TOPIC: Final MEC, Mage Medallion and Arch-Mage Medallion

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Dave wrote: Once again, I step away for a few hours and come back to see things heading in a different direction. When I left, I know there were concerns around using hp as the resource, I thought Jeff expressed his thoughts for why that made sense to him. I'm not completely opposed to going in another direction, but we have a long history of tokens that impact hp which give me a lot of flexibility. I'm afraid that moving to another resource will provide very few options and we'll just end up with cookie-cutter wizards who all look the same because only a handful of tokens (at most) can impact their ability. Anyway, that's just my high level thought.

Go ahead and continue to brainstorm new ideas understanding we probably have only around 48 hours to lock this down. Was the prior proposal unworkable? Was it broken? Was it going to cause a mass flight of players from the game? Not trying to be a stop to any of this, but am trying to understand the necessity of creating a whole new dynamic in such a short period of time. In any event, appreciate all the passion people seem to have in this. I'm certain everyone is trying to do what they think is right.

The previous change to Mad Evoker's Charm would have cost the game a minimum of at least 2 Legendary level Wizards permanently as it invalidated their entire builds. It would also cost a Relic legel Bard, Monk and Rogue because I would have no reason to host token builds for my friends if I no longer play the game.


The current design is perfectly fine to me and Jeff's explanation removed any worry on my end of the design promoting self harm in any way.

That doesn't seem to be the case for Anthony but he's demanding the game change to meet his personal needs instead of just changing how he plays the game to protect the mental health of his group.

I don't agree with changing the entire game to protect 2 players from an occurrence they've so far never encountered (per his own words saying they've never run with an MEC wizard) and that can easily be protected against forever by simply not joining random groups and making sure that groups they join don't have MEC build Wizards in them. I see no reason why EVERYONE should change their gameplay and how they enjoy playing the game just to allow two people to freely join random PUG groups when they would be at no risk of triggering if they simply formed their own play groups

I don’t understand this post. You have stated that design shouldn’t be based around two peoples feelings for their interpretation of the mechanic of channeling but yet have threatened that two high lvl players will quit if you don’t get something that you like.

1 why is it that your 2 people’s feelings on the token are more important than the other two
2 why are we accepting threats of quitting to validate token design ?

BrainScan wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

BrainScan wrote: Here is a possible starting point for something that doesn't explicitly use HP as a resource but still encourages having a lot of it (if desired).

*Important Note* the numbers below are off the cuff and will probably need to be tweaked by those who are good at such things.

Wizard card change includes the following:
Mage Power: As a free action use a mage power to augment the next spell cast. Each available Mage Power may be used 1 / room. 3 boxes.
Mage Power (Empower Spell): Adds 10 points of damage to spell.

Mad Evokers Charm:
Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Can use Mage Power (Evokers Wrath): Adds 20 points of damage to spell but monster gets a free attack against caster next round (this attack cannot be avoided or negated in any way).

Relic:
As MEC. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

Legendary:
As Relic. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

This is not possible to design as the player cards are not designed yet and that change has not been made, examined or validated to not be overly strong (it's WAY too strong on the class card)

As Jeff stated in the first post

Jeff Martin wrote: Since I am going to re-do the Wizards player cards next week to basically double the spell damage, then the need for the standard MEC is quite moot.

The damage on the Wizard cards is going to increase. We HAVE to consider that as part of this token design. My perspective is that it doesn't matter if that damage comes from a literal doubling of the spell base damage or from a new ability we can use in the token design.

Design 2021 tokens so they can go to print

THEN design the Wizard card.

DO NOT try to force card changes INTO the token design and DO NOT try to change the fundamental design of what the Mad Evoker's Charm is meant to do. Leave the token core design alone.

Bob Chasan wrote: Anthony,
May I ask you a question in all seriousness and with deference?
I have played Wizard for many years. I enjoy using MEC and will probably enjoy the new Relic and Legendary. That being said:
If we were in a pick up group and anyone in your group mentioned it, I would be perfectly fine with simply giving the DM my Damage total without additional commentary.
I realize that means it’s incumbent on the person who is concerned to say something but.......,,

Would that be sufficient???

Yeah, if it was never role played and never talked about to us, just to the GM, I don’t think any of us would mind in that case.

