All of these cards at level 7 start out with:
When a majority of the domain cards in your loadout are from the XXXX domain…
Does this mean that you can select this DC and it can stay in your vault, while still providing the benefits listed? Most of these are a bit weaksauce and on the surface seem like a waste of an active slot (IMHO, of course).
If it is required to be 1 of the 5 active DC’s - does the card, itself, count towards the “majority” (aka: 3/5)?
The “Touched” card would indeed count towards the majority, as it is a card of it’s specified Domain.
I believe it has to be in your Loadout in order to take effect, as that is the standard approach with Domain cards, as stated in the Playtest rules: “Your vault holds any domain cards that are inactive and not currently in your loadout. Vault cards should be kept somewhere out of the way, but close enough that they’re available if they need to be accessed during a session.”
However, looking at the cards, there is an argument to be made to the contrary:
Valor Touched states: “Your Armor Score increases by +2 while this ability is in your loadout.”
while Splenodr Touched states: “Increase your Severe Damage Threshold by +3.”
The former specifies that the effect must be in your loadout, while the latter does not, suggesting the Splendor Touched effect works whether it is in your loadout or not.
Personally, I put down this incongruity to a mistake of standardisation of the terminology throughout the playtest material, as there are a few other examples where similar abilities or effects are worded in ways that leave more ambiguity in some than others, but there is enough wriggle room here I think to make a solid argument towards your GM if you think this would benefit the overall game experience.
Agreed. In fact, that same VALOR Touched card is what raised my question in the first place.
Why does that one specifically have the caveat that it must be in your loadout to work, whereas the others do not?
The most contradictory DC that I saw, was the CODEX Touched card:
“* Once per short rest, you may replace this card with any card from your Vault instead without paying a Recall cost.”
So one card implies that they don’t (necessarily) need to be in your loadout, and the other implied that they must be part of your loadout.
I can only hope that Darington’s quality team can standardize all of these on the release version! In the meantime, I’ll assume that they are required to be in my loadout.
Yeah, I hope the odd wording is something that was highlighted in the Playtest, and the finished version will have that clarified.
I’m going to suggest a HOMEBREW additive for these cards to any GM using them (if the release doesn’t have this built in): Have them work like NOTORIOUS DC does for the Grace Domain, adding the following caveat to each card:
“This card must remain in your loadout, but doesn’t count towards your domain card maximum.”
Then, there is only one of these DC’s that needs an update, from what I read:
Codex Touched:
[OLD] * Once per short rest, you may replace this card with any card from your Vault instead without paying a Recall cost.
{NEW] * Once per short rest, you may swap out any card from your Vault without paying a Recall cost.
The rest provide their moderate bonuses, and now there is a benefit to building your loadout with these included (IMHO), while still having a cost to pursuing this build style.
The cost I mention is that the PC would still be expending a level choice to get one of these TOUCHED DC’s; either as their new level DC choice, or as 1 of their 2 level-up options (limited to a max of one at Tier 3 and again for Tier 4), so I feel there is a balance still struck here.
Thoughts?
The only other thing I would suggest is that only ONE of the TOUCHED DC’s should be allowed to be ‘active’ in the loadout at any time.
This may be obvious, as there are only 5 total cards and no way to have two of them providing benefits, but if two were allowed, then a PC could swap one Domain for another and instantly have the bonuses from the other touched card.
These cards have a RECALL cost listed on each of them (which I feel should be a standard of “2”), so if someone was to swap out their normal five cards, and has a secondary TOUCHED D in their vault, then they could pay the STRESS cost to pull that out as well, if they so desired.
Hopefully my descriptions makes sense.