House Rules for using
Fortune Cards
Official rules allow
players to have as many copies of a card in their deck as long as the
deck meets the rule of 3. A custom Fortune Card deck can contain any
multiple of 10 cards (10, 20, 30, and so on). For every 10 cards in
your deck, you must have at least 3 cards of each of the three
categories (Attack, Defense, Tactics).
http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2152
This would allow a player to make a legal deck with only 3 different
cards, just 4 copies of card A and 3 copies each of card B & C.
This can make the fortune deck far too predictable in a battle and
game breaking in my opinion. Also, they imply that these are for
players only and not DMs. I have created some house rules that
better level the playing field for those DMs who have players
insisting on using fortune cards.
- No duplicate cards allowed per 10 cards in your deck. (10 card deck, no duplicates allowed. 20 card deck, 2 copies of the same card allowed in the deck, and so on.)
- DMs get to have 2 decks to use. DM decks cannot contain rare cards. DM Deck #1 is only for the enemy the DM declares as the "boss" enemy for that encounter. DM Deck #2 is to be used by all the rest of the enemies in the encounter. Rules for drawing and playing cards from deck #1 mirror player rules as if "boss" enemy was a player. DM Deck #2 may only use one card per round by any one non-boss enemy. At the start of each new initiative round, DM Deck #2 can do one of the following:
- Discard the card in your hand and draw a new one.
- Draw a new card if you don’t have one in your hand.
- Keep the card that’s in your hand if you haven’t played it.
- Keep it fair, allow the table to vote if they want to play with fortune cards or not, but let them know that this will be in your arsenal as a DM if they want to play with fortune cards.
I feel the DM decks should
not be allowed to use rares as some of them are quite powerful if you
have a whole crew of enemies to work together to get the max benefit
out of them. On cards in
the DM Deck, you may have to change the text to make sense as some
cards benefit from having enemies around you, and in your case,
enemies are now the PCs. DM Decks should probably use different color card
protectors to help make sure they are kept separate.
I like your house rules. I think it's only right if the DM gets to use them as well. My problem is more that we forget to draw the card. We tried drawing at the end of your turn, but inevitably, we'd put the card down during the waiting and forget to pick it back up. I just find it a hard mechanic to incorporate when you aren't used to it. I also say that Fortune Cards are not something new DMs should mess with, they add to the complexity of things.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I've been recently looking back into 4e, and really wanted to embrace all the fun mechanics the edition offered, including Fortune Cards. I've been trying to collect them, but could only really find Fury of the Feywild at a local store. They are now sadly all out, so now I'm trying to see what I can find online.
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