TOPIC: "Super Combo" Relic Token Ideas

Jeff mentioned on another thread that he might replace the Artifacts that are auctioned off the last two years and next year with "Relic Tokens" that will be more like Super-Combo Tokens available to anyone that has the recipe as a reward for the people that buy a LOT of tokens. He said he might offer three per year, and they'd only be available that one year and never again.

Ingredients for the Relics could include all the Trade Item Tokens including Argonite, tons of GP, maybe lots of Rares and Uncommons from that year's set, etc. Hopefully it wouldn't include the Trade Item Token for Monster Trophy Tokens, as that is kind of separate from token buying.

I thought I'd start a thread where people can list ideas for cool Relic Tokens that Jeff might use.

I'll start the brainstorming with a few ideas:

1. +3 Weapons,

2. A Flying Carpet

3. A Djinn's Lamp that grants 3 Wishes (maybe the Djinn's Wishes will be less powerful than the regular Wish)

4. Orb of Life (three uses, brings you back to life at full HP)

5. Deck of Many Things (maybe 20 possible effects, decided by rolling the 20 sided die)

Personally, I prefer the auction approach that makes the Relics more unique, as opposed to the Super Combo possibility. You can have a fixed amount available for auction.

It's easier for TD, because they know exactly how many they need to print, as opposed to guessing for the Super Combos. Either you underprint, resulting in complaints, or you overprint (which can be wasteful).

Plus, with the Super Combo idea, it's hard to figure out the right bar. How much should a player need to buy in order to create a Relic? $500? $1000? $2000? $8000? More? It also kind of diminishes the specialness of relics if someone can easily make a dozen of each one!

Combos are fun, but it gets hectic and stressful trying to get all the ingredients. Plus, every year there always ends up being a few "chase" tokens that *everyone* is looking for.

Keeping them auction-oriented allows GP to continue to be valuable, and provides an additional outlet to drain GP from the economy.

Mike Steele wrote: Jeff mentioned on another thread that he might replace the Artifacts that are auctioned off the last two years and next year with "Relic Tokens" that will be more like Super-Combo Tokens available to anyone that has the recipe as a reward for the people that buy a LOT of tokens. He said he might offer three per year, and they'd only be available that one year and never again.

But if these are combo items, just really advanced ones, how are they going to be limited? You have to win the auction and then still combo them?

Ingredients for the Relics could include all the Trade Item Tokens including Argonite, tons of GP, maybe lots of Rares and Uncommons from that year's set, etc. Hopefully it wouldn't include the Trade Item Token for Monster Trophy Tokens, as that is kind of separate from token buying.

I think the combos still need to make sense. Like no Silk or Munitioner's Stock (was that the final name) for melee weapons.

I thought I'd start a thread where people can list ideas for cool Relic Tokens that Jeff might use.

I'll start the brainstorming with a few ideas:

1. +3 Weapons,

2. A Flying Carpet

3. A Djinn's Lamp that grants 3 Wishes (maybe the Djinn's Wishes will be less powerful than the regular Wish)

4. Orb of Life (three uses, brings you back to life at full HP)

5. Deck of Many Things (maybe 20 possible effects, decided by rolling the 20 sided die)

I'm not sure a vanilla +3 weapon compares to the rest of these, nor is it much better than this year's crop of URs. And weren't the TD crew trying very hard to pull flight, because it is so hard to DM.

How about:

+3 Long Sword, Fate Cutter: Criticals on 19 & 20, can critical hit monsters normally immune to criticals on 20 (only).

+3 Battle Axe of Resonance: If a runestone is used to increase the damage of this weapon, it does +2 damage of that type.

Of course this also puts the Relics in only a very few TD players hands, and oh yea, those hands just happen to be the same hands that already have the artifacts. I like that we want to keep the gold value, I love trading it away, but we also need to be looking out for the majority of the TD players that can't drop 10000 dollars on tokens each year. I know big token buyers bring a lot of money into TD, but everyone who buys a ticket does too. Anyway, I just wanted to chip in my 2 copper pieces worth.

