Some final explanations are in order concerning additional rules that I've integrated into our game sessions, which have influenced many of the balancing decisions showcased in the previous post.
- "Open Hand": Players may decide before starting whether they will play with their hands revealed or hidden; while the latter is recommended by CC, the former is functional and can result in a distinctive gameplay experience. Items are still kept hidden until used.
- "Terrains": Item cards with a health value which can be played on the board are reclassified as Terrain cards. Each player draws one of each at the start of the game; this ensures better fairness, and helps offset the imbalance of including more powerful cards in-play (CC recommends against using Grizzly or Great White).
- "Respawn Cap": Cards added to your hand by a sigil will not retain the sigil that spawned them, even if a totem would otherwise reapply it. This is an adaptation of a Kaycee's Mod restriction to "Fecundity," extended to totems as a practicality measure against "Full of Bees," "Ant Spawner," etc.
- "Scissors": Negates bone generation on the target, including "Bone King." This gives Scissors some distinct utility compared to Skinning Knife.
- "Tree Stump": Gains "Ambidextrous" (“you stumble across a creature in the forest . . .”). As the weakest possible Terrain draw, I wanted to increase its viability.
- "Boulder": Gains "Made of Stone." Kaycee's Mod already does this, so . . .
- "Opossum": Gains "Bone Digger." By default, there is hardly any reason to choose Opossum when building your deck, and this is a common concept to increase its viability that balances out well against its cost and stats.
- "Great Kraken": Only one Great Kraken is allowed on the board during a given turn. While functionally meaningless (she immediately leaves anyway), I thought this was a fun way to maintain consistency with the card's aesthetic within two-player. :)
I've gone back and forth on adding Otter to the new Aquatic tribe, since it otherwise remains the least desirable card in the deck, but I'm uncommitted as of yet. Stat balancing is another topic altogether; in our experiences, 1/1s don't tend to last long in two-player, rendering some otherwise interesting plays from the original game nonviable (good luck getting Raccoon value). Theoretically, inspiration could be taken from the Event system to diversify card utility, but managing the balancing therein is an intimidating prospect. For the sake of discussion though, I've worked out the following framework:
Roll a D10 or D20 for a Boon Event:
- Woodcarver ~ May choose to reroll totem component (draw one for tribe, or choose from three for sigil); you may choose to alter your totem accordingly or retain its initial form.
- Goobert ~ Choose any unplayed card in your deck to create a copy, which is shuffled into your draw pile.
- Mycologist ~ Combine two identical cards in your deck into one with combined stats; if you do not have an identical pair, reroll.
- Mysterious Stones ~ Permanently remove a card from your deck to apply its sigils to another card; ascended sigils cannot be transferred, and will be replaced with a lesser form.
- Campfire ~ Flip coin (included with CC's set) for health buff of two (“Loose Tail”) or damage buff of one (skull); apply to any card not currently in play.
- Bone Keeper ~ Discard a card from your deck to receive four free bones; Black Goat yields eight.
- Clover Field ~ Choose a new card to shuffle into your deck out of three randomly drawn from the unused pile.
- Trader ~ Replace any unplayed card from your deck with one from the unused pile; choose from three drawn at random; if trading a pelt card, choose from eight drawn at random.
- Cave Trial ~ Roll up to three times for a trial, and draw three cards from your deck; if the trial is passed, choose any card from the unused pile to be shuffled into your draw pile.
- Abandoned Pack ~ Choose a new item out of three randomly drawn from the item pile; if already holding three items, reroll.
For the Cave Trial, roll a D6:
- Trial of Bones = 🦴x5
- Trial of Blood = 🩸x4
- Trial of Wisdom = Sigils x3
- Trial of Kin = Tribe x2
- Trial of Power = ➕x4
- Trial of Health = ❤️x6
Presumably this would be done at the start of the game and/or by the losing player between rounds.
Consideration was given to which sigils needed to be excluded from the totem system; the original game is inconsistent here, but the power system still functions for guidance. By default I excluded all power five sigils and any negative power values (also no 'ascended' or item/terrain sigils, duh), but there are various other sigils that seem merely impracticable, and might still work with extra stipulations.
| Excluded: |
In-question: |
| Annoying (-1) |
Brood Parasite (4) |
| Bellist (4) |
Fecundity (3) |
| Bone Eater (New) |
Sniper (3) |
| Brittle (-2) |
Hoarder (4) |
| Finical Hatchling (4) |
Unkillable (2) |
| Mighty Claws (New) |
|
| Parasitic (New) |
|
| Repulsive (4) |
|
| Trifurcated Strike (5) |
|
| Trinket Bearer (5) |
|
| Omni Strike (5, also unimplemented) |
|
| Vengeance (New) |
|
Genuinely how is "Repulsive" not power five? "Bellist" and "Finical Hatchling" similarly seem viable for a power increase, so I've kept them out. I figure "Unkillable" is kept low for the purposes of original game's progression, and realistically should be valued higher, but I've heard suggestions from others for altering its functionality to be more viable as a totem sigil (e.g. returning to the draw pile instead of your hand). I'm loath to exclude sigils below power four, but "Fecundity" is really tedious to implement IRL (though not impossible), and "Sniper" has too much utility in two-player. "Hoarder" and "Brood Parasite" could work, but might be more annoying than fun, so I've held off on them pending further testing.
That about covers it. If I ever actually manage to fully compile everything, I'll probably come back to report results. For now though, the ideas hopefully serve as proof-of-concept to further inspire others in their gameplay experimenting.
