Resurrection!

Whenever I play with my friends, it seems a foregone conclusion that at least one of us ends up incapacitated. If this occurs near the end of the battle, all is well and good, btu occasionally, this happens mid, or even early game. This results in the incapacitated hero basically kicked out of the game, left to do nothing but watch, wait, and be bored until the rest of us win or lose. Of course, the incapacitated powers of a hero provide some small modicum of participation, but more often than not, the choice becomes that of the surviving team, not of the incap-ed hero.

Whenever we are faced with such a situation, my friends ask me (as the SotM Gamemaster in my group of friends) if there is any way at all to bring them back in the game. A resurrect option, if you will (ala Left4Dead, where even if you die, there is a chance to be found and revived later, if with immensely crappy weapons.). I have actually brought this up before in another thread, but I think it'd be better with it's own :)

My first suggestion is this (Option A):
A surviving teammate skips their entire turn, start and end of the turn included, to bring back an incapacitated hero with 5HP. The revived hero, in turn, has a choice: trash their entire hand, but keep all cards they have in play (equipment, on-goings), OR shuffle all cards they have in play and in their hands back into the deck, then draw a new hand of 4 cards. Play proceeds normally.

Mind you, this is still rather rough. I want to find the perfect trade off between cost of reviving, benefits of being revived, simplicity of the mechanic (I'm not a big fan of effects that last throughout the game), and of course, the fun factor (which is the most important, in my opinion). I chose 5HP as the revived HP because it's low enough that the heroes don't get an undue advantage, but high enough that they can still survive two rounds with the baddie. Thematically, it could be that the hero's gear was able to block that final hit, or else that the hero was woken up by a teammate, all gear intact, but groggy and still confused, hence the trashed hand.

Another option, this time suggested by a friend, is this (Option B):
A surviving teammate skips their entire turn, start and end of the turn included, to bring back an incapacitated hero for 10HP. The revived hero keeps all cards in play and in their hand at the time of their incapacitation, but from then on deals one less damage (-1 damage dealt) and receives one more damage (+1 damage received).

This option allows the revived hero to stay longer, so that they really are back in the game and not just in it for another round or so, but at the same time provides a mechanical disadvantage to that hero forevermore. It also allows the hero to just get back in to help immediately. Thematically, it could be the hero getting back in the game, but injured and thus less effective and more likely to go down again.

A final option was suggested, putting the two together (Option C)
A surviving teammate skips their entire turn, start and end of the turn included, to bring back an incapacitated hero for 10HP. The revived hero chooses: trash their entire hand, but keep all cards they have in play, OR shuffle all cards in play and in their hands into the deck, then draw 4 cards. For the rest of the game, the hero has (-1 damage dealt) and (+1 damage received).

Of the three, this is the one I favor most. The increase in HP is offset by the debuffs received by the hero.

An alternate cost to reviving a person would be for ALL the surviving heroes to skip their turns to revive one incap-ed hero.

What do you guys think?

What's wrong with that player contributing through the incap abilities?

Theres nothing wrong with it-sometimes the contribution of that hero's incapacitated abilities can far exceed his active abilities. Take Tempest for instance. However, powerful and useful such contributions may be, it isn't the hero's player who really plays any more. In the end, it's the rest of the group who decides which of the three incap powers to use, effective leaving the incap-ed hero's player to just wait there doing nothing, nodding his head when the group decides which of the three incap powers to use.

Basically, there's nothing wrong with it per se. Just kind of boring, if it happens too early.

I don't think that the incapacitated abilities are intended for the kind of scenario you seem to be going through, which may be the problem.

Why is one person consistently being taken out in the mid-game? Is it always the same player, with different characters? Is it always the character with the lowest starting hitpoints? (We find this typically the case fighting Iron Legion, even when we beat him.) Is it always against one particular villain?

Or are you just playing in Advanced mode a lot?

