The "Harrower" Character - WIP

[Yewstance]

BACKGROUND
=============

A post from Brother Tyler a couple of months back really inspired my to try my hand at building a Harrower character from the ground-up, closely tied into the new CotCT Harrow Blessings. Brother Tyler himself has previously played with the Harrower concept in the past, but I've ended up taking a wildly different approach.

The hypothetical environment for this character is (as Brother Tyler raised) that he would exist within a "Harrows Add-On Deck", similar to the pre-existing Ultimate Add-On decks. This Ultimate Deck would carry a colossal 54 blessings - one of each non-Promo Harrow Blessing, all level 1 - and a variety of Harrow and gambling-themed boons, many of which already would exist in Curse of the Crimson Throne.

The character I've ended up with is very much a Work-In-Progress, and I'm looking forward to any feedback. Already the character has undergone massive changes from my initial brainstorming, and I'm still playing around with ideas. It's currently a bit of a Frankenstein monster of different mechanics, so I'm looking to simplify it down whilst keeping a very distinct theme. Nor have I entirely decided on a 'name' for him - more on that below.

With that said, I'm quite happy with how some of it has turned out - do please read through some of my spoilers below to dig through my myriad of other ideas that haven't made it to this initial version of my Harrower Concept.

(Note: the "Harrower" is currently unnamed. Because it's a different class, I'm reluctant to re-use "Erasmus", despite how appropriate it is. I wouldn't be averse to using "Zellara", as far as pre-existing characters go, though.)

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
=====================

INITIAL DESIGN GOALS:

Fundamentally, I wanted the Harrower that I made to be able to redefine their strengths based on whichever Harrow Suit they were working with, and gain sufficient benefits for playing cards with the Harrow trait that they'd want to use Harrow blessings wherever possible.

The original idea of the character was to reference the Curse of the Crimson Throne "Harrowing" mechanic, where the Harrower would get to play around with a specific Harrow Blessing and build his powers around its suit, changing with every adventure. Additionally, since he'd be building around a set of blessings particularly notable for their diverse, fascinating Hour Powers, it seemed like a great opportunity to build a character designed to manipulate the Hourglass; Hourglass manipulation is a more viable design space now due to the impact Hours can have on each given turn.

Because Harrowers are fundamentally tied into themes of fate and card shuffling; randomness was a highly desirable trait for me to play around with. Could I make his skills shift from adventure to adventure randomly, whilst still making the character playable?

Goals in Summary

Blessings-driven playstyle. Supportive.

Skillset tied to Harrow Suit. Diverse.

Hourglass manipulation powers. Leverage Hour powers.

Randomness or player choice limitation. The Harrower shouldn't always play the same way - it should be up to how the Harrow Deck falls.

Reference Harrow and/or Gambling traits.

Must have emphasis on Knowledge and some form of spellcasting, to reflect the RPG.

EARLY ISSUES:

I ran into issue after issue quickly out of the gate. Some of the more notable ones included...

Harrowing, and 'Your Harrow' and 'Your Harrow Suit'

The idea of him performing a Harrowing and referring to his Harrow (in the sense of the CotCT mechanics) had to be greatly adjusted. When played in the Curse AP, he could potentially have multiple Harrows (which is clearly not the intent of the design) and would often become too powerful... but if I balanced him around that, then he'd become too weak in all other APs which don't reference your Harrow at all.

Furthermore, working out how to restrict which Suits he's performing a Harrowing in - if any - is difficult, and referencing "each Adventure" (or equivalent) is clumsy on a character card, which don't tend to have to 'remember' information besides feats between scenarios. Finally, simply having him performing a Harrowing regularly - such as every scenario - seems time consuming and bothersome, particularly in physical play.

On top of all of that, a lot of my 'psuedo-Harrowing' ideas - which usually involved drawing new Harrow blessings in the middle of the game - consistently added overhead to the play experience and were often somehow exploitable, where you could 'farm' blessings to hand off to the party in some cases.

In the end, I kept a lot of the same ideas without tying it into the actual Harrowing mechanic of Curse - instead, I tied it into a series of Cohorts, as you'll eventually see.

Hourglass Manipulation

I really wanted a power where he could switch a blessing in his hand with the current hour - even if he had to give away a blessing of the same or higher level - so that he could custom-tailor Hour options. Failing that, I wanted him to be able to reveal or display a blessing and force the Hour effect to clone whichever blessing he was holding onto. This would mean he'd be unique in wanting to take certain blessings into his deck based on their Hour Powers as much as their actual powers, which seemed a really cool idea!

Unfortunately, there was no satisfying way I could think to implement it that wouldn't also be busted. In PACS, being able to throw away all of your original blessings to draw new ones is a trivial way of farming Blessing Deck Upgrades for the whole party, but in both home play and PACS there's unfortunately a small handful of Hour powers which are far too exploitable.

Most Hour powers are minor effects, all in all - a +1d4 there, a small side-effect here - but a few, if they were re-usable or could be used from your hand, would completely warp the entire character's gameplan. Hours that cause you to encounter new boons, or even draw the Hour (The Real Rabbit Prince) means that any form of cloning or exchanging effect could probably be used to spam boon acquisitions.

Basically, most of my ideas fell into the bucket of "useless 95% of the time, and way too powerful the other 5% of the time". Bad mechanics.

I have kept some more 'traditional' Hourglass manipulation, though, and I anticipate one of his roles will continue to build on that!

Playstyle Diversity/Randomness and the standard Character Deck

I was quite sold on the idea of the Harrower's strengths being determined by his 'Harrow Suit' (or equivalent), and I kept going back-and-forth as to whether the Harrower should have full control over his Suit (either choosing before an adventure, before a scenario, or being able to switch mid-scenario) or whether he should be given them randomly, or whether he can't re-use suits (forcing him to keep varying his playstyle) and so on. All of these options had their own challenges to overcome, and I've got a bunch of ideas that ultimately didn't make it to the working design for now but may still have some life in them yet.

I came to the conclusion that I absolutely wanted the Harrower to have to vary their playstyle one way or another (at least Pre-Role). Either I'd penalise or prevent them from re-using the same suits, or I'd make their suit choice random or semirandom - hopefully without causing undue overhead to the player. Of course, if I want a character who's skills vary, then that means that they'd potentially need a wide variety of proficiencies and card slots (as well as methods of drawing the right cards) in order for 6 different suits' worth of playstyles to be potentially viable in a single character deck.

This was... tricky. I was effectively creating a character much like Erasmus, but lacking control over their strengths and not being able to 'build' around 1-2 Spirits like he could. Whilst I'm still not convinced my solution is great (because it's adding more mechanics and powers to keep track of), I've taken a leaf out of Blackjack/Aric's boots and introduced a Kit solution so that a single character deck can provide a sufficiently varied boon selection.

RESULTING (PRE-ROLE) THEMES & MECHANICS:

Currently, the Harrower makes use of the following 'key' mechanics and themes, though I'm likely going to look to lightening or dropping some of these to strip down, simplify and add elegance to the design.

Varies in playstyle over 6 different harrow suits, each of him changing his specialities and with players not being able to stick with the same suit indefinitely. His varying harrow suit will impact the types of boons he wishes to use and the types of cards he wishes to encounter.

Uses a Kit - allows for more varied boons to be kept in his deck to suit his shifting playstyle.

Themed around the number '6'. 6 Harrow Suits, 6 possible Cohorts, d6s in every skill, starts with 6 blessings, hand size of 6. It should be noted that his Cohort will always bump one of his skills up to a d12, which happens to bring his total die size sum to equal (d)42, which is the standard die size total for PACG characters.

Regardless of his harrow suit, the Harrower should be passably good with Arcane and Knowledge checks, despite his d6s across the board.

