OP3: Any Character Specials

[OP3]

Five new cards (one is a duplicate of a previous AC Special), and one surprise reprint I hadn't originally planned to include.  But I couldn't resist:

http://overpower-3rd.deviantart.com/gallery/

[steve2275]

not too bad
not too sure how people will feel about bannedonder

[OP3]

not too bad
not too sure how people will feel about bannedonder

Ah well.  It's not like a ban is enforceable in any way.  I just think having him as a playable character has been nothing but detrimental to the game.  He stifles creative deckbuilding.  If it were up to me he never would have been printed in the first place.

[steve2275]

*wonders what he has in store for locations*

[justa]

I agree with your opinion of banning Beyonder & Galactus, but for a totally different reason.  I don't feel that they can be adequately represented using the 4-rank, 8-point system that governs "more normal" characters.
For one, when you get to that level of Energy, Strength, & Intellect, "Fighting" skill becomes irrelevant, at least fighting skill in the sense used for Wolverine, Batman, Deadpool, etc.  (Galactus at a 8 fighting?  C'mon...)
For two, there is no room to rate these characters where they should be in the primary 3 skills they use; increasing the fighting skill just to build the total up high (to make them seem more powerful) seems totally inappropriate.  (Beyonder's ability limited by who he teams up with?  Really?)
And third, assuming Galactus & Beyonder are "where they are", then how do you rate characters like Ego, Living Tribunal, Eternity, Infinity, In-Betweener, Death, etc., etc., etc.....  Why do 2 get to be "in the game" and not the others?  (Because they'd be the same cards with different names & pictures.)  The only way to differentiate them at that level would be through Specials,  and that would be contrary to the "intent" if the original game (not to mention be rejected by most of the OP community).  If you're playing for fun & want to go that way, have a ball!  (I've collected 21 unique specials for Galactus over the years, and as powerful as most were, they really didn't tilt the game play much at all.)  You would have to create some sort of "Cosmic Mega-OverPower" with much higher allowable team grid totals to make realistic & adequate usage of them.
Odin is probably the only character at that level that I thought could have been done somewhat realistically.  Not as high level as Galactus, but higher than other characters.
I feel I must close out my "rant of agreement" with a 3-part question.  Do you feel Thanos is too high powered to be "in the game"; if no, do you plan on doing him in some expansion; and if so, where would you put him in the grids?

Additional notes:
The Celestials seems to be a double-edged sword.  Since the effect is for "all characters", you'd have to make a careful choice of power type & level.
Assuming your system is used (your cards only, too), 6 Any Characters vs a Battlesite seems heavily weighed towards the Battlesite.  (Are the Power Balance Battlesite rules sufficient to compensate?)

[cyber0820]

I agree with your opinion of banning Beyonder & Galactus, but for a totally different reason.  I don't feel that they can be adequately represented using the 4-rank, 8-point system that governs "more normal" characters.
For one, when you get to that level of Energy, Strength, & Intellect, "Fighting" skill becomes irrelevant, at least fighting skill in the sense used for Wolverine, Batman, Deadpool, etc.  (Galactus at a 8 fighting?  C'mon...)
For two, there is no room to rate these characters where they should be in the primary 3 skills they use; increasing the fighting skill just to build the total up high (to make them seem more powerful) seems totally inappropriate.  (Beyonder's ability limited by who he teams up with?  Really?)
And third, assuming Galactus & Beyonder are "where they are", then how do you rate characters like Ego, Living Tribunal, Eternity, Infinity, In-Betweener, Death, etc., etc., etc.....  Why do 2 get to be "in the game" and not the others?  (Because they'd be the same cards with different names & pictures.)  The only way to differentiate them at that level would be through Specials,  and that would be contrary to the "intent" if the original game (not to mention be rejected by most of the OP community).  If you're playing for fun & want to go that way, have a ball!  (I've collected 21 unique specials for Galactus over the years, and as powerful as most were, they really didn't tilt the game play much at all.)  You would have to create some sort of "Cosmic Mega-OverPower" with much higher allowable team grid totals to make realistic & adequate usage of them.
Odin is probably the only character at that level that I thought could have been done somewhat realistically.  Not as high level as Galactus, but higher than other characters.
I feel I must close out my "rant of agreement" with a 3-part question.  Do you feel Thanos is too high powered to be "in the game"; if no, do you plan on doing him in some expansion; and if so, where would you put him in the grids?

