This time it's mostly Team Ability stuff, but I did make one general rules mod:
Characters may attack any other character on the board, regardless of relative ownership or control of one character as regards another character. If a character is KOed by another character being controlled by the same player as the KOed character, the KOed character’s victory points are awarded to the controller’s opponent, or divided equally among opponents if there are more than one.
WK's restrictions on this have always been a big pill to swallow; in the comics, if you're a Defender and you need to make Bruce Banner Hulk up, well, slapping him will do the job well, and if you want to make Hulk angrier, well, same thing, more so. There aren't many times when attacking someone on your own team makes sense, but when it does make sense, you should be able to do it. The only reason I think WK forbids it is to keep people from knocking their own badly hurt characters off to prevent opponents from getting points for them. This should take care of all that.
This made Mind Control a little trickier; if you MC two or three of your opponent's characters, and manage to use one of them to KO another one of them, you don't want to end up with him getting the points because you were controlling both characters at the time. So --
This character may momentarily cause an enemy to come under their influence. (Optional) Give this character an action token. This character attempts an attack for 0 damage on an opposing target figure. If the attack is successful, the opposing figure becomes a friendly figure until the end of the turn, or until you give that figure an action token, or until you choose to end the Mind Control, whichever occurs first. If more than one character is being Mind Controlled by the same character, and one or more of those characters are KOed while Mind Controlled, victory points are awarded to the player who is controlling them at the time. Characters making successful Mind Control attacks take 1 click of damage for each 100 points of the target's point value which cannot be reduced or evaded. If a character with this power has a range value of 0, assume that his range value is 4.
And then, I wanted to do some new Team Ability stuff, so, under TEAM ABILITIES, I've added the following --
AVENGERS: If every member of your force is an Avenger, you may choose one Avenger on your force per turn. For the remainder of your turn, this character may receive a modifier to their Attack Value equal to +1 for every 2 Avengers on your force (rounding down). This is a free action. If every member of your force is not an Avenger, then Avengers on your force may perform a move action without using one of your actions for the turn. Mark any character who moves this way with an action token.
B.P.R.D. - B.P.R.D. members act as wild cards. They can use any team ability that any friendly figure in play possesses. They may use this ability only once per action.
If all members of a force are B.P.R.D., they may use the following Team Ability instead of their wild card TA: All members of B.P.R.D. are immune to the effects of the Mystics and Crossgen TAs. This team ability cannot be copied by Feats or wild card team abilities.
FATAL FIVE: Prerequisite: Validus, Emerald Empress, Persuader, Mano.
If a Fatal Five member deals damage to an opponent and that damage is reduced to 0, the opponent will receive an extra action token. If the opponent already has 2 or more action tokens, the opponent will be dealt one click of damage that cannot be evaded, reduced, or transferred. If this TA is applied, it replaces any other TAs on the dial.
FLASH’s ROGUE’S GALLERY: Prerequisites: Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Professor Zoom, Weather Wizard, Captain Boomerang, Mirror Master, Trickster.
Flash Rogues add +1 to their Attack Values when attacking any figure with HyperSonic Speed showing on its dial. Whenever Flash Rogues are successfully hit by any figure using HyperSonic Speed, they may roll a d6. On a result of 6, the attack misses. If this TA is applied, it replaces any other TAs on the dial.
LEGION OF SUPERHEROES : Members of the Legion of Super Heroes act as a wild card. They can use any team ability that any friendly figure in play possesses, once per action.
If your entire force is composed of Legion of Superheroes characters, you may choose to use the following TA instead of the wild card TA: Members of the Legion of Superheroes may double any positive modifier to their Defense Values that affects them. Opposing characters must divide their range values by 2 (rounding down) when making ranged attacks at members of the Legion of Superheroes. This team ability cannot be copied by Feats or wild card team abilities.
MINIONS OF DOOM: Members of the Minions of Doom act as a wild card. They can use any team ability that any friendly figure in play possesses, once per action.
If your entire force is composed of Minions of Doom, you may use the following Team Ability instead of the wild card Team Ability: Minions of Doom may copy any Team Ability that any opposing figure possesses, once per action. This team ability cannot be copied by Feats or wild card team abilities.
