Wizards made two things that are very similar

It occurs to me that I am way over thinking this whole D&D/MtG mash-up – and it should be noted when I say D&D I am not necessarily referring to the actual product, and right now it means Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Paging through this old adventure, and looking at the way they doll potions and scrolls and such. If I replaced every (or most) minor potions with a random spell with the right “color”. Adding color identity to things on the fly probably won’t be onerous and it gives some mechanical weight that alignments do not, and just co-opting existing spell scroll rules with the addendum that if you match the ‘charm’s’ color identity you can cast it without fail. Also just allow for lots of mutations, enchantments, and other randomness to happen to anyone who keeps sticking there fingers in weird places, and really the thing should work itself out.

 On the note of color identity, the easiest way to represent it is add a sliding bonus-penalty scale for each color you have in common with a spell. This will naturally favor a struggle between staying pure in one color (and hence most powerful using those spells), versus taking on more colors to have access to a wider range of spells. Spells can occur in the wild almost like fruit, and you’ll usually find a spell or two in an area that correspond to the mana type of the land. Easy stuff, the colors all have terrain and elemental types associated with them which ought to make a rough, shared expectation and delivery system with anyone hunting for wild spells. Also, mine weird sources for spells: this is where all that time reading other blogs will come in handy.

All alone

Well, things finally worked out that the spouse suggested I should leave for my own sake and I couldn't disagree with her. It's a quiet little way for it to go down, but there it is. Now I'm living in what we'll charitably call an artist's commune in a small "studio apartment" which is actually just a very nicely decorated shed with an extension cord. The spiders have been pretty friendly, but the wasp keeps coming back even after I've tossed her out on her butt like, three times at least.

Actually I was thinking about the different roles in the game I've been playing, Arena of Valor. It's a MOBA on my phone that I've been pretty consistently into for a few months now, which is a weird amount of dedication for me to one game these days, especially a mobile one. I guess it's the competitive angle, I haven't really been enjoying a online team deathmatch kind of game since Halo: Reach and AoV finds me at a time in my life where being able to take a game on the go has been pretty crucial.

But yeah so team roles; the insidious thing is each character is assigned a "class" even though each one is a: split into two sub-classes that overlap and means that you get characters who say 'mage' but mean 'warrior' but that wouldn't be on theme or whatever, and b: each character is ALSO assigned by default to one of the map 'positions', which are just a gentlefolk's agreement to the general dispersal of players during the 'laning phase', or before either side's bases have started taking serious damage at which point it's more of a roaming free-for-all that hopefully sees some team cohesion.

So I typically pick my character after a few other people have in an effort to support the team by taking whatever class didn't get picked. This is fine, I have half a dozen characters I rotate through and often find that some of my best matches are taking a character I haven't used in a while and jumping into a game semi-cold.

Anyway aside from realizing I need to make my character picks based on whatever map position I'm in first, and who everyone else picked as a secondary concern (and I mean everyone is good with Valhein right?) but it got me thinking that this could be a good way to frame how each of the classes will work in my Innistrad game. Lets see,

Fighter: High health, armor, and base attack ability. Lacks high burst potential. Could make excellent archer with consistent long range hits, as well as being able to target enemy back row.

Specialist; Depending on build, can be master of environmental factors or high burst damage. Sneak attacks require careful positioning, synergies' with Skill Checks which allow you to bypass the normal DC of a task.

Magic-User: Highest damage and utility potential but also the squishiest. Depending on spells found though could play in just about any fashion, but this also requires finding the right magic.

Cleric: More durable then the Magic-User at the cost of some spell casting ability.

Artifact Creature: Highest durability of any class but lower damage output. Higher carry weight also means ability to carry more gear, which can offset damage reduction.

Spellshaper: Similar to Magic-User, but has higher HP and can ware armor while using magic. Requires more XP then any other class.

Rebel: Durable and mobile, but lacking the utility of the Specialist. Stealth abilities are good but only work in the bush.