mqs' custom heroes

[mqstout]

Let me know your thoughts (they're not play tested).

(BTW, "We hereby grant blah blah blah FFP full rights to use our card ideas (the pictures were stolen from Google Image Search). We retain no rights to them blah blah blah and expect no payments nor credits of any kind blah blah blah.")

[deadrabbit]

the pictures look awesome, but i think if you play some of them youell find out they wont work very well

with the dumpster lady, id say get rid of either immune or iron gut, becuase haveing both of those is gonig to make her very hard to kill. maybe you could make her immune to the heavy rain card. just an idea.

with the car burglar his klepto ability if used smartly will be very over powered. say you went into abuilding got the free search, fight a zombie, and repeat this every turn even if you dont need to move but just do it to get the search. you would have so much stuff, if you change the text of the ability to the first time you enter this building you may get a free search or something on the line of that it would be less amazing.

the other one seems pretty good, she will be a good source of getting other students doubles

[mqstout]

Thanks for the feedback, deadrabbit. Like I said, we just made them but haven't playtested them (yet!).

deadrabbit Wrote:with the dumpster lady, id say get rid of either immune or iron gut, becuase haveing both of those is gonig to make her very hard to kill. maybe you could make her immune to the heavy rain card. just an idea.

We originally had her with only 2 wounds, but we did not want to break the convention that only students have that. I also wanted to have a drawback on her that she cannot herd zombies around ("immune to the hunger"), but it wouldn't fit. She is quite likely to change once I figure out how, though Iron Gut is probably going to change/go away. I think that searching outside is strong enough on its own.

deadrabbit Wrote:with the car burglar his klepto ability if used smartly will be very over powered. say you went into abuilding got the free search, fight a zombie, and repeat this every turn even if you dont need to move but just do it to get the search. you would have so much stuff, if you change the text of the ability to the first time you enter this building you may get a free search or something on the line of that it would be less amazing.

This does eat through the deck, and eliminates precious event cards (which do not so easily get picked back up like items do). His move through wall ability also breaks hand weapons with a 1-in-3 chance if used. Is it clear that this is separate from whatever break ability is on a weapon, so even things like the Meat Cleaver, if used to move through a wall, can break?

[Tommy Brownell]

Conceptually, I like. Especially the first two. No idea how they would play out, but I get what you were going for, and for the Bag Lady and Cat Burglar that's really rather cool.

[zenmazster]

Wow awesome, I'm gonna play test these this weekend! Thanks very much, awesome!

[mqstout]

Ryuk, if she wins a fight with a zombie, but did not kill it, she can choose to fight it again. If she does, for that fight, she gets one less fight dice than she otherwise would have gotten. (Assuming no items or events on her, she'd get 1 instead of 2 fight dice, for example.)

[Grudunza]

I just noticed these and I think they're some of the best custom Heroes I've come across. I would definitely use these in my games. Not that they're perfect or ready to play, necessarily, and there are some typo corrections and wording clarifications needed. But there are some really great abilities, I think, and the characters seem very much in line with the existing LNOE world. Excellent job!

For the Bag Lady, I would remove the Immune ability. I love that as a special ability, but it's too much for her to have along with everything else. I think Iron Gut needs to be there to make her Dumpster Dive more valuable... if she doesn't have some means of healing wounds once in a while, then she'll use Dumpster Dive once, maybe twice in a game.

For the Cat Burgler's Break-In ability, I would have the Hand Weapon break only on a 1. Hand Weapons can be very valuable to have and his ability isn't really worth using if you're more likely to lose a Hand Weapon in the process. And in that case, I would remove the Kleptomania thing, or else give it some limitation, as someone else suggested... How about this: "KLEPTOMANIA: When Searching, he always discards any Events drawn." I think that's fitting for a kleptomaniac, that they only care about stealing something, and it's sort of a plus/minus ability... yes, you can always get an Item, but you might miss out on some great events, and the Item you get might end up being something that's not that useful.

Or, another idea for the Break-In ability would be to have it function like Barricades, as in: "BREAK-IN: May spend one Movement Point to pass through any wall space on the roll of 4+." The thing is, some criminals wouldn't need an item to break in or out of the average building, so that wouldn't require him to have a Hand Weapon. Those can be hard to come by (like in every game I've played so far with Victor!). But the ability still has some limitation, in that he needs to spend a Movement Point to make the attempt, and has a 50/50 chance of succeeding.

Melanie is perfect exactly as is, I think, and so is Joan, though 4 wounds is a bit much. How about giving Joan 3 wounds and adding that Immune ability to her? I think that might be a good fit.

[mqstout]

Thanks for the feedback, Grudunza. The Immune ability is on the Bag Lady to go along with Iron Gut for the thematics that she eats the zeds and is, thus, immune to the zombie-spreading whatever. In that case, I let flavor trump balance/mechanics.