The Harrower must always have at least one blessing of each Harrow Suit in his deck, in order to thematically reflect his diversity. However, he has full control of which blessing from each suit he uses.

The Harrower is especially potent with the blessings of his defined Harrow Suit - specifically, in his current iteration, he can re-use them and thus fully leverage their powers.

The Harrower is, ultimately, a supportive character first - more so than Erasmus. The Harrower should trade the consistency of Erasmus' skillset (despite the Harrower's hypothetical versatility) for a stronger variety of methods to assist his party via blessings, character powers and hourglass manipulations.

CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS:

I referred to a lot of characters for inspiration of powers and, in some cases, defining correct templates and wording. In no particular order...

Lem (Core) - A supportive character sub-par in combat but high in diversity. Good reference point for comparing card diversity, combat ability, etc.

Erasmus - A key inspiration for the Cohort mechanics and skillset-shifting capabilities. Also a character closely tied into the "Harrower" concept before Curse even existed, being the listed owner of the original Harrow Deck item.

Varian (Curse) - Some references to the "Harrow Suit" was built from him, as well as being an Arcane caster, with an optional Harrow theme, balancing supportive abilities with Cohorts and Arcane casting.

Sajan (Core) - Blessings-driven playstyle, diverse skillset.

Alahazra (Various) - Known for examination and deck-manipulation, including of the Hourglass. The Oracle concept as a nontraditional supportive caster in PACG is quite well reflected in my Harrower goals, too.

Aric/Blackjack - The "Kit" mechanic and its values.

Hunters/Witches (Various) - The idea of pulling from a roster of Cohorts, each impacting your skills and granting new powers.

CHARACTER
===========

And enough of all of that talk; time to present the actual character as he currently stands. As mentioned, this is a work-in-progress: feedback is greatly appreciated!

A Deck Handler for this character can be found here.

Harrower wrote:

SKILLS

Strength d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Dexterity d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Constitution d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Intelligence d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3 ☐ +4
Arcane: Intelligence +3
Knowledge: Intelligence +3
Perception: Intelligence +1
Wisdom d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2
Charisma d6 ☐ +1 ☐ +2 ☐ +3
Diplomacy: Charisma +1

Hand Size: 6
Proficiencies: Arcane, Divine, Harrow

POWERS:
After drawing your starting hand, draw 3 additional cards, then set aside 3 cards; these cards are your kit.
On a local Knowledge or Arcane check, or a local check that has a trait matching a displayed Harrow Deck cohort's harrow suit, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 (☐ 1d6).
Tower: Examine the top card (☐ or top 2 cards) of the hourglass, then you may reload or recharge any examined blessing into the hourglass in any order of your choice.
Tower: Exchange a card with a card in your kit.
☐ Tower: Examine the top card of your deck. If you examined any Harrow boons in this way, you may draw any or place any onto a displayed Harrow Deck cohort.
☐ While you reset your hand, you may reveal any number of cards that have the same harrow suit as a displayed Harrow Deck cohort to increase your hand size by the number revealed.

CARD LIST:
Favored Card: The harrow suit of your chosen Harrow Deck Cohort
WEAPON 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4
SPELL 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6
ARMOR 2 ☐ 3
ITEM 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5
ALLY 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3
BLESSING 6 ☐ 7

When building your deck, treat Harrow blessings as if they were Level 0 and had the "Owner: Harrower" trait.
Your deck must include at least one Harrow blessing of each suit; if you cannot build a deck after a scenario that includes one Harrow blessing of each suit then you must choose and draw a new Harrow blessing from each suit you do not have in your deck.

COHORT: Each scenario, choose an unmarked cohort and mark it. If there are no unmarked cohorts, choose any marked cohort instead.
The first time you play a scenario of level #, unmark all cohorts before choosing your cohort.
☐ Harrow Deck: Hammers
☐ Harrow Deck: Keys
☐ Harrow Deck: Shields
☐ Harrow Deck: Books
☐ Harrow Deck: Stars
☐ Harrow Deck: Crown

(Note: All Cohorts are double-sided, and feature a pre-Role and post-Role side like Erasmus' Spirit Relatives. Only the pre-Role ones are shown below.)

Harrow Deck: Hammers:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Hammers, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Strength in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Strength die is 1d12.
* You are proficient with Weapons.
* When you defeat a monster, you may use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Hammers card for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

Harrow Deck: Keys:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Keys, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Dexterity in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Dexterity die is 1d12.
* Gain the skill Disable: Dexterity +1.
* When you defeat a barrier, you may use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Keys card for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

Harrow Deck: Shields:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Shields, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Constitution in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Constitution die is 1d12.
* You are proficient with Armors.
* When a local character suffers damage, you may recharge a Harrow boon to reduce it by 1. Then you may use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Shields card for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

Harrow Deck: Books:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Books, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Intelligence in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Intelligence die is 1d12.
* Gain the skill Craft: Intelligence +1.
* When you acquire an Item or a Spell, you may use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Books card for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

Harrow Deck: Stars:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Stars, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Wisdom in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Wisdom die is 1d12.
* Gain the skill Divine: Wisdom +1.
* After your exploration, you may recharge a Divine card to use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Stars card for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

Harrow Deck: Crowns:

COHORT 0
Traits:
Gambling, Harrow, Magic, Object, Suit: Crowns, OWNER: Harrower

Powers:
If you do not have a role card, display this card this side up, then you may search your deck for a card that lists Charisma in its check to acquire and draw it. While Displayed:
* Your Charisma die is 1d12.
* When another local character encounters a card, you may give them a card.
* When a local character encounters a story bane, you may use one of your Tower character powers.
* When you would reload, recharge, shuffle, discard or bury a Suit: Crowns card or an ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire for its power, you may put it on top of this card and perform the required action with another boon instead.
* At the start of your turn, you may draw any cards on this.

CHARACTER COMMENTARY:

Harrower wrote:

SKILLS

{See Skills Above.}
Hand Size: 6
Proficiencies: Arcane, Divine, Harrow

(The hand size and skills intentionally play to his theme of the number 6 - representing the 6 perfectly balanced Harrow Suits. I do not anticipate either of his role cards actually increasing his hand size, but his Cohorts and Power Feats may be used to provide other methods of drawing cards to function similarly.)

(With any one Cohort displayed, his overall die size sum becomes 42 - the standard for PACG characters. It's just that, due to his Cohort rules, you are penalised if you try to build a deck solely to take advantage of one Cohort and one skill.)

(Intelligence is his key stat despite being a mere 1d6, but thanks to his Arcane-buffing power I feel he can serve as an Arcane caster with a skill comparable to - if not a bit better than - Lem's spellcasting ability. Still weak... unless he takes the Books cohort, at which point he becomes an even better caster than most Wizards and Sorcerers... but lacking the spell slots to fully leverage it, an he cannot take that same Cohort twice in the same adventure (usually).)

(I didn't really care for adding Perception, to be honest... but Occult Adventures and various Harrow boons (including the actual Harrow Deck item) has closely associated Perception with the Harrow and fortunetelling themes in PACG, so it's kinda mandatory that he has it.)

(He has the Divine proficiency, but no Divine skill unless he takes the right Cohort. That basically means he can afford to keep a Divine-only healing or supportive spell or two in his deck, even though he won't often be in positions to recharge it.)

(The Harrow proficiency, as far as I know, is non-functional (at least when you have Arcane proficiency anyway), but it's thematic.)

POWERS:
After drawing your starting hand, draw 3 additional cards, then set aside 3 cards; these cards are your kit.

(I feel like the Harrower really needs an enlarged deck size to support up to 6 different playstyles simultaneously, and this is the only way I can think to do it. I'm not thrilled with just slapping on a Kit solution, but I think it's the best one - at least in the corner that I've backed myself onto with the whole "He has to keep changing strategies" thing.)

