A basic item in Off Topic

ID:6587
 
Dec 15 2005, 7:50 pm
Here's another first-draft card, Wand of Polymorph. I think it's still a little sparse and needs more fleshing out, but then that's nothing new. The image in the card is just a filler from DeviantArt. The rest is all done in Inkscape. Note the rarity icon in the lower left corner. A player must roll at least a 4 out of 1d6 to earn this card after drawing it from the item pile. As a wand it has multiple charges: 3 of them to be exact. Whenever the card is used it is turned 90°. After the third use, the wand will be discarded.

Transformation has a few special rules. Characters can be transformed into monsters, monsters into other monsters, or items into items of the same kind. Monsters and items polymorph permanently; you discard the original. Characters on the other hand take on the monster card and have that monster's base attributes and special abilities/attacks, at the loss of their own. Anything the character had on a Skill card, however, remains intact. A character can revert to their original form by polymorphing again or breaking the spell by other means.

Polymorphing will also be caused by the Polymorph Trap card. I believe it will have a corresponding rarity. Some magic items will have trap or obstacle equivalents. For example, the Wand of Teleport Away and Teleport Trap cards will be twinned in this way.
#1 Dec 15 2005, 8:04 pm
Nice! I like the filler image; pity it's not yours to use permanently.
#2 Dec 15 2005, 8:10 pm
I like it too, but not for the card. I just think it makes nice filler there because it looks like something changing. For final art I'd prefer something a tad different. Of course, I'll need an image for the Polymorph Trap as well.
#3 Dec 15 2005, 11:19 pm
If that qualifies as a "basic" card, I'd hate to see what a "complex" card looks like.
#4 Dec 16 2005, 4:41 am
well its a basic item! There's that room card in LJR's last post, and that was a lot more basic than this.
#5 Dec 16 2005, 7:59 am
Looks good, man.

Oh, and D4RK3- LJR is not Lummox JR. =p
#6 Dec 16 2005, 9:56 am
These cards look outstanding and trump alot of the stuff currently on the market!
#7 Dec 16 2005, 10:48 am
Possible design caveat: you might want to make the wand unable to transform itself. After performing two polymorphs, the wand could be used to turn itself into another wand--which seems like it could be a very powerful effect.

Also, why are you doing the card-turning thing? Why not just say Charges: 3 (1 used) or Charges: 2/3? In paper card games, card turning is plenty useful; but in digital ones, I believe that paper-emulation is not the best approach. Neoshroom (of "Apprentice" M:TG fame) used a more digital method in Appr 1 (The card shows the text "Tapped", where paper cards would be turned 90 degrees) and only allows the option to turn the card's orientation in Appr 2 because the card game being played is based on a paper card game.
#8 Dec 16 2005, 11:44 am
Lummox JR will be printing them out for playtesting. I'm not sure if there will be a digital version.
#9 Dec 16 2005, 11:46 am
I love it when smart people make card games.
#10 Dec 16 2005, 2:34 pm
PirateHead, I don't intend for this to be digital. (Or at least, not solely digital.)

As for the wand transforming itself, I have an answer to that. If an item with multiple charges/shots/uses is polymorphed, the new item will have only as many charges left as the original. (This is a rule I forgot to mention, but would be listed in the polymorph section of the rules.) If the Wand of Polymorph is used on itself, it is assessed a charge and turned into another wand with that many charges left. (Or, I may decide to go by the number of charges used, instead. It only makes sense that an item transformed around can gain charges from all that magical energy.)

I don't have any plans for empty wands yet, like how in Nethack you can sometimes zap an empty wand and it will spark feebly a bit until you get one last charge out, and then the wand is truly dead or explodes or crumbles into dust (I can't remember which). However I'm inclined to let players keep empties in case they run across an Orb of Charging or some similar effect.
#11 Dec 16 2005, 3:52 pm
The wand crumbles into dust, but you can always break it as a last resort.
#12 Dec 16 2005, 8:11 pm
Yes, I was considering implementing wand breakage via another card.
#13 Dec 16 2005, 8:12 pm
ah hah hah sorry for the identity mistake.
#14 Dec 20 2005, 7:01 am
Whats with the uber graphics?! Why isn't there a / there?
#15 Jul 22 2009, 6:30 am
I don't know if you're still working on this, but I just got linked to a CafePress-like service for card/boardgames called The Game Crafter.
#16 Jul 22 2009, 8:14 pm
That is insanely awesome.

I want to design a board game now, just so I can use that site...
#17 Jul 22 2009, 10:03 pm
Yeah, me too. They said in the forums that they're working on tiles and stickers too. That should allow people to work around the board size limits and customize the stock pieces.