Incognito wrote: Personally, I prefer the auction approach that makes the Relics more unique, as opposed to the Super Combo possibility. You can have a fixed amount available for auction.

It's easier for TD, because they know exactly how many they need to print, as opposed to guessing for the Super Combos. Either you underprint, resulting in complaints, or you overprint (which can be wasteful).

Plus, with the Super Combo idea, it's hard to figure out the right bar. How much should a player need to buy in order to create a Relic? $500? $1000? $2000? $8000? More? It also kind of diminishes the specialness of relics if someone can easily make a dozen of each one!

Combos are fun, but it gets hectic and stressful trying to get all the ingredients. Plus, every year there always ends up being a few "chase" tokens that *everyone* is looking for.

Keeping them auction-oriented allows GP to continue to be valuable, and provides an additional outlet to drain GP from the economy.

I'd think the GP needed would be in the 15K - 20K or more range each, and when you add in maybe needing an Argonite, Oil of Enchantment, etc. - it still keeps them pretty exclusive. And, even if only 20 were traded for at the 15K GP level, that would still take as much GP out of the system as the two Artifact Tokens last year. And if 10 of each of the 3 were traded for it would be a 50% increase on GP from last year - so it would definitely keep the value of GP up (and increase the value of the Trade Item Tokens).

In my opinion this is a great way to help maintain the balance of the game. Having 30 less powerful Relic Tokens spread across a couple of dozen players has much more game balance than a couple of super-powerful Artifact Tokens held by just a couple of people. It also keeps more Token Buyers happy - anyone who is a big token buyer would be able to afford at least one or two of the Relic Tokens, whereas only the few people that spend the most on tokens (or gather GP from other means) can get the Artifact Tokens.

Incognito wrote: Personally, I prefer the auction approach that makes the Relics more unique, as opposed to the Super Combo possibility. You can have a fixed amount available for auction.

It's easier for TD, because they know exactly how many they need to print, as opposed to guessing for the Super Combos. Either you underprint, resulting in complaints, or you overprint (which can be wasteful).

That was the impression I got the first time Jeff mentioned them: That Relics would be up for bidding at the auction instead of making them as combos. I had envisioned something similar to the Arcane Recipe bidding, but with, say, 20 Relics available. Everyone who wants the "Rod of Sonic Boom" stands up, and when the price gets higher than they can afford, they sit down. Last 20 standing get to buy one. Then we do the bidding for the "Vorpal Sword". Then we do the bidding for the "Cloak of Wonders".... etc.

Letting people know what Relics were available beforehand would let them gauge whether to save all their gold for this year's auction, or try to win a token next year.


But as for cool relic ideas (which was the topic of this thread) here's some I'd like to see:

- Rogue's Spectacles <-- can automatically see Secret doors, without needing to use "Detect secret doors" potion.

- Helm of Enragement <-- If the wearer invokes their Helm, the monster automatically attacks them doing 10 points damage, but will not attack other party members that round (so no fireballs, deathrays, multiple attacks, etc). May only be used once/encounter.

- Ring of Second Chances <-- Player may take a mulligan when answering the riddle or guessing a puzzle's answer. Might need to be a 3-charge item.

This is from Jeff's earlier post in the other thread, which shows he was thinking of doing a combo item instead of auction - which I agree with completely. Due to the smaller number of people at the auctions, I have a feeling if you auctioned off 20 of each, waiting until only 20 people were standing, they would actually go for a fairly low amount. They'd go for a lot more as super-combo tokens, in my opinion.

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Finally, one other idea I had was to make these Relics really just super-Combo items where we would print up a bunch of each of them, and list a GP and Trade item price for each. Three would be made available each year (and only one year). They would be pretty expensive, but you could get multiple ones if you wish. Again, the power will be less than the Artifacts -- more like a step-up from URs. It would be a nice thank you for all the big token collectors.

