Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Barachiel - The Angel of Blessing

Barachiel is the Angel of Blessing and is usually depicted holding roses or a bread basket to represent the distribution of favors from heaven. He is one of the four ruling seraphim and is chief of the guardian angels.

His power in Battle For Souls is to magnify the blessings that a holy relic brings, or nullify the evil that an unholy relic can bring.

In cases like Barachiel, where an ability can be used only once per game I will not use a scoring track as it will be easy to track when a single use ability is used up. Once you use it, your opponent is not apt to forget.

Holy and Unholy relics are cards that can be purchased at random for the cost of 3 holy/unholy points and can be used for the remainder of the game once purchased. They are not as powerful as angel and devil cards, but their special abilities in addition to their value of 2 victory points will make them very tempting for player to incorportate. Owning Barachiel will make them even more appealing for the side of heaven to invest in. I'll be listing them here for your feedback!

Please keep letting me know what you think and please share the blog. Those who jump in will be helping to make Battle For Souls a great experience and you will be rewarded when we expand playtesting!

3 comments:

  1. I definitely like the idea of this ability because it directs players toward a certain strategy.

    I think it may be more straightforward, however, to eliminate the last sentence. Although it is certainly beneficial, is it really necessary? (As an aside, I play Magic: The Gathering casually and read a lot about design. That heavily influences my opinions about complexity.)

    If proven necessary, one way to make Barachiel stronger without the last line is:

    "Whenever a holy relic is played, Barachiel can add X holy points among any number of souls. X is the number of holy relics in play."

    That certainly is more complex, but is more complex in a linear way rather than adding on the ability to prevent one unholy relic.

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  2. I really like the idea of adding X number of holy points based on the number of relics.
    I would only be concerned that it could tip the balance of power too much.

    Once a player gets 3 relics they can buy new relics for free, then they would easily be able to get 7 relics, and once they have 7, Barachiel would let them saint a soul every turn. It could make the card unstoppable.

    However, tweaking the amount, like an extra holy point for every 2 or 3 relics owned would be an easy way to balance it.

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    1. Yeah, if the fourth-plus relics are free, Barachiel would be too powerful with that alternate text. Is buying later relics for free an attempt to get players to buy those first three? Is it necessary? I wouldn't recommend changing the relic costs solely to change Barachiel, but it seems powerful on its own.

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