Reply: Spirit Island:: Variants:: Re: Tweaks for a couple of Spirits

by gpope

AzureSparrow wrote:

That's an interesting goal I hadn't considered, it's not JUST that Shadows is too weak, it's that they basically don't function as an intro spirit denying one of the 4 options to newer players.

Shadows:
Probably too much, would settle for the 0 becoming a 1. I also find that the special rule has fairly niche application outside of what is forced by the unique powers. Ignoring range isn't actually that powerful an effect without the uniques forced synergy, because typically the limitations of range are overcome by most spirits through rapid presence placement, something everyone always wants to do as much as possible anyway. Also funny that yes, the best move to overcome it is to just sacrifice presence, which in turn makes the rule itself technically more useful because you're reducing the area you control on the island. It isn't helping reduce complexity to actually make it a beginner spirit, but I'd experiment with something like: 1 energy or for each 2 fire & 2 moon 1 free use.

Note that for a standard plays-energy-energy opening you're effectively only getting 2 extra energy over the course of the entire game. That's generally weaker than most of the aspects previewed for the upcoming expansion, none of which are remotely OP.

It does get better if you hold off on energy in favor of getting up to 3 plays faster, but I still suspect going 3 plays into majors is probably the way to go unless your first few power draws are amazing, so you're probably not going to squeeze out more than a couple extra energy.

There are a couple other issues with the special rule beyond the complexity:

1. It creates a scaling issue since ignoring range gets more valuable the larger the island is. You pay the same whether it's a solo game and basically never get more than +1 range out of it or a 4p game where you can reach across the entire island. (I suspect this may be part of the reason that there's not a stronger consensus on Shadows Flicker's power level.)

2. It's boring. The net benefit is quite small due to the cost and targeting restriction, so it's not worth using often (even if you could afford it, which you can't.) Mostly you wind up relying on Shadows Flicker's pretty decent presence tracks and feeling very generic and unimpressive.

One of the upcoming aspects is just "ignore range 1/turn", which makes Shadows more powerful and interesting on par with other spirits but exacerbates the scaling problem and is not super newbie-friendly since they have to pay attention to the whole board.

Another aspect lets you scoot your presence around multiple times during the turn, which improves your power level and is very interesting and somewhat alleviates the scaling (although it still conditionally ignores range), but is even less newbie-friendly because of how much mental overhead it takes.

A fixed range boost would fix the scaling issue, although at 1/turn it's less powerful and fun than simply ignoring range - but a small constant range boost might actually be too strong (and is also somewhat less thematic), and a conditional range boost doesn't help the complexity issue.