Unofficial dark Watch Variants

So, the Dark Watch team will end up only having one although each. So, I decided to brainstorming  some of my own.

here's what I came up with

Black Fist - (Young Mr. Fixer) - Balanced strike - Discard up to 3 cards. Deal 1 target X damage where x is the number of cards you have discarded this turn.

Nightmist - Wild Magic - Reveal the bottom card of your deck. Put it in play.

Setback - Karma- Remove any number of tokens from your unlucky pool. For each you remove, gain one life.

Expatriette - Weaponsmith - Reveal the bottom card of your deck. If it is an equipment card, put it in your hand. Otherwise, discard it. 

Thoughts?

I worry that the Fixer one would mean he'd run out of cards very quickly. He doesn't have much in the way of draw powers, so that his hand will get empty real quick unless he's on a team with TL Tachyon.

I like the idea for the Expatriette one, but just getting cards in her hands probably won't be enough. How about if it is an equipment card, put it into play. 

Tweak to Fixer: you may discard up to 3 cards. Mr. Fixer deals 1 target X damage, where X is the number of cards discarded since the end of your last turn. 

I intended zero discards to be an option, so you wouldn't have to discard twice on an Overdrive. This would make damage increases more valuable since he can start with a zero damage and get plusses from equipment and ongoings. The "since the end of your last turn" gives it a "coolant blast" type mechanic to take credit for environmental and villain discards. Salvage Yard would also have the extra benefit of "reloading" his hand. 

Fixer is tough because his base power is so simple, it's tricky to come up with a change to it that isn't strictly better.

For Expat, maybe "put it in your hand or in play" would be strictly better than what I have, but it might be overpowered compares to the base power of "play a card." 

I think those are a good place to start, but I'd like to see them have more internal cooperation (like the Prime Wardens or, hopefully, the Freedom Five.) 

I think you could build an intriguing set of powers along the theme of "sharing the burden" or "Paying costs for your team" since it seems like the beginning of the team was all about sacrificing for one another (Expatriette pulling back, Setback growing more cautious, the team searching for a way to bring Mr. Fixer back.) 

Take Mr. Fixer's power: as written it encourages building up a large hand, but that has the unfortunate side effect of discouraging him from changing stances (since they're destroyed instead of returning to his hand.) What if the power was: 

Balanced Strike: As a team, players may discard a total of three cards. Deal One target X Melee Damage where X is the number of cards discarded this way. 

or, if we think that's unclear and don't think the potential of Mr. Fixer hitting for five is too OP: 

Balanced Stike: Each player may discard a card. Deal one targer X Melee Damage where X is the number of cards discarded this way. 

A Fixer power that I thought of yesterday, but don't know where his health would have to be to make it acceptable: 

Teaching Strike: Select a target. Until the start of your next turn treat all cards in Mr. Fixer's play area as though they were also in that target's play area, replacing all instaces of Mr. Fixer with the name of that target.

(This removes most of his ability to deal damage, but has some truly frightening implications. I mean can you imagine if he taught Char how to use a Jack Handle?) 

(It should probably be hero target instead of target [if it should exist at all] but I very much wanted to conjur the image of a Jack Handle wielding Char. Thank you for indulging me.)

Nightmist's power isn't bad, but all other powers which have a random card play either have a way to mitigate it (Cosmic, Omnitron) or do an additional effect (PW Adept, PW Fanatic, Rogue KNYFE.) Given that you're going for "Wild Magic" maybe an additional effect is the way to go so perhaps: 

Wild Magic: Put the bottom card of your deck into play. One player may put an equipment card from their discard pile into play. 

(Or instead of discard pile, play from hand.) 

If playing as a full Dark Watch team that helps Her, Fixer, and Expatriette, not to mention plenty of other heroes. If that seems too powerful it could always go to the top of their deck instead of into play. 

Or, a power I thought of for a "help pay a cost" theme: 

Life Bond (or something else, I'm not good with titles): The next time Nightmist would deal damage to herself another hero may redirect that damage to themself. 

And finally, another power thought to take the mitigation aspects of Attunement, but to a slightly greater degree. 

Concentration (I said I wasn't good at titles, and I meant it): Choose a number between 1 and 4. The next card Nightmist reveals has that [magic number] instead of it's normal [magic number.]

I like your idea for Setback's power, althought I do wish we could think of a good token generation power instead of token spend power. Karma does help a lot if you want Setback to use his "remove 2 unlucky tokens to redirect damage to Setback," which I want to use more than I do currently. 

A similar power with a focus on Setback's attitude could be: 

Chipper Attitude: Remove one [or two] Unlucky tokens from Setback's Unlucky pool. If you do, each hero regains One health. 

(I just love his grin, it makes me happy.) 

