you start the scenario) but has to be built very differently. Maybe just say "You may banish Lem and select a type of boons. Draw two such random boons from the box". Not far from the same result without drawbacks.

Lini
Discard to acquire a random Animal Ally, or to succeed a check to acquire an Animal Ally.

> It should say "Discard to draw a random Animal Ally from the box, or to succeed a check to acquire an Animal Ally."

Discard to search your deck for an Animal Ally and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck.

> Powerful but why not.

Seoni
Recharge to add 2d6+2 with the Magic and either fire or Acid trait to your combat check at your location.

> Good idea. Too powerful. Allies usually add 1d6 to combat. chose between "To your combat check" and "To a combat check at your location", but not a strange mix of the two.

Discard to Explore your location.

Valeros
Reveal to add 3 to a strength check.

> Really overpowered. It's kind of permanent boost spell. Either discard for 3 or reveal for 1, but not that.

Recharge to succeed a check to acquire a weapon.

> Could be OK if it wasn't in addition to the previous power.

Discard to explore your location.

> If you put already 2 very powerfuil powers, then you really should delete the exploration option.

Merisiel
Recharge to succeed a non-combat Dexterity or Acrobatics check.

Discard to Evade an encounter and explore again.

> The second power id quite powerful, so if you want to keep it, I would also put "discard" on the first one.

Ezren
Discard to succeed a check to acquire a spell.

Recharge to succeed a check to recharge a spell.

> Why not.

Altogether, you have to lower your temptation for power, but ideas are good - just need to be balanced. IMHO.

[BobSagat]

I get what you're saying about the power level. In fact, it's intentional. If you re-read my post you'll see that I designed these cards as Reward Loot for beating scenarios in Mhar of Leng, the homebrew Adventure 7 of RotR that's been posted on this message board. I didn't like the idea of random boons as loot so I designed these Allies to be loot power-level. They're meant as rewards for a party that has already beaten all of RotR base game. As such they're significantly more powerful than the characters you were imagining for these to be played with.

This is why you see very powerful effects like Seoni adding 2d6+2 to a combat check. I tried to use numbers that worked for both flavor and to be analogous to having that character actually in your party while they're in your hand. A lot of the dice+bonus that I used were based on the character cards for those characters and the power level they would be at at that time (or slightly nerfed if I thought that would be too powerful).

Finally: In regards to Lem, you completely misinterpreted the way he works, but that is probably my fault for not wording him properly. Mechanically he is supposed to do nothing for you while he is in your deck. But, outside of any scenario, when you get him as loot you get to gain a card feat that doesn't count against your check boxes. So a player who is playing as Valeros who already has 8 weapons in his deck could get the Lem ally from beating a Mhar of Leng scenario, then he would immediately get to add a card feat. Say a 9th weapon. Normally he would not get to have a 9th weapon, but this card acts as a way of substituting an ally card for another card of any kind. This is to reflect the fact that Lem is supposed to be a very versatile character. Obviously, if you chose to remove Lem from your deck you would have to lose the card feat. I might need to tune his Discard to Draw ability to work better, because the point is to make him not act as another card in your deck, because that would make you have more "health" then other players of your same level.

[BobSagat]

Frencois wrote:

Hi Bob. My $0.02 thoughts without really taking the time needed :

1) You have to give an AP number to those allies so we can check if under/over powered. Meanwhile I did review with an AP number 3 in mind.

Amiri
Discard to explore your location or move to another location and then explore. If you make a combat check during that exploration, add 1d12+2 to your check.

> Good idea. Too powerful. Allies usually add 1d6 to combat.

Sajan
Recharge to draw three random potions from the box. Display them in front of you. You may use them as if they were in your hand until the end of the scenario. You may only play this ability once per scenario.

> Good idea. But if you need to say "You may only play this ability once per scenario" it's because you didn't want to say "banish". As such, too powerful. You should say banish. And then cards that allow you to find an item should only give you one. So I would indeed draw three but then only display one and banish the others.
...

I get what you're saying about the power level. In fact, it's intentional. If you re-read my post you'll see that I designed these cards as Reward Loot for beating scenarios in Mhar of Leng, the homebrew Adventure 7 of RotR that's been posted on this message board. I didn't like the idea of random boons as loot so I designed these Allies to be loot power-level. They're meant as rewards for a party that has already beaten all of RotR base game. As such they're significantly more powerful than the characters you were imagining for these to be played with.

This is why you see very powerful effects like Seoni adding 2d6+2 to a combat check. I tried to use numbers that worked for both flavor and to be analogous to having that character actually in your party while they're in your hand. A lot of the dice+bonus that I used were based on the character cards for those characters and the power level they would be at at that time (or slightly nerfed if I thought that would be too powerful).

Finally: In regards to Lem, you completely misinterpreted the way he works, but that is probably my fault for not wording him properly. Mechanically he is supposed to do nothing for you while he is in your deck. But, outside of any scenario, when you get him as loot you get to gain a card feat that doesn't count against your check boxes. So a player who is playing as Valeros who already has 8 weapons in his deck could get the Lem ally from beating a Mhar of Leng scenario, then he would immediately get to add a card feat. Say a 9th weapon. Normally he would not get to have a 9th weapon, but this card acts as a way of substituting an ally card for another card of any kind. This is to reflect the fact that Lem is supposed to be a very versatile character. Obviously, if you chose to remove Lem from your deck you would have to lose the card feat. I might need to tune his Discard to Draw ability to work better, because the point is to make him not act as another card in your deck, because that would make you have more "health" then other players of your same level.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post. I'm new.