Hi there, just want to brainstorm some new ideas for Aristeia's future characters! I've got some thinkings mostly from Infinity, but welcome any other thoughts! climbing plus: auto skill, allows a character to move into space with an obstacle and treat it as free space. (stand on it :P) NWI: auto skill, let a character stand on the board even if he received as many wounds as his wound characteristic (you choose whether to use this skill). when he received his next wound in the next attack, he will fall into the infirmary and come back with a special -3/-2, or -2/-2 energy state token (his broken body needs more treatment). chain rifle: will hit the target and all characters within 1-1, no matter friend or foe. its switch is to let this attack hit only the target. human shield: a tactical card that can let you transfer one attack's damage which is against you to another enemy character within maybe 1-2, and place yourself adjacent to the enemy chosen. minion, crazy koala: can be triggered once an enemy enters or leave maybe 1-2 once deployed, and attack that enemy then removed from the board. minion, fast panda: can let you, or even your other friendly characters green actions target enemy within the deployed fast panda's maybe 1-2, treat as within their skill range. but the enemy within can also use their skills through the panda to target you. mechanical transformation: a green action to let you transform into another form. maybe high-mobility vs battle or something. you will need to flip the character's card and use the back's new characteristics and new actions. IFFF disruption: a tactical card to let an enemy character to do his attack against one of his friends on board, you choose the target. mindless: a powerful character but with full-auto act mode. you can choose the mode and he will just do that exactly like an auto AI. also can be some minions' character, which can move and attack automatically, even attack no matter friend or foe, except the controller (if he's not silenced). nano-screen: has high defense character against a ranged attack, but very fragile against close combat like an attack from 1-2 a new scenery with some mines already deployed. everyone has a special skill to shut the mine within range but has a limited success rate. the mine will be triggered whenever something goes into range. and maybe the mines will refresh every round or by some special conditions. any new thoughts?
I find, with Aristeia, it's best to look at what mechanics already exist but are underused when predicting new Aristos. For instance, poison tokens in core were only used by 1 Gata tactic, until Dart and later Bachmann came along. Laxmee was the only source of Focus/Stunned until Legendary Bahadurs/Fiddler. With it I was calling a poison-using Aristo pre-Human Fates, and an Initiative-boosting Aristo pre-Masters of Puppets. Now, admittedly, it can't predict entirely new mechanics like Minions, but I think most people would struggle to do so. Anyway, to try and actually provide some prediction, I expect we'll see some more Silenced soon (within 1-2 expansions) as it's a very powerful effect and not something they're gonna want to leave locked to Oberon.
A transformation mechanic has already been announced for the next expansion as well. I would like to see more skins (see my skin thread) and new arena mechanics and layouts. Maybe traps and other hat game mechanics. But Bostria already said the Saif cross will have a meaning.
I'd love to see a mines mechanic (exploding while enemies enter 1-3 etc.), or the ideas suggested by Genesis (climbing on pylons to deliver some fire lol)
really? we will get transformation in double-trouble? that's so exciting! yeah, new mechanics for the arena is a must-have in future games.... maybe we will also face some neutral gun turrets :)
They announced it with the Defiance Yu Jing character: One mobility form and the other form some Manga/Anime superdupercannon which will be transformed out of his 'wings'.
some other thoughts. martyr: auto skill, if you move to the infirmary, your teammates will get some buffs. post-human (G: jumper): several aristos but treated as one. you can only put one of them on the hexadome at one time, but every round when planning character sequence, you can secretly decide which one you will take this round. they may have the same appearance so you only need one model, but have very different actions and characteristics. when one of them been sent to the infirmary, you can only use others for the rest of the game. multiple personalities: mostly the same as mechanical transformation, but the card flip will trigger by some conditions, not an action. (for example, if he's injured by someone, or just come back from infirmary.) conspirator: the character can voluntarily leave the hexadome (like pretended defeat) and go to the infirmary, then do some tricks to enemy characters in the infirmary. like delay their treatment and let them not come back next round, or let that character be the last to activate next round, or mess up with their treatment and let them be weaker when coming back. may also affect aristos still in hexadome. if he's not killed when going to the infirmary, he will come back without the -2 energy status. multiple backup l-hosts: do not get -2 energy when coming back from infirmary, or the character can go back immediately when he's killed, but if you die too many times (maybe more than 2 or 3?) you just can't come back for the whole game! lone wolf: treat everyone as his enemy. his action can target anyone, and he can't receive buffs from friendly characters. (no one believes in him) may have very strong characteristics or powerful actions. some of his cards/actions may have a price of letting teammates suffer. I will keep updating if I thinking of some new ideas. and welcome any comments or new thoughts :)
I think CB is very cautious about designing actions to affect action range and energy. And I strongly support this idea. abilities affecting these two things usually result in too powerful and auto-include in the 8 men team. So, for now, they only design cards to affect these cause most cards are one use only and less powerful than actions. when I brainstorm new things, I also try to avoid these two things.