We've just never seen the kind of thing that you describe happen (although we stick to Basic mode). Certainly it could be bad luck, but you might want to alter your play style and/or choice of heroes. Do what you can to protect the low-HP heroes, and/or focus on the villain cards that are targeting the low-HP characters. Maybe choose some different heroes: Tempest, Argent Adept, and Legacy (healing), Haka, Legacy, Bunker, and Tempest (personal damage reduction), Fanatic (Aegis resurrection), or Wraith (Smoke Bombs).

Not saying you're doing anything wrong, but our group hasn't seen it as a common occurrence for one hero to consistently be taken out "early" in a game. Incapacitated seems to be for the relatively rare times when a hero goes down, so if it's not so rare for you, yes, we can see why constantly being stuck in Incapacitated would be a bummer.

Why is everyone else deciding? I may be out, but it's still MY character to play.

Gislef: Believe me when I say, I don't understand why it happens either. But it really does :( I just want to try to introduce a mechanism by which people can jump back in the game after being knocked out.

Greywind: Yes, but in the end, you of course want to choose the power best for the group. And who better to decide which of the three powers is best for your group than your group itself? We recognize that in the end, it is still the decision of the hero's player, but more often than not, peer pressure dictates it. And besides, it can get a little boring, choosing between three choices, and only those choices, every turn. Also, even if you do have three choices, more often than not, you'll end up choosing just one of them over and over again. Boredom ensues.

I gotta say I kinda agree with Drakossozh that if it happens early or mid-game it seems rather unfun. Incap powers can be really helpful in certain circumstances, but this is a game and if one person is essentially shut out, that's something that might need repairing.

Option C does seem like the best. the real question is the optimum HP to give back. Let's think: if you use phoenix down in Final Fantasy you usually get less than half- maybe 1/3 HP? It doesn't make sense to scale it to each hero, that would be too complicated. Or maybe it does make sense to say you get a third. So Haka gets 11 but Argent gets 8? Maybe?

EDIT: Reparing via house rules. I've only see a person get killed early once and it was in my very second game and I'm willing to say that I was just playing it wrong. Luckily? we were saved by a carbon-monoxide alarm so I didn't have to watch the rest of my team die too.

Thank you Celette! It's just that, most of the people I play with are, ah, effectively newbies to the game-we only get together maybe twice a month, and we have to split our time over, what, 4-5 games? So at most we perhaps get to play SotM once a month, if that. So yeah, my teammates die rather easily. A resurrection fix would help make it more fun for us :)

I hadn't thought about scaling the HP regenerated. I shall try it out, see how it works :)

Hey Drak, I remember the previous thread with this and I'm thinking of implementing something myself.  If you are interested in my opinion, I like option A.  Like you I'm not a fan of things that last the rest of the game.  Secondly, some hero are really hurt by -1 damage (CR), where as some will not be affected much (AA).  Also, there are tons of comics where the defeated hero comes back even stronger!  I think the choice to discard or keep your board is good because again some would really be hurt by clearing their board and some would not so much.

In general you can always play these as is and then tweak them.  Keeping your board is too much?  Maybe they need to loose at least 1 card, or maybe they can only keep one card.   Maybe if they they choose to trash everything and draw four cards they get to keep one card in play.  Maybe you get to keep X cards in play and Y in your hand where X+Y<=4 and you shuffle every thing else in and draw 4-(X+Y) cards.  Anyway, you get the idea, very adjustable.

I look forward to hearing how it goes!

Okay, so I was able to try out Celette's suggestion of scaling, and I found that it works better than just recovering a single set amount of HP. I also tried out using Option C with it, and I have to agree with Sefirit (lol I just saw yoru post now! You were right!), the DR really hurt some heroes (Fanatic, Fixer) while barely touching others (Legacy, AA), to the point where it really made a difference in the choice whether to revive a hero or not on a fixed level, rather than a situational level. On the other hand, the (+1 damage received) was pretty even for everybody, and was actually enough of a con on the side of reviving someone already. Thus, I came up with a *new* option:

Option D:
A surviving teammate skips their entire turn, start and end of the turn included, to bring back an incapacitated hero with 1/3 of their maximum HP (rounded up). The revived hero, in turn, has a choice: trash their entire hand, but keep all cards they have in play (equipment, on-goings), OR shuffle all cards they have in play and in their hands back into the deck, then draw a new hand of 4 cards. That hero receives (+1 damage received) for the rest of the game.