(Keep in mind it's way harder for him to actually exchange cards to/from his Kit, compared to Blackjack and Aric/Red Raven. This is more a way for him to have more boons in his deck to support his gameplan, rather than actually pushing cards back and forth. He can always 'dump' extra/useless boons to his Cohort powers in place of a blessing, anyway.)

On a local Knowledge or Arcane check, or a local check that has a trait matching a displayed Harrow Deck cohort's harrow suit, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 (☐ 1d6).

(First, note that a "trait matching the displayed Harrow Deck cohort's harrow suit" is trying to emulate the "trait matching the adventure's harrow suit" template that turns up on some CotCT characters, like Varian. It means the corresponding skill to the suit, so Keys == Dexterity, Strength == Hammers, etc. I can probably reword this by adding an extra line to the Cohorts and referencing that instead somehow.)

(I'm really not sure it's clear as-written, so it might need redoing. A "trait matching the displayed Harrow Deck cohort's harrow suit" does not mean "Suit: Keys" matching "Suit: Keys", even though it reads like it should.)

(The Knowledge or Arcane thing was added late in development, as a way to ensure he can continue to function as an Arcane caster in the worst-case scenario, no matter how unhelpful the Harrow Suit might be for him. The ability to support any local check of his Harrow Suit is the key element, however; it both gives him supporting options as well as letting him complete powerful checks of his preferred Harrow Suit even if he lacks the skill feats to back it up (he can't have # skill feats on all of his skills at once, after all!).)

Tower: Examine the top card (☐ or top 2 cards) of the hourglass, then you may reload or recharge any examined blessing into the hourglass in any order of your choice.
Tower: Exchange a card with a card in your kit.
☐ Tower: Examine the top card of your deck. If you examined any Harrow boons in this way, you may draw any or place any onto a displayed Harrow Deck cohort.

(Ah, the Tower powers! I kind of invented a shorthand term here mostly as a nod to the RPG Harrower mechanics, but I can remove the clunky "Tower" wording and replace it with something else, I'm sure. Anyway, I like the idea that you can spend power feats to give him more 'payoff' powers or to improve his existing ones... but the trigger that will let you use the powers will keep varying from scenario-to-scenario as you change Cohorts.)

(I should stress that some Cohorts are intended to be better at letting you Tower than others, but they tend to be weaker or harder to build around in other areas. Some balancing probably still needs to be done.)

(His Roles will each offer at least one new option for a Tower power, incidentally.)

☐ While you reset your hand, you may reveal any number of cards that have the same harrow suit as a displayed Harrow Deck cohort to increase your hand size by the number revealed.

(Unlike the "trait matching the Cohort's harrow suit" above, this actually means a card with the "Suit: X" trait, matching what's written on your Cohort. Not sure how to make it clearer.)

(Originally this wasn't gated behind a Power Feat, but implementing it this way makes his already-bloated character card a little simpler before you start slapping feats down. This is a sort of 'psuedo hand-size increase', at least if you choose not to use your selected Harrow Suit blessing during your own turn; this way they don't take up slots in your hand. Gets better after you take your one possible Blessing Card Feat.)

(Remember that, since he can recharge cards so effectively to buff checks, throw cards into his Kit, as well as dump different cards in place of his favored Blessing suit; extra cards in hand is really good for the Harrower.)

CARD LIST:
Favored Card: The harrow suit of your chosen Harrow Deck Cohort
WEAPON 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4
SPELL 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6
ARMOR 2 ☐ 3
ITEM 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5
ALLY 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3
BLESSING 6 ☐ 7

{See Deckbuilding Rules Above.}

(My solution to the clumsy "Perform Harrowing" issues I ran into; simply make sure his Favored Card is the suit of Harrow that matches your Cohort, and force him to include at least one of each Harrow Suit in his deck. What kind of Harrower wouldn't have a wide range of Harrow blessings, anyway? It doesn't even really take away much agency from the player - there's 9 blessing choices for each individual blessing slot, for an incredibly wide variety of possible builds.)

(That possible 7th blessing is a bit of a wildcard. Stack a second blessing of your favourite Harrow Suit, or use a non-Harrow Blessing. Your choice!)

{See Cohort Above.}

(To explain the Cohort selection mechanic; the Harrower can choose his Cohort for each scenario... but cannot re-use one he's picked until he plays a scenario of a level that he's never played before (in practice, this is supposed to emulate "he cannot re-use the same Cohort in a given adventure", though it'll work a bit differently if you play your scenarios/adventures in an unusual order). If you end up playing more than 6 scenarios in a single AD# (which might happen if you're playing a PACS special, or some Promo scenarios, or something) then his Cohort restrictions are lifted entirely as a little reward for playing him so heavily.)

(So I really like the design of the Cohorts, but man they're overdesigned as hell. I hope to allay that by having them all follow a pretty consistent format so once you learn 1 you've mostly learned them all. The format is generally as follows (for the pre-Role Cohorts)...
"Search a relevant Card.
Improve a relevant Die.
Gain a skill or proficiency (in all but 1 case; different for Crowns).
Tower off a specific trigger.
Harrow Suit Blessing replacement power (in all but 1 case; different for Crowns).
Draw cards clause.")

(My goal is that, with the right Cohort, the Harrower is almost as good as a dedicated character of a given role when he's got the right Suit, but having the Arcane skill as a backup and more supportive options than the average other character.
With Hammers, he's like a weaker, more vulnerable Fighter or Barbarian, but with more supportive options and spellcasting (a bit like a Skald).
With Keys, it's the same but like a Rogue.
With Stars, it's the same but like a Cleric.
Shields and Crowns are a bit different, and try to provide more unique mechanics that leverage Towering and teamwork almost exclusively. Books functions much like Keys and Stars, but due to his innate Arcane: Intelligence +3 it effectively turns him into someone who can genuinely compete with someone like Ezren in most facets.)

(The great cost of all of this, though, is he cannot stick to the same build for multiple scenarios in a row. This also means he cannot build a single deck fully dedicated to a single skill, and he must look to taking boons that expand his skillset or encourage diversity in skills - or simply focus on providing support when he doesn't have the right cards on him. I think the balance works out kind of well, at least Pre-Role.)

ROLE PLANS
===========

I have quite a lot of ideas for his Role cards (and I've already got versions-in-testing of his post-Role Cohorts). Some of my ideas are listed (in a haphazard manner) in the spoiler below, but my focus is on improving and finalising his base character first - with the help of any forumgoers who give feedback!

ROLE IDEAS:

ROLE 1 BRAINSTORMING

A 'support' focus. Enhance his abilities to support his allies, and share the benefits of his Harrow Suit more.

Give options for enhancing 'Towering'. Perhaps can use 2 Tower powers instead of one when prompted as an 'ultimate' power?

At least one, if not 2, new Tower powers. Heal a local character a card, perhaps?

Enhance his "+1d4 to local X/Y/Z checks" power in some way. I'm thinking that if he recharges a Harrow boon (maybe a Harrow Blessing?) he gets to add # to another local character's check (not his own!) or something like that? (Comparable to post-role Varian.)

An idea; when a local character would discard one or more cards to damage, you can place one of them on your Cohort instead (effectively saves it from being discarded, plus it will stack your hand full of cards to fuel your supportive abilities - remember his hand size will always be a mere '6').

I envision this Role being more closely associated with the Shields, Stars and Crowns suits, which are the most 'supportive' cohorts by design. How can I tie specific Harrow Suits into a role? Should I?

A power where, when he acquires a blessing from a location, he may reload it into the hourglass? It buys the party turns, potentially - a powerful ability! - whilst also allowing him to manipulate beneficial Hour effects, possibly.

