Palatinus' OverPower Forum

I like the stats as is as well.  The IA, well, director's choice.

I thought about making Power cards, but hadn't checked pre-existing characters to see which would be more in line. Given that Morph is Power cards, I like Sunfire's IA moving to Power cards as well.

i am just saying an 8 with an innate to block out power cards and specials is a little strong i think.

every other character in overpower is mostly power cards, or specials not both

I totally agree. Like I said, I hadn't actually checked whether that was in line with most IA's or not.

Ok, so I'm working on my Artifact template. I've used the layer mask from the special (I wasn't a huge fan of the weird spilled-liquid border look on the original Artifacts, and I'm not a photoshop guru, so it was the easiest way to get a similar framing) and shifted it in order to produce the proper amount of space above and beside the card image. The Any-Power symbols are the guides; like most templates, I'll disable their visibility and stack the other icons on top (that way anyone can turn on or off the relevant symbols). The # symbols are just indicators of the text layers, they are editable to insert the correct numbers.

The issue I'm having is, I think (know) at least some of my fonts are wrong. Can anyone identify the correct fonts for "Tactic" and "Artifact Name"? I probably already have them, since I have most of the fonts... anyway, the ability text box will go on the top, obviously. Ignore the blue crater texture, I just have that put on to see the layer mask more easily. Eventually I'll choose or make a texture for it that complements the AoA frame.



EDIT: Almost forgot to mention, but once this template is finished it will be available to anyone who would like to use it, as well as any other templates I have.

RE-EDIT:
I'm still working on the template. I think I'll be "finished" tonight. However, in addition to not knowing what fonts should be used for "Tactic" and "Artifact Name", I also don't know what the shadow filter settings are. I've come sort-of close with a blur radius of 10, an X-offset of 5 and a Y-offset of 5, and opacity at 85%. I can tell it isn't correct, but it's the closest I've come on short notice. For now, because I'm devoted to moving forward, I'm calling it ready. When I get to the point of revisions on Universe/Teamwork/Artifact cards, I'll spend a day working on just the shadows and correcting the fonts. In the meantime, here's a look at the base template (I turned on the Any Power again, but rest assured there are 16 new layers composed of the other symbols and their shadows (plus the text layer, the shadow on the artifact text, etc). The pattern is what I've chosen for AoA artifacts, though the text colors are not set in stone.


RE-RE-EDIT: Just did a test run with the template. Behold the first artifact produced for AoA, and see how not-at-all-accurate my shadow is on the icons.


What do you think? Am I pretty close to what an Artifact ought to look like?

Doesn't look bad at all, Dok.  I think the ability text is a little hard to read where the darker brown blotch appears, but I'm the one with the bad eyes.
I know you're trying for ultra-realism, but personally the fonts look fine to me as-is.  I do see what you mean on the shadowing problem.  (I'm no help there.)

Thanks, I'm still new to creating templates but all this stuff is getting easier the more I do it. Here's some more of the Artifacts:



I'm going to do a reprint of Adamantium as well, but with different art (probably Weapon X art). I know the Brain Trust is strong, but it should be from the comic sourcing (they use it to keep the prisoners in the breeding pens in line, and to keep enemies from being able to fully gather their faculties).

Teamworks are taking a bit not because of the template, which is sweet and totally helpful, but because art is taking a while to find and/or clean up.

Universe cards are coming soon...

EDIT:
More Artifacts.

M'Krann Fragement is missing text "penalty that battle".

An observation & a question (NOT a complaint!) on M'Krann & Adamantium:
     The observation:  You said these were "reprints", but your new versions have "or less" to use, where the legacy versions have "or greater" to use.
     The question:  Was this intentional, or just an oversight from going too fast?

I really like the 'to use" mechanic of "Transport Ship".  A "6-any or less" could be played on anybody, making it much more usable/useful for inclusion in a deck.

Extra:  Bishop's XSE Tactics is still missing text.

