Fortune Cards Review

[jimmifett]

TL;DR Summary:
Pros:
* Cheap
* Fun to use
* Fun to buy when you have money burning a hole
* Does not feel broken from both player and DM POV
* Entirely Optional

Cons:
* Costs money (doesn't everything?)
* Randomization perhaps a little too random
* Could use niftier artwork?

Long Summary:
So I was playing encounters and earned a fortune card. I throught it was kind of interesting, so I picked up 2 more packs a couple days later and slipped them into some card sleeves as SOP. While looking through the deck building rules, I found I need 3 cards from each group (attack, defense, and tactics) as a minimum and then 1 extra card of whatever type to have a minimum size personal deck of ten. Not too bad, I had 17 cards, but unfortunately, the 2 packs I bought did not have any defense cards in them, only attack and tactics. I chalk it up to random distribution, but I'd like to have seen at least 1 card from each grouping in a pack of 8. Not a big deal, I get them for $3/pack at my flgs and plan to buy more.

So, this weekend had an lfr game at my house and wanted to try out the cards. I hadn't really read them yet, so I offerred them as a communal deck at the table (also an option if you can't make a personal deck). Other players were hesitant since it's something that costs money, they didn't quite grok the rules for thier usage, and they decided to go with LFR reward cards instead as a last hurrah for them. I opted for the fortune cards to see how they played.

Play:
So, each encounter, I shuffled the deck and drew my card. Right off the bat I had a card that would grant me combat advantage on the target of a charge. Great! I love charging with my fighter! I wasn't in a charge position at the beginning of the encounter, so i sat on the card for two rounds before i used it. Now, at the start of your turn, you can discard the card in your hand and draw a new one, but I wanted that bonus for a charge. 3rd turn came up and I played the card and made my charge. Turns out I didn't need the extra +2 from CA, but it sure felt good to know it was there before I rolled. Would have been really great for the party Rogue. Charge w/ CA and sneak attack.

In a later encounter, I drew a card called Fair Fight. Gave me a plus +2 to attack rolls this turn or something. I held onto it a couple turns then played it when I knew I NEEDED to hit to save a party member. Turns out, once again my attack was through the roof and this just stacked +2 on top off that for extra rub it in factor, but I knew that extra 10% meant I only had to roll a 6 on the d20 to hit, which gave me the warm fuzzies.

After the game, more players were interested in picking up some cards and we plan on trading between each other.

I went through and read the rest of the cards later and found some good stuff in what I had. I've got one card, when a I or player adjacent rolls a crap skill or attribute check, I can convert the die roll into taking a 10 (Think That'll Do card). Another one will let me re-roll a failed at-will. Another lets me shift my speed as a move. One lets me shift as a minor. Another lets me spend a minor to get a +2 on my next attack roll. One lets me take only half damage on any oppurtuniy attacks made against me this turn. A rather interesting one lets me move through enemies, but gives them a +2 to thier OA against me. I thought this one was great for when you've got a large that is blocking the hall and no one can get behind for flanking.

The cards are nice and thick feeling, I place them in card sleeves as a matter of habbit. Regular sleeves fit. The art work is a blah default group icon on what i presume are the common/uncommons, but looks OK on what I presume to be the rares with a custom picture. Each pack came with 1 of what I presume the rares to be. I think the art can be much cooler looking. It does look like it belongs at the table however, subdued in design and matching 4e art and design stylings. I didn't find the need to use them every single turn, so I don't think they break the game. They are pretty much a set of useful minor exception clauses to normal combat. Could a DM arbitrarily grant most of these himself, sure, most of them.

Some in my group, and a lot of ppl in forums balk simply because it costs money or evil money grabbing corp blah blah, yada yada. The players in my group got over that once they saw the utility in action. I recommend you try out a couple packs yourself and see how they feel. You only get to use 1 card a round, so there are no must have combos of cards. You don't need to have all of them to "win" DnD, I don't really see a big secondary market for them since it's not like mtg or pokemon, they require DnD to be useful. They're more like baseball cards when you were a kid, before you worried how much a card was worth. You just traded them amongst your friends. I would advise against putting them in the spokes of your bike tires tho, your sisters my little ponies and barbie dolls are much better for that

 

[Aulirophile]

Eh... fortune cards can be something like a 50% increase in party damage on a round-to-round basis. I concede this requires rares, but it is going to be reasonably lolworthy at official con-delves that just get destroyed by properly built decks.

