Title: The Jester Presents : MTG adventure style

Date Posted: Sun Apr/22/12 at 10:33am

DyingJester

Posts: 1771
Joined: 16-Dec-08

Well after sitting down to the umpteenth game of EDH I have come to a conclusion...
I'm bored as hell of EDH!

It's fun, but it takes too long to play. So in an effort to reduce my overall stagnation with this card game I have come up with a sort of DND/Pathfinder/MTG crossover variant. Suggestions and advice on how to improve it would be greatly appreciated. Here's what I have so far.

Players

Each player begins the game as a level one planeswalker (Race becomes negligible within reason, so no mono-green angel planeswalkers...for obvious reasons).

A player's life total increases by 2 for every 2 levels that player possesses. (I.E. a level 2 player has 22 life.

A player's maximum hand size increases by 1 for every 2 levels that player possesses. (I.E. A level 2 planeswalker has a maximum handsize of 8 as opposed to 7.

A player also gains "mana charges" which at the beginning of each turn generates one mana of any color for ever 2 levels that player possessis, but the generated mana must be the same color as that player's deck.

Every time a player reaches an odd level they may choose a spell in their deck to be treated as a personal spell. Personal spells are uncounterable because it is something unique to that planeswalker, and as such a regular counterspell won't be able to stop it.

Player's begin the game with one personal spell already selected. (I.E. Level 3 planeswalker John chooses Counterspell as his personal spell. Anytime he goes to cast a copy of counterspell that he owns, it is considered to be John's Counterspell and cannot be countered).

The GM (Game Master)

The game master's job is to set up a campaign that can engage the players, even if it is only in card form. Make an original story or use the plot to the current mtg set you are in. With the player's guides one can easily craft a campaign from scratch.

Enemy Characters and Monsters

Enemy characters can be planeswalkers and/or creatures that are encountered throughout the campaign. In order to evoke a feeling of classic fantasy gameplay have the creatures that the player will be facing already in play. Include a number of basic (or nonbasic) lands so the creatues can activate their abilities or use equipment that has been put in play.

Please note that each battle happens in waves. Each time one wave is defeated player's keep the same life total, the same infect count, and all cards in play as well as cards in the hand remain between waves.

The combat system works based on player's being able to declare attacks on creatures for the first three waves (Similar to World of Warcraft's Minion Cards found in Raid Decks). The final boss wave is played out like a regular mtg game, but with a few special conditions listed in the scenario rules for each wave.

Sample Setup: Demon's Lair (Please note proxies/ substitutions work as well. So if you wanna replace lord of the pit with Ob-Nixilis, go for it.

Cards required

Wave 1: Knocking at the doors of Hell.

4 Death Cultist
4 Blood Cultist
4 Kill Suit Cultist

Wave 2: Abandon all hope ye who enter here...

1 White Knight enchanted with Demonic Appetite and equipped with Darksteel plate.
1 Eon Hub
3 Special Tokens (will be explained later)

Wave 3: It's a trap!

1 Archive Trap (Can be countered via countermagic or the special scenario rules, see below).
2 Scathe Zombies
1 Special Token

Boss Wave: You dare to enter my lair!

1 Lord of the Pit
1 Mono Black Deck (60 cards or more)

Scenario Rules:

Wave 2 : The special tokens can be sacrificed in order to prevent any destruction effect that a player causes.

Wave 3:
The archive trap takes effect at the start of the wave and targets one player at random.

The special token cannot be destroyed except by having it attacked by a creature. Creatures deal combat damage to the special token in the form of counters. The token is destroyed after 10 counters. When the token is destroyed, destroy all zombies. As long as the token remains in play when a zombie creature dies return it to the battlefield and put a 2/2 black zombie creature token onto the battlefield.

Boss Wave:

The Lord of the Pit cannot be destroyed, exiled, or removed from the battlefield in any way. The game master has a set life total of (20 + the number of players playing in the scenario x 10). (I.E. 4 players and the GM sit down to play. The GM's life total becomes 60 for this game). The GM starts off with the Lord of the Pit already in play, but nothing else. The GM then draws an opening hand of 7 cards and the player characters decide their starting turn order. After this has been determined the game plays out as a normal game of mtg. When the GM's life total is reduced to 0 or the GM has recieved a number of poision counters equal to 1/2 his/her set life total, or the GM's library is emptied the players have one the match and the Lord of the Pit has been defeated. Give each player 50 exp per each normal wave and 150 for the boss wave. (Total Exp 300).

Other

Player Exp system

Upon reaching the exp to level up the player's exp total defaults back to zero.

Current Exp total = Next level x 100.

(I.E. A level one player needs 200 exp total to reach level 2, whereas a level 2 player would need 300 exp to reach level 3).

And that's my system...advice and suggestions would help...because I have no clue how to make the planeswalkers work in this type of gameplay...maybe loyalty = starting life for that walker?

Date Posted: Sun Apr/22/12 at 12:09pm

Turbine

Posts: 10194
Joined: 26-Oct-09

Sounds like a cool idea.

Planeswalkers could be set apart in a separate deck that you have as allies. You need some special way to summon them though.

Date Posted: Mon Apr/23/12 at 11:14am

Starship

Posts: 549
Joined: 13-Dec-11

pretty cool idea bro.

edh is still my favorite magic format.

Date Posted: Thu Apr/26/12 at 5:02pm

theotherguy

Posts: 346
Joined: 04-Feb-11

Just read this for the first time. Planeswalkers represent powerful NPC allies (mercenaries, friends, etc). To use one, pay its CMC x 10 experience instead of paying its normal mana cost, altough you must be able to pay its mana cost. Once it dies, it is removed from the game for the rest of the encounter and cannot be used during the next encounter. Does this work? [Edited by theotherguy on 26/Apr/12 at 5:05PM]

[Edited by theotherguy on 26/Apr/12 at 5:06PM]

Date Posted: Fri Apr/27/12 at 12:15pm

DyingJester

Posts: 1771
Joined: 16-Dec-08

Hmm...I'm going to playtest with that rule this saturday. Hopefully it will discourage people from mindlessly spamming walkers in a casual format.