Colorless characters

GrumpySmurf1002

I'd like to see character(s) that have abilities that trigger with any color(s). Think of an artifact creature from MTG, same concept.

Since gaining 3AP in any color is obviously easier than 3AP in a specific color, these would have to be expensive abilities, in the upwords of 30+ at least, but it would add a lot of intrigue to have a character who literally can't be denied AP. Lucky for us, there are abilities out there that already have high costs built in. Environment abilities, but adjusted for the real world. For instance:

35 AP - Latverian Terrian: Add Black Strike Tile (of adequate strength, not the terrible Latveria strength ones). Level 5 puts out 3 tiles of Muscle strength damage.
45 AP - Snow Drift: Stun for 1 turn and drain AP from opposing team. Scale up to stun 3 turns and more AP drain (not steal)
40 AP - Hybrid of a few: Select one color. Transforms 6 random tiles to the color of your choice. Level 5 increases to 2 colors and 10 tiles each.
50 AP - Hot Dog Stand! True heals team for 100 for every red tile on board (ketchup). Level 3 and 5 add Mustard (yellow) and Relish (green).

Etc...

You could have a few characters like this, or even a couple like Red/Blue/Colorless.

They'd be slow characters, so wouldn't change the metagame as of right now, but I think it'd be fun to have a character that literally has no bounds.

MojoWild

Interesting idea, but I thought there was a cap on any given AP type? It's like 30? Or maybe I'm imagining that.

GrumpySmurf1002

MojoWild wrote:

Interesting idea, but I thought there was a cap on any given AP type? It's like 30? Or maybe I'm imagining that.

There is. I was thinking more like "take 6 green, 6 black, 18 purple" to get your 30AP, which gives it more flexibility and strategy. A 'select color to drain' would ultimately just become a purple drain given the lack of adequate powers.

Unknown

Or you could have an ability that requires AP in multiple colors but it doesn't matter which colors they are. For example, a power requires 8AP of one color and 10AP of another.

Pwuz_

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

MojoWild wrote:

Interesting idea, but I thought there was a cap on any given AP type? It's like 30? Or maybe I'm imagining that.

There is. I was thinking more like "take 6 green, 6 black, 18 purple" to get your 30AP, which gives it more flexibility and strategy. A 'select color to drain' would ultimately just become a purple drain given the lack of adequate powers.

That's a lot like how the abilities in the original Puzzle Quest were set up. It only used 4 colors, and most abilities used varying amounts of 2 or more colors. There are a few abilities that still function a bit like that (Fury's Yellow, Hulk's Red, IM40's Red & Blue), but without locking out the ability if the secondary colors are not collected as well.

Unknown

Original Puzzle Quest also had long cooldowns (2 or more turns) on powerful abilities, especially on stuns, so even if you had enough AP to do so you couldn't stunlock an opponent. It also awarded extra turns for 4-of-a-kinds. Sometimes you or AI could play 4 or more turns just by matching those 4s. Also, T, L, +, paralellogram matches don't give extra turns. Just the straight line 5s. In fact I don't remember seeing any paralellograms in that game.

It also had "I win" abilities but they required so much AP, items, and work. By work I mean building your hero. It involved building your castle with a dungeon and mage tower. Dungeon for keeping captured enemies and mage tower for learning their abilites (which also involved a match with different goals than beating an opponent, goals scaled to the awesomness of the spell you could learn). You'd need to defeat an enemy three times before you could capture it too. So, you build your hero with synergizing abilities with his/her own abilities and the ones you can learn from enemies, build or buy items (most OP and useful items cannot be bought and must be built with again in a match with different conditions and goals, again those goals scaled with awesomness of the item you are creating).