Expatriette may have the same bottom card issue as Nightmist (in that it may not do enough for the cost.) I don't know if this too powerful (or wordy, I do like my lengthy blocks of text,) but what it was: 

Weaponsmith: Reveal the bottom card of your deck, if it is a gun card put it into play. If it is an ammo card deal one target one projectile damage activating the ammo's text as though it were next to a gun making that attack. Discard the ammo card. Otherwise, put the card in your hand. 

or, less wordy (and consequently, less fun): 

Weaponsmith: Reveal the bottom card of your deck, if it is an equipment card put it into play, otherwise discard it and deal one target two projectile damage [or: put it into your hand.]

Finally, I think we can all agree on this Harpy promo: 

The Harpy: Fowl Friend 

Hp: 28 

Old Tricks: Take Matriarch's deck out of the box. Search the deck for all Fowl cards and put them into play into The Harpy's play area. Treat all instances of "Hero Target" as "Villain or Environment Target." Until your next play phase treat all start of turn effects on Fowl Cards as happening at the end of your turn as well. Return Matriarch's deck to the box. If a fowl card would be destroyed it is instead returned to Matriarch's deck. 

It's only fair after the pain she's caused all of us over the years.

Probably 4 or so? Because sheesh, is handing pretty much any character a Jack Handle beautifully, beautifully broken.

These are all fun, here are some of my ideas:
Expatriette: Backup pistol: You may play an ammo card next to Expattriette. Expatriate deals 1 target 1 projectile damage.
Setback: Pain and Gain: Until the start of your next turn. Whenever Setback is dealt damage add 1 token to your unlucky pool.
Fixer: Opportune Strike: The next time you play a card, Fixer deals 1 target 1 melee damage.
Nightmist: Cast: Play a spell card. Nightmist deals herself that cards * infernal damage.

Here's two NightMist ones I've been working on:

Chaos Shield:

The next time NightMist would be dealt damage, put the top card of her deck into play and reduce the damage by that card's *.

Controlled Casting:

Reveal the top two cards of NightMist's deck and put them back in any order. Play the top card of NightMist's deck.

My favorite thing about NightMist is the chanciness of her deck, so I think both these powers play off of that, sometimes being very helpful through some mitigation, sometimes getting in the way--as it should.

Refinements to my original selections:

Nightmist Wild Magic : reveal the bottom card of your deck. Put it in play. Deals one target the revealed card’s asterisk damage.

Expatriette weaponsmith: reveal the bottom card of any two decks. Put any revealed equipment cards in play. Discard any other revealed cards.

Spiff has a great alternate power for Mr. Fixer. I believe it was:

“Mr. Fixer deals 1 target 1 melee damage. If you played a Style card this turn, increase that damage by 1.”

A more interesting (and more powerful) response to playing the style would be, “…deal 1 target 1 melee damage.”

Setback: Mishap - Setback takes 1 damage and gains 2 unlucky tokens.

Setback: chance? add or remove an unlucky token, shuffle the top card of each deck together play 2 picked at random. hp:29-27

Expatriette: ? until the end of your next turn whenever you play an ammo card you may play and draw a card. hp:27-25

Edit: also is there a place I can put other ideas for promos that I have/made? 

I wasnt sure if I should put them here because this is mainly focusing on ideas for dark watch but I have a lot of other promos that I came up with on index cards and if anyone had ideas on improving them I would gladly listen. thanks.

There is a whole forum at BGG for just that. It's a lively thread with lots of great discussions happening.

So I created an account there but I cant find a way to comment in the thread like you can here. I am probably missing somthing simple but I thought I would ask anyway

Hit the "Reply" or "QuickReply" button under any existing post.

Some ones from BGG:

Mr. Fixer (northwind).  Wind Strike

Power: Deal 1 target 0 cold damage.  Select one of your non-character cards, that card is indestructible until tyour next power phase.

This one is crazy fun, weak to start, but getting up to 3 tools and Styles into play with overdrive is amazing.

Nightmist.  Healing Mist.

Power: Discard a card, one target regains hp equal to that cards (spell).

This is strong healing, but runs counter to her card gain and makes for an interesting time.

Expatriette.  Trademark

Power: Search your deck or trash for either Pride or Prejudice, put it into play and use its power.  If you searched your deck shuffle it.

She always has her pistols in this one.

This last one is not from BGG:

Setback.  Beat the odds.

Power:  Until the start of your turn the first time damage would be dealt each turn you may discard an unlucky token to increase or reduce that damage by 1.

oh my god I want to play with Wind Strike so much.

Tossx, the guy who made the Cauldron fan expansion, made art for it, second post on This Thread.

The Absolute Zero one he made is fun too.

