Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Does the damage caused by Neptune’s Trident count as hits for the purposes of abilities like Cargo Wrecking? (eliminating cargo for each hit)
No. The Trident eliminates masts within the target area but does not cause “hits”.
@Skelebone
Hot Air Balloons
Basically a support unit like native canoes. Destroyed in one shot, no firepower. Must be towed behind a ship, but doesn’t reduce the ship’s speed (unless the ship’s base move is three movements, then it will go down to its first two). It would give the ship towing it +1 to its cannon rolls unless it’s already a 2. You could also choose to roll a d6, and on a 5 or a 6 you would increase an S-range cannon to an L-range cannon. Not sure about point cost yet, but one ‘card’ so-to-speak would contain 2.
If it’s always going to be attached to a ship and has no use on its own, this would make more sense as Equipment.
It could take up no cargo space when revealed (deployed).@JonathanBowen
I can see what you mean about Axiom’s ability as breakable. I’ve written up a possible edit for her second ability though
1. Once per turn, if this is at her cargo limit, and you can draw a straight line to her Home Island, you may eliminate one of this ship’s crew. If you do, she gets +S+S to her base move, but can only be given move actions along that line. These conditions will reset when she reaches her Home Island.
Took some inspiration from Jack’s Compass (DPoC) for the ability, but it still might not keep her from breaking territory. What do you think of this alternate ability?
With it not being an instant effect like the Compass, the “straight line” requirement will be problematic. An enemy ship (or even a friendly) could stop on that line to block some or all of the ship’s movement, and harmful terrain could be dropped (or moved) onto the line as well from various effects. Things get really weird if any of the islands in play are Great Turtles (or Bad Maps pops up), because they could shift the line so that it crosses directly over an island.
Then there are cancelers… you’ll have to decide if the effect remains “locked” once set (similar to the Davy Jones Kraken boost), or if targeting it will break the line, allowing the ship to go elsewhere (minus the movement bonus).
20. USS Axiom
Points: 17
Masts: 3
Cannons: 4S, 5S, 4S
Cargo: 6
Base Move: L
Ability: Explorer. If this ship is at her cargo limit, you may eliminate one of her crew. This ship then gains +S+S to her base move, but can only be given move actions. This ability “resets” when this ship docks at her home Island.This one is a little too easy to break as written. You could start it with a full load, eliminate one crew, then have a permanent speed boost for the rest of the game as long as you never docked at home. It’s simple enough to transfer treasure to another ship near home, or string together a few crew to get someone with The Dories ability (Bianco’s Haulers, etc.) on board.
It would be better if the boost applied only during the turn the crew was eliminated, or if it reset every time the ship loaded or unloaded cargo. That way it would still be useful for runs home, and would still fit the flavor text, but couldn’t be kept active indefinitely simply by avoiding the specific reset trigger.
Been working on an ability that would let a ship load and carry around Native Canoes. It currently looks like this:
Carrier: If at any time a friendly native canoe is touching this ship, that canoe may be loaded onto this ship as cargo. Any cargo that canoe was carrying is also unloaded onto this ship. To unload canoes, give this ship a move action but do not move her. Instead place all stored canoes so that their end touches this ship.
In so far as I can tell, this doesn’t seem to be too OP or game breaking. Thoughts?
–Is loading a free action?
–The cargo carried by the canoe also counts against the ship’s limit, correct? In other words, loading a canoe with something on board would require two spaces?
–When a canoe is unloaded, does it regain the cargo it was originally carrying? (As currently worded, it does not.)
–Does the restriction on canoe actions apply in any way to this (specifically loading/unloading)?
–Can the canoes be given actions immediately after being unloaded?It doesn’t seem particularly OP or anything, aside from it allowing for weird non-thematic situations where a ship (or string of ships) would keep loading and unloading the canoes in a chain of some sort. Beyond that, I’m failing to see a good purpose for it beyond briefly protecting the canoes from normal attacks. The ship with this ability would have to be significantly faster than the canoes being loaded to make up for the time lost and hassle of loading and unloading them.
I have several of the ships (the models were excellent), but have never actually played it.
