I'd be very grateful for any suggestions on how I might treat leg kicks in my Muay Thai duel card game - apologies for the click baiting title. It was hard to resist :)
The situation is this: Players essentially bid with Power Cards from their hand to try to land different types of attack. A successful bid may deliver one of 4 different types of damage depending on the kind of attack used.
1: CUTS. Successfully landing an elbow (for example) may cut. Damage effect = simply take a Blood Card. When you have 5 of them, the referee stops the fight.
2: POWER LOSS: Landing shots to the body may result in the permanent loss of a Power Card. Over time this starts to reduce your ability to form strong bids. You get weaker.
3: SEEING STARS: A blow to the head may require you to drop a Star Card from your hand. Bad new is - if you have no more Star Cards to drop, you're knocked out. Good news is - Star Cards can be picked back up when you're NOT being hit in the head.
4: LEG DAMAGE
Number 4 is the tricky one. If I were programming this game into my 48K Spectrum 30 years ago, I'd give it this effect -
After x number of leg kicks, all your 9 Power Cards are worth only 8. Then, all your 8 and 9 Power Cards are worth only 7, etc
The above effect would be, I think, ideal. But the problem I foresee is that, even with a reminder on the table, we'll simply keep forgetting that our high-end Power Cards have been revalued.
The bottom line is, I want Leg Damage to compromise your ability to produce strong bids, but without reducing the number of Power Cards in your hand. (In my game system as it stands, reducing the number of Power Cards you have - as in Power Loss - eventually effects your ability to recover used Power Cards. It has a fatiguing effect that isn't appropriate to leg damage.) Leg damage should sort of cap your maximum output, without creating this fatigue effect.
Is there a way to make the 48K less prone to oversight, or is there another possible solution to this issue of leg damage?
Cheers!
PS - imposing a simple -3 (or whatever) penalty on total bid values was one idea I considered, but ultimately it's not right. Without going into unecessary detail of mechanics, it's about the difference between increasing required spending (e.g. imposing a penalty) and reducing the ability to spend.
Thanks very much for that illustration, Let-off. Very kind of you indeed to go to that trouble and I think that's a good way forward since the original task I set myself was to make the game using only cards.
Otherwise, a dial or stack of poker chits could be options.
Speaking of components, the game will have a score card to write on, so I suppose the max bid limits could be recorded there. But I think the advantage of your idea is that it's less likely to get overlooked in the heat of battle.