Additional notes:
The Celestials seems to be a double-edged sword.  Since the effect is for "all characters", you'd have to make a careful choice of power type & level.
Assuming your system is used (your cards only, too), 6 Any Characters vs a Battlesite seems heavily weighed towards the Battlesite.  (Are the Power Balance Battlesite rules sufficient to compensate?)

Well said justa. Adequately depicting based on their Marvel History had been thrown out with a lot of characters in OP. Similar to our previous discussion on another post.

Five new cards (one is a duplicate of a previous AC Special), and one surprise reprint I hadn't originally planned to include.  But I couldn't resist:

http://overpower-3rd.deviantart.com/gallery/

Love your work! Only complaint I have is that it wont be printed so I could play them lol. But I sure do like checking out the cards. Looking forward to seeing your work.

[DoktorSleepless]

I really like what you've done here. The Galactus and Beyonder are more in line with where cosmic characters should be.

(Brief aside: even having done a Thanos mockup, I don't really think cosmic characters should be included in OP. Look at how I statted Thanos, who realistically is one of the weaker cosmic characters, but is clever enough to gain control of the Infinity Gauntlet and a Cosmic Cube and strong and skilled enough fighter to go toe-to-toe with characters like Thor and Drax barehanded)

Anyway, I really like what you've done with The Living Tribunal. Would you believe I'd been trying to come up with something similar? Your language is much more elegant though. But the issue I encountered is that it's an "off-switch" for both non-hero associated special cards from Activator and Any Hero decks, but can only be played in Any Hero decks. So it's kind of a one-sided off-switch. Not that you have to (or ought to) but have you considered a clause allowing it to be played in any deck, even one including Activators? That would allow any deck to have access to an "off-switch" for non-hero associated cards. Which, in my opinion, would allow players to completely reduce the game to a straight "my team Vs. yours" competition, something that the game desperately wants. Essentially a safety-valve for game complexity, if you see what I'm saying. As opponents build more complexity into their decks through Activators and Battlesites or Any Hero/Character cards, you can punish them by blanking increasingly larger portions of their deck. Thus, even though the power levels of Activator/Any Hero cards are too high to ignore them, there will be a counter-pressure not to over-rely on them/build too heavily on them.

I have no criticism for the Watcher. Beautiful card design, de-powered to a degree when placed but still excellent card advantage/selection. My hat's off to you on that one.

Let me preface this with the following: I've never seen or heard of Squirrel Girl before seeing your character specials and cards.

I love it! That's an awesome character, with great specials! I like how she specifically punishes people for playing powerful, high stat characters. It makes me wonder if there isn't some card or cards already existing or possible that would encourage players to build a "weenie" team, of all small characters. For example:

Squirrel Girl (your version)
Nova (teesaw's version)
2 other smaller/less powered characters.

Squirrel Girl punishes the opponent for beefy characters. Nova boosts his team, turning "weenies" into brawlers. I know I didn't include other characters, but realistically X-Babies is probably one of them, and then a 4th. Your opponent shows up with a deck full of Activators and beefy, scary dudes like [insert beefy scary dude here]. You proceed to play Devourer of Worlds or The Living Tribunal, then combo off with Nova's special that lets his team make additional attacks and something else brutal. Let's say we're using teesaw's Iron Fist here, and we follow up with the "teammates may make follow-up attacks", and then Squirrel girl drops that level 9 attack. Something like that.

The point is, Squirrel Girl strikes me as the kind of character you build your team and deck around, and I like seeing that.