It’s been years since I read the rules, but it always sounded overly simplistic. Move between a couple different zones, and play cards for their effects. The cool models were entirely superfluous, and could have been replaced entirely with tokens or cards that showed the same info. Their physical shapes/sizes and positions within the zones meant nothing, unlike the way the ships are used in Pirates or the much more recent X-Wing Miniatures game.
As it is though, I think multiple Chieftains can be used at once in a game. If they were all transferred to the same ship, would there be any kind of problem with stacking?
That’s perfectly legal, as long as the ship has room for them.
You could even unload all but one to your home island or some other “safe” place without penalty.
(At least until something happens to your one active Chieftain, then you’ll need to pull one of the others off the bench to regain full use of your canoes.)Does the action limit apply to a Treasure Ship’s ability to move after loading treasure? So if a treasure ship uses an ability to gain a second action, then uses it to explore, can it now move S away per the Treasure Ship ability?
What you’re outlining seems to be legal. The movement is a free action if I recall correctly, which would not apply to the action limit. Now, you wouldn’t be able to give your treasure ship a move action after using the loading/unloading movement ability. As per your example, you’ve already given the ship two actions.
It depends on the wording of the ability.
If it grants a move action, the action limit will apply.
When it just provides a segment or two, like Treasure Ship‘s “move S after loading or unloading” it does not count as a move action, and is not affected by the limit.
I have an idea for an ability, but I want to ask a question first. An ability that specifically allowed for crew stacking; would that break the game? If not, about how many points would said ability be worth?
A general ability that allowed others to stack is just begging to be abused. I don’t think it would work at any price, at least not without causing all sorts of problems.
An individual ability that can stack with itself would be okay in theory. Whether or not it will break the game depends on what the rest of the ability does.
There’s a lot to unpack here…
Lighthouse: Building lighthouses follows the conditions for building forts. Gold used to build lighthouses are placed next to the lighthouse and still count towards a player total. Once destroyed the gold remains on the island. The light emitted from the lighthouse has a range of L+L measured from the base of the tower. This is represented by the light yellow plastic placed under the lighthouse. The light emitted from the lighthouse follows the rules for Trade Currents. A single hit is required to eliminate the lighthouse flag. Once a lighthouse loses its flag it is no longer operational. An additional hit destroys the lighthouse and is removed from the island. Lighthouses cannot repair but a ship within it’s radius can give up its turn for that round and conduct a repair action on the lighthouse. Enemy ships may capture a lighthouse by repairing it on their turn. Faction specific abilities and bonuses remain the same and do not benefit it’s owner of another faction. Enemy ships may dock and load treasure from island with lighthouses built on them. Crew held within the lighthouse are protected from capture as long as the lighthouse is operation.
A lot of this is duplicating the Fort rules. You could simplify this quite a bit by treating this fully as a fort, just with a different shape and some extra effects. All you really need to list are the things different from normal forts: the details on the light, and the repair/capture options.
Is the “yellow plastic” a large ring/circle around the entire area, or is it just a beam that can be moved?
The effects of being “no longer operational” should be spelled out more clearly. What, specifically stops working? Just the light and the crew protection? Are other abilities of the Lighthouse affected in any way?
The repair rules sound like they’re meant to be simple, but the wording is anything but. If you stick with the standard fort rules, you can trim it down to something more like this: “Any ship within [range*] of a non-operational Lighthouse may use its action for the turn to repair the Lighthouse. If it was an opposing Lighthouse, it becomes part of the repairing player’s fleet.”
*Range should be clearly defined, rather than referring to a separate part of the ability. Repairing from L+L away seems excessive if that was the intent anyway. Cutting it down to S, or even requiring the ship to be docked would be more thematic.The crew protection seems largely pointless, given how fragile the Lighthouses are. Any ship with a captain could cruise up to the island, fire off a quick shot while docking, then immediately grab whatever crew it wanted.
The Obelisk
Faction: Mercenary
Gold cost: 2
Masts: 1
Cargo: 1Ability: Lighthouse, When Nemo’s Plans are loaded into this lighthouse the owner of this lighthouse may choose to eliminate Nemo’s Plans from the game. On the turn that player eliminates Nemo’s Plans they may pick any ship in play to sink and eliminate from the game.
This looks extremely broken. Mermaids-level broken, or even worse.
