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Unit cards - abilities

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Mon, 04/01/2013 - 23:07
questccg
questccg's picture
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Joined: 04/16/2011

Hi all,

I had a question about *unit cards* and *abilities*... In the dual game I am designing (1 vs. 1) players conjure units that get played in different stacks (card stacks). Each unit has a strength value between 1 and 5. So far so good...

The problem I am having is giving units an *active ability*. The problem is the number of units that I have in one edition is 30 units. 10 from one color, and 5 for the remaining 4 colors (total of 20).

I am worried that I cannot come up with enough *unique* abilities for the units...

Q: Are there any guidelines I can follow to come up with abilities?

In my game I have: Deck, Hand, Battlefield, Victory Spots and Graveyard.
For resources, I have: Mana (5 types), 5 Mana dice, APs, Battle Dice (5 types too).

I also have 3 types of Effect cards: Relic, Enchantment and Instant.
-Relics (3 per player) are like permanent enhancements to your units.
-Enchantments are like Yu-Gi-Oh! trap card and are passive abilities until a unit is attacked (or attacks).
-Instants can be played at ANY time.

I am thinking about including *Life points* for each player (maybe - not sure). It would add a lot more possibilities to the game (For Effect cards and unit abilities). Maybe 20 Life points.

Q: Do you think I should add Life points (Your opinion)?

Note: I am not trying to re-create a Magic the Gathering game since my game uses dice (not as counters - but as a game mechanic).

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Tue, 04/02/2013 - 01:36
#1
MikeyNg
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Joined: 07/12/2012
Some "plain" cards?

I personally don't think that EVERY card needs a unique ability. Or, the "ability" is simpler being bigger/being cheaper/immortal (when it "dies" it gets shuffled back into the deck or back in your hand).

I don't know how many cards are on the board, but if you give your players TOO many options, that might seriously bog down gameplay and stall things. People don't like to wait.

But coming up with 30 unique abilities still shouldn't be overly difficult:
Do you have regeneration?
They can draw cards
Re-roll the dice or affect the dice (either type)
Change APs
Change costs of other cards (in terms of mana or AP)
Move cards between the different areas - battlefield/hand/deck, etc.
Search cards (Search your deck for a certain type of card)
Mana fixers (make one of your dice a certain type)
Wipe the board of all (creatures/relics/enchantments/everything)
deal damage to a specific creature/player
opponent sacrifices something
all your creatures get +1(or some buff)
all creatures on the board get -2 strength

Combat effects:
this unit can not die
prevent all damage dealt by or dealt to this unit in combat
this unit can't be blocked (or can't be blocked by only one creature)
for each unit blocking this unit, it gets _____
whenever this unit attacks, draw a card / roll a die / etc.

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