Am I allowed give my opinion on tox's card's, without using specific cards or card names only character names and generic terms? I would like to express my thoughts on these characters (now that I have played a few) but i am not quite sure if this would violate forum rules. I figured "off topic" is a safe place to hold this discussion if it is allowed.
I'd be interested in discussing them if it's allowed. Only played one so far but will play others soon.
Good question, I will be ordering a bunch more tonight, but I think any discussion might invariably get too close to the line.
Close to what line? Why wouldn't we be able to discuss something someone came up with?
I'm going to finish ordering these once he finishes releasing the individual files and the_yoshi uploads all of the dividers and custom promos.
But yes, I'd love to discuss them too.
I'm confused too, what's wrong with talking about cauldrens? Or do we dislike witches or something?
"The Cauldron" is the name for a VERY large fan expansion to SotM done by BGG user tosx. It currently has 26 decks, three of which are "jokes" (Link from Zelda, a Pokemon environment, and a "girlfriend" deck), with a tally of something like 11 heroes, 6 or 7 villains, and the remainder environments.
I believe the concern is coming too close to breaking the rules about posting fan creations in this forum, which is a no-no.
Oh… That's a shame. I was just getting ready for some witch trials too. I found the perfect cliff!
I know some witches, they're cool and all, but some things are more important than friendship.
I say we start burning and figure out the rest later. I don't like the cliffs, it is cold out there.
…and this is why this thread belongs in off topic, lol.
(I jest of course 
)
I'm now up to three characters played, and I'm reserving judgement until I've had a few more games. I imagine like every hero they'll all have games where they dominate and do stuff that seems overpowered, and games where they feel useless.
As for specifics though, we should probably take it to BGG.
I don't understand why though. I'll start.
We played against Anathema and really enjoyed it. Anathema is a John Carpenter's The Thing-type villain whose deck is full of body parts (heads, bodies, arms) that each do different things. You start with one of each in play and throughout the game whenever you draw a new one, it replaces the old one of that type. If you manage to blow off all the limbs, you flip it to its exposed inner goo form. It's a great concept, well executed.
The deck felt quick and fluid, and seemed well balanced. I made an oversized version of it so we could add it to our regular rotation.
I'll make a more general comment about tosx's decks - probably due to the fact that the art style is quite close to Adam's, tosx's decks feel almost like official decks. There's something about them that keeps me from feeling like they're exactly the same as an official deck, something subtle that's hard to put your finger on. Maybe it's just that they haven't been playtested as thoroughly as official decks and so don't feel quite as polished. Maybe it's just that cards designed by Christopher have a particular "feel" to them that's harder to replicate than you'd think.
I don't think any of the custom decks have replicated that feel. Official decks feel more situational and more fluid at the same time, maybe more nuanced and better thought out.
The Cauldron Heroes tend to lack quick destruction cards, you can get into trouble that way, and the damage dealers are almost all geared toward building up or using chains of effects. Which is fun but can lead to early game struggles, and anti-climatic ends.
Some of them unbalance a bit vs. the Vengeance format as well.
Vanish (the teleporter, and my favorite of the Cauldron heroes) has an ability to let her use a power when a villain damages an ally. In Vengeance rules that gets really powerful, esp. with her having an ability to increase damage taken by a target, or boost her own defenses.
Christopher is not designing future expansions with these heroes in mind, so there won't be balancing efforts for their unique effects. That could cause trouble eventually.
That said Vanish is right up there with my favorite heroes in picking which heroes I want to play, and Tango-One is my favorite main damage dealer after Expat. I like her controlled randomness a lot. My Sister loves Necro, she plays him almost exclusively and makes Zombie noises while doing so, and my B-i-L had The Stranger pegged as his favorite hero until he played the Sentinels.
I can't stand the Knight or Quicksilver, there isn't an Official Hero that makes me cringe at the thought of playing them, but Quicksilver and The Knight do.
I want to order the new stuff, but I want to wait and get the finalized version of Lady of the Wood, She still seems like she's going to be too powerful, but we'll see.
Wait…Starlight doesn't look over powered to you? I know the joke decks are just that, but the musical swordsman looks a bit powerful too.
I've just started the (slow) process of moving the card data to a spreadsheet like the one I use for moderating PBF games at BGG. It's going to be slower than putting in the Vengeance card text was because part-time job #2 started back up last week, meaning I really won't be able to do/try much with it for a while. (Just at nights after the kids are in bed, and then only if it's not going to be bothering my wife.)
When I finish up, I'm intending to try running at least PBF game that includes Cauldron characters among the official decks as a way of helping to further refine some of the playtesting. That, however, is also going to require getting my master PBF deck tracker updated with these guys.
If you're interested in helping and want added to the Dropbox folder, pipe up.