Being reliant on Nemo’s Plans being in the game is a non-factor, because any player that brings this Lighthouse along with even the slightest hope of using the effect is going to toss Nemo’s Plans into the UT pool. Or, they’ll make sure to include one of the Mysterious Islands that can farm for it.
Once you have the Plans, there’s no real defense because you could have the ship with it drop the Lighthouse and then immediately nuke an opposing ship. Jailhouse Dog and the handful of other things that eliminate or steal UTs are much too few and far between to count on as effective defensive measures.
Choosing whether to use Nemo’s Plans for this effect is barely an issue either. If you’ve got some other recyclable UTs already in hand that are worth more to you than an instant kill you can keep using them instead; if you don’t, the choice is easy. Much more likely, you recycle them a couple times while you’re on the way to this Lighthouse (or an island where you can build it), then you nuke the opposing ship when you arrive.
————————-
Possible fixes: For starters, the effect absolutely should not be able to reach beyond the lighthouse’s range if it’s going to stay this powerful. That makes it risky for other players to stray too close, and makes it less likely this becomes a surprise cruise missile that can hit from the far end of the table.Instead of an instant kill, make it do a set level of damage. Eliminating all masts on the target would make it highly dangerous without being game-crippling. Doing X-amount of damage (3 or 4, at most) could make it an instant kill against smaller ships, while larger, more valuable ones could survive the hit unless they were already damaged.
Instead of doing damage at all, something that tied in with the fact that it uses Nemo’s Plans specifically could be a lot more interesting. Maybe it could wipe out all revealed UTs on opposing ships? You could even tone that down while making it much more useable in general by having it do a 1:1 hit. You eliminate any UT on a ship docked at the Obelisk to remove any other UT in play.
Can’t really argue too much with the list.
I probably wouldn’t have included Tsai, despite how ubiquitous Sac-captains became, because he’s really only useful to the nations that don’t have a Sac of their own and/or don’t have other reliable sources of extra actions. The nations that already have one of their own aren’t going to bother with Tsai unless they’re going in with a fleet large enough to support multiples.
La Monarca would have made my list, or at least would have been a high-level honorable mention. It’s a little pricier for a runner, but its built-in speed can’t be beat without help from other abilities, the little push-off it gets adds up over time, it’s got plenty of space to haul things, and with a spare mast it can survive getting popped by Odin’s Revenge or rammed by an opposing runner.
American Canoes over Zeus for sure. It’s a big scary ship that’s horribly underpriced, but it’s still a single basket of eggs. The canoes can scatter in five directions, and are quick enough that even without chaining them, they can pull in a lot of gold before an opponent hunts them all down.
If Fear on a nearby ship hit that same Sea Monster with a 5 roll, that would theoretically release that pinned ship correct? (since then the Sea Monster would be pinned instead with the keyword cancelled) If that happened, would the ship become pinned again once the effect of Fear subsided if the Sea Monster didn’t move away and regained the use of the Sea Monster keyword?
This works the same as when a normal ship is pinning another, becomes derelict, then gets repaired while still touching the opposing ship’s bow. (Repairs cannot cause pins.)
When Sea Monster is shut down by Fear it breaks the pin. When the ability comes back the following turn, it does not re-pin the other ship unless the Sea Monster rams again. Un-canceling an ability cannot cause a pin.
This must have been answered before but I can’t find full confirmation in the Code. If a Sea Monster does not have sufficient cargo space and wins a boarding party, can it eliminate a non-Unique Treasure from the enemy ship?
No, it only gets the eliminate effect for UTs. If it doesn’t have space, it can’t touch non-uniques.
Suppose a derelict is still pinned to the Sea Monster that rammed it. Can a separate enemy ship initiate a tow while the ship is still pinned to the monster?
Being pinned restricts movement, which includes the movement caused by towing, so the Sea Monster has to release it first.
Wrecks block lines of fire, correct?
I don’t think it actually specifies one way or the other anywhere in the rules, but the fact that the ship remains in play after sinking means that the LOS blocking rule should still apply to it.
Awesome, thanks Woelf! Interesting that a submerged ship with that ability could shoot through a nearby submerged ship to shoot at another submerged ship.