That being said, generally the two of us are trying to play the Wizards in a party, so there is already going to be a conversation when it comes up in coaching you (or whoever) wants to play Wizard/Elf Wizard. We have certainly ceded the roles to other players when those conversations happen on some occasions and some of the times we play the Wizards (most of the times we agree to do 1 Wizard and they get 1 Wizard and we have a happy compromise). As Wizards, it will be sad for both of us to have to pass on our class legendary, and we definitely aren’t going to start to say “well, you get both Wizards just because you have 2 class legendaries”. That is definitely not okay with us just saying we always play second fiddle to people playing controversial tokens, so if that is used as a justification in the conversations of who plays which wizard, that might lead to less easy conversation than something simple like 1 for you, 1 for us.

Can someone point me to the thread where this issue of self-mutilation was brought up in the past year? Past two years? What about when it was “designed”?

Why suddenly is it an issue that if nothing more than to say...this legendary doesn’t fit the play style of a non-MEC?

Because if that is really what this is about, I have a wizard play style using wands and MoMM and I think this legendary pathway is killing the effective use of wands...which I have about 70 rare wands of all various damage types...so that As wizard I can adapt the damage types produced by the wand. As it stands now, the legendary will certainly be considered but probably not going to happen because I would rather use my wands and get a nice damage blast and save $1500 too. Oh and to the anti-consumable crowd...4 wands per run...$2 per wand...$8 total...even 100 runs and I am just over 50% of the cost albeit consumed versus “invested”...if I want investment, I will go to Robinhood.

Adam Guay wrote:

Anthony Barnstable wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

BrainScan wrote: Here is a possible starting point for something that doesn't explicitly use HP as a resource but still encourages having a lot of it (if desired).

*Important Note* the numbers below are off the cuff and will probably need to be tweaked by those who are good at such things.

Wizard card change includes the following:
Mage Power: As a free action use a mage power to augment the next spell cast. Each available Mage Power may be used 1 / room. 3 boxes.
Mage Power (Empower Spell): Adds 10 points of damage to spell.

Mad Evokers Charm:
Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Can use Mage Power (Evokers Wrath): Adds 20 points of damage to spell but monster gets a free attack against caster next round (this attack cannot be avoided or negated in any way).

Relic:
As MEC. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

Legendary:
As Relic. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

This is not possible to design as the player cards are not designed yet and that change has not been made, examined or validated to not be overly strong (it's WAY too strong on the class card)

The easy solution is to say “additional damage” or “Mage Power” and then monster gets the attack. Keeps it vague so card design can balance with it appropriately, can easily be updated to scale, covers all the bases.

I dont see giving the monster a free unlockable attack as as good thing...it invalidates several tokens, character abilities...paladin guard, and could also be used as a pseudo taunt ability.

I had meant it as a subtle way to trade HP for extra damage. I was trying to work it in a way to imply it was an extra free attack (as in the monster would still take its other actions as normal). This also happens to have some built in difficulty scaling and a potential reward for playing smart and killing the monster before it can make the attack.

The bottom line was to try and explore an alternate way to have an HP for Damage risk / reward scenario that is framed in a way that is less problematic. Whether or no I succeeded is for others to judge.

Miathan wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Dave wrote: Once again, I step away for a few hours and come back to see things heading in a different direction. When I left, I know there were concerns around using hp as the resource, I thought Jeff expressed his thoughts for why that made sense to him. I'm not completely opposed to going in another direction, but we have a long history of tokens that impact hp which give me a lot of flexibility. I'm afraid that moving to another resource will provide very few options and we'll just end up with cookie-cutter wizards who all look the same because only a handful of tokens (at most) can impact their ability. Anyway, that's just my high level thought.

Go ahead and continue to brainstorm new ideas understanding we probably have only around 48 hours to lock this down. Was the prior proposal unworkable? Was it broken? Was it going to cause a mass flight of players from the game? Not trying to be a stop to any of this, but am trying to understand the necessity of creating a whole new dynamic in such a short period of time. In any event, appreciate all the passion people seem to have in this. I'm certain everyone is trying to do what they think is right.

The previous change to Mad Evoker's Charm would have cost the game a minimum of at least 2 Legendary level Wizards permanently as it invalidated their entire builds. It would also cost a Relic legel Bard, Monk and Rogue because I would have no reason to host token builds for my friends if I no longer play the game.


The current design is perfectly fine to me and Jeff's explanation removed any worry on my end of the design promoting self harm in any way.