Speaking of Tossx, in that thread is a really neat Mr. Fixer promo: Northern Wind Mr. Fixer. 26 HP and his base power deals 0 cold and makes one of his cards indestructible until your next power phase. I just realized a few days ago that it can make one of his Styles indestructible so you can play a second safely.

It would also allow you to put multiple tools into play.

Tools return themselves to Fixers hand. So that’s a no.

Indestructible, according to the rulebook, means it can’t leave play (including to the hand). So, multiple tools is a valid state.

And with Overdrive, you can get up to three of each into play.

Which is, as far as I can tell, the least intuitive rule in the game, and I'm not entirely sure why it exists (besides, of course, to cause delightful shenanigans involving tools and FIxed Point) since as far as I know the only card that could remove a villain card from play without destroying it is Into the Stratosphere, which already cannot target indestructible cards.

The rule book and video game implementation would disagree.  Indestructible means the card can't leave play for any reason and that includes returning cards to your hand.  You can test it yourself in the video game playing with Fixed Point from Time Catacylsm.  Neither Fixer's tools or Omnitron-X's plating cards will return to your hand if you play another one while Fixed Point is out.  

Indestructible means that so that you don't have a bunch of ways around an effect that should be really cool.

A bunch of ways?  Again, the only way around it that I can think of is Into the Stratosphere, which doesn't work on indestructible cards regardless of what indestructible means.  What other ways are there?

Spite returns cards to you hand that the other case that comes to mind.  

True.  I see that I'm not explaining my point properly.

The reason that "indestrutable" exists as a keyword is because there are certain villain cards that would significantly break the game if they were to leave play, such as Spite's drugs, Safehouse, and Shrine of the Ennead.  It is also used to make some villain cards more problematic to deal with even if their presence is not required, such as Galvanized and Cohorts, and to cause Fixed Point shenanigans.  But it's the first category that is most vital, because those are the ones that cannot be allowed to leave play for any reason.  But I don't know of a way to make those cards leave play without destroying them.  Villains such as Spite have ways of making hero cards leave play, but there are no ways other than Into the Stratosphere (which again can't target indestructable cards) of making Villain cards leave play, and the vital cards are so far exclusively Villain cards.

Therefore, allowing indestructable cards to leave play through methods other than destruction would not break the game, it would only reduce the schenanigans caused by Fixed Point.  And while I like the craziness caused by Fixed Point, those interactions should be weighed against the fact that the ruling that creates them is unintuitive.

I guess I don't find it counterintuitive myself.   I can understand your point though and it does seem to crop regularly. 

An interesting thing to note is that the first edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse did not have Into the Stratosphere ignore indestructible cards, in fact there are in indestructible cards in the base game. Spite gained the first Indestructible cards with his Drugs, which included the rule that they cannot be removed from paly by any means to esnure that Into the Stratosphere could not put them on top of the deck. After a little while though, people thought that they could use Into the Stratosphere to get rid of the drugs after Spite flipped. Since there are so many people who aren't aware that Indestructible includes removing cards from play by means other than destruction, Into the Stratosphere gained the "non-indestructible" requirement to help ensure people will not mis play Spite's Drugs or any other future Indestruble cards.

I don't think that it's counterintutive so much as just unintuitive.  People look at "indestructible" and assume that it means "cannot be destroyed", and there's absolutely no reason to believe that it would do anything else unless you look it up in the rulebook, which most people won't do because there is already an obvious definition for the term, with no indication that further clarification would be necessary.

What I would probably do would be to change "Indestrutible" to mean "cannot be destroyed" and errata Fixed Point to read "All cards other than this card cannot leave play"  That preserves functionality while removing confusion.

That wording wouldn't stop them from being destroyed though, just from leaving play.

How ever you try to word the effect it is going to either have to have a rulebook entry or a wall of text.

Are the current definitions really so problematic that they need to be changed?

Need to?  Certainly not.  The misunderstandings that it causes aren't really detracting from anyone's enjoyment of the game.  But it is causing misunderstandings, and I like trying to figure out how to best resolve such things in theory even of those changes are never implemented.

I guess I just never found it confusing.

There are confusions with people asking if they can discard cards from play.

Whatever the keyword used if you don't read the rules of a new game and apply logic from other games to it you are going to have problems.

That is certainly true. But:

a) Asking if something works a certain way is different from assuming that it works a certain way.  If you ask, you can check.  If you assume, then you won't.

b) Even if you've never played another game before you are likely to assume that "Indestructible" means "cannot be destroyed", because that is literally what "Indestructible" means.  Not as a game term, but as a word.  If you're using a word to mean something other than the literal definition of the word in a context where the literal defintion has valid meaning, then you've probably chosen the wrong word to use.