Hourglass manipulation is generally more themed to a supportive role, in my opinion.

ROLE 2 BRAINSTORMING

A 'flexibility/self-empowerment' focus. Enhance his ability to take on any challenge, and push his spellcasting to the limit!

Give him the ability to switch Cohorts mid-scenario! This is not similar to what Erasmus (OA2), Korundo (Hunter CD) and Feiya (Hunter CD) are capable of in some way or form. This would be exceptionally powerful for the Harrower, however, so it would need to be carefully worked out what kind of cost the power would have and how that would interact with the 'checking off Cohorts' option.

An idea; when his location is closed, he may banish his current Cohort and a card of the same suit to check off and draw a new Cohort? Or he can bury all of the cards in his Kit to switch?

Could he take multiple Cohorts? It would push his skills - and his ability to stack Towers - too far, I think... but could there be some other cost to multi-Cohorting? Bleeding cards (burying from deck, losing his Kit), suffering Scourges? Almost like an overcharge or overclock mechanic, where you suffer consequences in order to maximize your skillset - could that even work? Is that even remotely thematic to a Harrower, as opposed to a Goblin or something?

Emphasise Arcane somehow?

I envision this Role being more closely associated with the Hammers, Keys and Books suits, which are the most 'direct' cohorts by design. How can I tie specific Harrow Suits into a role? Should I?

GENERAL ROLE IDEAS

I could have one of the two roles directly reference Harrowing and the Adventure's Harrow Suit. It's perfectly okay for one of two roles to directly reference an AP-specific mechanic, but I'm still not certain I'm a fan.

I can make one of the roles have a power or two themed around the Gambling trait. It's a cool trait that's recently got a few more additions in Curse, and there's been characters that have tried to be themed to it in the past, it's just almost never been particularly worthwhile.

I can also make one of his roles a bit more focused on the Harrow trait in some way. Enhance checks that invoke Harrow, reveal or reload Harrow boons instead of paying other costs, etc.

Regarding the idea of certain roles being good with certain Suits/Cohorts... I could say that you only use the "post-Role" side of the Cohorts if you have the right Role, as opposed to just having a Role card. "If you are a Support-Harrower, display this card this side up". It would help theme them closer, and arguably let me justify making the post-role Cohorts a bit more powerful... but it risks further weakening the Harrower once he's 'used up' his 'best' Cohorts.

[Yewstance]

That was a super long post; I apologise. I discussed a lot of my reasoning and thought process in the various Spoilers, but you don't have to read them all.

In short, I feel that I really should be simplifying this character... even though I really do like how its various mechanics entwine. I feel like I'd have a ton of fun with him, but that probably says more about my mindset than anything else.

I should also stress that when I'm producing anything homebrew, I would prefer to err on something being a bit underpowered rather than overpowered. As-is, the most powerful aspect of this character has to come from some of the incredible Harrow Blessing powers, and he can re-use them (at least, once in every round of turns). In most other regards, he performs lower in almost any given check than a similarly-themed Erasmus, and he's (intentionally) weakened by his inability to fully control what Cohorts he uses, thus forcing him to spread his deck thinner over various themes than most players would like.

[cartmanbeck]

This is a very interesting character, Yewstance, and I like the general concept for sure. I agree that it might be a bit too complex right now... when you have your cohort displayed, you essentially have the equivalent of SEVEN powers at the outset, which feels like too much.

I also worry that 1d6+1 for ANY skill is just unhelpful. Even 1d6+3 for Arcane means you're very seldom going to be recharging even 0-level Arcane spells.

I also would REALLY like to see an hour-power manipulation power, but I can see from your spoilered text that you attempted to come up with something there and the results were unsatisfying. You could possibly make the cost for doing the hour power manipulation really high (like banish a card) but I can see how it would be tough to balance one way or another.

Here are my quick-and-dirty suggestions:

-Drop either Diplomacy or Perception as a skill and give him +2 on the other one instead of +1. I would recommend dropping Diplomacy. It would mean he has all of his current skills based on Intelligence, but honestly I don't see much of a problem with that. HOWEVER, if you wanted him to be a bit more diverse, you could instead have Perception based on Wisdom and Knowledge based on Charisma (I know, that one feels weird, but it could be flavored as him being really good at convincing others to tell their darkest secrets when doing a Harrowing for them).

I have reservations about the term "Tower" for his harrow deck-based powers. Is this because he's using the Tower harrowing spread? I think something a bit more generic would be better there, but I also haven't come up with a better word off the top of my head.

Your general ideas in the Role spoilers are good. I definitely like the idea of letting him reload Harrow blessings into the hourglass when he acquires them... VERY powerful because you're adding turns and choosing what the next hour power will be, but also situational (many locations just don't have any blessings in them). Perhaps combine with an ability to banish a card (maybe even banish the BOTTOM card of the hourglass) to shuffle a blessing into your location, or something like that? Gives you a chance of being able to pick up a good blessing and possibly even add it back to the hourglass.

Multiple harrow deck cohorts at once would be really tough to pull off. I would instead encourage a power with a decently steep cost (I like "bury a random card from your kit" because you're reducing your adaptability) that lets him exchange his current cohort for a RANDOM one... a simple d6 roll that could even leave him with the same one. Perhaps there could be a checkbox that would let him add or subtract 1 from the result (though you have to account for 1 and 6 there).

[Brother Tyler]

I'm *extremely* interested in this, but I'm going to stay out of it for now as I work on my own revamped harrower (I don't want to steal any of your ideas or try to turn your own character into my own vision of a harrower). Once I get the basics of my harrower solidified, I'll jump in here (and much of that will depend upon when we get the core conversion project powers finalized).

[Yewstance]

Thanks so much for the feedback, and I'm looking forward to your ideas, Brother Tyler!

My meandering thoughts/responses are as follows.

cartmanbeck wrote:

This is a very interesting character, Yewstance, and I like the general concept for sure. I agree that it might be a bit too complex right now... when you have your cohort displayed, you essentially have the equivalent of SEVEN powers at the outset, which feels like too much.

Agreed.

My hope is that each individual Cohort effectively is a new character. You have some different dice, skills and 1-2 powers; then bolt on the "Tower of your choice off a trigger". In principle, what I've just described (if you have a single given Cohort) is no more complicated than playing Aric/Red Raven, where you can switch mid-scenario (and even mid-turn) frequently, and so both sides of his character card are relevant simultaneously, leading to a combined total of quite a lot of powers and skill variety, especially post-Role.

I'm pretty confident if I just removed 5/6 Cohorts, he'd be no more complicated than playing Aric...

...but he can't continue to use the same Cohort by design, so he's like learning a new, completely different, Aric every single scenario, which is where I worry that the complexity gets too high. If I forced him to stick to a single Cohort for a full adventure (which was an earlier plan), he might get a bit better... but then I almost entirely remove the ability for players to choose a Cohort to satisfy a specific scenario, which is a key enjoyability factor with the similar functions of Erasmus, some Hunters and some Witches.

cartmanbeck wrote:

I also worry that 1d6+1 for ANY skill is just unhelpful. Even 1d6+3 for Arcane means you're very seldom going to be recharging even 0-level Arcane spells.

Well they turn into 1d12+1 with the right Cohort, and Core/Curse has played more with providing options for Diplomacy or Perception checks without providing Charisma or Wisdom options, or even referencing "if you have the X skill".

I can certainly have another look at Diplomacy/Perception, though I'd be more tempted to bump up his Diplomacy than his Perception if I had to. (Note that, in his current iteration, his Cohort of Crowns lets him re-use Diplomacy allies much like he does Suit: Crowns blessings... in part to give him the option of an ally-centric playstyle despite his lack of many ally slots. Having a Diplomacy ally theme without Diplomacy seems odd, but I suppose I could always just play around with the Cohort design so Diplomacy can be stapled onto it instead.)

