Magic Cards

[McDeth]

Not neccesarily a topic for November, but i was wondering what the consensus is on the loss of Magic so far in 2k1.

I was never a fan of the cards, as i felt they were just too unbalanced in their make-up, with the option of one player drawing two good cards and the other player drawing two naf useless cards a regular occurence.

But what about On Pitch Spellcasters having access to a Magic Card.

The reason i mentioned this is because these rules seem to be used with great success in the MBBL2. In fact i was on the receiving end in turn one of my Round 4 game, when their spellcaster successfully cast a spell (D3+) drew a card ( Potion of Lurve ) and banished my best Bull Centaur to the dugout for the rest of the game. This was actually worse than him being injured, as i couldn't even use an apothecary to get him back, even if i had wanted to. I have to say i was absolutely gutted when it happened and the loss of such a crucial player against a much higher ranking team is going to be a huge hurdle to get over. However having dwelled on it for a couple of turns i've come now to the conclusion that this may be a way of getting the cards back into the game in a more meaningful way.

In some ways the same could be done for a specific Dirty Player ( as oppossed to Spellcaster )etc having access to Dirty Tricks etc

[Mestari]

I don't like the idea of on-pitch spellcasters. Heck, I don't even like the idea of wizards (I'm content with the freebooting thing). I never liked the cards.
Without them, it is a lot more about the coach being able to prepare and execute plays and counterplays and the results tell more about the coaches. With cards one player could draw two TD-stopper cards and use them to turn the game into a victory - without deserving it - luck with the dice is another matter, the cards were stupid and many of them were way too powerful.

However, to justify the rather elaborate background stories found in BB material, as a house rule one might consider adding a general skill (call it Devious Bastard) that a player with DP could take, and that would allow the team to draw one dirty trick card.
Also, a magic item could be bought for some 30k or so.

But this would be definitely a house rule.

[McDeth]

Agreed about the unbalanced cards. In fact i prefered playing without them back in third edition, but a few of them could be used sparingly as an on pitch spellcaster, and while i agree that it would be House Rule/experimental, i don't see why if it wasn't successful that it could be adopted into the living rules.

Heck In fact it doesn't even have to be the cards, that was just used as apoint of reference, more likely a database of say 10 balanced spells, drawn randomly.

[GalakStarscraper]

McDeth,

If you look at the bbcards.ini file you'll notice that for the MBBL2 that I got rid of a lot of the unbalanced cards.

Also Spellcasters are pretty equal opporunity your CD could have had one for 90k.

My opinion is that the onpitch spellcaster rules are the only way to include magic in the game. If you don't like losing the Bull Centaur ... sounds like a good reason to surround knockdown and stick the boot into your opponent's wizards head. I've had 2 spellcaster die in the last 2 rounds in the MBBL2 and thats a blow most teams feel.

The onpitch rules put the wizard where you can do something about him .. in your case a 1st turn spell doesn't give you much prevention time. But I have little sympathy for someone getting nailed by a spell late in a 2nd half.

The other thing you forgot to mention is that spell casting cannot be rerolled and if he had failed that 3+ roll, you would have been the receiver of the Lurve Potion ... checks and balances.

Galak

[McDeth]

Hmm hadn't realised about the failed roll turning over the potion to me.
Damn.

And if i get into a position where i retire or lose any of My C.Dwarves, a spellcaster will definitely be on my list of priorities

[Lucien Swift]

we never much cared for the deathzone wizard rules, so once we got using the 2e magic rules out of our system we just went with the most elegant solution, a team wizard gives you a magic item card in addition to your regular draw, without a wizard, you can't draw from that deck... and no freebooting

some coaches found that by investing in the wizard they could gain a slight edge, some coaches thought it was pants... in the end, everyone agreed it was a good system...

in the new rules, i'd consider dropping the cost to 50k just because 150 is a lot to ask from an experienced team short on cash... i dunno, i'm still pondering this one, i kinda like the rarity... breeds mystique...