I also realized that multiple resurrections would be possible. In that case, the House Rule would remain the same, except the (+1 damage received) would be cumulative, so that the second time the hero is revived, he/she has 2 (+1 damage received) for a total of (+2 damage received), and so on.

Sefirit, I will try your siggestion of adjustment :) I think 4 or 5 total cards in hand and play would be a good fix. I will try it out.

If you guys have any suggestions, or want to try these fixes out with me, go ahead! The more, the merrier!

I like the extra damage increasing each time since if a group was just resurrecting over and over again eventually everyone would just ko'd in one shot so you couldn't get some kind of infinite stall going.

Another option to stop that would be to say something like only one rez per game or one rez per hero per game.

Edit

You could also give the Res diminishing HP each turn.  maybe they get 1/3 back the first time, 1/5 the second (would be 5-6 for each hero) and only 1/10 the third time.

I’ve heard some people say they won’t play cooperative games because the typical result is the most experienced tend to play everybody’s turn for them. I’ve noticed this happening which is why I tend to play a bit more secretive than I used to. I make my own decisions, and, unless I specifically ask, I don’t really take suggestions. Thus, when I’m incapacitated, I tend to do what I think is best rather than ask everyone else and have them play for me. It may not be the strategically best move, but it’s the one that keeps the most fun for myself.

After trying this out several times, I've come to the conclusion that the best 'fix' for this purpose would be Option D (see above.) It prevents the game from stalling, it is still completely possible to just lose, and, quite honestly, many times the incapacitated ability is superior to what the hero can offer (I'm looking at you, Tempest). Yey!

How about this option:

At the start of their turn, a surviving hero may deal themself any number of psycic(a diffrent type would be ok, but psycic seemes best) damage. If they do, they may revive an incapacitated hero with x hp, where x is the amount of damage dealt to that hero this way minus (H - 1)

This also includes an anti-stall check and some scaling.

Feel free to  tweak this slightly.

Make that psycic damage irredirectible. otherwise it makes amulet of the elder gods and synaptic interuption an intsa-win

Irreducible damage can be redirected, increased, or have its type changed.  Amulet of the Elder Gods, Synaptic Interruption, Isothermic Transducer/Null-Point Calibration Unit with Twist the Ether, and Imbued Fire/Flesh of the Sun God will still compromise Irreducible damage.

I'll choose to deal 200 damage to myself to raise Legacy, then I'll discard two cards to redirect that to Akash. . . sorry Legacy, you don't get raised this time.

i thought about that

You could word it as 

"At the start of their turn, a surviving hero may reduce their current health by any amount. If they do, they may revive an incapacitated hero with x hp, where x is the amount of health reduced by that hero this way minus (H - 1)"

I've been pretending that all the "take X damage or lose this" stuff is worded this way instead in my playgroup so that Legacy does not inadvertantly stop people from doing things to themselves that he couldn't reasonably stop them from doing in the first place. Also makes it so the effects aren't changed by damage being reduced or buffed. It's just a cost, basically. "Deal with this cost, no exceptions, to get thing."

I like it being actual damage instead of this "phantom" hp reduction.

Edit: Also, increasing and reduction is irrelevant here. If a hero with DR 2 deals themself (H+3) damage, then they will only revive a hero with 2hp, not four. If they wanted to revive a hero with four hp, they would instead deal themself (h+5) damage.

The only issue is redirection. Why not just say that it is regular damage, except that it can't be redirected.

Edit2: Immuniity stiil prevents the process, but it could be that would make it overpowered. if your immune hero had healing, then he could just heal and then use the healing to revive the dead heroes, he could always reduce himself to 1hp because there are ne external sources damaging him.

This is a pretty interesting topic. 

Wouldn't the ability to choose to damage yourself have the potential to be OP when Fanatic is in a group? She could easily damage herself to pop and do massive amounts of damage based on low HP.

I'm not sure if this is a problem or not, but it seems like you could revive someone early on and basically abuse one of her core mechanics.