That doesn't seem to be the case for Anthony but he's demanding the game change to meet his personal needs instead of just changing how he plays the game to protect the mental health of his group.

I don't agree with changing the entire game to protect 2 players from an occurrence they've so far never encountered (per his own words saying they've never run with an MEC wizard) and that can easily be protected against forever by simply not joining random groups and making sure that groups they join don't have MEC build Wizards in them. I see no reason why EVERYONE should change their gameplay and how they enjoy playing the game just to allow two people to freely join random PUG groups when they would be at no risk of triggering if they simply formed their own play groups

I don’t understand this post. You have stated that design shouldn’t be based around two peoples feelings for their interpretation of the mechanic of channeling but yet have threatened that two high lvl players will quit if you don’t get something that you like.

1 why is it that your 2 people’s feelings on the token are more important than the other two
2 why are we accepting threats of quitting to validate token design ?

There is no design reason to change the Mad Evoker Charm's effect to something other than channeling health into damage.

Changing the design of the Mad Evoker's Charm to no longer channel health into damage makes at least 1/3 of my build no longer usable in the current form and means I lose probably $500 in token value over a change that has no mechanical reason to happen and is only being looked at due to two players misinterpreting the design of the token to promote self harm when they have been offered multiple alternative solutions that does not require changing the design intention of an existing six year old token and invalidating the build design of dozens of players.

Asking for the entire game to change because they are unwilling to actively protect themselves from a potential random triggering event that could EASILY be avoided as it's only usable by two classes is incredibly selfish.

My thoughts on the token does not inflict massive changes on all Wizards in the group.
There are multiple players who play Mad Evoker's Charm as a core design of their build.

There are FAR more than 2 voices who disagree with changing the core design of the token.

The TWO voices currently speaking for a change of the Mad Evoker's Charm are doing so because of personal issues that could be mitigated on their own without requiring dozens of other players changing playstyles. Yet they choose to press for the game to change to their whim instead of handling the issue on their own.


I do not wish to force my viewpoints or design choices onto anyone else.

They are asking to force their viewpoints onto my and force my design choices to change.

That is NOT OK

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Miathan wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Dave wrote: Once again, I step away for a few hours and come back to see things heading in a different direction. When I left, I know there were concerns around using hp as the resource, I thought Jeff expressed his thoughts for why that made sense to him. I'm not completely opposed to going in another direction, but we have a long history of tokens that impact hp which give me a lot of flexibility. I'm afraid that moving to another resource will provide very few options and we'll just end up with cookie-cutter wizards who all look the same because only a handful of tokens (at most) can impact their ability. Anyway, that's just my high level thought.

Go ahead and continue to brainstorm new ideas understanding we probably have only around 48 hours to lock this down. Was the prior proposal unworkable? Was it broken? Was it going to cause a mass flight of players from the game? Not trying to be a stop to any of this, but am trying to understand the necessity of creating a whole new dynamic in such a short period of time. In any event, appreciate all the passion people seem to have in this. I'm certain everyone is trying to do what they think is right.

The previous change to Mad Evoker's Charm would have cost the game a minimum of at least 2 Legendary level Wizards permanently as it invalidated their entire builds. It would also cost a Relic legel Bard, Monk and Rogue because I would have no reason to host token builds for my friends if I no longer play the game.


The current design is perfectly fine to me and Jeff's explanation removed any worry on my end of the design promoting self harm in any way.

That doesn't seem to be the case for Anthony but he's demanding the game change to meet his personal needs instead of just changing how he plays the game to protect the mental health of his group.

I don't agree with changing the entire game to protect 2 players from an occurrence they've so far never encountered (per his own words saying they've never run with an MEC wizard) and that can easily be protected against forever by simply not joining random groups and making sure that groups they join don't have MEC build Wizards in them. I see no reason why EVERYONE should change their gameplay and how they enjoy playing the game just to allow two people to freely join random PUG groups when they would be at no risk of triggering if they simply formed their own play groups

I don’t understand this post. You have stated that design shouldn’t be based around two peoples feelings for their interpretation of the mechanic of channeling but yet have threatened that two high lvl players will quit if you don’t get something that you like.

1 why is it that your 2 people’s feelings on the token are more important than the other two
2 why are we accepting threats of quitting to validate token design ?

There is no design reason to change the Mad Evoker Charm's effect to something other than channeling health into damage.

