[GB] Legend Discussion

[Eliahad]

[Eliahad]

Galatea - Place Galatea's token in any unoccupied hex. Place 4AP on this card. Galatea acts as a hero on your turn with AP from this card. She cannot refresh, rest, be blessed or cursed.

Sirens - Must be placed on a water hex. Any hero within 2 hexes of the Sirens must pay an additional 1AP hex cost when moving in any direction other than towards the Sirens.

Marathonian Bull - Place a Bull token in target hex. Any hero adjacent to the Bull may spend 2AP to move that Bull 1 hex in any direction, knocking down any hero that may be in the destination hex. A hero cannot defend against the knockdown from the Bull.

Pod of Dolphins - Place a Dolphin Token in target hex with water terrain. If a thrown or kicked Godball lands in a hex with the Dolphin Token, the Dolphins immediately throw the ball up to 2 hexes in any direction chosen by the active god. This action must be taken and may be intercepted. A hero adjacent to the Dolphins may, on their turn, pay 1AP to move the Dolphins to an adjacent hex with water terrain.

Golden Apple - Place a Golden Apple token on Mt. Olympus. Consider this token as a second Godball. The Godball and Golden apple can occupy the same hex. A hero cannot carry the Godball and the Golden Apple at the same time.

Nimean Lion - Place a Lion token in a hex of your choosing. If the Lion is within 2 hexes of the Godball at the start of any Gods' turn, the active God moves the Lion 1 hex closer to the Godball. If the Lion starts a turn in the same hex as the Godball, the active God must move the Godball 2 hexes in a straight line. A hero controlling the Godball may pay 2AP to prevent the lion from moving the ball.

Olive Tree - Place an Olive Tree token anywhere on the board; if a hero takes a rest action in the hex with the Olive Tree, they may regain 1AP in addition to their rest effect. Also, they may spend 2AP after resting to remove 1 card from their hero board.

Golden Fleece - Place Golden Fleece in target hex. The Golden Fleece may be picked up and carried by heroes as if it were the Godball. A hero carrying the Golden Fleece cannot be the target of attack hero actions. A hero cannot enter a hex with the Godball unless they leave the golden fleece in their current hex.

Gift of Thunder - Place Storm tokens on 3 contiguous hexes of the board. On each of your hero's turns (including this one), they can make a 1AP hero action to direct 1 of the storm tokens to move up to 2 hexes. Storm tokens add +2AP hex cost for a hero leaving that hex. Any hero in a storm hex may pay 4AP to destroy it.

Rainbow Portals - Place the 2 Rainbow tokens in any 2 hexes no more than 5 hexes apart. A hero standing on a Rainbow hex may pay 4AP in order to make a 1 hex Move or Sprint to the other Rainbow. Must pay hex cost as usual.

Labyrinth - Place the 4 Labyrinth tokens on any 4 contiguous hexes. There is no cost to enter a Labyrinth hex or to move from one Labyrinth hex to another, but heroes must pay 3AP hex cost to exit to a non-Labyrinth hex.

Flock of Sheep - Place the Flock of Sheep in any hex without terrain. Sheep add 1 hex cost to the hex. If the Godball is ever uncontrolled in the hex with the sheep, Hermes may, on his turn, move the sheep and Godball 1 hex in any direction. Any hero in a hex adjacent to the sheep may pay 1AP to move them 1 hex in any direction.

Orichalcum Pillar - Place the Orichalcum Pillar in a target unoccupied hex, removing any terrain or legends that may be present. This token counts as a Pillar of Heaven, and after placement it must follow all of the rules for a Pillar.

Palladion - Place the Palladion in any hex. Any Legends or Terrain in adjacent hexes, including the Palladion, cannot be removed by god powers. Terrain cannot move through or be created in these hexes

Peacock Chariot - Place the Peacock Chariot token in any hex. A hero in a hex with the Peacock Chariot may pay 1AP to move the chariot and their hero 1 hex in any direction ignoring hex cost. The hero may pay additional AP to move with the Peacock Chariot, but the AP cost is doubled for each additional hex. (Total Cost: 1 hex = 1AP. 2 hexes = 3AP. 3 hexes = 7 AP)

Volcano - Place Volcano token in target hex, replacing any existing terrain and knocking down heroes in that hex as per terrain creation. All heroes in adjacent hexes are also knocked down. Any terrain in adjacent hexes is then moved 1 hex away from the volcano hex. Volcano hex has an entrance hex cost of 2AP.