It absolutely is from going to fast. I was so pleased with myself for creating a template I tried to tear through things too quickly on the "reprints". I'll clean it in the next round of edits (mid-week this week if I finish 4-12 more cards by Wednesday). I noticed the missing text on M'krann Fragment after the fact. Good news: the text is there, but ran below the text box window. All I have to do is extend the text box and shift it up a little. The other change is easy too, just changing the text (fortunately, that's extremely easy to do on horizontal text).

The 6-Any or less to use was intentional. I want almost every character to be able to use it, because they show up everywhere.
1) The X-Men use one in Amazing X-Men (every issue, I believe), as does Abyss and his cohorts in the same series
2) The Pale Riders use one in X-Calibre (that's where I lifted the image)
3) I forget who is using one in X-Universe, but it's in one of Mikhail's armada scenes
4) If IIRC, there's also one in X-Men Alpha and in X-Men Omega and Gambit & the X-Ternals (in issue 4 I believe)


Point is, it's how everyone seems to get around, and I thought the combination of the Any Power with the Or Less to Use should pretty much open it up to anyone. Also, I didn't put it as a OPD, so that you can run enough copies in a draft deck to reasonably expect to see it pretty early (plus, how bad is it to draw a 2nd one after you've played the first? Pretty bad. I love that kind of tension in a card. You really want the first one, and early in the game, but then no more after that).

Damn! I meant to fix that Bishop error. I just started an edits sheet.

I kinda like the "or less".  I don't think either way really makes a difference, flavor wise.  (Why does strength activate the M'krann?  I get that you need energy to control it.)  (Adamantium should work regardless of teammates' skill level.)
With Transport Ship, is Adamantium really needed?
Also noticed "Intellect" next to the M'Krann strength icon.
Not nit picking, justa trying to help where I can.

Nit-picking is great! I need that. There are 220 cards in the set already, and it isn't finished. At this point, I'm too detached from the individual cards to catch errors that are slipping through.

I actually like the "or less" as well. But I'm trying to stick as close to actual printings as possible, so I'll be changing it.

Also, you might be reading Transport Ship incorrectly, as it is pretty different from Adamantium.

Adamantium allows the character to attack the reserve with Power cards.

Transport Ship allows your Reserve character to attack as though it was a front line character (May attack FROM Reserve for remainder of the game).

Hence Transport Ship not needing a OPD; run too few, your Reserve won't be in Reserve any more. Too many, and after the first one all the rest are blank cards that are terrible to draw. Now, it is possible I'm wrong about the power level of it. It alters a fundamental game rule (Reserve rules RE: attacks), so it may be much stronger than I believe it to be on paper. But I don't believe so. In trying to capture the flavor of a ship, I knew it either needed to involve avoids, another character following-up attacks (like they both arrived together) or the Reserve being able to participate in a battle. I couldn't find anything that didn't seem completely broken for the first 2.

I misread Transport.  Didn't see "from".  I withdraw the comment. 
I like the gimmick of possibly being able to attack indiscriminately from reserve.  Adds some excitement.  Yes, purists may feel its too strong.  But keep in mind that there's only 1 card (that I know of) like The Ultimate Nullifier that negates aspects in play, so aspects can't have been considered a major part of the game, just something to supplement characters.  (Witchblade be damned!)
I would use a couple of Transport Ships is a JB style deck, or with a Hell's Kitchen gimmick where you are changing out the reserve more often.

That's right along the lines of non-AoA play that I saw for it!

I mean, yes, it would be very strong in those decks. A crucial card, almost. But as soon as KO's start occurring, Transport Ship should lose a lot of what makes it awesome. Unless I misunderstand the rules, after the Reserve advances no one moves back there again (if I'm mistaken and you can use a Special etc to move a Character to the Reserve when you are at 3 or less Characters, then it is much stronger than I had thought it would be and I may need to attach a limiting clause).

I had noticed enough "may attack from Reserve" or "may play from Reserve" Specials that I thought it would be cool if there were a Tactic that allowed your Reserve hero blanket permission to just be awesome sauce from the Reserve.