His Arcane of 1d6+3 doesn't seem like much of an issue to me, if I'm honest. Without bonuses, it's higher than Seelah's (+2 average) and Fumbus' (+1 average) - both who are secondary casters, which is what I see the Harrower as when he's not using a Stars or Books Harrow. They each carry 2 spells rather than 4, but he has a kit giving him 3 extra card slots. His average Arcane is also identical to Lem's.

He can recharge a card to add 1d4 to his Arcane check at any time, which actually pushes his Arcane average to an average of 9, which is the same average as 1d12+2.5. As a result, he can actually perform unblessed Arcane checks just as well as Seoni as long as he's only making 2 or so a turn and does (otherwise he'd empty his hand trying to keep up). Specifically, the different probability spread (and higher average) leaves him with a higher chance than Seoni of passing any Arcane check up to DC 9, and matches the chance of passing Arcane 10 checks.

(Note that, of course, Seoni doesn't need to make recharge checks at all, and both Ezren and Lem can buff their own noncombat Arcane checks to higher than that by default, though neither can use Arcane in combat as strong as the Harrower can just with their own character powers.)

Plus, Core/Curse has a lot more spells which I'd be happy to accept discarding for their power, and some which you don't even need to recharge (like Infernal Healing). Both Hakon and Fumbus carry spell slots without any capacity to recharge them.

cartmanbeck wrote:

-Drop either Diplomacy or Perception as a skill and give him +2 on the other one instead of +1. I would recommend dropping Diplomacy. It would mean he has all of his current skills based on Intelligence, but honestly I don't see much of a problem with that. HOWEVER, if you wanted him to be a bit more diverse, you could instead have Perception based on Wisdom and Knowledge based on Charisma (I know, that one feels weird, but it could be flavored as him being really good at convincing others to tell their darkest secrets when doing a Harrowing for them).

Hm. Hakon also uses Charisma-based knowledge, leaving me open to the idea. I guess I'm really cautious giving non-Diplomacy, non-casting skills to Charisma, because "reveal to buff any charisma check" or "do an action based on your charisma" is over-represented in PACG (see Ultimate Intrigue, Ultimate Magic), so any unusual skill tied to it is usually made better by extension of the boons you can start using them with.

(AKA: Buffing Charisma checks with boons available in both home play and PACS is, generally, far easier than buffing Intelligence checks.)

But I'm open to the idea. I do kind of want Diplomacy for him, but as mentioned before I can tie that to the Crowns Cohort if I want. Tying Perception to Wisdom gives him a nicer spread of skills (which I want for a character who's primary skill is supposed to change from scenario to scenario), but weakens it because I anticipate most players will dump points into Intelligence, and so many "harrow themed" boons are unfortunately Perception based.

Which is an awkward area for me, because Knowledge is the key Harrower skill in the RPG from my research, not Perception.

cartmanbeck wrote:

Perhaps combine with an ability to banish a card (maybe even banish the BOTTOM card of the hourglass) to shuffle a blessing into your location, or something like that? Gives you a chance of being able to pick up a good blessing and possibly even add it back to the hourglass.

Ah, I like that! Banishing blessings from the hourglass is costly, because turns are usually supposed to be the single most valuable resource in PACG (most parties can convert turns into explorations, healing, card acquisitions or some combination of the three), but there's probably ways it can be made desirable if he has a chance of recuperating them. I do have to be wary about him being able to spam card acquires, though, which is generally avoided with characters unless that's more-or-less their main focus.

Maybe a power feat modifier that's something like this...
"When you acquire a blessing from a location deck, ([ ] you may banish the bottom card of the hourglass to draw a new blessing and then) you may reload a blessing into the hourglass."

Of course, simply drawing the bottom card of the hourglass straight-up serves a similar purpose, but is probably slightly too easy to control to intentionally draw high level blessings without the need of a one-use (per scenario) card like Sacred Candle.

cartmanbeck wrote:

Multiple harrow deck cohorts at once would be really tough to pull off. I would instead encourage a power with a decently steep cost (I like "bury a random card from your kit" because you're reducing your adaptability) that lets him exchange his current cohort for a RANDOM one... a simple d6 roll that could even leave him with the same one. Perhaps there could be a checkbox that would let him add or subtract 1 from the result (though you have to account for 1 and 6 there).

Aha!

An earlier design had him rolling a 1d6 to determine his Cohort (scrapped because I wanted him to be able to choose the right Cohort for the right scenario, as long as he wasn't re-using it), but your suggestion to use this on a mid-scenario Cohort change fascinates me, especially because I could tweak it, if desired, to enable theming each role to a set of Cohorts!

For example, if Role 1 is themed around Cohorts 1, 2, and 3...
"Banish a displayed Harrow Deck cohort and bury your Kit to roll 1d4. Draw the corresponding Harrow Deck Cohort."

And if Role 2 was themed around Cohorts 4, 5 and 6...
"Banish a displayed Harrow Deck cohort and bury your Kit to roll 1d4+2. Draw the corresponding Harrow Deck Cohort."

If Cohorts 3 and 4 were the most 'generic'/middling Cohorts, then this could maintain uncertainty whilst also tying you to specific playstyles better. It'd probably work best if the Divine-matters and Arcane-matters cohorts were 3 and 4, but I'd have to mess up their current order which reflects the skills.

I feel the cost needs to be higher than burying a single card from your kit, because the kit was more designed to let him have have more cards in deck to support builds, rather than actually providing much adaptability mid-scenario (hence why he can't exchange cards with it easily). But I might have to think of some different costs that could work, because there's the added issue that if you want to spam the power until you hit the Cohort you want, what happens when you run out of cards in your Kit? Is that your last chance to switch Cohorts (that sucks if you really need your Shields suit right now, for example), or can you switch at no cost to yourself after that (which is even worse)?

[Yewstance]

Hm. I'm trying to work out a way to simplify the Harrower without throwing out the current design. I'm actually (without hard testing having taken place beyond the theory) pretty happy with the balance, the playstyle, the Cohorts and the options of his pre-Role character.

The issue is I'm not certain what to strip down or compress to make him simpler, at least that wouldn't have other large effects on his design.

Keep in mind I see him as like 6 different characters; his playstyle and desired boons changing with each Cohort. Unlike Aric/Red Raven, he is not able to change his 'character' mid-scenario at all, so the complexity this adds is a medium and long term complexity, not necessarily a short-term complexity. Nevertheless, I'm trying to lessen the amount of information you need to ingest in order to effectively play him in all senses - short, medium and long.

Let's look at the aspects I can tweak without a full character rewrite.

======================

OPTION 1: Powers:

Here are his regular powers, and my analysis on what I could change...

Powers, numbered wrote:

Hand Size: 6

Proficiencies: Arcane, Divine, Harrow

1. After drawing your starting hand, draw 3 additional cards, then set aside 3 cards; these cards are your kit.

2. On a local Knowledge or Arcane check, or a local check that has a trait matching a displayed Harrow Deck cohort's harrow suit, you may recharge a card to add 1d4 (☐ 1d6).

3. Tower: Examine the top card (☐ or top 2 cards) of the hourglass, then you may reload or recharge any examined blessing into the hourglass in any order of your choice.

4. Tower: Exchange a card with a card in your kit.

5. ☐ Tower: Examine the top card of your deck. If you examined any Harrow boons in this way, you may draw any or place any onto a displayed Harrow Deck cohort.

6. ☐ While you reset your hand, you may reveal any number of cards that have the same harrow suit as a displayed Harrow Deck cohort to increase your hand size by the number revealed.