I wasn't really thinking about the details.

Edit: Would this fix the issue?

At the start of their turn, if any heroes are incapacitated , a surviving hero may deal themself any number of psycic(a diffrent type would be ok, but psycic seemes best) damage. If they do, revive an incapacitated hero with x hp, where x is the amount of damage dealt to that hero this way minus (H - 1)

more detailss. I am trying to make it harder for this to be used for anything other than resuricting the dead.

At the start of their turn, if any heroes are incapacitated , a surviving hero may deal themself  (H) or more any number of psycic damage. If they do, revive an incapacitated hero with x hp, where x is the amount of damage dealt to that hero this way minus (H - 1)

Speaking of Fanatic, wouldn't she be able to ressurect someone to full health if she had Breastplate in play and was willing to lose it?

You do take damage into negatives, if anyone figured that might solve the problem.

Actually, I guess the issue is anyone who is almost dead could just take absurd amounts of damage to restore someone else to life with full.

In game design you have to keep in mind, that whenever you give players more options, you are giving them more power.    I don't feel this can be balanced when working from the hero-end alone.   

Imagine a scale that is perfectly balanced,   on one end you have the heroes(and all their tricks/abilities), on the other hand you have the villains (and all their abilities).   You're trying to add a trick to one end of the scale,   it's going to throw off the balance.  The fact that it has some disadvantages makes it only a small trick to add,  but it's still something,  it's still an option.     What do the villains get to restore the balance?   Nothing...  I'd reccomend trying to restore balance by messing with the H mechanic.   Perhaps H= H+1 when using this house rule.  

With that said,  if your friends are losing their heroes too much,  I'd say now is probably not the time to add in house-rules.  When we win the game, 9.5/10 times we have 0 hero incapacitations.   When we lose the game, usually all heroes are killed within a turn or two of each other.   Rarely do we have one player "out" of the game on their incapacitated side for a significant amount of the game while the other heroes are still playing. 

Without knowing your group I have to make guesses in wildly unfamiliar territory here, so take the following with a grain of salt.   I'm guessing one of three things is happening with your group: 

1.  You are relatively newer players.   This game does have a bit of a learning curve.  It takes a while to get the hang of it.   Keep plugging away and you'll learn the heroes and the villians well enough that incapacitations will stop happening.  

2.   You are not playing with enough players.   Even though the H mechanic does help,  the game is still harder with 3 players than with 4.   It's harder with 4 players than with 5.   If you're only playing with 3 players,  add another player,  or have one player play another hero.

3.  Your group is playing extremely agressively.   Maybe you are choosing heroes like Absolute Zero or Fanatic and bringing on the self-inflicted damage.   This is fine,  but you have to realize that early incapacitation is a chance you take.    If incapacitation bugs them, suggest they pick different heroes or play more conservatively.  You may also not be assigning much value to cards like Fortitude, Danger Sense, Synaptic Interruption, Hypersonic Assault, Throat Jab, Ground Pound, etc...  things that mitigate the amout of damage you take.   These are good cards,   many of them are among the best in the game, don't ignore them!

If I am the only hero alive and at 1 HP, could I take 60 damage to resurrect a team mate at full HP? The villain would have a greatly reduced chance to win with this rule as we could do it every time... and even if you say "You can't go into negatives to resurrect others" There are too many heroes who tank by regaining HP at an increased rate, The Scholar, Absolute Zero and Nightmist instantly spring to mind.

I think what you have here is a dead idea (pun intended), it sounds an interesting notion but the mechanics behind this are causing more problems than they are solving. I think you would another method of resurrection not tied to HP

Discard your hand and skip your turn. The incapable hero gets HP = the number of cards you discarded?

Discard may work better than damage.  Especially when Twist the Ether comes into play.  Zero could deal himself HP-1 Psychic (converted to Fire) and then heal that much (potentially +1 more with Focused Apertures) by dealing the resulting Cold damage caused by Isothermic Transducer to himself with the Null-Point Calibration Unit in play.  With Vis, that would make him THE healer character.

sigh.