Energy manipulation might be balanced if it is symmetrical. I can envision tank char that can impose -2e on successful attack both on himself and the target
Some other unexplored avenues: - self sacrifice (voluntary going to the bench) for some powerful effects. For instance global mute: inability to use tactics for a round by either player - character transform was promised but dual-char might be something new, when you have 2 chars that can be replaced (merged) by 1 with different abilities (and then un-merge if necessary) - a mimic char that can be replaced by another (potentially any, maybe with specific restrictions) out-of-game character. - some sort of "dark-pact" character that on one turn gives advantage to their team and on another to maybe lesser extent to another team Any of these if they every occur should definitely be a subject of thorough balancing and development, but it's interesting to try to brainstorm it :)
I hate to be that guy, but... Spoiler EDIT: Unless you meant a character based around the concept, which I would see as highly unlikely (as, unless they did basically nothing else, they'd be a strictly better Tao Wu).
The last thing the game needs around here is new mechanics ;) I don't have players whining about rules bloat yet, and I like it that way! Ways to implement? Sure. Straight new mechanics? No thanks. I do, however, appreciate the initiative. I think this would drive ppl from, not attract them to.
I'm not sure how you'd work it into the game, but some kind of buffing for Brawn and Agility could be interesting to see. And possibly a state which reduces Block or Special results in the same way Stunned reduces Successes.
I'd like to see the Aresteia line-up develop so that 'factional' teams have access to all roles. This would offer another way of playing and allows some degree of duplication (IE. it's ok that Massacre and Musashi fill a similar niche of mobile CC damage dealer, because they have slightly different flavours and belong to different 'factional' groups for the hypothetical 'Factional' ATS game-mode). To this end, I'd like to see a Praxis based 'healer' that uses unproven tech. Basically I want her signature ability to do something like this: Action: (2) Live test subject (0-4) Apply 1 to the target Switch heal the target of 1 Switch flip a state token on the target The point is that it exploits the idea that the success is mandatory to apply, but switches are optional. So the Success applies the 'negative' effect, but it's quite likely to be outweighed by the positive effect of the Switches meaning that overall it's worth it. Clearly the amount of dice / cost of the action and requirements for the switches would need to be play-tested: you can either make it more extreme, or make it less reliable by switching the dice up. The other thing I'd like to see (although not necessarily on the same character) is an 'effects' gun, so an Adhesive Launcher or even an EMitter: Attack: (2) Glue-gun (1-4 Switch Apply a -2 state to the target Switch Apply the state to the target It fills a very similar design space to Gotcha but as an attack is subtly different: interactions with Prysm and Wild Bill in particular are interesting. Again Dice and AP would need to be play tested, but the point is that the 'attack' should be more likely to get it's switch off than do damage (against an average defence).
Effects with a simple arrow () are not mandatory, even if you get a success on the roll. If you want to make an effect mandatory, regardless of the roll you'd have to use double arrow ()
Huh... I never noticed that. It'd probably still work using the Double Arrow. You'd just need a higher probability of getting the healing switch off so that it was useful. I'd want to leave it open to offensive use and being able to automatically apply 1 Poison for 2 AP doesn't seem broken.
But the healing would not help with the poison token, as you have to apply switches immediately and states flip at end of activation iirc.
*face palms* You could probably do it with a -2 Initiative/Move then. But in that case I'd make Allies only. Basically, what I'm after is something that trades a certain (minor) negative effect for a variable buy potentially more significant Healing. Edit: actually that's only an issue when she uses it on herself not on other people. It'd be great used on a tank that's already activated that round to buff them back up to full health while they hold a zone: the fact that they get hit by the Poison next round is far less important.
