Stitched Together. Gamble your Life rework suggestions.

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 hours ago, Ceodoc said:

IMHO you can't look at Stitched in a vacuum like that.

Is Stitched there to cover weaknesses in the Nightmare crew or any other 'tax' crew (7SS)? Again IMHO-Yes.

Well, that is what came up in this thread.

For 9 stones, Zoraida (and Collodi) can spam summon stitched all game. So you have to look at them standalone since they are so good OOK.

But they don't cover any weaknesses of Nightmare beyond "minion that does lots of damage and is a bit tanky." Changing their GYL to an attack won't change that role. It will just even them out in a few matchups (for instance against all those masters I listed).

I don't play against those masters, and stitched still feel strong to me.

Maybe I'll just playtest it as an attack next year and see how it goes.

[Angelshard]

@Maniacal_cackle changing it to an attack is a major change though and either requires a complete rewrite of the action or a massive wall of text. If you simply change it to an attack most of the defenses you want to work don't. 

Manipulative, resist triggers and serene countenance specifically works on a duel, but GYL doesn't have a duel it has both models flip a card, accuracy modifier to the damage flip wouldn't be applied either as that is only in regards to opposed duels, and GYL isn't a duel. 

So we need to change it to a duel in order to have those defenses work. Then focus, chi and other boosts suddenly also work. We also have to decide what Stat or Stats the target can resist with if you want triggers to have an effect. If you have a Resist Stat you need a line about both stats being 0 for this duel or something along that if you want it to only be the value of the card that decides the outcome. 

Additionally you need to change Fiendish Gamble otherwise no amount of negative modifiers will matter as you replace the entire flip with the card from your removed pile. 

Bottomline is that what you're left with is a rather generic attack that, depending on the wording is either extremely weak against a lot of models or almost as strong as before against a lot of models. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

18 minutes ago, Angelshard said:

@Maniacal_cackle changing it to an attack is a major change though and either requires a complete rewrite of the action or a massive wall of text. If you simply change it to an attack most of the defenses you want to work don't. 

Manipulative, resist triggers and serene countenance specifically works on a duel, but GYL doesn't have a duel it has both models flip a card, accuracy modifier to the damage flip wouldn't be applied either as that is only in regards to opposed duels, and GYL isn't a duel. 

So we need to change it to a duel in order to have those defenses work. Then focus, chi and other boosts suddenly also work. We also have to decide what Stat or Stats the target can resist with if you want triggers to have an effect. If you have a Resist Stat you need a line about both stats being 0 for this duel or something along that if you want it to only be the value of the card that decides the outcome. 

Additionally you need to change Fiendish Gamble otherwise no amount of negative modifiers will matter as you replace the entire flip with the card from your removed pile. 

Bottomline is that what you're left with is a rather generic attack that, depending on the wording is either extremely weak against a lot of models or almost as strong as before against a lot of models. 

What's wrong with the reworked ability above that is essentially:

Quote

 

Gamble your life, rg 6, Stat *, Rst * Tn -

Both models in the duel treat their stat as 0, and cannot modify their stat EDIT duel total or cheat. If the duel fails, this model suffers 3/4/5 damage.

Target suffers 3/4/5 damage.

 

So now you can focus offensively or defensively, use serene countenance, etc. It now gets a minus to damage flips in close calls, and a double minus on ties. If you focus, it becomes a straight flip as before.

The stitched would now suffer more average damage on a loss, so you could address that by altering its damage track or just making it a straight 3 damage.

The point is that it'd be as strong as before in most cases, but in those niche cases (like serene countenance or take the hit), the changes make a big difference.

[Angelshard]

@Maniacal_cackle Nothing as such. It's just a major rewrite of the action and changing it to a more generic version. Not saying that's bad, just that it's a long way from the original. 

One thing, you also need to change Fiendish gamble, otherwise I'll target your Manipulative, serene countenance, concealed model and simply replace the flip with my 13 from my removed cards, not caring about the minus flips.

