Chaos Gifts/Mutations/Etc

[clmckay]

Hi,

It looks like my group of Heroes will be heading into the Chaos Wastes. Sure, why not. Knowing them, they'll just wander straight towards the North Pole. Anyway, thinking ahead I've got a few ideas for mechanics to mix into Quests/Encounters in the area. Most aren't well developed yet, but one, probably the larger one is underway. I really like this concept, I'm just a bit uncertain about the execution...but it may be workable just as is. Anyway...here is the current rules text and cards. Cards will get better flavor text as they are more developed, also, more proofreading.

Chaos Gifts
When in the presence of a source of great Chaos the Heroes run the risk of suffering mutations. At the start of each Hero or Monster's turn, that figures controller rolls 1 Red Die. On a 6 that figure suffers a mutation due to the effects of the nearby source of Chaos. Zargon or that Player's controller draws 1 Chaos Gift Card. That Monster or Hero gains the attribute listed on the card. A Hero or Monster may accumulate more than 1 Chaos Gift. The effects of Chaos Gifts do not end with the quest, but are persistent until removed. At the end of every Quest/Encounter an afflicted Hero may roll 1 Red Die. If a 5 or 6 is rolled, that Hero may choose 1 Chaos Gift to remove. Any Hero afflicted by a Chaos Gift may not enter towns or shops, buy weapons or potions (though he may give money to other Heroes to purchase on his behalf), hire or retain mercenaries, or participate in any encounter that takes place in a town or establishment inside a town. That player may control a generic mercenary or Hero for such Quests or Encounters.


I'm thinking I want to add a Mind Point effect in here somewhere, otherwise, most Heroes will just have their comrades buy items in town for them.

At present I have only one draft of where these cards are used, that being a Chaos Beast (I have the figures from Descent 1/2). They will have a status line of "Any Hero or Monster in the same room as a Chaos Beast must roll for a Chaos Gift each turn". But the card set and mechanic could be easily adapted to other situations they may encounter in the wastes, like a Chaos Pit in the Ogre Horde.

Here are the cards, they aren't complete and some art will change and the text will be made more flavorful before finishing, if anyone has ideas for more I'll add to them. There will be multiple copies of some of them, the more powerful ones being much more rare compared to the run of the mill ones. Theses are drafted into an HQ mode from a Warhammer Card game, I'm not all that original.

ChaosGifts.zip

Thoughts on the mechanic? Good as is, bad, suggestions?

[StratosVX]

I would think there would be more harming "gifts" toward the Heroes if they are in the Chaos Wastes. That's how I envision it anyway. Also, there's a typo on the Rotting Flesh. It shouldn't be "looses", it should be "loses". Also, this sounds like something that wouldn't affect the undead.

[Showdown35]

I agree with StratosVX. When I read your description, I was imagining a mix of beneficial gifts and harmful gifts, so staying within the Chaos influence would be risky enough to make it a tough choice. If all or most of the gifts are beneficial, the heroes might try to keep the Chaos Beast alive for as many turns as possible!

Some suggestions for harmful gifts:

Intolerable Nausea: The creature writhes in pain as his abdomen begins to wretch, causing it to gag and vomit uncontrollably. The creature misses it's next turn and moves at half its normal movement..

Webbed Limbs: The creature grows fleshy attachments between its limbs and its body, greatly restricting its freedom of movement. The creature rolls 1 less Combat die when attacking and defending.

Blindness: The creatures eyes (or eye) burn with a flash of light, causing it to lose it's vision. The creature rolls 2 less Combat Dice when attacking and defending.

Visions of Chaos: The creature is overcome with a sense of evil as hideous visages of the Greater Deamons of Chaos flash through its mind. At the beginning of each of its turns, the creature rolls a red die to attempt resisting the primal chaos urges. If the roll is more than the creature's mind points, it goes temporarily insane, moving to and attacking the nearest figure it can see, whether ally or enemy (if two or more figures are tied for closest, randomize which one is attacked).

Just a few I came up with off the top of my head. I think having about an even mix of harmful and beneficial gifts would make for interesting choices. Maybe even have some that are only harmful to heroes but beneficial to Monsters, so it's even more risky to rush into a fight with a group of monsters within a Chaos influence.

[The Road Warrior]

Nice system. But again I agree with StratosVX. I would expect a system like this to harm the heroes not improve them. But the buffs for the monsters are interesting and should create some interesting encounters. Which leads me to....

Chaos Gifts
When in the presence of a source of great Chaos the Heroes run the risk of suffering mutations. At the start of each Hero or Monster's turn, that figures controller rolls 1 Red Die...

If the Chaos Beast already resides in the quest/encounter as the other monsters I would expect the other monsters to already be mutated, probably permanently. In which case I would just draw a card for them when they are first placed on the board leave it at that. I'm not sure how much the constant dice rolling would interfere with the game, especially if there are 4 or more monsters on the board. It could potentially end up being a lot to keep track of.

Also, monsters die quickly so how often will you actually get to apply a chaos gift to them? Something like 'Iron Hard Skin' could be really interesting to give to a monster as soon the heroes encounter it. (I realise that I'm kind of contradicting myself here)

Oh this Gargoyle? Yeah, he's inflicted with 'Iron Hard Skin'. Good luck killing him. Oh and that Chaos Warrior, yeah he can breathe fire...

But the card set and mechanic could be easily adapted to other situations they may encounter in the wastes, like a Chaos Pit in the Ogre Horde.

Zealot's twisting catacombs Chaos Stone?

Is this going to make it into another one of your QP's here at the Inn?

[clmckay]

You guys are exactly right. I think that's why I'm having such dissonance about this card set.