Hand Size & Power 6: These two tie into basically the same design space. The original goal is that the Harrower's theme of the number 6 was represented in him having a static, unchanging hand size of 6; but he'd still have power feats that allowed him to potentially affect his quantity of drawn cards, thus serving a similar purpose.

With that said, I can imagine letting go of this idea. I can drop Power 6 and just give him a perfectly straightforward Hand Size increase (if I can't find a better place for a new power feat), simplifying the character, at least pre-role. Another idea I can pursue is him having a hand size that's defined or modified by whichever Cohort he's using - but that's adding complexity, not removing it!

Power 1: I don't want the Harrower to be particularly flexible mid-scenario like Aric or post-role Erasmus can be. He chooses his Harrow Suit and that's his 'build' for the scenario. As a result, I don't particularly care too much how or even if he can get cards out of his Kit once he makes it, but having a Kit (or similar) seems the only way to support 6 distinct builds on the same character in the current design space that I'm working with.

Power 2: I like this power in principle, especially because almost every single Core/Curse character has a "recharge/discard/bury a card to support your/a local check", so really I'm just continuing an established design trend. I can make various adjustments to balance it (adjusting the cost or adjusting the result, or adjusting what skills it can impact), but right now I'm focusing on simplicity, not balance.

This power serves 3 purposes, as follows.
1. Allows the Harrower to use his Arcane skill just as well as a dedicated Arcane Caster, regardless of his Harrow (at the cost of recharging a card).
2. Allows the Harrower to use his Cohort-granted die/skills effectively, even without corresponding skill feats (1d12 Strength alone, without any power or other skill backing it up, doesn't make a weapon desirable).
3. Provides a support role to the Harrower, comparable to the Bard.

How could I simplify it? If I could find a new template to explain "benefit checks based on your Harrow Suit's corresponding skill" better, it would be less wordy, at least. As-is, I don't actually think it's complicated at all, and I don't see what changes to make. It just reads "recharge to add 1d4 to Arcane/Knowledge/Harrow Suit"; that's it. I don't see myself removing this outright; it's too meaningful to make the character work with his current skill allocations.

Powers 3-5: So the Towering mechanic comes to the fore. Well. I like the design space of this idea - your character has powers, but the timing and condition of those powers is reliant on another source (the Cohort, in this case). For this mechanic of "When {COHORT TRIGGER CONDITION} occurs, {CHOOSE POWER}" to really be accurately represented, I think it's best that there's some kind of choice to make before spending a power feat, so I think having 2 Tower powers (whatever they may be) is desirable pre-Power Feat.

I'd also like, pre-Role, to give players the option to seek out a new Tower power with a feat, and Power 5 also serves the desirable option of potentially letting you draw new cards, so it functions a little like a Hand Size increase.

With all of that said and done... if there was one swathe of mechanics to outright strip from the Harrower to add simplicity, it would probably have to be the Tower mechanics, sadly. This probably has the biggest space to remove complexity, and turn the Harrower into a much simpler Character card and restricting the only conditional and complex mechanics to the Cohort (a bit like WotR Balazar). This would require some rebalancing and rewrite of the Cohorts, of course - remove their 'Tower triggering' power and instead give them each a new power - but it could absolutely work.

Simple New Powers (in case old ones are removed):

Besides moving Cohort-based powers onto the Harrower, I'd also be open to making Divine Proficiency a power feat. I could also dig into some of my Role-based ideas for new Harrower powers, but I don't think that will be necessary.

======================

OPTION 2: Cohorts:

As previously mentioned, the Cohorts mostly follow a pretty consistent structure, as follows...

1. When displayed, search {harrow skill} card from deck.

2. Gain d12 die in {harrow skill}.

3. Gain {thematic proficiency or thematic skill}.

4. When {trigger condition} occurs, you may Tower.

5. When you use a {matching suit harrow}, exchange the cost with another card and place it atop this.

6. Start-of-turn; draw cards from this.

Sections 1-2 and 5-6 all describe almost entirely static effects. With the tiny exception of Harrow of Crowns, sections 1/2/5/6 above are identical to every Cohort, save the exact Suit or corresponding Skill that's referenced.

These are the easiest pieces to compress or convert into a power on the Harrower character card (if necessary or desirable), and despite making up about 80% of the cohort's card text I hope that the learning curve isn't too high.

However, besides referring to a different skill, they're all... well... the same from Cohort-to-Cohort. There's little actual demonstrable diversity in Cohort design here. Maybe that's okay, but I don't think I could break the Cohorts down into just these facets and still have the character remain very interesting.

Are there changes I could make to these 4? Well, as mentioned, I could instead convert them into a power on the character (notably section 6 would be trivial). I could probably remove section 6 entirely and simply re-write other powers to avoid using the Harrow Deck as a "card storage" medium, or somehow collapse the two designs into just interacting with the Kit more, but I must admit I like the convenience of being able to write Harrower powers (including Tower powers and post-role powers) into using your Cohort as a temporary card store.

Why do I want section 6 as temporary card store outside of the Kit? Primarily to avoid exploits and combos, but also because it's much more generous about timing constraints. For example, take my written Tower power which lets you 'draw or display' a Harrow card from your deck (basically). Simply drawing a card is a useless power if you're Towering off an end-of-turn (or similarly end-of-turn, like "When your location is closed") trigger event, because you're about to reset your hand anyway - but putting it into your Harrow is stocking it for a next-turn draw, which is both elegant and useful.

Meanwhile, putting your preferred Harrow Suit Blessing onto it prevents you from re-using the same blessing over and over in a turn (creating multiple possible exploits, such as with The Mute Hag blessing), but still ensures you can keep your specialised/preferred blessing in hand every turn, and use it every turn.

Sections 3-4 are where the Cohorts meaningfully grow distinct. Some provide proficiencies, some provide skills and they encourage you to take different actions or play different boons in order to Tower as often as possible. A small number (Shields and Crowns) even provide a new pseudo-character power to help you support your allies.

Section 3 is pretty simple. It could be removed outright, but I feel that would particularly impact the Hammers and Stars.

Stars: Losing the Divine skill heavily discourages the "carry 1-2 Divine support spells" build option for the Harrower (who'd have the Divine skill for one scenario per adventure, but will always have proficiency, and can always dump a spell into his Kit or expend it in place of his preferred blessing).

Hammers: Losing Weapon proficiency heavily discourages the "use weapons to pass combat checks" build option for the Harrower, even when you were taking this Cohort. Without proficiency, weapons will be relegated to a firm 'backup' role, as the Harrower will often have difficulty leveraging weapons to pass harder checks without extensive support, so he'd rather just cast an attack spell where possible. "Prefers to cast a spell, but can use a weapon" might also apply to characters like Varian, Kyra or Lem... but it's not a good fit when I want each boon to have a meaningful place for a kit-using, skill-diverse character such as the Harrower.

Perhaps more precisely, I want Harrow Deck: Hammers to be comparable in power to Harrow Deck: Books. Having Arcane proficiency and innate Arcane skills really tips the scales in favor of Books here (dumping weapons in the Kit and just taking card feats for more Attack spell), and lacking Weapon Proficiency basically dooms Hammers to being "the bad Cohort", I feel.

Section 4 is entirely tied into the design of the core Harrower character. If I removed the 'Tower' mechanics, I'd want to give a new power to each Cohort to instead make them distinct and somehow push you to change your playstyle to accomodate them.

======================
SUMMARY
========

All in all, if I had to make a big change to the Harrower with the explicit intent of removing complexity (without redesigning my approach to his core skill and Cohort core functions), it would have to be to drop the "Tower" mechanics entirely, even though I like them.

If you guys agree that would be for the best, then I'd likely do the following...