I think the most logical way to look at it is to assume that the torpedoes or whatever else is being used to make the attack needs to travel at or near the surface, so the middle ship on the surface will be in the way. When the middle ship is submerged and not directly engaged in the attack, you can assume it’s deep enough to be out of the potential path of those torpedoes.
It breaks down somewhat when the attacker and the target are both submerged, but maybe the same surface-travel limitations on the weapons could still apply even if the ships themselves can go deeper.Of course, then there are the sea monsters that can attack submerged ships…
19. Nova
Ability: Schooner. This ship may dock at any upgraded island, and swap any number of coins from her cargo, with the same number of coins from that island. If possible, this ship must leave on her next turn.
You may have mentioned it on a previous page, but what’s an “upgraded” island? Fort? Home Island? Something else specific to this set?
20. Doom Viper
Points: 12Ability: This ship cannot carry crew. Once, at the beginning of each of your turns, eliminate one crew from each ship within S of this ship.
This is going to be a mess on the first turn of the game, unless your home island is large enough (or your fleet is small enough) that you can park all of your other ships more than S away from this one. It should explicitly not be able to target Ransom crew on your own ships (particularly the 0LR+5 kind), so you can’t intentionally burn them away on the first turn simply by not having any other crew on the same ship.
Those issues aside, this ability is much like Fear in that it sounds really impressive, but wouldn’t actually be very effective in a game. It suffers from the exact same timing and range problems that makes Fear horrifically overpriced, at least as far as WK-created items go. It’s too easy for opposing ships to attack this ship, or to simply move out of range before the effect hits them.
As written, the price could safely come down several points.
Maximum Gunpowder
Equipment
Point Cost: 2
Ability: If the cannons of this ship’s lines of fire are in range of more than one enemy ship, on a 6 you may eliminate one cargo from the further enemy ship in addition to any damage dealt to the closer ship. When using this ability, if a cannon roll is a 1 remove this equipment from the game and eliminate a mast from this ship.If I’m reading this correctly, the intent is an ability like Asesino/Kian Ng, but where the cargo loss happens to a second ship instead of the first one hit?
That seems needlessly complicated and not particularly thematic, but maybe text like this would work…During a shoot action, when drawing a line of fire to an opposing ship, continue that line of fire to see if it can touch an additional opposing ship within range. If it does, on a roll of 6 eliminate one cargo from that second ship after doing normal damage to the target ship. On any cannon roll of 1, eliminate that cannon and remove this equipment from the game.
Consider a scenario like this with all 3 ships lined up:
[Submerged submarine][Surfaced submarine][Enemy ship on the surface]
I assume that if the submerged sub shoots at the ship on the surface with a Marine, the surfaced submarine blocks that line of fire?
(not what happened in CG2, just curious)
Perhaps a better question would be if Cadara or Shaihulud (This sea monster can attack submerged submarines) can use their ability in a similar scenario – to shoot at a submerged enemy from underwater, underneath a surfaced ship that theoretically shouldn’t be in the way. [submerged][surfaced][submerged] (like a “direct torpedo attack”, from one submerged entity to another while passing underneath an unsuspecting ship above them)
Submerged ships won’t block lines of fire, but that effect doesn’t apply backward to non-submerged ships nearby.
In both scenarios, (sub/non-sub/non-sub or sub/non-sub/sub) that middle ship would block the shot to the one on the right because it’s on the surface, where normal blocking rules apply.
If the middle ship was submerged, any combination of submerged and non-submerged ships on the outsides would work.
This has probably already been talked about…
I assume an “action canceller” wouldn’t work? Just by definition it sounds too broken. Trying to make it as “fair” as possible: “Once per round during an opponent’s turn, you may cancel one action taken by any ship within S of this ship. The controller of that ship may choose to give the ship a different action, if able.”
That way your opponent could move if you cancelled their shoot action. In that case however, a Captain would circumvent that, because the shoot is considered part of the move.
The reason I thought about this is because I’ve run into a lot of game situations where cancellers become less valuable once there’s a close quarters battle area with a ton of shots flying on both sides. Eventually your non-canceller enemies can just sit there and shoot, at which point the cancellers are less effective than usual, hence the idea of an action canceller. (I’ve literally thought to myself “cancellers can’t cancel shoot actions” many a time during campaign games)
There was a ship in the unreleased RtSS that kinda did something like this, by preventing a shot from being made.