I want something that will buff monsters, like you said...a chaos warrior breathing fire! I feel like I'm trying to do two things with one stick; Buff monsters, impede the heroes. Originally, i was trying to represent the corrupting influence as more....equal, not caring between good and bad, just corrupting. I'm not well versed on Warhammer lore, but I try to read the Playing guides for areas that we're going to. It seemed like the corrupting influence was a means to it own. A good point made was that any nearby monsters would already be mutated. Another point, that somehow I missed, was that the heroes would probably hang in there to get the good buffs. That must not be!

What are your guys thoughts on this: the draft where I have these cards has 4 monsters beside the chaos beast in the room. WhT if Zargon is instructed to choose 4 Chaos Gift cards - 1 for each of these monsters - from the Chaos Gifts deck. Then, Zargon does not draw gifts for monsters, but the heroes do.

I really like Showdowns ideas for harmful cards, I can make them and some others, limit the good cards (Zargon will have chosen most of them anyway:)).

What about a mind point penalty as well, something where when MP is reduced to 0 the hero falls under Zargons control?

Yes, I hope that if I can resolve this dissonance with these cards they will be in a quest pack. I think that my group will be taking that portal north. I know them.....they won't head back, they'll go exploring the wastes. I want a mechanic to represent the corrupting power of Chaos in the wastes, it's just getting it figured out. I've got some Chaos Armor bits for artifacts that I'm happy with, they too corrupt but in a much more satisfying way than these cards so far.

[whitebeard]

Chaos Gift: "Evil Hand" from "Evil Dead". A hand goes bad. It turns black, becomes stronger, and independently minded. An afflicted monster can now attack with two weapons independently. An afflicted hero is forced to constantly hold this unnaturally stronger and sentient limb at bay until a healer is found. HE is removed from combat until the other heroes can assist in restraining the hand. After which the hero attacks with -2AD and defends with -2DD.

In general it would be cool if the gifts were simultaneously a boon to evil and bad for heroes. more examples:

Growing a horn (charismatic penalty not really applicable to HQ… but could be -1 BP for heroes and a promotion to champion status for monsters)

Swollen/Forked tongue: Monster communication is enhanced. A monster may call for aid, summoning another monster of equal strength with a 1 on a red die (this does not count as an action). A hero thus afflicted can no longer communicate with the rest of the party (no practical penalty) but spell casters must roll a combat die to determine if their spells are successful (skull = success, spells which are blocked are kept but cannot be used until the tongue is removed).

Oozing Lesions: Monsters coat their weapons in the ooze, adding a poison effect to all successful hits. Heroes are physically sickened like "intolerable nausea" from Showdown35's post.

This is fun! Great thread!

[Big Bene]

I also think that chaos mutations should not be something for the heroes to want.
I'd say give the monsters "positive" effects, making the chaos lands more dangerous for the heroes in effect, and let the heroes roll for mutations with a big chance for negative and only a remote chance for postitive effects.
To explain this in the gameworld logic, you could go two ways:

• Monsters are a product of chaos
  Chaos is natural for monsters and does them good. Chaos gifts are meant for monsters, they do work for them, not for the races of "order". What is a gift to someone may be a curse to someone else.
• Monsters are just "natural" races, maybe with more agressive instincts
  So normally you would think that the ratio of "positive" and "negative" mutations is the same for monsters and heroes.
  It's still possible to explain that the heroes encounter mainly "positive" effected monsters in a dungeon while experiencing negaive effects themselfes:
  The monsters have been around for some time, all or most mutations have already happened, and at some point the monsters adapted to the environment and became immune to further mutations. The ones that had suffered negative effects have died, became unfit for fighting or at least so uneffective that they were "put out of service". The monsters remaining guarding the dungeon are the ones that have improved, so the players are only facing "positively" effected monsters.

[The Road Warrior]

What are your guys thoughts on this: the draft where I have these cards has 4 monsters beside the chaos beast in the room. WhT if Zargon is instructed to choose 4 Chaos Gift cards - 1 for each of these monsters - from the Chaos Gifts deck. Then, Zargon does not draw gifts for monsters, but the heroes do.

That's how I would do it. I'd probably still make the monsters' Chaos gifts random instead of allowing Zargon to choose them. Maybe draw 2 for each monster and discard one?

What about a mind point penalty as well, something where when MP is reduced to 0 the hero falls under Zargons control?

This is where I'm heading with my QP Faith and Conviction. In the final 2 quests the Warrior Priest will search out and destroy the Chaos Stone (inspired by the piece from Zealot miniatures Twisting catacombs).

The effect I'm using for the Chaos Stone is based on the 'Lure of Chaos' card from Space Crusade. I created a version of this card that I think Sjeng used in the Evil Wizard deck. In the QP all men-at-arms will suffer a mind point attack and when their MP are reduced to 0 they will be controlled by the evil wizard player. They may, or may not be replaced by Chaos Warriors it will depend on playtesting.

...The monsters have been around for some time, all or most mutations have already happened, and at some point the monsters adapted to the environment and became immune to further mutations. The ones that had suffered negative effects have died, became unfit for fighting or at least so uneffective that they were "put out of service". The monsters remaining guarding the dungeon are the ones that have improved, so the players are only facing "positively" effected monsters...

How very Darwinian. And quite right, I fully agree.

[StratosVX]

I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be some benefit the Heroes gain from the cards, but if it was my deck, there would have to be a penalty to go along with it too. Increased strength with a potential to attack fellow Heroes due to Chaos warping their minds, etc.

[clmckay]

Wonderful ideas! I'm going to make changes to the balance. I'll post the updated cards here for further review soon!