Changing the design of the Mad Evoker's Charm to no longer channel health into damage makes at least 1/3 of my build no longer usable in the current form and means I lose probably $500 in token value over a change that has no mechanical reason to happen and is only being looked at due to two players misinterpreting the design of the token to promote self harm when they have been offered multiple alternative solutions that does not require changing the design intention of an existing six year old token and invalidating the build design of dozens of players.

Asking for the entire game to change because they are unwilling to actively protect themselves from a potential random triggering event that could EASILY be avoided as it's only usable by two classes is incredibly selfish.

My thoughts on the token does not inflict massive changes on all Wizards in the group.
There are multiple players who play Mad Evoker's Charm as a core design of their build.

There are FAR more than 2 voices who disagree with changing the core design of the token.

The TWO voices currently speaking for a change of the Mad Evoker's Charm are doing so because of personal issues that could be mitigated on their own without requiring dozens of other players changing playstyles. Yet they choose to press for the game to change to their whim instead of handling the issue on their own.


I do not wish to force my viewpoints or design choices onto anyone else.

They are asking to force their viewpoints onto my and force my design choices to change.

That is NOT OK

I was in agreement with you through most of this because as you said I do feel that alt solutions were offered that were suitable from my point of view but by you threatening to quit if your not satisfied, well you are just doing the same thing just with a different medium.

So I see it as you not liking others to impose their will to affect the game but at the same time imposing your will to affect the game

kurtreznor wrote: If there is a different ability that can sub in for paying HP and still function for the game and keep the theme of over-exertion, great. That could be an easy out for the issue of self-harm.

I know some are against the idea of another number to track, but I don't see a good way to do this without it. Extra spell boxes or mage power boxes that are spent can work, but that loses the over-exertion theme and is just another resource.

What if the wizard has a base Mana pool equal to starting HP on the card. Any tokens equipped that add HP (even by +CON) can increase either HP or Mana, but not both. During play, healing the wizard above max HP goes toward healing their spent Mana.

I wouldn't be surprised to see high level wizards going in the dungeon with only 21 HP and a crap-ton of Mana.

The new character cards would need to implement and use this Mana in some way. Maybe spending Mana is how you activate current abilities of wand mastery or polymorph boosting. Which could also let wizard and elf wizard tailor which ability they want instead of trying it to the elf vs human.

Another great option, I love it

I'm adding to this mess against my better judgement. I play Elf Wizard a lot. In the spirit of trying to have fun I probably role played at times as if my character was doing self-harm. In reality, I knew me and my character would be totally fine by epilog. But I can see now that perhaps this may inadvertently trigger things in other people. It is a serious issue and I hope those people are getting help. I also think the old version of MEC did contribute to that type of atmosphere

In Jeff's most recent post I think he explained his feeling and it let me reset my whole perspective on MEC. The way I see it now wizards are simply channeling their life force to wield the mystic energy they need to cast spells. I liken it to an olympic athlete pushing their bodies to the limit to achieve the results they want. In the end, it leaves them exhausted and vulnerable. No matter how you look at it we're in a game role-playing a battle against deadly traps and monsters who are out to kill us. It's a simulated battle situation where we're stabbing things and hitting them with hammers. Some creatures are trying to eat us. I guess that kind of stuff could trigger a number of things in people. So should we stop playing the game?

I want to be sensitive to real world problems and am willing to change my approach and gamestyle to help. But from a strictly gameplay experience viewpoint, I think a lot of work would be needed to create a new type of resource and assure it maintains balance in gameplay while still allowing a fun experience. Sorry, I hope none of what I stated offends anyone. That is not my intent. Like I said, I probably would be better off if I just didn't post this.

BrainScan wrote:

Adam Guay wrote:

Anthony Barnstable wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

BrainScan wrote: Here is a possible starting point for something that doesn't explicitly use HP as a resource but still encourages having a lot of it (if desired).

*Important Note* the numbers below are off the cuff and will probably need to be tweaked by those who are good at such things.

Wizard card change includes the following:
Mage Power: As a free action use a mage power to augment the next spell cast. Each available Mage Power may be used 1 / room. 3 boxes.
Mage Power (Empower Spell): Adds 10 points of damage to spell.

Mad Evokers Charm:
Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Can use Mage Power (Evokers Wrath): Adds 20 points of damage to spell but monster gets a free attack against caster next round (this attack cannot be avoided or negated in any way).