Also, I like The Celestials. There's not enough symmetrical effects in the game that require skill/planning to break the symmetry (typically you can ratchet up the power levels of symmetrical cards beyond what you would do for a one-sided effect) and I think you designed a good one here. If you show up to a table and your opponent has an Energy-Intellect deck packing a couple of 8-stats in both categories, and you show up with a The Witchblade-based deck designed to abuse AE specials, The Celestials is exactly the kind of card you want. Shut down half of their team, while leaving your Witchblade-equipped character free to deliver the beats while your single 8-stat E or I character remains useless next to him on the front line. I tried to do something similar with Halloween Jack's Virtual Unreality special, though the added element of randomness really does make the card incredibly hard to predict in terms of usefulness and power. Obviously you did a much better job here.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Keep up the good work!

[OP3]

Thanks for the feedback guys.  Much appreciated as always.

I agree with your opinion of banning Beyonder & Galactus, but for a totally different reason.  I don't feel that they can be adequately represented using the 4-rank, 8-point system that governs "more normal" characters.
For one, when you get to that level of Energy, Strength, & Intellect, "Fighting" skill becomes irrelevant, at least fighting skill in the sense used for Wolverine, Batman, Deadpool, etc.  (Galactus at a 8 fighting?  C'mon...)

Exactly.  I've always hated seeing Galactus with 8 Fighting.  Makes no goddamn sense.  Characters that powerful just don't fit into this game.  The designers were trying to mash square pegs into round holes with him and Beyonder.

And third, assuming Galactus & Beyonder are "where they are", then how do you rate characters like Ego, Living Tribunal, Eternity, Infinity, In-Betweener, Death, etc., etc., etc.....  Why do 2 get to be "in the game" and not the others?  (Because they'd be the same cards with different names & pictures.)

That's my exact reasoning for banning those characters.  They belong in a different game, because they're on a whole other playing field.

You would have to create some sort of "Cosmic Mega-OverPower" with much higher allowable team grid totals to make realistic & adequate usage of them.

That actually might be an idea worth looking into.  OP for cosmic characters, like how the D&D miniatures game printed up alternate Epic-level stats for a lot of characters back in the day.  I could see a version of OP with Power cards and grids that went up to 10 or more.  But that's a project for someone else, as I've got my hands full just redoing the basic game.

Odin is probably the only character at that level that I thought could have been done somewhat realistically.  Not as high level as Galactus, but higher than other characters.

I could see Odin being doable as a 23-point character with 8E.  The game definitely needs more Thor characters.  Problem is, he has to get in line behind a lot of potentially worthy 8E characters I'd rather do up first, including an Old Man Thor variant, who would be pretty similar.

I feel I must close out my "rant of agreement" with a 3-part question.  Do you feel Thanos is too high powered to be "in the game"; if no, do you plan on doing him in some expansion; and if so, where would you put him in the grids?

I've got Thanos planned for the first Marvel expansion, so I don't think he's too powerful at all.  The fact that he ultimately gets his ass kicked all the damn time is proof enough of that.  Infinity Gauntlet Thanos is of course out of the question however.

Additional notes:
The Celestials seems to be a double-edged sword.  Since the effect is for "all characters", you'd have to make a careful choice of power type & level.

That's the idea.  But as it's your team, you've got a distinct advantage.  This is probably the most Magic-like card I've designed.  There are so many of those cards that require a certain kind of deck to be built, and I always liked taking advantage of those kinds of card in Magic.  Certain Events let you do that kind of thing in OP, but not nearly enough Specials.  Expect to see more like this.

Assuming your system is used (your cards only, too), 6 Any Characters vs a Battlesite seems heavily weighed towards the Battlesite.  (Are the Power Balance Battlesite rules sufficient to compensate?)

Maybe, we'll see.  I'm planning on doing up at least 4 or 5 Any Character Specials per set (until I run out of cosmic characters), and most of them are going to be a lot more impressive than those (earlier ones) found in the original game.