1 - Remove all Tower powers from the Harrower character card.
2 - Remove all Tower 'trigger' powers from the Harrow Deck Cohorts.
3 - Remove the 'draw cards from your displayed Cohort' power from the Cohorts, and move the (functionally identical) power onto the Harrower character card.

With that, I've cleared up a huge chunk of text from both Cohorts and the Character card, but also removed a lot of functionality (including, among other things, any form of hourglass-manipulation and kit-manipulation). Which paves the way for my next steps which would be...

4 - Make small additions/changes to the Harrower character to reflesh out his Power Feats and Powers, with minimal complexity added.
Possible changes include;
add inherent Hourglass manipulation power (End of turn?),
add Power Feat for Divine Proficiency,
add Power Feat to enhance pre-existing "+1d4" power,
add Power Feat for new 'quasi-draw' power (similar to the "draw/display Harrows" Tower power, perhaps),
add Kit interaction power (power feat or inherent) or append one to his existing 'make your Kit' power.

5 - Add new power to each Cohort (except Crowns?), or modify power to each Cohort, to give them all unique new benefits or a power-like ability. Can use their draft post-Role versions for inspiration.
Possible changes include (some subset of...);
{Hammers} bonus vs monsters, bonus with Bludgeoning, bonus on monster defeat, option to re-use discarded/recharged/reloaded weapons (put them on the Harrow Deck, like your Suit: Hammers blessing?), bonus in Underground,
{Keys} bonus vs barriers, bonus vs locks, bonus on barrier defeat, evasion power, bonus in Urban,
{Shields} local damage-reduction power, give Fortitude skill pre-role so that Core Heavy Armor can be recharged, de-Scourging power, healing power, bonus in Wild,
{Books} alchemical proficiency, bonus with attack, bonus vs spells/items or on acquire, bonus with Books,
{Stars} additional scouting/hourglass manipulation powers, bonus on recharging cards, healing power, bonus on acquiring blessings, bonus in Sacred,
{Crowns} bonus vs Story Banes, bonus vs Allies, stronger Support, bonus in Urban.

Note that some Cohorts may be more significant than others in terms of powers they provide, because there's vast contextual differences in their respective Suits and Skills. The Divine skill is far more widely used than Craft, for example, and the Intelligence Die is far more widely used than Constitution. Some will have more impressive supportive powers, some will have more impressive pro-active powers, and some will simply work more along with the Harrower's inherent powers.

[cartmanbeck]

Just to make sure, you keep saying "Banish your cohort" could be a power for some of these, but as far as I can remember, if you banish a cohort, it's gone FOREVER, so I would instead say "return your cohort to the vault" or something like that.

[foxoftheasterisk]

I think you're right that the "Tower" mechanic is the most complicated part (aside from the cohort mechanic, of course), but it's also very interesting so I'd hate to see it go. Plus, it really seems like the right place to have the kit swapping power.

The thing is, there's a fair amount of complexity as far as powers, but there's also a lot of things that look complex but actually are fairly simple once you understand it. So here are my thoughts on what I would do:

the part that is just making existing powers easier to parse:

Give each Cohort a trait in the format "Skill: Intelligence".

Add to the character card (possibly at the bottom of Skills?) "Your die for your Cohort's skill is instead d12."

Rephrase the add a die power to "... or a local check that has a trait matching your Cohort's skill, ..."

the part that is actually changing things in ways that you may or may not agree with:

Remove powers 3, 5, and 6 from the character card (leaving the kit power as the only Tower power.)

On each Cohort, make the display power simply "Display. While displayed:" (or possibly "Display; if you have a role card, display with the other face up. While displayed:". I'm hopeful that these simplifications will let it all fit on one side, though.)

Remove the first, fourth and fifth powers from each Cohort (leaving only the skill/proficiency and the Tower trigger).
Change the Crowns second (now first) power to also be a skill or proficiency (Diplomacy, maybe?).

Add to the character card the power "[] When you play a boon with a Suit trait matching your Cohort's Suit, you may use a Tower power."

Add also the power "[] Tower: Heal a Harrow blessing."

And also add the power "[] When you display a Cohort, you may search your deck that lists that Cohort's skill to acquire and draw it." (Possibly reword this?)

Finally, add a Tower power to each Cohort. (I don't have ideas for these, but they should probably be fairly simple powers.)

wait why did you do that??:

So there's actually a lot going on here.

I cut several powers just for simplification. The hourglass filtering Tower power was cut for that reason. The hand size increase as well; that's a lot of text for something that will, in most circumstances, increase your hand size by 1 or 0. Who would take that power, once they realize that?

I consider the whole array of powers relating to storing cards in your Cohort a single power worth of cut. It was a bit convoluted and of the two powers that put them there, one was possibly overpowered and the other was just kinda weird.

I made the "search and draw an appropriate boon" power locked behind a power feat both to simplify the initial power set and because, well, it's a strong power.

But with all this simplification, I've also added powers.

I wanted there to still be a reward for playing your Harrow suit, and getting a "free" Tower power seemed appropriate. (As a bonus, this lets you have easy access to one of your Kit cards right away, even if your Cohort's Tower trigger is one of the difficult ones. And if you take this and the search power, you can guarantee finding any one card in your deck, provided it has the right skill for your Cohort.)

Adding a Tower power to the Cohort increases the variety available in the Cohorts without drastically increasing the amount you have to parse (you don't have to worry about it until you activate your Tower), and keeping them feeling unified. It also maintains the choice of two Tower powers at first while keeping the character card simple.

And finally, the Tower power to heal a Harrow blessing increases your ability to play your Suit Harrow more than once, as well as just being a useful and appropriate power for the character.

[Yewstance]

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

The thing is, there's a fair amount of complexity as far as powers, but there's also a lot of things that look complex but actually are fairly simple once you understand it. [...]

I agree, and that was my hope. For example, about 75% of each Harrow Cohort is basically just copied text from each other Cohort, and a couple of their powers (gain X die, Y skill, Z proficiency) are not necessarily adding complexity since they're just treated like a slight change to your character card. Additionally, a Cohort can't change mid-scenario (for now), so you don't need to think about the other 5 in any given setting of play; just between-scenarios, for the most part.

And the Tower powers were always static; you could quickly learn the payoffs, it's just the triggers that would adjust.

...but...

The information is clearly separated over 7 different cards from the perspective of someone planning to play the character - and that still doesn't include include the two separate special deckbuilding rules as well as the special Cohort rules. There's clearly an uncomfortably large amount to ingest in the first place, even if the complexity during play is probably lower than Aric/The Red Raven (The Harrower almost certainly has less powers/options in a given encounter or turn).

Front-loaded complexity, basically. Not really a desirable trait.

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

Give each Cohort a trait in the format "Skill: Intelligence".

Add to the character card (possibly at the bottom of Skills?) "Your die for your Cohort's skill is instead d12."

Rephrase the add a die power to "... or a local check that has a trait matching your Cohort's skill, ..."

I love this! Thank you so much for that recommendation; I'll absolutely implement that fully.

I originally thought of something similar, but flawed, and dropped the idea quickly because giving a Cohort Dexterity/Intelligence/etc traits would be undesirable (there can be side-effects when you apply a skill's trait to a check that's not supposed to have it). I should've stuck with the idea and just gone with the much more sensible "Skill: X" traits you listed.

I think I can add a special rule about the die-replacement to the character card, too. Doesn't seem much different than special rules showing up on character/role cards like Ak's roles or Zova's card. Sounds like an idea to me!

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

the part that is actually changing things in ways that you may or may not agree with: [...]

wait why did you do that??: [...]

I like a lot of the reasoning here. There's some great simplifications, great alternatives. I'm going to need a bit of time to consider and tinker with these ideas, though, and there are some I'm less interested in than others.

