Rethinking Combat
After fixing the bugs that were uncovered as people played the initial alpha release of HotM, I've been taking some time away from the digital version to revisit the tabletop game. And to start prepping for creating artwork, but that's a separate topic.
Replaying it myself, I definitely like the redesigned board. I'm certain now that I'll be making that switch. I'm pretty sure that I will not make gems combine with your neighbors; it's too difficult to understand and keep track of, and doesn't give nearly enough benefit. I haven't added any cards or powers that specifically rely on proximity to other players, so I can't really test that idea yet, although I still think it will help.
But one thing I felt still needed work was combat. It isn't that it's repetitive, exactly... it's that it so often doesn't seem to matter. Bob remarked on that in his feedback to playing the alpha, that frequently you were either facing an enemy that completely outclasses you, or you completely outclass them, and rolling seems totally pointless.
That was the digital version, of course, and I could easily add logic to skip rolling a die if the outcome is a given. It's still a little early for those sort of quality-of-life details. But it bugged me in the tabletop version too. Specifically, when you move up a level, if you draw a particularly difficult card, you (probably) have no chance against it. Near the end of a level, you'd be hard-pressed to draw anything that presents a challenge.
Mike came to visit late last week and played through once with me. He remarked on the same issue, so we did some brainstorming on how to fix it. I commented that I was considering doing away with having traps roll at all. I don't remember the exact sequence of ideas, but eventually we hit on this: what if none of the cards roll against you? What if they get a fixed bonus based on what row you're on when you draw them? You would still roll, so your exact combat score would still vary a bit from fight to fight.
If you draw a tough card on the first row of a level, it will get a small bonus against you and thus you have the best chance to defeat it. If you draw a simpler card on the last row of a level, it will get a higher bonus and thus stand a better chance of challenging you. The values on the cards will all need to be rebalanced of course, and the specific bonuses will need to be worked out. I have two possible suggestions in the image above: +1 through +5 for all three levels, or double/triple that for the upper levels to reflect the idea that your growth should be more than linear. There are other possibilities, but I think one of those is the most likely winner. Or, perhaps, traps and enemies use different scales?
Anyway, I like this idea enough to do the work to test it. I need to rebalance enough of the cards that I can use them to get all the way through, and then play the heck out of it.