(Brief aside: even having done a Thanos mockup, I don't really think cosmic characters should be included in OP. Look at how I statted Thanos, who realistically is one of the weaker cosmic characters, but is clever enough to gain control of the Infinity Gauntlet and a Cosmic Cube and strong and skilled enough fighter to go toe-to-toe with characters like Thor and Drax barehanded)

My Thanos, like any high-powered, super-strong energy-wielder type, would have a considerably reduced Fighting stat.  That's something I can easily sacrifice because it's not at all important to an accurate depiction of the character.  So ya, given that, I think he can easily fit into the restraints of this game's mechanics (along with other high-level villains such as Mephisto and Darkseid).  But even handing out 1s or 2s for Fighting, characters like Galactus, Beyonder, the Watcher, and more powerful beings are so far beyond the scope of how this game is designed.  They never should be included as characters, IMO.

But the issue I encountered is that it's an "off-switch" for both non-hero associated special cards from Activator and Any Hero decks, but can only be played in Any Hero decks.

That's an intentional design choice and a distinct advantage for Any Character decks.  Because seriously, Battlesite decks have enough advantages as it is (even with the Power Balance rules implemented).  There are only six Any Character cards in OP3.  All the previous ones would still be playable, but honestly, how many of those are worth including?  6 or 7?  Compare that to the dozens of Specials you have access to through any particular Battlesite, especially considering so many more of those Specials are playable now in OP3.

I have no criticism for the Watcher. Beautiful card design, de-powered to a degree when placed but still excellent card advantage/selection. My hat's off to you on that one.

Thanks!

I've never seen or heard of Squirrel Girl before seeing your character specials and cards.

Aw, you're missing out!  She's seriously the best thing either of the big two has come up with in the past 25 years.

Also, I like The Celestials. There's not enough symmetrical effects in the game that require skill/planning to break the symmetry (typically you can ratchet up the power levels of symmetrical cards beyond what you would do for a one-sided effect) and I think you designed a good one here.

Cool, thanks.  Ya, the idea was to shut down single Power decks with like, 3 or 4 characters all with 8S or 8E for example.  Because those kinds of decks have dominated the metagame for a long time.  The Power Balance rules make things a bit tougher on them with the new rules regarding MultiPower cards, while at the same time open up interesting possibilities by removing the OPD restriction on Any-Power cards.  The Celestials wouldn't work so well against that kind of deck, something that relies on AP with everybody's stats all over the place.  And I wanted something that might nudge the game in that direction.

[MHC]

I can understand why people have issues with Beyonder's character card from a flavor point of view - the fact that his stats change based on who is still active doesn't make a lot of sense.    What I don't understand is why you think the following:

I just think having him as a playable character has been nothing but detrimental to the game.  He stifles creative deckbuilding.

Why is it that you think he stifles creative deck building? 

I think the combination of his inherent ability and his 28-point value actually results in more creative deck building.   Sure there are a large number of characters (anyone worth 20 points or more) and character combinations that cannot be played with him, but that is true for lots of the 23 and 22 point characters.  On the other hand, his high point value forces people to play (multiple) low point characters that otherwise might not be played.  In addition, because he mimics the stats of his teammates, you get to play lots of character combinations that would otherwise not work (e.g., look at the Beyonder, Jubilee, Mr. Fantastic, Beast: the Brute deck that made it to the finals of the last tournament).   I also think that the Beyonder decks are one of the few types of competitive decks that can successfully run the KO events (which is a good thing for the game since those events can really mess up the game plans of  some of the other tier 1 decks). 

I would also argue that Beyonder is a lot less stifling than some of the other powerful characters that exist.  At some point in the future I will write a longer post about this (in a separate topic), but I think that Spawn and Dr. Strange are two characters that really stifle creating competitive decks.  Spawn is an issue because he has an 8 stat and a team-wide avoid.  Dr. Strange is an issue because he has an 8 stat and a (weaker) team-wide avoid that can be played from reserve.  Putting those two on the same team results in a team with (1) lower duplicates due to functional specials from the reserve; (2) multiple 8-stat characters with stat back up; and (3) lots of defense.  All you need is a negate character (e.g., Scarlet Witch) and a character with powerful specials (e.g., Starjammers or Ghost Rider) and you have a very powerful team with lots of offense and defense.  And, as can be seen by looking through the tournament records, decks with those kinds of characters have consistently done well in tournaments. 