Relic:
As MEC. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

Legendary:
As Relic. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

This is not possible to design as the player cards are not designed yet and that change has not been made, examined or validated to not be overly strong (it's WAY too strong on the class card)

The easy solution is to say “additional damage” or “Mage Power” and then monster gets the attack. Keeps it vague so card design can balance with it appropriately, can easily be updated to scale, covers all the bases.

I dont see giving the monster a free unlockable attack as as good thing...it invalidates several tokens, character abilities...paladin guard, and could also be used as a pseudo taunt ability.

I had meant it as a subtle way to trade HP for extra damage. I was trying to work it in a way to imply it was an extra free attack (as in the monster would still take its other actions as normal). This also happens to have some built in difficulty scaling and a potential reward for playing smart and killing the monster before it can make the attack.

The bottom line was to try and explore an alternate way to have an HP for Damage risk / reward scenario that is framed in a way that is less problematic. Whether or no I succeeded is for others to judge.

I loved the idea. It didn’t act as a taunt, because it doesn’t affect the monster’s normal turn. It doesn’t prevent the Paladin from using Guard when MEC isn’t used, still works normally. I’m not sure what other tokens are meant.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

BrainScan wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

BrainScan wrote: Here is a possible starting point for something that doesn't explicitly use HP as a resource but still encourages having a lot of it (if desired).

*Important Note* the numbers below are off the cuff and will probably need to be tweaked by those who are good at such things.

Wizard card change includes the following:
Mage Power: As a free action use a mage power to augment the next spell cast. Each available Mage Power may be used 1 / room. 3 boxes.
Mage Power (Empower Spell): Adds 10 points of damage to spell.

Mad Evokers Charm:
Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Can use Mage Power (Evokers Wrath): Adds 20 points of damage to spell but monster gets a free attack against caster next round (this attack cannot be avoided or negated in any way).

Relic:
As MEC. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

Legendary:
As Relic. Allows 1 additional use of Mage Power. Adds two new Mage Powers.

This is not possible to design as the player cards are not designed yet and that change has not been made, examined or validated to not be overly strong (it's WAY too strong on the class card)

As Jeff stated in the first post

Jeff Martin wrote: Since I am going to re-do the Wizards player cards next week to basically double the spell damage, then the need for the standard MEC is quite moot.

The damage on the Wizard cards is going to increase. We HAVE to consider that as part of this token design. My perspective is that it doesn't matter if that damage comes from a literal doubling of the spell base damage or from a new ability we can use in the token design.

Design 2021 tokens so they can go to print

THEN design the Wizard card.

DO NOT try to force card changes INTO the token design and DO NOT try to change the fundamental design of what the Mad Evoker's Charm is meant to do. Leave the token core design alone.

If Jeff has already said that the damage on the Wizard character cards is going to double, it seems that fact has to be taken into account when designing these tokens. If we design them around the current spell damage on the Wizard Character cards, it seems that the end result would be too powerful (by 100%).

Dave wrote: I'm adding to this mess against my better judgement. I play Elf Wizard a lot. In the spirit of trying to have fun I probably role played at times as if my character was doing self-harm. In reality, I knew me and my character would be totally fine by epilog. But I can see now that perhaps this may inadvertently trigger things in other people. It is a serious issue and I hope those people are getting help. I also think the old version of MEC did contribute to that type of atmosphere

In Jeff's most recent post I think he explained his feeling and it let me reset my whole perspective on MEC. The way I see it now wizards are simply channeling their life force to wield the mystic energy they need to cast spells. I liken it to an olympic athlete pushing their bodies to the limit to achieve the results they want. In the end, it leaves them exhausted and vulnerable. No matter how you look at it we're in a game role-playing a battle against deadly traps and monsters who are out to kill us. It's a simulated battle situation where we're stabbing things and hitting them with hammers. Some creatures are trying to eat us. I guess that kind of stuff could trigger a number of things in people. So should we stop playing the game?

I want to be sensitive to real world problems and am willing to change my approach and gamestyle to help. But from a strictly gameplay experience viewpoint, I think a lot of work would be needed to create a new type of resource and assure it maintains balance in gameplay while still allowing a fun experience. Sorry, I hope none of what I stated offends anyone. That is not my intent. Like I said, I probably would be better off if I just didn't post this.

I am deeply appreciative of you posting this to help broadcast yes, some people role played this in a way that should be re-examined AND you went the extra step of acknowledging that and wanting to help other people you play with hopefully enjoy the game more fully