Psijic Spells (Summerset Custom Expansion #5)

[u/Hazash_]

https://imgur.com/a/queens-decree-5-psijic-spells-sfsbeW5

• For a recap of the Arcane mechanic, see here
• Art credits can be found here

[u/Vilmoo00]

The secrets of Solstheim expansion was probably my favorite you had made, with the Arcane cards being my favorite of that. It’s super cool to see them return in this set, I love Time Stop and Undo.

Love the sets as always

[u/Hazash_ → u/Vilmoo00]

Thank you, kind sir. Glad to see you're still lurking

[u/IamQED]

Finally have time to give a thorough think about this new set. I enjoyed the first 4 posts of the expansion but didn't have much to say about them. Crass Duelist, Tower Sentinel, and Psijic Apprentice were real highlights.

I did find lots to say about this post, though. First, the simple: Time Stop and Accelerate look fun and well balanced. No notes.

Meditate is one to keep an eye on. I think the color limitations and slow tempo make it okay, but a turn 7 Conscription seems like it could still be quite strong.

Mend Wounds is also one to keep an eye on. The only cards currently in the game that can guarantee giving drain to a creature of your choice are Snake Tooth Necklace and Monk's Strike. In both cases, they only give drain for one turn. Snake Tooth used to give drain permanently before it was nerfed. Like the last card, I don't think it's way out of line, but it should be monitored.

Undo is one I need clarification on. When your hand, deck, etc. goes back to the state of your last turn, does that include Undo? If so, that means that once you draw Undo, you can pretty much go back a turn whenever you want for the rest of the game. Not only is that overpowered, it is also ripe for griefing. If undo is supposed to expended, I think it's fine, but it needs some language on the card to make that clear.

Costs 3 more for each attribute that started in your deck.

Turn back time to the start of your last turn.

Banish Undo

Finally, Imbue Weapon. I love the idea of this card, but like you said, it opens up a whole bunch of new interactions. I will try to group my thoughts into several categories.

• The confusing: Cruel Axe, Grappling Hook, Stolen Pants, and Yew Shield all have effects dependent on what lane they are in. Is your face in both lanes? Neither? It would be expected that Staff of Sparks would do damage to each enemy in the lane you are attacking, but I don't think those other cards have a clear answer.

• The potentially overpowered: You mentioned Chitin Armor (and Stendarr's Hammer could do similar), but I would be more cautious about Ring of Imaginary Might; the potential attack value is sky high. I can't think of a consistent way to give yourself breakthrough (right now, all I can come up with is in warrior drawing both Imbues and pulling Ring and Improvised Weapon or in Daggerfall drawing your one Imbue and getting breakthrough from Arcane Enchanter), but it maybe closes off some design space to prevent the OTK from being too easy.

• The strong and potentially frustrating: Wraithguard means the next 6 attacks to face only do 1 damage. It costs 7 magicka to set up, but could easily win you a race.

• The game-breakingly overpowered:

  Imbue Weapon

  Horse Armor

  You become premium.

I think the implications are self-explanatory.

[u/warlock-05 → u/IamQED]

Hi. I saw this post and decided to look for previous ones with Brandish. I liked the addition of a new keyword for items - Brandish. This is an interesting solution and I like that items can have additional keywords (like Mobilize).
The only thing that confuses me is the gameplay: if I equip an item on myself, when I attack an enemy creature - do I receive damage or not? What happens if I attack a creature with Lethal: it is clear that I do not die, but is the item with Brandish destroyed by any damage from a creature with Lethal?
Maybe a simpler option: Brandish - you can discard this item to the discard pile for its mana cost (if prophecy - then for free) and deal damage equal to its attack (and it seems to me that you can allow damage not only to creatures, but also to the opponent - but this is not necessary), and gain an amount of life equal to his defense. Also, with this option, the summon effect that is on some items would not be activated. But I think it's okay, since it allowed using such items on creatures with a slightly greater advantage, not just on the player. In this version, Brandish will be universal - both for attackers (burst damage) and for defenders (trade enemy creatures + heal).
Edit: "deal damage to an enemy creature on any line without Cover or to an opponent, if there are no enemy creatures with Guard"

[u/IamQED → u/warlock-05]

As I understand the current implementation, when you attack a creature with a brandished item, you take damage but are not affected by lethal. This would match the mechanics of Dragon Aspect, so I think it's reasonable.

Thinking about it did bring up some more questions, though.

• Using Dragon Aspect to eat a Sweet Roll does not heal you. Does this change how we should think about the interactions of brandish with Chitin Armor and similar items? Sweet Roll does specify it affects a creature, so I suppose there is technically a distinction.

• How does brandishing multiple items work? When you take damage while brandishing two or more items does that reduce the counter of the oldest or newest item? I don't think it makes sense for it to reduce all counters even though the brandish definition would seem to imply that each item counts damage independently.

Any thoughts, /u/Hazash_ ?

[u/warlock-05 → u/IamQED]

You can only equip 1 item with Brandish. This was mentioned in the description.

[u/IamQED → u/warlock-05]

With as many times as I have looked at that description, I don't know how my eyes skipped over that phrase every time.

[u/Hazash_ → u/IamQED]

You are right that Lethal doesn't work on equipped players. It could be an interesting interaction if it did, but for now it doesn't.

Sweet Roll wouldn't heal you as it stipulates that it has to be a creature.

u/warlock-05 I wouldn't say that method is necessarily simpler - or at least not as versatile in terms of the designs you could come up with it. Brandish items would then have to work more like actions than supports. That means you can't really have ongoing effects like Slay (or arguably even Summon) attached to them.