[cyber0820]

I can understand why people have issues with Beyonder's character card from a flavor point of view - the fact that his stats change based on who is still active doesn't make a lot of sense.    What I don't understand is why you think the following:

I just think having him as a playable character has been nothing but detrimental to the game.  He stifles creative deckbuilding.

Why is it that you think he stifles creative deck building? 

I think the combination of his inherent ability and his 28-point value actually results in more creative deck building.   Sure there are a large number of characters (anyone worth 20 points or more) and character combinations that cannot be played with him, but that is true for lots of the 23 and 22 point characters.  On the other hand, his high point value forces people to play (multiple) low point characters that otherwise might not be played.  In addition, because he mimics the stats of his teammates, you get to play lots of character combinations that would otherwise not work (e.g., look at the Beyonder, Jubilee, Mr. Fantastic, Beast: the Brute deck that made it to the finals of the last tournament).   I also think that the Beyonder decks are one of the few types of competitive decks that can successfully run the KO events (which is a good thing for the game since those events can really mess up the game plans of  some of the other tier 1 decks). 

I would also argue that Beyonder is a lot less stifling than some of the other powerful characters that exist.  At some point in the future I will write a longer post about this (in a separate topic), but I think that Spawn and Dr. Strange are two characters that really stifle creating competitive decks.  Spawn is an issue because he has an 8 stat and a team-wide avoid.  Dr. Strange is an issue because he has an 8 stat and a (weaker) team-wide avoid that can be played from reserve.  Putting those two on the same team results in a team with (1) lower duplicates due to functional specials from the reserve; (2) multiple 8-stat characters with stat back up; and (3) lots of defense.  All you need is a negate character (e.g., Scarlet Witch) and a character with powerful specials (e.g., Starjammers or Ghost Rider) and you have a very powerful team with lots of offense and defense.  And, as can be seen by looking through the tournament records, decks with those kinds of characters have consistently done well in tournaments.

The biggest problem I personally have with Beyonder is that he as a character is not accurately depicted nor is Galactus for that matter. In my opinion its about doing justice to the comic based creation & a "God like" being or unlimited power should not be stuck with 8 as its high number. Or with Beyonder being held back to only use specials from current team. Both characters were chemically castrated for the sake of balance. Just like some characters stats went over the barrier of the original design. Jubilee, as I have used as a example in the past...

"Jubilee 6-4-2-4... Really? Stuff like that bugged me back in the day & to a certain point when looking at the game big spectrum still does. How does a character like Jubilee compete energy wise to say Apocalypse (5), Super Skrull (6), Omega Red (6), Nightcrawler (5) or Gambit (6)? All of the above outclass her "sparkle" power in every way energy wise. 4 fighting?? ummm.. ok, must have been a alternate reality version cuz no way could she compete with the Green Goblin (4F) as example. & 2 strength... Yeah, there again... I hate Mr. Fantastic as a character but he has a 2 strength as well & I'm sure he could out power her there. & intellect wise... a 4 again for Jubilee?? Is this really the same "act first ask questions later, oh crap that was stupid & hide while my team saves my over eager butt"? "

Over stated or castrated for balance... Doesn't due the character justice above & beyond the frame work of the game. So I agree with OP3 & justa... They simply don't belong. Just my opinion.

[justa]

Where both characters were part of the legacy sets, they are, BY DEFINITION, "in the game".  People can, do, and will use them at their discretion.  All I'm saying is that the legacy versions are not accurate to the character, and an accurate representation of them would not fit within the constructs of the game as it is.
With the OP3 rebuild, he has chosen to leave those characters out rather than misrepresent them (I don't mean to speak for you, OP3), and I congratulate him on his choice for the rebuild, as I have on several of his other choices.  I am not pushing for "removing them from the game".  That is the system that works for most people currently.  Power Balance & OP3's system is different, but just as viable.  Back in the day we used to play using justabgkid's system, too, and that was just as fun and workable.
Maybe some day all these different styles & looks & ideas could be combined into 1 big system that most people could agree on, but I won't hold my breath.  Until then, viva la differance!