Mike Steele wrote: This is from Jeff's earlier post in the other thread, which shows he was thinking of doing a combo item instead of auction - which I agree with completely. Due to the smaller number of people at the auctions, I have a feeling if you auctioned off 20 of each, waiting until only 20 people were standing, they would actually go for a fairly low amount. They'd go for a lot more as super-combo tokens, in my opinion.

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Finally, one other idea I had was to make these Relics really just super-Combo items where we would print up a bunch of each of them, and list a GP and Trade item price for each. Three would be made available each year (and only one year). They would be pretty expensive, but you could get multiple ones if you wish. Again, the power will be less than the Artifacts -- more like a step-up from URs. It would be a nice thank you for all the big token collectors.

Given and understanding that's the intended approach, something in the 20k gold range, plus rare ingredients, seems pretty high in price.

Oh, I was just speculating on the price, I don't have any inside knowledge of what Relic Tokens might be or what they might be priced at. Hopefully they will be priced so that as a whole they will take at least as much GP out of the system as the Artifact Tokens are doing, and that people won't be able to go out and trade for a dozen of each.

Here is all we really know about Relics at the moment (if anyone knows of other posts from Admin on the subject, please quote as well), and it is probably worth mentioning that all this appears to still be in the concept phase for 2012. But this is a neat idea,and I'm excited to think there many be more higher powered items available to a wider audience.

Jeff Martin wrote: This new group of powerful magic items would be called "Relics" so that they would be different than the "Artifacts". They would be less powerful and only affect one player.
I am thinking of something like a "+2 Vorpal Sword" that kills any "critical-able" monster if the player slides a natural "20" or "+3 Plate Armor" or a "Staff of the Magi" that allows unlimited spell use of 0-2nd level spells.
...
Finally, one other idea I had was to make these Relics really just super-Combo items where we would print up a bunch of each of them, and list a GP and Trade item price for each. Three would be made available each year (and only one year). They would be pretty expensive, but you could get multiple ones if you wish. Again, the power will be less than the Artifacts -- more like a step-up from URs. It would be a nice thank you for all the big token collectors.

And lots of personal speculation follows:

Since we're far beyond the days of three color rarity, I'm guess "power" rankings to be as follows:

1. Artifact
2. Eldritch
3. Relic
4. URs & 4c Combo Items
5. 2-3c Combo Items
6. Rare
7. 1c Combo Items
8. Uncommon
9. Common

As to the value of Relics, I'd value the examples:
"Staff of the Magi" as worth maybe twice (or in the range of 2-3) times an UR, with a UR worth about 4,000gp. Figure a straight 10,000gp for this one?
"+2 Vorpal Sword"- 7,500gp?
"+3 Plate Armor"- 6,000gp?

Of course, I'm guessing Relics be like last year's "Trade Item Combo Tokens" so part of the gp cost would be in trade items (Oil of Enchantments and the like).

WaterSomePlants wrote:
As to the value of Relics, I'd value the examples:
"Staff of the Magi" as worth maybe twice (or in the range of 2-3) times an UR, with a UR worth about 4,000gp. Figure a straight 10,000gp for this one?
"+2 Vorpal Sword"- 7,500gp?
"+3 Plate Armor"- 6,000gp?

Of course, I'm guessing Relics be like last year's "Trade Item Combo Tokens" so part of the gp cost would be in trade items (Oil of Enchantments and the like).

I don't think that Jeff and TD in general can think of these in purely GP value. Currently some of the Trophies are worth 400 gp and some are worth 100 gp, depending on the year they were made. They will naturally fluctuate in gp value. As people have been asking for a way to use earlier trophies, I would bet we see a couple used from past years in the recipes.

I think it is just better for tPtB to take x gp from each artifact, and whatever trade tokens, trophies, and other items they want to pull out of the economy.

darkangel866 wrote: I don't think that Jeff and TD in general can think of these in purely GP value.

Just thinking of what I'd be willing to spend.

You might be willing to spend more! Or less!