I'm a long time D&D player, and I've heard the complain a million times that 4ed. feels like a card game, so I thought about it for a bit and wondered if it were possible to *make* it a card game. The idea is that a lot of people can't get into D&D because they don't like the roleplay aspect (or crazy RPers scare them) but they still like RPGs like WoW or Elder Scrolls because they just get to build awesome characters. So this game strips out all of the RPing and focuses on Combat/Loot and Character Creation.
The plan is that 1-4 players choose a Class. There is a larger card/mat that depicts their character and some minor class-specific traits, and an accompanying deck of cards. The cards represent the skills that you are interested in learning as your character levels up (from 1 to 10). Players pre-assemble their deck before the game (this is not a deck-building game) to create a synergy that fits their playstyle and hopefully complements the playstyle of their group.
The game is set to be players vs. deck, with a deck of Dungeon and Event/Encounter cards, and deck of Monsters and Loot. As players go through an encounter, they defeat the Monsters (who attack with an ingenious class-based AI system) and stockpile Loot. The more Encounters you clear, the more Loot you get and the more likely you are to Level Up. However, the only way to recharge your Health and some of your powers is to Rest, forcing players to play a balancing game between forging ahead for more rewards and risk failure, or cash in early and take what they can get.
Combat is worked out on a "six-sided D10" principle, with a D6 marked 2,4,6,8,10, and 'Critical'. The Critical is either a critical success or critical failure based on the situation and character proficiencies.
The intent is to make the game playable in about an 1 to 1.5 hours from level 1 to level 10. If the game goes into publication it would be very easy to expand upon by offering new Skill decks, complete new Classes, new Loot stacks, new Dungeons, and new Monsters to allow players to customize their experience each time.
What are your thoughts?
I'm also going to drop the D&D setting, although some of the mechanics will unfortunately carry over (there are 4 class 'artchtypes' that every class falls into, and there are equivalents to 'Encounter' and 'Daily' powers)
Some of the stuff I sort of want to keep under wraps, like the way that the card AI works. I have hit some stumbling blocks though -
First is figuring out how to get players to level up. At the moment I'm trying to base it on hand-size at the end of each encounter. Your level determines your handsize between encounters - during the encounter you can have as many cards as you want in your hand, but after the encounter you would have to discard any excess. In order to level up, you must end the encounter with at least 1 more card in your hand than you began with.
Drawing cards is a result of certain powers, or class features. A Cleric/Healer might get to draw a card any time they heal more than 10pts of damage in a turn, and 2 cards whenever they revive a fallen player. A Warrior might get to draw if they inflict 10pts of damage, and 2 cards if they kill a set of monsters who's level equal or exceed their own.
There is no discarding (except between encounters), but you use your cards from your hand to fuel your powers. As it stands, each power has two costs - the first is how many cards must be played facedown. Facedown cards are retrieved whenever the power resets. The second cost is usually cheaper, and is cards that must be played faceup. Faceup cards are discarded whenever the power resets. Some powers will reset each turn, others will only reset after the encounter is over, or after you Rest. This also limits players to the number of actions they get - you can play your whole hand down to fuel a flurry of encounter-powers, but then you are left without any cards to fuel subsequent actions.
Maximum handsize increases by +1 at every *even* numbered level. So:
Lvl1 = 5 cards, 6 to level up
Lvl2 = 6 cards, 7 to level up
Lvl3 = 6 cards, 7 to level up
Lvl4 = 7 cards, 8 to level up
...
Lvl8 = 9 cards, 10 to level up
Lvl9 = 9 cards, 10 to level uo
Lvl10 = 10 cards, maximum level
If you meet the requirements to level up, you *must* play new powers in order to advance your level. At each level you can play up to that many additional levels of power (level 2 = one L2 power or 2 L1 powers). If you play fewer than the maximum new powers, any additional powers are lost (no roll-overs). If you do not play any powers at all, you do not increase your level.
The problem that I foresee is two fold - first, it could be very easy to level up. Secondly, players level up every time they complete an encounter, but can only collect their Loot and Treasures every time they Rest (the draw being that Loot increases exponentially as encounters progress), and if they fail an encounter, any loot is lost. So you could potentially have very high level characters with NO loot, and monster difficulties are assuming that the players have a nice mix of mundane Loot and magical Treasures in addition to regular level powers.