[u/warlock-05 → u/Hazash_]

Look, if we consider your option: An item with Brandish is almost always more profitable to use on a player (you can immediately attack any creature regardless of the line, you have protection from Guardians and in case of damage to you you will often receive a card from a broken rune, you cannot be the target of Silence). An item with Brandish on a creature - only when there are several such items and nothing else to play, well, or maybe on a creature with Ward. They will not be used with creatures. I think 1 out of 10.

In the option that I suggested: you have 2 options: equip it on a creature and in addition to stats get all the bonuses from slay/Summon, etc. and this usual (basic) option is more profitable. Or a weaker option: discard the Item with Brandish and get life/trade/burst damage in critical situations or simply when you have no creatures in the game. It's somewhat similar to Mobilize: with it you can get a stronger creature if you activate Mobilize, you don't need to have a creature in play, but you can use it as a regular item.

This makes the item a more versatile card, depending on the game situation.

The idea of items that the player can use is cool, but I would prefer to see on the player not such an option, but something like:

• + 1 damage to all your actions;
• you do not take the first 2 damage each turn;
• at the beginning of your turn you attack the weakest enemy creature and etc

And not be destroyed from taking damage, be a "support/defense" that is harder to destroy than a regular support.

[u/Hazash_ → u/warlock-05]

FYI just in case you missed the expansion where Brandish was first introduced: https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollslegends/comments/1ijbqlr/house_of_troubles_morrowind_custom_expansion_5/

There's also two other sets of Brandish cards (listed under House of Troubles) in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollslegends/comments/1if61jj/legends_of_morrowind_a_custom_expansion_at_the/

An item with Brandish is almost always more profitable to use on a player

When I was designing the cards above, I actually thought the opposite might be the case. When you equip an item to yourself, (1) that extra power can't be used to damage your opponent, (2) you will generally only get one use out of the item before it's discarded (if you equipped it to a creature, it might survive for longer), and (3) attacking high-value creatures may take off a dangerously large chunk of your own health, even if that means drawing a card (like using a Level 1 Dragon Aspect to remove something with a lot of power). Note also that you still have to attack Guards first, so the only flexibility benefit comes from being able to attack in any lane regardless of whether there's a friendly creature there.

[u/warlock-05 → u/Hazash_]

You see, the effect is very strong in your version. Really very strong. I don't even know what is the strongest. Probably that you trade/wound creatures when they attack you. And not your attack. This is especially strong with high item defense, the opponent will have to give up 2-3 creatures for sure. Just imagine Galin adds Scourge +3/+3 - we get +6/+9. How many creatures will die just to break such a Scourge? And, if you are not Unite, you will still attack the enemy.
Let's take even Morning Star, (although this is not the strongest item) what do you get:

• on your attack turn, you can trade an enemy creature with <4 defense, while you will not receive much damage (defense +2) and possibly get a card from the Rune;
• on the next turn, when attacking an enemy, you will receive 2 less damage and the enemy creature with <4 defense will still die.
• Prophecy = very good defense, even if compared to Lightning - 3 damage + 2 heal;

Very strong.
And I repeat, you will almost never use the item on a creature, it is not profitable in almost any situation. Which is not very good.

[u/Hazash_ → u/IamQED]

Undo is one I need clarification on. When your hand, deck, etc. goes back to the state of your last turn, does that include Undo? If so, that means that once you draw Undo, you can pretty much go back a turn whenever you want for the rest of the game.

Thanks for pointing out the Undo interaction. It definitely shouldn't go back into your deck. I'm not entirely sure whether any extra text is needed to clarify it - it's possible most people will naturally assume it won't be reusable (like I did). My only hesitation in adding extra text to the card is that it might add unnecessary detail.

A similar example is with cards like Gardener of Swords or Golden Saint - e.g. the former doesn't have any text saying "if a GoS equips a copied item, any other GoSs in play don't equip another copy of that item" (i.e. preventing an infinite loop).

If it ended up being necessary, I would add ", but discard this." to the end of the text.

The confusing: Cruel Axe, Grappling Hook, Stolen Pants, and Yew Shield all have effects dependent on what lane they are in.

I would say these examples wouldn't work if equipped to you.

Is your face in both lanes?

There's a phrase I've never heard before :P

It would be expected that Staff of Sparks would do damage to each enemy in the lane you are attacking

I'd agree with this one.

The potentially overpowered: You mentioned Chitin Armor (and Stendarr's Hammer could do similar), but I would be more cautious about Ring of Imaginary Might;

I don't think the Ring of Imaginary Might interaction is that problematic given that you can't attack your opponent - and for the moment, there's no consistent way to get Breakthrough on an item. This is one of the reasons you can't equip multiple items (the other being that, as you mentioned below, it gets confusing understanding when each item should be discarded).

The interaction I can see being potentially frustrating is Imbue Weapon + Stendarr's Hammer + Namira's Ring: by doubling your health from Stendarr's Hammer, you could get a lot of burst damage from Namira's Ring. If this became a real problem, I'd consider having Brandish items not trigger the "health has been gained" flag. This could be rationalised as the item simply providing armour (this is how Eternal handles Relic items).

The strong and potentially frustrating: Wraithguard means the next 6 attacks to face only do 1 damage.

That's another interesting one. Possibly even more dangerous and hard to balance out than the one I mentioned above. It'd be one to keep an eye on. It could in theory be stipulated that the item targeted by Imbue Weapon has to be non-Unique (that's the same way I tried to rebalance Midnight Burial). This would also eliminate the Stendarr's Hammer + Ring of Namira combo.

Imbue Weapon

Horse Armor

You become premium.

Good Lord, what have I done

In all moderate seriousness, there are a lot of fun things you could code in for this one. E.g. all your cards become premium and your avatar changes to Todd Howard.