Joke heroes aren't balanced, and Starlight is new and is being tested, it Looks like Lady of the Wood is done though, and I'm not sure she was nerfed enough. Need to test more, so much playtesting, so little time.
We tried and generally liked Vanish, again maybe more for the great concept than anything, and I modified a few of her cards myself to try to get the deck to feel more cohesive, but we haven't played with my modifications yet so I don't know if I made things worse or better.
The Stranger is the only other hero we've given much time to. Again, his concept is great (forest man who puts runes on everything which do various things), but the fact that the runes deal himself damage which you need other runes to prevent was a dealbreaker to me. I don't want to have to need cards to stop my main cards from killing me. So I made some modifications there too but haven't tested them out yet.
Tiamat is another villain with a great concept. It's a three-headed dragon, with a character card for each head (fire, ice, lightning). When you kill a head, you flip to the cut-off head side. We were excited to try it out but found that the deck is full of mostly just direct-damage stuff which made the villain turns kind of flat. Then we ran into a card that said "move all the interesting cards to the trash" which I think was supposed to make it more likely you'd get other kinds of cards, but it made things even less interesting. So that's another deck with a great concept that I'd like to try to fluff up some, but I haven't gotten to it.
Here are my thoughts on them:
Vanish: Many people seem to enjoy Vanish and I agree with them. However, playing Vanish feels clunky. When I play her she doesn't really flow well (atleast that is how I feel). She is a decent character for any team against almost any villain.
Quicksilver: Is it just me or does she just seem too good? Her damage output is insane and she has three straight up healing cards (10hp gain). Her play seems shallow; damage, damage, damage, personal support, damage, damage, damage.
Tango one: I love the critical idea. It gives her versatility and a neat new mechanism that like someone before me said is "controlled randomness."
Necro: I want him to work soo bad. The idea is just so unique and just straight up cool. However, I have played many advanced games with him and he just can't handle the heat that the advanced game brings. He turns out to be more of a liability on advanced.
Knight: Unlike phantaskippy, I really like the Knight. I find him to be a very effective tank who can prtotect his teammates effectively. He can also be played agressively if certain cards are drawn and a tank is not tneeded to absorb the highest hp damage.
Stranger: My favorite of the cauldron heroes. I love everything about him. He is a good support but can deal damage as well. I don't mind the damage he deals himself especially if I can get something that negates it out first. Someone above said they didn't like the self damage but I don't mind it.
If I get some more time, I'll give my thoughts on tiamat, anathema, the ram, and the wandering isle.
Necro's another one that leaves me cold. He summons minions which chew on the heroes, although he can do things with the minions which are helpful. Why not just skip the middle part with the chewing and have him summon minions that are helpful?
I agree. It would be cool to send out legions of the undead against the enemy as compared to sending legions of the undead onto fellow heroes.
When you get Necro going he is insanely good. That's why you have the cost of the zombie attacks.
My sister plays as him a lot, and by turn 5 she's either nearly dead and starting to get going or her zombie engine is rolling and the heroes are nearly unstoppable. She likes the risk reward of him.
Ra or Wraith are amazing with him since their return damage can kill the litle buggers.
Haka and Nighmist are also lots of fun with him.
Scholar as well, he's just ridiculous wth them.
AZ Using Thermal on them with only 1 villain target is awesome as well.
There's just so many ways to deal with them, and the effects get so good.
They are a lot of fun vs. the Ennead, Those silly thieves just keep killing them for you, esp. when you flip the one that destroys them for free.
I love the games with Necro, the increase in amount of shenanigans makes it so much fun.
He messes with the normal order of things, and I think that is a very good thing.
I like the theme, he is summoning the zombies to use for his magic which helps his allies, the Zombies don't fight for him, they are just there as spell components.
Beacuse it's not the same dynamic. It's good to have a different mechanic and a different feel for it. I do think Necro is a bit weak and can end up being not fun with so much setup and not that much payoff. [edit: I haven't played him as phanta has so I might be off. I still do not like when Heroes depend on other Heroes to be useful]
In case of the Stranger, the damage works as a limit of how many Runes he can sustain per turn. I think it's good since it looks like it works.
In general I like tosx cards better when it doesn't include any of the official Heroes/Villains (but it includes other of his own), it just feels more polished. The lack of bios also make them lacking in personality compared to official Heroes/Villains.
Can someone give this man a quick explanation as to how this man can get these decks printed from The Printer's Studio website? It would mean a lot to my group.
Short answer: There are several posts in this thread at BGG devoted to exactly that question:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1104083/tosxs-sotm-the-cauldron-expansion-tracking/
Wow! I can't believe that I am seeing this for the first time. What would it cost to get a set printed? I see the cost of a deck, but if you order multiple decks do you get a price break if they are different decks?