New venture based battle rules

[Palatinus]

A while ago, back before my first Overpower forum got lost, I came up with some alternative rules for play.  Since then I have learned a lot more about the game and I have modified those rules slightly and I am reposting them here, now.  They are less a set of house rules and more of an alternative way to play using the same cards but with a different structure.  There are some obvious issues with these new rules but a lot of them apply to cards that are no longer useful or as useful as before.  The goal of these rules, though, is to make more in depth battles as well as make a whole bunch of unused cards usable like basic universe cards.  Please let me know what you think and if anyone is ambitious enough to play test these rules, I would love to hear the outcome.

The new rules I have use the basic system of Overpower with the changes listed.

1) To begin with, there are 3 characters.

No characters start in the reserve. My first reason for this is that it becomes easier to use home bases, especially for people who do not have a lot of characters. Secondly, putting cards in your deck for a reserve character becomes a frustrating gamble. Either you put too few because you rely on your other characters surviving, or you put too many which forces you to assume you'll lose one of your front line quickly.

2) The reserve is not eliminated, instead characters that receive their maximum KO damage (20 normally) or are spectrum KO'd are not knocked out of the game, but are instead moved to the reserve. When they no longer have enough hits to KO them, they are moved back into play as a players turn. Any cards that affect KO'd heroes do not affect these characters. Any cards that affect the reserve or may be played from reserve apply to these characters. When a character leaves play like this, any "Remainder of battle" affects played by or against the hero leave play as well. "Remainder of game" effects remain.

My theory behind this is mainly that in the comics/movies/cartoons, when our heroes/villains are fighting, we often see them knocked out of the battle. Many times, these characters will recover in time through their own strength, through time, or someone's special power. For this reason, I think the characters should be sitting out for a time instead of knocked out of the game entirely. This is not to say that some characters are not knocked out entirely. See the next rule.

3) Anything that would KO a character through a means other than a cumulative or spectrum KO kills that character for game purposes. Also, when a character is both Cumulatively and Spectrum KO'd, they are dead.  Same as Dead is Dead rule.  The character is put into the defeated characters pile. Any cards that affect KO'd heroes affect these heroes.

4) Battles follow a new format.  Instead of each battle consisting of a single hand, Battles are determined by venture.  A preset amount of venture, probably 20, will determine who wins the fight.  By this, I mean each player will start with zero venture and count up for each hit they land.  When one player reaches 20, that player wins the venture, the battle ends, and missions are moved.

a) Draw - 5 cards.
b) Venture missions
c) Players take turns
d) Battle ends
e) Move missions
f) Move hits
g) End of battle affects end
h) Begin new battle

a) There is no discarding. Events are played as normal. The max hand size is now seven plus one for each mission ventured beyond two by your opponent. This is for several reasons. First, players will be drawing cards during the battle. 7 is a good number for Overpower because cards can be placed. The max hand size only limits if you may draw a card on your turn. You may not draw a card if you have 7 or more cards in your hand as your turn. You may, however, draw cards as the effect of other cards in play or as the effect of playing a card.

b) Venture functions the same as normal except that for each card beyond 2 that a person ventures, their opponents draw a card, and their hand size increases by 1 for the remainder of battle.

c) Turns are similar but with new choices:

c1) Draw 2 cards or 1 card and one of the following or 0 cards and 2 of the following
c2) Make an attack or
c3) Remove a hit from a reserve character or
c4) Place a card

c1) You may draw 0, 1, or 2 cards from the top of your draw pile.

c2) Attacking has been modified a bit. You may no longer attack with a power card by itself. Power card attacks must be made with universe cards or as follow up attacks to specials that allow for an additional attack. You may not attack with a card that is a duplicate of a hit from the current battle. Duplicates are defined as cards that used to qualify as duplicates for discarding. e.g. 8E is a duplicate of 8F. Universe cards that are used are left with the hit but do not count for the venture or damage. They are meant to represent that you may not play a duplicate of that card this battle. You may play the same card to attack if you have attacked and your attack was blocked. A defending player may play any card that is legal for the defending character to play as per normal defense rules. Power cards do not need to be accompanied by a universe card to defend, but they may be.

c3) You may remove on hit from any reserve character.

c4) You may place a card following the normal placing limitations.

d) The battle ends when any player reaches a pre-determined venture total. The suggested number is 20. That player wins the venture. The battle also ends if one or both players have all of their heroes in reserve or otherwise incapacitated. (e.g. May not attack for remainder of battle) In this case, the player with active characters wins, or if neither have active characters, the battle ends in a draw.

e) Missions are moved like normal.

f) Hits are moved as normal.

g) Cards that were played that affect the rest of battle are discarded.

h) A new battle begins.

5) When your deck runs out of cards, both the dead card pile and power pack are shuffled back into your deck.

6) One per deck (OPD) cards are removed from the game once played. This removal is to distinguish them from dead cards only for the purposes of cards that get shuffled back into your deck. Web-headed Wizard can still retrieve OPD's removed in this way.
Post Merge: July 22, 2011, 04:41:59 PM
I forgot to add in the deck construction changes I had come up with.  I was thinking of limiting anyone non-power card 4 per deck and any one special code to either 6 or 8 per deck.  I don't know how that will actually play out and I'm not sure that anyone would play 8 of the same special code anyway so 6 may be just fine.  I'm also not sure if this limit should apply to basic universe cards or not since they are self-limited like power cards by other rules.