But honestly my impression was that the biggest issue was that people feel they can't do anything to affect the duel or win, because of Fiendish gamble and this idea does very little to affect that. I read this thread more as a problem with the flip than with the fact that it ignores resist triggers and some defensive abilities. This version a mature neph would still die to two severes and all the opponent can hope to do is flip high enough to get a negative modifier on the damage flip (better than before but still not a great strategy). 

[Tors]

Just make the flip cheatable and call it a day. Fixed the NPE, as there is counter play available and reduce the defense/armor/df-trigger if you want to bring them more in line (Heck add 1ss to their cost even).

Makes the less durable, and more prone, to hitting themselves while mainting there roll in the crew

[Ezuma]

2 hours ago, Tors said:

Just make the flip cheatable and call it a day. Fixed the NPE, as there is counter play available and reduce the defense/armor/df-trigger if you want to bring them more in line (Heck add 1ss to their cost even).

Makes the less durable, and more prone, to hitting themselves while mainting there roll in the crew

this seems like a reasonable fix, I don't like the idea of making it uncheatable both ways, as I don't think I would ever use a stitched then. Balancing it out a bit would really help limiting the bad feels aspect, and the stitched would still feel useful. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

7 hours ago, Angelshard said:

@Maniacal_cackle 

One thing, you also need to change Fiendish gamble, otherwise I'll target your Manipulative, serene countenance, concealed model and simply replace the flip with my 13 from my removed cards, not caring about the minus flips.

How will that help? Fiendish gamble only replaces one card, so you'll still have to flip a second card for manipulative and serene countenance and take the lower card.

3 hours ago, Tors said:

Just make the flip cheatable and call it a day. Fixed the NPE, as there is counter play available and reduce the defense/armor/df-trigger if you want to bring them more in line (Heck add 1ss to their cost even).

Makes the less durable, and more prone, to hitting themselves while mainting there roll in the crew

This fundamentally changes the ability far more than making it an attack action, as the flavour is supposed to be both players are flipping a card (luck based), but the stitched can influence the luck (fiendish gamble).

[Angelshard]

@Maniacal_cackle as I understand Fiendish gamble you never flip any cards at all you simply choose a card and that is your final card.

P. 8 of the rulebook under the conflict:
If multiple cards are added to the Conflict as the result of Fate Modifiers, only one card is placed into the Conflict; 
the others are discarded.

Since fiendish gamble specifically says that you place the card into the conflict my understanding is that this becomes the final card. 

Also there would be some wonky interactions if it was only instead of one card. Imagine I flip against a model with serene countenance and a plus.

In your interpretation I could choose to add a card instead of flipping. When can I do this, can I wait till after he's flipped both his cards and I've flipped my first? Does it have to be the first card I flip? There are no rules for this as this is the only ability (that I know of) that let's you add a card to a duel. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Angelshard, huh, interesting interpretation.

Probably best to shift it to the rules forum. Also note the possible interpretation that you can't use Fiendish Gamble at all for things with fate modifiers ("when this model would flip a card" is singular, it may not refer to instances of flipping multiple cards).

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've put that in the rules forum, and there is one answer so far which doesn't really make sense to me.

If that is how Fiendish Gamble works, that makes Stitched even more ridiculous. I'm curious if that is how everyone has been playing it?

Being able to turn a successful melee attack into an automatic-ish four damage is far more nuts than Gamble Your Life.

[Angelshard]

@Maniacal_cackle I agree that fiendish gamble is way too good.

It wasn't until I sat down to look at all the consequences of making GYL an attack action that I realised all the things you can get around with fiendish gamble (if you read the rules as I do). 

Stitched can pretty much ignore any effect that would put it at a minus flip, both offensively and defensively once per activation. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Angelshard, as in the rules forum, I disagree that it works that way, but one thing is certain: Wyrd definitely needs to have a look at the model and see if it is working the way they intend!

It is of course useful to know how people have been playing it (if all the people saying Stitched are overpowered have been playing it one way... That's pretty telling!)

[extremor]

I tried stiched 2 days ago once in a hinamatsu crew (2x) and once with collodi (3stiched) and I completly get any frustration. Especialy against collodi since he can make em use lucid dream or GYL twice. They seem quite nasty. I would make the damage of GYL uncheatable and maybe reduce it to 2/3/4 or a fixed damage of 3...