[Eliahad]

Just setting this thread up for later future discussions. Didn't want to muck about the other thread too much.

[Mike]

During my review, I fixed the wording for all legends so that they work with the new rules, but that is far from saying they are in their best form.

I agree with your assessment of which ones need work. Specifically, many of them that can affect the ball and that heroes can pay AP to move... probably just make them active legends and heroes can shove them as a hero action.

[Mike]

I also think we need to throw in an active legend version of Arachne for Athena.

[Eliahad]

Flock of Sheep: if we make this an active legend, it loses a little of the image of a hero wading through a flock of sheep to grab the ball. On the other hand it would give Hermes a much needed blocker. I think other heroes should still be able to drive the sheep (at the reduced cost). And a force fumble action allows you to grab the ball.

Marathonian Bull: this is a great candidate as an active legend. If it moves adjacent to a hero it performs a pummel action. If there is a choice, the driving hero chooses. If moved into an occupied hex, it performs a shove action immediately before moving. If it's ever in possession of the Godball, it immediately drops it to an adjacent hex of Hera's choosing (yes, Hera's.)

[Eliahad]

I didn't screw Athena up as much as I thought, so we will have to work a little to put Arachnae in, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

Here is the text:

LEGEND - Arachne - Place Arachne in any unoccupied hex. On Athena's subsequent turns, she may choose to move Arachne 1 hex in any direction and place a web token in the vacated hex. Arachne may also be shoved, leaving a web behind. If all 4 web tokens are on the board, then Athena no longer moves Arachne, but she can still be shoved. A web token adds +2AP to the hex cost of its hex. While Arachne is an active legend, the webs are passive.

I would like to change the +2AP to +1 AP. We've already found that terrain is a huge impediment, a +3 hex (terrain+web) is effectively impassable. So let's merely make it an agonizing choice instead

[Mike]

Awesome.

[Eliahad]

Nimean Lion - Active Legend - Place a Lion token in a hex of your choosing. If the Lion is within 2 hexes of the Godball at the start of any Gods' turn, the active God moves the Lion 1 hex closer to the Godball, moving around occupied hexes. If the lion controls the Godball, it will instead be moved 1 hex closer to Mt. Olympus (or not at all, if on Mt. Olympus). If adjacent to a hero controlling the Godball, it will perform a force fumble action on them instead of moving. This can be defended.

[Eliahad]

I actually want to get rid of Pod of Dolphins. Poseidon has enough even without it.

[Mike]

Pod of Dolphins is still called Pod of Dolphins, but now it is a create terrain GP that reads as follows:

Place a water terrain token in a hex with an uncontrolled Godball. Dolphins immediately throw the ball up to 2 hexes away. Add +1 AP to the intercept cost of this thrown ball (Dolphins are tricky).

[Phoebe]

I just want to say it's probably the Nemean lion with no i. From Greek Nemeos.

[Mike]

[Phoebe]

I love everything you guys are doing so far, so any of these choices are going to be awesome. Hermes could be represented by one of his other kids, like Autolycus (a tricky dude who was more important than his current name-recognition - I think he is darn cool if you don't mind that nobody knows him) or Eudoros (also not well known, but fights with those other Greek heroes). Andromeda is another good one for Hermes not for her own story, but given that you've already got her husband there and his other potential heroes have less name-recognition. Poseidon crops up but only as the cause of the threatening sea-monster, as I recall, so it's only a negative/opposing connection.

If you are hurting for heroes to assign to Hera and want to get away from monsters, there is always Jason, he of the golden fleece, who was able to get Medea to help/marry him because of Hera's blessings. But then, he is also the descendant of Hermes, though I don't recall anything in the story playing up a big connection.

If you need more ladies, Cassandra could work for Apollo or Athena. Granted Apollo curses her, but he also gives her the prophetic power, so... he's key to her story. Athena's vengeance for her rape is also a big enough plot-mover to link them.