It's also possible that it encourages an alternate strategy of protect-the-queen, where the crucial character starts in Reserve and attacks via Transport Ship while the front line takes the beats. [If you caught my statement about other formats over in "How Would You Amend OP?", this is the kind of card that also becomes totally amazing when the basic game objective is slightly altered for something like the "Protect" rules variant I'm working on.]

We always played JBs so that if there was no one in reserve, the character switched with nobody, and they rode out the rest of the battle in reserve.  Dazzler's Rebel Defense also puts people back there.
I saw none of these type cards in your AOA set, so its use for that should be as you intended.
Yeah, I've been reading the other thread, but I can't find much to contribute that others haven't already chimed in on.

I am making a conscious effort in this set to filter out negative interactions; as far as outside interactions in the larger context of the game, I'm fine with anything that doesn't greatly impede future design by radically altering key components of the game in a negative way (I'm looking at you, Witchblade/Myrlu Symbiote... the game is much less interesting and fun when every character is a Galactus or baby Galactus). So while I think there is room for mild concern about some kind of sniper-cycle deck where you can JB any character into reserve for the battle and sniper your opponent's characters thanks to Transport Ship, I'm confident that the existence of cards like Adamantium (and possible future creation of other cards with similar effects) will help balance it somewhat.


Because of chuu's awesomeness, I didn't have to work on a Teamwork template. If someone has photoshop and GIMP, I want to give him this artifact template as a thank you, but apparently GIMP's .xcf extension isn't readable by photoshop (which is unfortunate, because GIMP can read .psd), so I need someone to convert it (probably).

But in the meantime, that freed me up, and I've started an Ally template as well. I noticed in the X-Men set that the Ally used the same frame as the Special but in a different color, but I wanted mine more distinct, so for now it's the same frame but a different pattern. It may end up being the same as X-Men, where I'll take the AoA pattern and color it something else. I don't know, maybe black. The important thing to note here is that I now have a way to represent Nanny, Gwen Stacy, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, etc. without butchering the set's adherence to storyline (there's no making a Hawkeye or Bullseye character, but I can do sweet Ally cards to show them as non-costumed people in AoA). That's exciting because Nanny and Gwen Stacy were both important non-Character worthy individuals from the comics. Also, it's an opportunity to make Ally cards that don't suck! That's really exciting.

EDIT:

I "finished" the template, in the sense that things are basically in place and everything is still all one font (I'll go back later and change things, I have the fonts and chuu gave me pointers for artifacts, I think I can recognize the correct ones now). So I've created the first AoA Ally, and I have a question before I put him out there:

Where it says "Teammate must play 1 Special card" does that mean that if Mikhail Rasputin uses the Handler Murdock Ally card, one of Mikhail's teammates must follow up? Say, Abyss or Holocaust if they were on Mikhail's team?

Because if that is the case, I'm about to make the first MAJOR departure from OP tradition. Some of these will say "Character must play 1 Special card [to follow-up] (or) Character may make 1 follow-up attack" or other similar things. There's no reason allies have to suck or require multiple characters to use, in my opinion.  And in my mind, that clause (plus the low power of the ally attacks... are your allies that awful? I would ally with useful people) is why Ally cards have always seemed so bad.

Now check out this ally, and imagine if he said either of the things I had said above instead of the standard text. Would that not be an eminently playable card?



Please bear in mind that the frame/fonts for text/etc are not yet finalized. These are still extremely raw, unlike characters and specials which have already had some movement towards finished product.





More to check out...

Not really sure on the new mechanic for Allies.  While flavor-wise they should not need the follow up attack, it seems wrong to just give a higher powered character a high off-color attack.  I guess it would depend on how many allies, the spread of to-use requirements, etc.  Certainly a subject for "amending the game" on the other thread.
As for defensive universe cards, did you check out the Bystander cards on justabgkid's site?  Only the one card required to use, & they force a choice between PR hit or counting for VT.  Who chooses depends on how/when the card is played.
The text on the left hand side of the cards is horrible for me to read.