Resident Evil - Ascension Mode? Need help figuring out some specifics

[Gibb]

Just played a game of this mode last night with my friends and they really liked it, and had some good suggestions to keep everything balanced.

I'm going to work on re-writing the rules to be clearer, as well as try to detail which cards do or do not work well with this mode.

The game I played last night used the 'Alliance' mansion (minus any traps/items) and we played where the game would end once Infected Wesker was defeated. I think I actually prefer a decoration limit as the end point of the game, but I suppose there could be multiple end conditions depending on how people want to play.

[hencook]

After trying out your mode, here's what I'd recommend-

6 cards that make the center row- The reason Ascencion made their center row 6 cards was that it was limiting to the players in what they could do per round. The limitations created strategy; Banishing is a central theme of Ascencion, and without it there isn't much control over the center row. Without control, there is little reason to play an Ascencion mode.

All types of actions are now usable as Banish - Although my initial testing I gave everyone +1 Banish action, I am now considering instead the possibility that any Action/Buy/Explore can be traded in for a Banish, but limited one trade of each type per round (giving you a total of 3 banishes).

Character balance- A lot of characters depend on exploring and the mansion concepts. Instead of banning them, why don't you simply allow people to enter the mansion as well? That means a player could use an explore to either destroy a center row monster, or explore the mansion, allowing a great number of characters to play in this mode.

Character damage- Monsters in the center row should ALWAYS do damage regardless of whether or not the character defeats the infected. Infecteds are "revealed" when attacked. If both the character and the infected are defeated, the infected is defeated first. This allows high health characters to stay in balance with the game. Monsters in the mansion do not do damage when defeated, as normal.

Multiple characters- Have players receive 2 characters. The characters share the decorations, but you only use one character at a time. As soon as your character dies, the next one takes his place (and might even start at level 2). You can even swap your character before you draw your next hand (by stating so at the end of your turn). Having multiple characters allows for flexibility with card decks, seeing as an Ascencion center row with 6 cards is really restrictive.

I believe these balance changes will alleviate issues with mansion randomness (somewhat), while keeping most of the game intact for characters that aren't viable for this mode.

[Gibb]

Thanks for the comments hencook. I've actually be working on re-writing the entire ruleset for this mode based on a couple more games I've played. I've found a way to incorporate most items and traps (if people want to use them), as well as most characters. I left out the same types of characters people would leave out of the normal story mode games, like the Infection related characters from Outbreak. I think I also excluded the 10 damage per card Krauser, as he could become too broken when the infected are visible.

As for your banish idea, I'm not too sure. I clearly used Ascension as the concept behind this mode, but I think it evolved into something different. If banish allowed the player to remove Infected from the center row, it would undo the concept of the Infected hunting down the players (I posted this idea in a later post). I apologize for not figuring all this stuff out before I made the original post. In my new version the center area cards actually cycle pretty regularly.

Once I get my new ruleset complete, I'd love for you to try it again and see what you think of it. I really appreciate the feedback.

[Chud_Munson]

My thinking for two of the potential issues here...

Firstly, damage and the incentive to buy green herb. I would propose that you keep any damage effects monsters do, but also give the opportunity for players to attack one another. My thinking for this would be to allow players to use weapons on other players, provided they trash (per REDBG rules, return to resource pile, or in this case, put on the bottom of the deck, or shuffle into the deck) the weapon after use (that way, people aren't doing damage to each other every single turn.) This would use the player's explore.

Another way you can incorporate damage is to allow for two fighting phases, Kill and Explore. After Killing a monster in the center row, the player may Explore to take on the next monster in the mansion deck that they must fight. Per REDBG rules, you could still allow the players to use the damage between all weapons to fight both enemies (if they lose, they get attacked by both enemies and get no decorations), or they must use separate weapons for each fight (in this case they only get attacked by the enemy they Explored for; they still get decorations for the enemy they Killed.)

Also, with regards to banishing cards, I think it would be a good idea to allow any actions cards/abilities/effects that allow for trashing to be applied to either the player's own cards, or to the center rows. That's assuming you're not actually removing the cards from the game, but putting back in the resource/mansion piles.

I'll try to do a test run of this soon and report how it pans out. Let me know what you guys think.

[teslacrashed]

Ironically, I'm currently trying to turn Ascensions randomness into Resident Evil's static patterns.

[Macrobbs]

nothing else needs

[MysticMist]

we watn the new rule set!!!!

[Gibb]

we watn the new rule set!!!!

Hah, I've really dropped the ball on this one. I actually took a couple dozen photos and wrote up some rules for my variant, but I haven't finished it up yet, even tho it's been almost half a year. With the news of the new expansion coming out, I do have a bit more desire to finish up my rules tho. Maybe I'll have something done in the near future.