In my last playthrough, I built a warrior with spells

1. clearing the board of blue and yellow (Wild Lore iirc) I think I learned this from a knight.
2. berserk rage (her own ability): transforms reds into skulls. they are the damage tile doing damage when matched in the game apart from direct damage spells.
3. deathbringer learned from an arkliche iirc. (creating skulls for every 3 red AP you have. I would have 30 or more red AP when I used this adding onto skulls from berserk rage cascading almost all of the board. i trained my warrior to have 42 max red.)
4. hide learned from a giant scorpion. does double damage with skull tiles provided you are not damaged while being hidden. if I could hide before doing above combo, it would end the beefiest of opponents (usually castles when sieging cities) in a turn. You'd need a stun to do this safely since using an ability ends your current turn in this game.
5. stomp learned from a hill giant. clears all green and gives you the amount of green destroyed, also stuns opponent for one turn or more depending on the number of destroyed green tiles.
6. disease. this is from my mount, giant rat. gives cunning and speed (while traveling) bonuses. disease reduces all enemy AP by one for some turns. cunning is a hero attribute which decides who goes first in a battle.
7. trample. does damage half of your green mana. either her own or learned from a knight.

I think that's it. Then, I built a Dragonhorn of Poison giving me 5 AP in all colors once I did a 4 or higher match which had a chance to poison the target (reducing enemy hp every turn). Got an Elemental Gem from a Minotaur boss giving me 2 AP in all colors for every maxed mana reserve. And a godlike or legendary weapon adding 6 to all of my damage iirc.

Pwuz_

KevinMark wrote:

Original Puzzle Quest also had long cooldowns (2 or more turns) on powerful abilities, especially on stuns, so even if you had enough AP to do so you couldn't stunlock an opponent.

I don't know what you're talking about. The Stun that the Knight has is cheap and could stun lock an opponent. I had more than a few combinations that would make 3rd turn last forever, but the AI would never get another chance to move.

I don't remember ANY abilities with any cool down at all. Knight Lord combined with some item that gave Mana for Experience collected would slowly but surely kill any opponent long before they ever got another turn.

FaustianDeal

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'd like to see character(s) that have abilities that trigger with any color(s). Think of an artifact creature from MTG, same concept.

Artifact enemies... Love it! There are even examples from the MU... the Destroyer armor, for example would be an awesome artifact enemy.

Other MtG mechanics you could optionally bring for these:
These enemies could start fights stunned, needing a certain amount of AP to be gathered in order to activate them. (similar to MtG 'comes into play tapped' behavior ) -
long cool-down built into its powers, where after it fires ones they are stunned for a few turns, like IM40 yellow. (similar to MtG 'does not untap during untap phase'.) you would have to 're-activate' the character again.

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

50 AP - Hot Dog Stand! True heals team for 100 for every red tile on board (ketchup). Level 3 and 5 add Mustard (yellow) and Relish (green).

"Hulk hate mustard!!" **SMASH**

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Original Puzzle Quest also had long cooldowns (2 or more turns) on powerful abilities, especially on stuns, so even if you had enough AP to do so you couldn't stunlock an opponent.

I don't know what you're talking about. The Stun that the Knight has is cheap and could stun lock an opponent. I had more than a few combinations that would make 3rd turn last forever, but the AI would never get another chance to move.

I don't remember ANY abilities with any cool down at all. Knight Lord combined with some item that gave Mana for Experience collected would slowly but surely kill any opponent long before they ever got another turn.

I remember reading in one of the guides that the game was patched because of a Knight loop that could go on forever. Maybe you played before it was patched. My first playthrough was with a Knight as well. I also played it on PC. Maybe DS version was the one with the exploit.

edit: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/puzzle- ... 0-6180836/ ctrl-f "cooldown" in there.

Pwuz_

KevinMark wrote:

Pwuz_ wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Original Puzzle Quest also had long cooldowns (2 or more turns) on powerful abilities, especially on stuns, so even if you had enough AP to do so you couldn't stunlock an opponent.

I don't know what you're talking about. The Stun that the Knight has is cheap and could stun lock an opponent. I had more than a few combinations that would make 3rd turn last forever, but the AI would never get another chance to move.

I don't remember ANY abilities with any cool down at all. Knight Lord combined with some item that gave Mana for Experience collected would slowly but surely kill any opponent long before they ever got another turn.

I remember reading in one of the guides that the game was patched because of a Knight loop that could go on forever. Maybe you played before it was patched. My first playthrough was with a Knight as well. I also played it on PC. Maybe DS version was the one with the exploit.

edit: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/puzzle- ... 0-6180836/ ctrl-f "cooldown" in there.

Yeah, I've always played on my DS, so I had no idea that they ever changed any of the other versions of it.