SFR, Inc.

[Autpost]

The rules will not change until spring 2006, but then there is the chance to balance out the power of some units. Many weaker monsters have icons which no one else has, and if you improve just those SAIs, no other unit will become overpowered as an unwanted side effect. (SFR did that already once with rare items and artifacts.)
It would also add some fresh paint to DD.

Some candidates:
Centaur (Kick)
Gryphon (Ferry)
Tako (Entangle)
Genie (He has even three unique SAIs!)
Carrion Crawler (Stun)
Rhino-Folk (Gore(?); An extra weak ability. At least against a dragon-attack it could remove the dragon's autosaves.)
Bear-Folk (Hug*; Since bears are rare, you want to have something special (and not just an average monster))
Cryohydra (Frost Breath*)
Monsters with Roar or Screech.
Drider & Web-Birds (Web)
(SAIs with * are unique (Only one unit exists with that SAI and you find it only on one side.))

Hopeless: Ettercap (You cannot power-up his Bullseye because then rare missile units will become overpowered.) and every ultra-rare.

In this way you can also turn down Regenerate and Create Fireminions.

[koslowj]

Having been involved in some of the previous discussions on changes to SAIs and spells, I feel obligated to point out that this can be a VERY difficult thing to balance. It's amazing the ripple effects from a change that can occur even when you originally think the change is very self contained. So any changes will need to be well thought out and probably play tested.
_________________
John Koslow

[karoath]

Just thinking about this and it may be ok if one is very careful not to make abilities too powerful. Some of the real powerful ones ought to be altered as well... for example, the fireshadow is an insane dice. I'd love to see its abilities diminished a small amount, such as making the summon fireminions ability work for 2 or 3 points of anything instead of worth 4 points.

[chuckpint]

Fireshadow is not that powerful for one reason: Lightning Strike. It has only a 40% chance to save. That is about the average for most monsters. However, I understand what you are saying about the Create Fireminons. In effect it has 2 more IDs that can't be affected by magic penalties. Changing it to only 2 points of effect would be somewhat consistant with some other powerful SAIs (like Flame).
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Arkain]

Fireshadows are pretty tough... love it but can see why it is the BEST monster in the game. With 10 sides, melee = 60%, magic = 40%, saves = 60% unless individual targeting effect, maneuver = 50% .. this thing will roll what you want when you want the majority of the time.

I think the tangles/webs are pretty decent personally, just my opinion though. Roars/screech.. like the idea of making things flee.

I agree that I would rather see Gore increased to 4, no save possible... but then burying 4 pts.. adjust with save possible from burial. Same with flame, 4, save verse burial.

I hate coil and hug, never use those dice that have it... my loss perhaps and inexperience, but to roll for save OR melee.. hug and coil are like a last resort SAI. If they save you did nothing like a lot of SAI's, if they roll melee and kill you, THAT's what I hate most... <shrug>

Just my two cents, take it with the inexperience I have.

Typed while before Chuck responded... guess the gore/flame to 4 pts is out of the question.

[chuckpint]

One of the big problems we had when we were cleaning up the rules, was keeping the SAIs from all getting to be the same. As matter of fact, several that were too much alike got changed to make them more different, while at the same time we spent a lot of time trying to make them all about the same strength. Not an easy balancing act. And we never said we had it perfect or were done.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[anset]

Hi,

Having all dice perfectly balanced would mean it does not matter which dice I put in my army, all dice are equal, so it becomes pure luck to play.

I know this is an oversimplification, but I just want to note that for me, some dice may be more powerful than others.

You see, sometimes I just play for fun...

Just my 2cents.

Anset.

[karoath]

40% chance to save isn't too bad. Lightning strike is certainly a danger for all monsters. Since the fireshadow saves the same, that is part of the problem! It saves the same, but also has a much better chance of getting necessary rolls when the army rolls its dice. I love the concept of the fire minions SAI, but I just think it is too powerful. I've seen this monster dominate game after game after game (especially when combined with the flashfire spell). When I build a firewalker army, I look at the monsters to try and decide what to use. I like the other monsters, but just can't justify taking them in most cases since the fireshadow is much better all around! In fact, I'd probably choose it over any monster in the game simply because it is so versatile. It has a 50% of maneuver, 60% of save, 30% chance of missile, 40% for magic, and 70% chance for melee. That is truly amazing since it can be treated as if it as 3 ids (only for army rolls, but those are quite important). Just thought I'd throw out my opinions on the dice. I absolutely love using monsters and I use them in nearly every army since I like the idea behind them. I just grow annoyed when I see a single monster singe handedly win numerous games for players over and over again because it nearly always rolls what it needs in every situation (back to that versatility thing again). It really removes the random aspect of the game. I agree that the flame has probably been toned down a bit too much. It makes these monsters much less useful.

