Here is a crazy idea for a rule change

[Terry Bailey Sr]

I had an idea, it may be crazy but here it goes. How about instead of using a standard deck of cards instead use a Euchre deck.

Euchre decks uses two standard decks but removes all of the 2-8 cards. So you are left with A,K,Q,J, 10 and 9. Also you have 2 of each of those

in every suit.  I have not tested this but I think it could work.  In Malifaux 2-8 serve almost no purpose. I say almost because they do serve as a clog for

your hand.  Duels would still work the same way and  Aces would still count as a 1. Damage would still need to be adjusted of course.

Maybe 9-10 weak, J-Q moderate and K-A as severe.

[Fetid Strumpet]

What Euchre were you playing that you used 2 decks? All Euchre i played only ever used 1 deck. All it seems you do then is tighten the numeral spread. Instead of having random numbers between 1-13 with a 0 and a 14 you tighten it down to a very narrow band of essentially 1-5, not seeing what benefit that provides.

[Littlewicked]

While I like out of the box thinking I see some problems that would need to be overcome.  First is except for a few cases you are always hitting the TN except with the ace.  Also in duels if you flip an ace you will lose about 95% of the time in this format.  In the current format an ace when you have a higher stat wins on a higher rate than that depending on the difference in the stats.

[Terry Bailey Sr]

1 hour ago, Littlewicked said:

While I like out of the box thinking I see some problems that would need to be overcome.  First is except for a few cases you are always hitting the TN except with the ace.  Also in duels if you flip an ace you will lose about 95% of the time in this format.  In the current format an ace when you have a higher stat wins on a higher rate than that depending on the difference in the stats.

Exactly. I want to increase successes but not completely do away with them. I think it would help speed up the game especially for tournaments. Alternatively if you still use a standard deck give the 2-8 cards more of a roll in the game. Maybe two cards discarded are a wild for suit perhaps. 

[solkan]

30 minutes ago, Terry Bailey Sr said:

Exactly. I want to increase successes but not completely do away with them. I think it would help speed up the game especially for tournaments. Alternatively if you still use a standard deck give the 2-8 cards more of a roll in the game. Maybe two cards discarded are a wild for suit perhaps. 

Why bother flipping cards at all?  Just say that every duel automatically succeeds and every damage flip is severe damage.

 

[Terry Bailey Sr]

19 minutes ago, solkan said:

Why bother flipping cards at all?  Just say that every duel automatically succeeds and every damage flip is severe damage.

 

How did you get that from the above? You will still be dueling against the other guys Flips and I showed how the danage flips would need redoing.

 

[Clement]

Aside:  Apparently 2 "Euchre decks" is equivalent to 1 "Pinochle deck".  Old-timey trick taking games are weird...

With the changed damage spread, damage flips would still tend toward severe (there's just more severe cards as a percentage).  More problematic, anything with a static TN would suddenly be trivial to pass 90% of the time.

As a specific example, in a standard malifaux deck there are 4/54 cards that can summon "good stuff"(11+) for a resser.  In your new deck there are now 7/50 (we're keeping the jokers right?) that do the job.

The point of the 2-8 cards is to be chaff somewhat.  Their presence makes the severe cards that much more important.

 

Having said that, grab a deck and a friend and have at it.  It could be silly fun much like Henchman Hardcore is silly fun.

[Thottbot]

i think you are forgetting that 1-8 actually arent always trash, many abilities that use friendly targets or no targeting itself usually needs 5+ and some models like Large Arachnid actually prefer cheating in a 1 if its the right suit for defensive trigger.

what im saying is just because 9-14 is really good you cannot overlook that 5-10 is what usually slowly wins you the game. hell, i've even won multiple defensive flips with a 2 or 3 

[WWHSD]

My gut feeling is that it would also skew things more heavily in favor of high stats against low stats. An attack stat of 7 would be guaranteed to hit a defense stat of 5 with 50% of the cards in the deck (11-13 are impossible to miss with).  Sonnia with her Ca9 would only ever miss a Df5 target if she flipped an ace.

You’d also need to do something with the + and - flips to damage based on duel results. Unless an ace gets flipped on defense the damage flip would almost always be at a - flip or worse. If there’s enough of a stat different you may occasionally see a straight flip. 

[Rillan]

15 hours ago, Terry Bailey Sr said:

I had an idea, it may be crazy but here it goes. How about instead of using a standard deck of cards instead use a Euchre deck.

Euchre decks uses two standard decks but removes all of the 2-8 cards. So you are left with A,K,Q,J, 10 and 9. Also you have 2 of each of those

in every suit.  I have not tested this but I think it could work.  In Malifaux 2-8 serve almost no purpose. I say almost because they do serve as a clog for

your hand.  Duels would still work the same way and  Aces would still count as a 1. Damage would still need to be adjusted of course.

Maybe 9-10 weak, J-Q moderate and K-A as severe.

Please stop inventing bicycle when its already invented and works perfectly. Deck from 1 up to 14 is perfect randomizer and even 2-8 are often used dont know why u dont like it...

[Adran]

Honestly, I see no real bonus to this idea. It is almost removing simple tests and target numbers from the game, and reducing the advantage to cheating by making the raw stat the dominating factor. Using your deck ml 6 vs Df 2 will always hit unless the Ml 6 hits a 1 or a black joker, (or the rare case that the df2 flips a red joker and the Ml6 only flips a 9). This is why it seems likey you might as well just compare stats. The stats have also become useless unless you are in an opposed duel.  Zoriadas wp10 is as likely to pass Seamus Horror 13 as Ototos WP 4, and now Seamus has lost basically his play style because he relied on models failing simple duels to work. 

The use of an ace as severe is interesting, but because you have removed the accuracy effect unless an ace is flipped (And I think I would hold a lot of my hand to cheat the 16 almost auto fails that are in my deck) you take a lot out of the game and resource management.  So it appears to both reduce randomness by making a much smaller range of outcomes, and then reduce your ability to mitigate those outcomes. You are making negative flips in a duel much less of a drawback, unless you hit one of those autofail aces. 

But then I find 2-8 are still useful numbers in my games, a lot of target number tests only need 6-8 to succeed, and I feel a lot better about having the required card in my hand to cheat. And in games where there are several duels (Most of my games) the mid range cards are enough to eitehr let me win a duel, or cost my opponent a card as well. Those cards can happily win duels or reduce my loses to allow me to only suffer damage flips. 

I feel that if you remove 2-8, then you will just find your 9 and 10s the rubbish cards that you get annoyed at when your hand is just 9 and aces. 

 

So I don't really see a benefit, and feel the game would need to be complelty redesigned to take into account the changed chances of sucess/failure, and since what you want to do is change that amount of success to faiilure, there is a good chance the redesign would lead you to feeling similar problems.  But this is all theory. I'm certainly not going to try it, but if you do think its a good idea and can persuade someone else to play you under those rules then you can actually see if it works as you hope. 

 

[Terry Bailey Sr]

Like I said from the start this was just a crazy idea. I have enjoyed discussing this. A fun thought experiment.

I love the folks that took time to have fun with it. All I really wanted was folks just to take it as a fun thought experiment.

 I did confuse euchre deck with pinochle deck.  Never at anytime did I demand this as a change. Thanks for participating.

[Math Mathonwy]

Pulp City has sortakinda similar disparity in that almost all "simple duels" to activate passive abilities require just a 2+ on a six-sided dice while active abilities against opposing models compare roll+stat.

It's fun as a thought experiment, I think!