Random 2 cents: I would assign Odysseus to Athena if you are going to use him at all. She is his main divinity and he is her main man, so it would be weird for that to pair any other way.

Cadmus, Bellerophon, and Orpheus are other big names if you are running into gaps. Anyway, it's all awesome and I'm looking forward to doing another playtest sometime as I think you've changed a lot since I last did it. Super fun!

[Eliahad]

Yes! We need to get you in a playtest! And Bluedevyl and DMDarcs and all the people!

[Eliahad]

Notes to self: make sure I think about all the different rule interactions for Beasts v. Terrain v. Heroes v. Other Beasts.

What happens to 'legends' when terrain is placed? Moved? Make sure these things are addressed. They might be addressed already.

Multi Beasts can be in the same hex. Beasts and Monuments can be in the same hex. Objects can too.

[Mike]

Beasts and objects do not occupy a hex. At this point, multiples may be on a hex at one time, although heroes may only carry one object at a time, so others in the same hex are uncontrolled. (Maybe shift language to carried vs free or carried vs loose. Controlled/uncontrolled is technically dead-on though.) Whatever, the point is terrain movement shifts beasts out of the way the same way it does heroes. Artifacts are pushed around just like godballs. And if I remember correctly, the rules for both are very similar.

Monuments (or whatever) might be better thought of as a kind of advanced terrain. This is stream of consciousness, and it just came to me, but what would it look like if static legends/monuments were treated like terrain? There's never more than one terrain in a hex. Creating/moving terrain on an existing terrain destroys the old one. If we do this, are monuments subject to move terrain cards? No, probably not. Pillars are treated as terrain, but are not moved by terrain cards. Current rules say terrain destroys legends, so that part doesn't change. And only allowing 1 terrain-token per hex means it's okay to have a monument with a hex cost 2 (very rarely), because they're not stackable.

This might work, but I can't see all the ramifications yet. But damn, the symmetry of it is nice: without gods, we have godball, heroes, terrain. God powers create miraculous analogues in the form of artifacts, beasts, and monuments. (Which works nicely for me: half-inch tokens for artifacts, 1 inch for heroes and beasts, 1.5 inch for terrain/monuments).

[Mike]

Okay, it's turned sideways, but it illustrates my point... look how well these fit. My board is printed at 19in x 19in, so the hexes are about the size they'd be on a professionally done set. And .5, 1, 1.5 all fit so nicely. In the middle, you can even see a hero on a terrain while carrying the godball while another artifact in the same hex lay at her feet.



The only loss of visibility comes with stacking beasts or stacking beasts with heroes. And since we've already determined that heroes occupy a hex and cannot share, maybe beasts can follow the same rules. But it would mean rewriting most of them, and I haven't looked to see if it can be done and if we can get the same feel from them if we do. Something to consider.

[Mike]

Can't stop.

Perhaps IF we decide to subject beasts to hero rules, maybe it's okay for beasts and heroes to share a hex DURING a turn as long as they move apart by the end of the turn.

For example, Artemis's Ceryneian Hind card... a hero can move onto the Hind's hex, causing the Hind to move 1 hex, carrying the hero, and then throwing said hero 1 extra hex. So sharing a hex only happens as part of an action, and they separate by turn's end.

The Marathonian Bull can work the same way: if you shove the Bull onto another hero, that hero is shoved and knocked down. So they don't share a hex at the end of the turn.

[Phoebe]

I am getting vapors from how awesome your printed board looks with tokens!

From my perspective of "reader not entirely sure what you're describing, all three of these distinctions are helpful: carried/uncarried, carried/loose, controlled/uncontrolled.

Also yes to this, as a person who enjoys symmetry of this type, and finds it helpful when needing to sort out which type of thing has which powers/effects (lends itself to a nice explanatory chart):
"But damn, the symmetry of it is nice: without gods, we have godball, heroes, terrain. God powers create miraculous analogues in the form of artifacts, beasts, and monuments. (Which works nicely for me: half-inch tokens for artifacts, 1 inch for heroes and beasts, 1.5 inch for terrain/monuments)."