[Autpost]

[Arkain]

[Arkain]

I have found, in my opinion, semi-justification for upgrading/changing flame. Again my change was to have it upgraded to 4 points, making gorgon <only monster I know of off top of my head> viable in monster fights... but making a save verse burial... as it is now 2 points dead/buried.

Leviathan: Sonic Blast: During a melee attack, choose up to four health-worth of units in the defending army to immediately be killed with no save possible. These units must then roll a save or be buried.

This is what I was looking for with flame. Do you think my justification is accurate or not?


Gore is different story in my previous post... they get a save verses death still like to see it at 4 points though... still against only one unit. But looking at swallow, it's against one unit and similar to gore... save is different though.

So you still have the difference with swallow and gore, and not over powering either, IMO.

Come on Chuck.. you know you want this... feral with Rhino-folk are your love from what I understand.

[chuckpint]

Gorgon is not the only monster with Flame. Hell Hound, Beholder, and Chimera also have Flame. So making it more powerful (?) would change all those monsters as well. And I'm not convinced that your suggestion changes it's "power". I mean, no save against burial? That's a real killer. For most armies that means those 2 health are never coming back.

BTW, while I love playing Feral, I never use the monsters except in a monster bash. While Gore is similar to Flame, it's clearly a bit weaker. That's ok. Swallow is a monster-killer. And it's none too easy to save against for a six-sided unit either. But since it's only acts on one unit, it only affects 2-3 health most times.

So at this point you haven't convinced me that Flame, Gore or Swallow needs to be changed. If anything, I'm even more sure that we want to leave it alone.

I'm still thinking about Create Fireminons....
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[chuckpint]

As for Hug, compare it to Coil. At first they look the same. But note that Hug does not allow the unit being attacked with the Hug to save. It's always killed. The only real question is: "Does the unit take the Bear-folk with it?" And if you take the chicken way out, very few uncommons, and no commons can kill a Bear-folk. Same for Coil on the Ormyrr, but not quite the same for Coil on the Wave Rider.

So Hug or Coil on another monster is quite dangerous (look at how much melee most monsters have). Using on a rare is less dangerous (or not at all for some rares).
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Arkain]

One more try.. you are final say I understand.... I just think with my other post's maybe were not to clear.

Flame <CONCEDE>.. but I did have the part about saving verses burial. I just didn't realize it was on so many monsters, limited collection and experience.


However, Gore VS. Swallow.

<NOW> Gore: During a melee attack, choose one unit in the defending army. Gore inflicts two points of damage on the target unit, which must generate saves against this damage or be buried. During a dragon attack or melee avoidance roll, Gore generates two melee results.

<PURPOSED> Gore: During a melee attack, choose one unit in the defending army, which must generate saves against this damage or be buried.

<COMPARISON> Swallow: During a melee attack, choose one unit in the defending army to immediately roll its ID icon or be killed and buried.

The comparison and purposed are VERY similar, thus why I think it's not an overpowering change.

[chuckpint]

Actually, I'm not the final say. The SFR Board of Directors (BoD) is the final say. However, there are about 4 of us that have been working on the rules for last 3 years. Of those 4, I'm just on-line a bit more than the rest.

Of course, it's not really a coincidence that 3 of those 4 people working on the rules are on the BoD. So if the 4 us agree, it's usually done at that point.

As for your proposed change to Gore, we actually were trying to get away from SAIs that targeted units with no limit on the health. Why? We wanted to encourage people to bring in larger units. If too many spells and SAIs target units with no regard to size, then people start back to the old way of all common armies. Which is rather boring actually. So Gore is deadly to commons and uncommons, but can be ignored by monsters and rares.

This is one of the things that John Koslow was referring to by unintended changes. We're pretty happy with the way things are now, people tend to bring armies with lots of different types of units. Back in the "dark ages", people brought all common armies, with only mages and cavalry. We are past that now, and don't want to go back.

Now don't take that as a comment that says we will not listen to any comments from any of the players. Just take that as a comment that before we make a change (a real change, not just a wording change to make the rules clearer), we want to make sure that anything else affected by this will not change in a way that causes problems.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Arkain]

Cool. Thanks for listening.

I too, enjoy the game very much. I have read things about all common armies.. even tried one... Zzzzz.

My friend and I did the "charge" thing too, agree it's pretty tough and focuses on few units.. no variety if playing to win.

I am young to this game and don't know it's vast history... so thanks for enlightening me.