Updated:

* Florabelle: Iron Gut now only heals when she kills the zombie in a fight (not ranged). I removed her Immune ability.
* Jim Wilson: Kleptomania has been totally reworked. Break-In now works with any weapon instead of just a hand weapon and breaks less frequently.
* Melanie: Fixed typo in Determined. Changed numerals to text "one" like on Jenny. Added "Teacher" keyword.
* Joan: Changed wording; no functional change. (Stacy shows that they will use "If she verbs...")

New Heroes!
* Agent Williams: I made her just for the Immune ability I yanked of Florabelle.
* Ronald Smith: New hero! What keyword should he have? Based off "immune to movement penalties" concept.
* George: I started him with the "carry extra item" idea yanked off Jim Wilson. Needs text work.
* Gracie: Seriously, is she balanced enough? I think the randomness is sufficient. If anything, she's probably weak.

Possible alternate wording for Jim Wilson's Kleptomania:
* May give up a Move Action to reveal Top Hero Cards and take First Item. Discard the rest. (Compare to Library's Pick-Up ability.)

The photos for the new heroes will have to come later. My boyfriend (the image manipulator) is at work.

[Grudunza]

mqstout Wrote:Updated:

* Florabelle: Iron Gut now only heals when she kills the zombie in a fight (not ranged). I removed her Immune ability.
* Jim Wilson: Kleptomania has been totally reworked. Break-In now works with any weapon instead of just a hand weapon and breaks less frequently.
* Melanie: Fixed typo in Determined. Changed numerals to text "one" like on Jenny. Added "Teacher" keyword.
* Joan: Changed wording; no functional change. (Stacy shows that they will use "If she verbs...")[/q]

Those are all great.

[qoute]New Heroes!
* Agent Williams: I made her just for the Immune ability I yanked of Florabelle.

I really like Immune, but she needs something else stronger than Antigen, which might only very rarely come into play (same with Immune, though it'd be more common).

Quote:* Ronald Smith: New hero! What keyword should he have? Based off "immune to movement penalties" concept.

He's far too weak, IMO. With the giant stack of Hero Cards (assuming you're playing with any expansions, but regardless), shuffling things back into the Deck isn't really something that useful. In fact, it's usually better for cards to stay in the discard pile (unless you're playing Zombie Pillage, specifically). And while We Deliver (I'd consider calling it "Neither Rain Nor Sleet") is nice, it's also a rare kind of thing that may never come into play. How about "Special Delivery: Instead of searching, may take any Item out of the Hero discard pile and place it on top of the Hero Deck." It's not that powerful, because it takes you, in essence, two searches to get one card, but you know you're gonna get something specific the next time someone searches.

Quote:* George: I started him with the "carry extra item" idea yanked off Jim Wilson. Needs text work.

Again, he seems far too weak... I wouldn't want to play him.

Quote:* Gracie: Seriously, is she balanced enough? I think the randomness is sufficient. If anything, she's probably weak.

She needs the Youthful ability and then she's fine, I think. Or better yet, give her another wound and make her an adult (who can occasionally gain the Youthful ability!)... I was just trying to think of an "actress" Hero the other day, but couldn't think of a good ability. This is perfect and by far my favorite of this group.

Quote:Possible alternate wording for Jim Wilson's Kleptomania:
* May give up a Move Action to reveal Top Hero Cards and take First Item. Discard the rest. (Compare to Library's Pick-Up ability.)

I like that his Klepto ability requires him to move from one building to another, so I wouldn't change that. It's kind of wonky, thematically speaking (why would it only take effect when going from one building to another? why not also if he enters a building from outside?) but probably necessary to limit its usefulness. Then again, the card he gets may be an Event, in which case he gets nothing...

[mqstout]

Grudunza Wrote:snip...weak...snip

They were first drafts. I already had changes planned, but I figured I'd post what I had while I searched for pictures. Again, I appreciate your good feedback. A lot of what you said agreed with my feelings. Agent Williams definitely would need the most play testing to figure out where here X+ value should be. My initial 5+ was probably conservative, as your reaction highlighted.

Updates!
* Agent Williams: Made zombies die on 3+ instead of 5+ (2/3 instead of 1/3 of the time).
Agent Smith is supposed to try to keep new zombie spawns down. Since she's at great risk, her Immune ability keeps her protected from the "sudden death" zombie cards.

* Ronald Smith: Starts with random item. Axed local hero. Added Special Delivery.
Oftentimes there's an item on one side of the board that someone desperately needs on the other. Enter Ronald Smith to move it fairly efficiently.

* George: Found a wording for Merit Badge that's what I originally wanted.
George sort of serves as a protector role. The game definitely needs the "boyscout" archetype, and I feel that his abilities suit it. A team of George and Amanda could be rather good at holding the fort. He does, however, really need a searcher on the team to fill up his backpack.

* Gracie: Managed to fit in Youth.
A lot of people have fun with big randomness. Gracie's the hero for them. While she's probably weak, because she's unpredictable -- imagine getting Father Joseph when you really need to cancel a Remains in Play and then getting a Jake when you need to search later...

My artist is working on the photos now.