With some careful wording it could probably be made to work, but no matter how well it was devised it would inevitably become a nightmare of an entry in the Pirate Code, just on timing issues alone.
I think the most important aspect is that the effect would have to be applied before any actions were given to the target ship. Anything like that hitting in the middle of an action is begging for problems.
I always tried to get complete sets, or at least as close to that as possible without spending a fortune on eBay or wherever for specific items. Trading took care of most of the regular set stuff, and any extras like LE/SE/promo items were always targets of opportunity that I’d try to get when possible, but wouldn’t worry too much about if they were too hard to come by. I never saw a need to keep more than one copy of any given named item, and only kept duplicates around for trading purposes. However, I always did make sure to have a few extra copies of each type of generic crew for every faction, especially for the nations that only appeared in one or two sets.
By the time I stopped actively buying/trading, my overall collection was up to around 95% complete. There are only a handful of things from the first few and the last few sets missing, maybe a third of the PotC set that I don’t have, and of course some of the high-end ultra rare/expensive things like Chum Maker.
The way Red Dragon’s ability is currently written (“This ship may shoot at pirate ships.”), it doesn’t actually do anything. The ship can already shoot at Pirate ships normally, so it’s a nothing ability like that extra text that was added to Pride and Julius Caesar in one of the REV reprints. It won’t allow you to attack friendly ships unless that option is explicitly stated.
That being said, I don’t think there’s any need for purposeful friendly fire at all, even if it is intended only for flavor reasons. There are currently only a handful of very specific ways to create a suicide fleet and they’re relatively easy to see coming, but no matter how it’s done, it always ends up being extremely “gamey” because of how the standard rules for ending the game and determining victory work. Any added flavor intended by an ability that makes it easier to pull off is destroyed many times over by the non-flavorful game abuse it would invite.
Friendly fire as something that can happen accidentally could be really interesting, especially if it’s a general rule rather than an ability. For example, maybe any time you rolled a 1, if your cannon was within range of a friendly ship you’d have to roll it again to see if you hit that friendly instead.
Does the first or last line of text take precedence? The first line seems to indicate that a ship only has the abilities printed on it’s deckplate, and if the Galley keyword is not part of that text then it doesn’t have the abilities of a Galley. The last line seems to indicate that it could still be treated like a Galley, even if the Keyword isn’t on the deckplate, since it’s built like a Galley.
Simply put, play them as printed, unless it’s noted otherwise in the errata section.
Don’t assume that a ship has a keyword just because of its physical design, and don’t assume a ship cannot (or should not) have a keyword because it’s some other design. “Mismatched” ships like that are few and far between, but examples do exist that cover both possibilities.
@woelf: Strictly as a matter of opinion, do you think that ships should be able to tow other friendly ships that are dismasted but have oarsmen?
With the Oarsman keyword as it stands now, it sounds like that would be illegal since the rules say you can only tow derelicts. However, I think having the option of using the oars is more realistic. I’m rereading the BR’s for CG1 and I think some of the English ships did more towing than rowing.
I don’t think that would change things too much to allow that. The normal towing reduction pulls the towing ship down to the speed of an Oasman anyway, so it’s mostly a matter of slowing down two ships at once versus just one. Other movement abilities can make up the difference, but the majority of those work the same whether towing or rowing.
I also wish you could scuttle with no masts remaining, regardless of technical derelict status.
I never liked the scuttle rules at all. It always felt like a Band-Aid intended to avoid a few gamey situations.
If you wanted to make it actually realistic, it would be allowed at any time regardless of the status of the ship, but that would create more problems than it would solve. In this case, allowing it only when derelict (with no Oarsman) is better because it still gives opposing players a chance to prevent the scuttle and take the ship. If that can’t be prevented by towing/capturing, it’s basically a free option to nuke your ships at will with little to no penalty.
Back when I still played regularly, about the only consistent thing when setting up fleets was that I’d always try to use only a single nation at a time.
Beyond that, I always made an effort to do something completely different every time. One game might be a treasure-oriented Spanish fleet, the next a battle-focused English fleet, and the one after that a smash & grab Corsair fleet. Other times, I’d build everything around some crazy gimmick and figure out a way to make it still work.