I also added "This team ability cannot be copied by Feats or wild card team abilities" to GL TA, Batman TA, LSH, Minions of Doom, Serpent Society, Skrulls, Danger Girls, B.P.R.D., Crossgen, Kabuki, and Mystics, since, in all honesty, I cannot for the life of me see how non-sneaky people should be able to wild card Batman's Team Ability, or how flyers without power rings should be able to carry 8 other figures around with them, etc, etc.
Augh! The girls are due back in ten minutes, I'm still in my pajamas, and we have many plans for today, including (urg) a viewing of YOUNG HANNIBAL, or whatever the fuck it is that the damn thing is called. I'm off into it. Later for y'all!
I'm pretty sure you will play again. In fact, I'm aware of a tentative game in April. Far off, I realize, but I think it still counts.
ReplyDeletePajamas, once pair or another, have been what I've been in since about 9pm Saturday.
ReplyDeleteThe primary reason that's been stated for not allowing teammates to attack each other has been to prevent easy power-ups for pieces such as Con Artists. Certainly, though, it would be chaos to allow it without a clause for giving the points to opponents, because euthenizing one's own pieces would be a common practice; obviously, it was an early decision made for this game mechanic, as you say.
I know we don't have a Tharok yet, but I'd have thought you'd want to include him on the Fatal Five list ahead of time.
The Rogues' TA is wholly appropriate.
I like the new Legion TA. It's been confirmed that the new Legion starter won't contain an Alternate TA card for the Legion. Since we've just seen what's coming in Origin, we're left with a few considerations: They're about to change the Legion's TA away from that of a wild card (which will enrage many players) during the PAC review in the new starter in June, they're going to wait until November's set, or they're just going to leave it as it is.
The biggest item against leaving it as it is is that it's contrary to the trend of promoting themed teams. A group of wild cards are almost useless without something else to copy.
My central objection to making Batman's TA un-copyable is that a great many characters should be able to be as stealthy as he is without sacrificing their ability to move nimbly. Black Panther, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Cloak, Dr. Strange, Sandman and many others have as much right to it as Batman does. Indeed, Dr. Doom, Klaw and others should be able to easily accomplish it by technical means, too. As it stands, too few people who deserve it have access to it.
SF,
ReplyDeleteWell, I have little faith that game is going to actually materialize, but, until it officially falls through, yeah, I'll live in hope. Still, my faint hope there falls quite short of 'pretty sure'. Sorry.
MJ,
Facilitating WK's idiotic 'activation click' mechanic isn't something that's going to move me, although I probably should have mentioned that in the entry, yeah. Given that most power activations are accomplished rather more quickly and easily than, you know, pushing a figure and thus paralyzing it for the first turn where it has its powers, well, I think this will work out better.
I didn't even think of Con Artists, but, I guess if you want to built a team that has a couple of figs on it that only do 1 damage, so they can slap your Con Artist for one click to get her turned on, it's no more silly than building a Pulse Waver into every Con Artist team.
The Rogue's TA was easy. The Legion TA was something I sweat blood over. I had quite a few ideas that didn't seem to work well. I wanted something that would play off the flight rings, so I finally settled on the multiplier to Defense Value mods (which for most Legionnaires, will simply double the Hindering Terrain mod, as very few of them seem to have any ES/D or Combat Reflexes) and the permanent Soaring advantage without the disadvantages.
I was trying to put in alternate TAs for all the wild cards, so one can play an all Wild Card team if one wants to. However, the Spider-Man Ally seems to very much be designed to let those who have it team up with other factions, so I've let that go.
I'll include Tharok when the time comes. Electronic documents make that easy.
Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll let people copy Batman's TA. Because you're right, it effectively doubles as the closest thing the game has to invisibility, and many other characters should be able to have it. But, for that matter, there should also be a Thunderbolts type feat that works for any TA, so Dr. Doom and people like him can use the ability without having to put a Spoiler on their team.
Thanks, both of you, for the comments.