I will talk briefly about three points right now, however.

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

"[] Tower: Heal a Harrow blessing." [and other changes]

Whilst I accept that my wordy power that basically meant "Replace the cost of playing your Harrow suit with something else once-per-round" wasn't ideal, one of the most powerful motivations I had was that I wanted every Harrow Blessing (almost) to be feasible to pick as your 'one blessing of a given suit', which I feel massively impacts your potential 'build' and playstyle. You're right that I'm cautious of the power levels, but the cost is still being paid and it cannot be spammed.

As it so happens, some Harrow Blessings discard, some bury, some recharge and some can - sometimes - reload. Whilst a Tower power that lets you heal them back does still serve the same general purpose of letting you re-use them, it greatly punishes any attempt to use the "Bury" harrow suit blessings, and actually also sort of punishes the reloadable ones, who'd probably never want that Tower power to be used, and the rechargeable ones, which are stuck at the bottom of your deck if you didn't have a different Harrow blessing in your discards to be a legal heal target.

Your changes have merit, but in my opinion they lessen the significance of the Harrow Card that is representing the Harrower, the player, and the playstyle of each given suit - primarily by lessening how often it shows up and entirely rendering many of the Harrows (notably the buryable ones) as overall bad deck choices.

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

The hourglass filtering Tower power was cut for that reason.

Well, whether I end up removing Tower powers or not, I'm going to have the Harrower have at least one pre-role power on his character card that is themed around hourglass examination/manipulation/filtering, because I actually think having an hourglass theme is more important for a future-reader than the Tower mechanic pretty much no matter what.

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

The hand size increase as well; that's a lot of text for something that will, in most circumstances, increase your hand size by 1 or 0. Who would take that power, once they realize that?

Actually, the main intent is if you want to use your Harrow Suit blessing supportively - keep in mind there are even some Harrow Blessings which explicitly want to be played on other players' checks. If you want to use your Harrow Suit blessing off-turn (keep in mind it tends to always come back into your hand at the start of every turn) then you'll need it to take up a spot in your hand when you end it, so this will pretty consistently increase your hand size as long as you're not being 'greedy' with your own blessing.

It can also act as up to hand size+2 cards, depending on your 7th potential blessing. It's also a bit better than actual hand size increases, because it's an optional draw so it will never be the cause of your death. (Note, however, I'm a HUGE proponent of hand size increases often being the best power feat, but I know A LOT of players - including highly veteran players - value hand size increases less than me, and see the risk as greater than I do. I try to accommodate other playstyles in my character design, even if I don't necessarily plan to ever use them.)

On the other hand... it can also be kinda exploitable... especially in a home game, where other people can hand you extra Harrow Blessings of your favored suit. Hm. I'll think about it.

====================================

You've given me a ton to think about, and some inspired ideas; thank you so much! I'll see what I can do over the next week or two, what ideas I can refine and trim down.

[foxoftheasterisk]

Yewstance wrote:

...they lessen the significance of the Harrow Card that is representing the Harrower, the player, and the playstyle of each given suit - primarily by lessening how often it shows up and entirely rendering many of the Harrows (notably the buryable ones) as overall bad deck choices.

Ah, I see. I was not seeing the Harrow of the appropriate suit as something that was integral to the playstyle with the Cohort, but more as a bonus. A bonus that you might be rewarded for playing (if you take that feat), but still not a key part of the deck.

To preserve that functionality with fewer words, you might consider the similar effect:
"When you would recharge, discard, or bury a boon with a Suit trait matching your Cohort's Suit, you may instead reload it and perform the required action with another card."
(The main difference is that it impacts hand size, though that might be better for balance anyway. Also, I suppose, it could be shuffled away, but that's not terribly likely.
It does break both the hand size increase and the deck filtering power, though. But I still opine that those were too complicated for what they did anyway.)

[Yewstance]

foxoftheasterisk wrote:

Yewstance wrote:

...they lessen the significance of the Harrow Card that is representing the Harrower, the player, and the playstyle of each given suit - primarily by lessening how often it shows up and entirely rendering many of the Harrows (notably the buryable ones) as overall bad deck choices.

Ah, I see. I was not seeing the Harrow of the appropriate suit as something that was integral to the playstyle with the Cohort, but more as a bonus. A bonus that you might be rewarded for playing (if you take that feat), but still not a key part of the deck.

To preserve that functionality with fewer words, you might consider the similar effect:
"When you would recharge, discard, or bury a boon with a Suit trait matching your Cohort's Suit, you may instead reload it and perform the required action with another card."
(The main difference is that it impacts hand size, though that might be better for balance anyway. Also, I suppose, it could be shuffled away, but that's not terribly likely.
It does break both the hand size increase and the deck filtering power, though. But I still opine that those were too complicated for what they did anyway.)

That's a fair suggestion, I'm likely to go with that.

I think I originally avoided it for the worry of having your deck shuffled or the top card of your deck discarded/buried (that's not too uncommon in Core/Curse - in fact, there's a Scourge that can do that, making it a pretty bad idea to use your Harrow Suit off-turn if you're Wounded), and that you could end up using it multiple times per turn when combined with draw-a-card powers (which are hardly too rare; such as the level 0 ally Teamster).

However, I think the benefits gained by the 'card storage' solution I've already got are overall relatively small when compared to the sheer quantity of text it needs to justify it, compared to the much more intuitive solution you've posted. I'll make the change with my next version.

[foxoftheasterisk]

what have i done.

what have i done:

You done inspired me, it seems. So may I present, the "Heart of the Cards" Harrower.

They would use the same Harrow Deck Cohorts as your harrower - assuming you go with the proficiency, Tower trigger, Tower power set for the Cohorts, which you are by no means bound to do, of course.

I obviously whipped them up relatively quickly, so they're still a bit raw and possibly unbalanced.

There's a lot I could say about the design, but I'd prefer to let it speak for itself for now. So, without further ado:

Skills wrote:

Strength: d8 □ +1 □ +2 □ +3

Melee: Strength +2
Dexterity: d6 □ +1 □ +2
Constitution: d8 □ +1 □ +2 □ +3
Fortitude: Constitution +2
Intelligence: d6 □ +1 □ +2
Wisdom: d8 □ +1 □ +2 □ +3
Perception: Wis +2
Charisma: d6 □ +1 □ +2

Powers wrote:

Hand size 5 (4?)

Proficiencies (Alchemical?) Armor Harrow

Before you draw your opening hand or reset, roll 1d6 (□ 2d6). Return your displayed cohorts to the vault, then for each die, display a Harrow Deck Cohort:
1: Hammers 2: Keys 3: Shields
4: Books 5: Stars 6: Crowns

On your (□ or a local) check that has a trait matching one of your displayed Cohorts' Skill traits, add 1d4. (□ You may recharge a (specific?) card to instead add 1d8.)

Tower: Examine the top card of a random location.
□ Tower: Reset. You may use this ability only once per turn.

Obviously still some things undecided.

Cards wrote:

Favored card: Choose one of your displayed Cohorts, then use the corresponding type:

Hammers: Weapon. Keys:Item. Shields: Armor
Books: Spell. Stars: Blessing. Crowns: Ally

Weapon. 2 □ 3 □ 4
Spell. 1 □ 2 □ 3
Armor. 2 □ 3
Item. 4 □ 5
Ally. 3 □ 4 □ 5
Blessing. 3 □ 4 □ 5

Bio wrote:

something something almost a paladin something lets the cards guide their actions something something faith

I can also make another thread if you'd rather not have this cluttering up yours

[Yewstance]

I don't mind whether you use this thread or otherwise; this is just a place to share a creative outlet. :)

[foxoftheasterisk]

Okay :)

I didn't actually say in my post but I'm also looking for critiques, BTW.