Given the large amount of public, sanctioned play I think Fortune cards are a bad idea because a lot of people can't get away from them if they don't like them. A lot of public play already has problems with people showing up with builds that make the rest of the fight Not Fun for the rest of the players, Fortune Cards are just going to make that worse.

 

[jimmifett]

Eh... fortune cards can be something like a 50% increase in party damage on a round-to-round basis. I concede this requires rares, but it is going to be reasonably lolworthy at official con-delves that just get destroyed by properly built decks.

Please, I'd like to see the math of how this is achieved.
As I understand it, a great deal of organized play is LFR which already has rules in place to prevent deck construction abuse, and most of the bonuses either outright give you a +2, CA which is a +2, or movement to give you flanking which is CA, again +2. A plus +2 to attack is only a 10% increase in chance to hit. If you've already rolled high enough, that extra 10% was wasted (since you have to declare the use of the card at the beginning of the turn for most cards) and translates to no additional damage. CA would grant sneak attack bonus for rogue builds, but other rogue builds can get SA nearly every round anyway, so very little change there. You also need to factor in not being able to meet the trigger conditions on a given card in order to gain the bonus. Other cards that give defined damage increases appear to also have penalties to hit, for example -2 hit but +4 damage. That's a reduction by 10% hit chance for a d6 average of hit. I already did the math in another thread, but there is only 1 stroke of luck card that the player has the ability to trigger themselves, so it's utility in an organized play setting is limited.

I'm just not seeing the 50% increase per round, but I'm more than happy to be shown otherwise

 

[Mengu]

I'm just not seeing the 50% increase per round, but I'm more than happy to be shown otherwise

I think they refer to 3-4 cards in particular, Unfair Advantage (77), Why Me (80), Overbear (15), and maybe To the Ground (24). If a party has a sufficient number of these cards (and the defense cards that give you Stroke of Luck) in their decks, and select some powers to knock enemies prone on their own as well, The cards can give the party a lot of extra attacks. Don't know about 50%, but I can see 1-2 extra attacks a round in a party of 5-6, and possibly 1 reroll a round (or every other round depending on how often they miss). I suppose 2 free attacks and 1 reroll a round in a party of 6 is close enough to 50%.

However, those are going to be some expensive decks, as every card is rare, and finding the cards for 5-6 players in the same group is going to dry up that resource quickly. For instance if I go to Troll and Toad, I note that 15, 77, and 80 are out of stock.

 

[renau1g]

and don't forget that Headman's Chop provides a nice damage bump to prone enemies, especially at lower levels.

From what I've heard there's many MTG decks that are all rares (except maybe lands cards?) for tournament play. Some people have lots of discretionary income and want to "win", which these cards help you do, especially with Wizards tossing the gauntlet down with their Ultra Challenging Encounters coming up.

 

[Aulirophile]

Please, I'd like to see the math of how this is achieved.
As I understand it, a great deal of organized play is LFR which already has rules in place to prevent deck construction abuse, and most of the bonuses either outright give you a +2, CA which is a +2, or movement to give you flanking which is CA, again +2. A plus +2 to attack is only a 10% increase in chance to hit. If you've already rolled high enough, that extra 10% was wasted (since you have to declare the use of the card at the beginning of the turn for most cards) and translates to no additional damage. CA would grant sneak attack bonus for rogue builds, but other rogue builds can get SA nearly every round anyway, so very little change there. You also need to factor in not being able to meet the trigger conditions on a given card in order to gain the bonus. Other cards that give defined damage increases appear to also have penalties to hit, for example -2 hit but +4 damage. That's a reduction by 10% hit chance for a d6 average of hit. I already did the math in another thread, but there is only 1 stroke of luck card that the player has the ability to trigger themselves, so it's utility in an organized play setting is limited.

I'm just not seeing the 50% increase per round, but I'm more than happy to be shown otherwise

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Generate a minimum of two extra MBAs per round. Optimize said MBAs (Headsmans Chop/Moonstalker/eClass) and you get the damage output of 2 extra PCs. In a four person party, that is a 50% increase. Minimum you're looking at ~30%. You might not get it on the first round, but if everyone builds their deck around the same concept, not getting it on the 2+ rounds isn't very likely.

I did say it required all Rares, but that isn't much of a barrier when usually less then 8 cards in MTG decks aren't Rarers (and those are lands).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You are panicking:

noone says you have to use them!

And in a 4 player party, you can need all the help you can get...