Did something go wrong with Event costs?
I get it that most of them suck, but other than Divers, Raft, and Rolling Fog, the adjusted costs are so high that they’re far beyond playable – Mermaids especially.
Changing abilities to improve balance wasn’t the goal of this recosting at all, but in the case of most of those Events, that’s the right way to fix them, not pricing them out of the game.
The thing with the Ryuk’s ability, is that the ability text of the crew you’re going to eliminate has to match exactly with the crew that’s going to be sacrificed on the Ryuk.
[Additional explanation/examples]By now I know that the Ryuk’s ability is probably understood, but I just want to put this out there so there’s no question about it.
If the ability is still confusing in any way, for the sake of time and releasing the rest of the set, I can skip the Ryuk and come back to her after the rest of Eldest Seas has been posted.
-Darkhurst
That does help clarify the intent of the ability, thanks.
It’s good that it can’t destroy unequal crew values, although it still seems like something that could be easily broken in high-point games. For example, in a 100-point game you could get away with investing 25-30 points into that ship plus an assortment of generic crew on your home island while still having more than enough left over to build a solid fleet of your own. You’ll be a little short-handed initially, but once you’ve picked off a few essential crew from opposing ships things could rapidly swing in your favor.
As part of a custom set, it’s probably fine as-is. It’s not as breakable as something like Captain Jack Sparrow, but would still sit pretty high on the list if it were to appear in an official WK set.
Not sure when I’ll have time to really dig deep into the list, but after talking about for so long, I’m glad you were able to get it all written down. Well done!
One initial thought – I think it would be really helpful to have an additional column next to your revised costs showing the original WK point values, to make it a lot easier to see the adjustments in context and make useful comparisons.
At the very least, it would be good to have that on the Information page for the individual abilities, because most people aren’t going to know the original costs off the top of their heads, and it’s cumbersome to have to switch back and forth between multiple files/spreadsheets.Suppose the ability was changed to either match or resemble the ability of The Kraken, or Cursed Captain Jack. Would it be less broken then?
It would be less broken, but could still get ugly on turns when the roll hit – and rerollers would make it that much more dangerous.
@Jonathan Bowen
Agramon
Points:
Ability: Eternal. Once per turn, pick one ship with in L/S of this ship. That ship’s crew cannot use their abilities for this turn.Did you have an estimate for this ability cost? Anything less than double digits would be too low, considering it’s worth more than two standard cancelers.
13. Ryuk
Points: 16
Ability: Once per turn, give this ship a move action, but do not move her. Instead, select one crew assigned to this ship, and one crew with the same ability on any other ship in play. Both crew are eliminated from the game.This may work in a standard game where the 40-point total is a limiting factor, but as soon as that increases this becomes a problem, and it gets progressively worse the higher the total gets. It would be really easy to leave this parked at your home island with a stack of assorted crew on the island, waiting to pick off whatever will be most damaging to an opponent. It’s essentially a super Duel that doesn’t care about points or die rolls, and can be reused until you run out of crew or targets.
Basing it on abilities* is especially problematic for the named crew with multiple common abilities. A 5-point Captain+Helmsman can be taken out by a 2-point generic Helmsman, a 10-pointer like Barbarossa or Dragon Eyes can be taken out for only 3, or a cargo-adder like Bianco can be taken out by an Oarsman – and there’s no way to prevent any of it.
*The same rules used for the no-stacking rule would apply. Abilities that are functionally the same are considered the same, even if the text is slightly different.
Crew within S+S of this ship cannot use their abilities. (this ship’s crew are unaffected by this ability)
I’m pretty sure Woelf said that an L-canceller is broken, and shouldn’t exist. And that is for the regular canceller ability where you choose one crew or ship ability. This does all crew?
This extremely broken, at any price.
That bubble of protection makes it virtually impossible for another ship to ever hit it first, and there’s almost no way to counteract it. Captains, cancelers, and action generators are gone before they get close enough to do anything. A range extender is pretty much the only way to get a shot, but most ship-based ones are horribly inaccurate (requiring a 6 to hit), and the only reliable way to get Extended Range is to bring a gunzebo. No ability should ever require one or two specific gamepieces to counter it.
