TOPIC: 2025 Ultra Rare Tokens

Impy wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Ho-Yi Fung wrote: [

Impy wrote: Thor's Mug of Melee: I think this is probably too powerful. If we make AC matter more in game design it may be neat choice so all the damage gremlins (myself included) have to think twice before nerfing our AC even further. Consider lowering damage to +2

The 2011 Rare Brawler’s Mug grants +2 melee damage, is usable by Elf/Wizards, and doesn't lock the Melee offhand (offhand Melee?) slot. URs should be more powerful than a Rare -- especially a Rare from over a decade ago!

The problem I see with the mug is the often repeated problem of “everyone else gets the fighter thing with less AC the next year”.

In this case, it’s the death knight shield with no AC and more damage instead of strength. My gut says that builds that can both take the DK shield just join everyone else taking the mug - meaning the damage is probably too high.

That said , you are 100% correct that a UR should be better than a rare. Perhaps this mug could allow drinking as an instant action. Or 1/game drink potion without tuning in, or some other power that provides a choice for people who bought DK shield this year, while giving something interesting to everyone currently using the old rare brawlers mug.

+1 to a free potion use UR, I think that would be fun

No thank you, please. This ability already exists on a ton of URs. Also polymorph potions are no more which greatly devalues the ability.

Thanks!

Charm of the Hedgehog: Did this bump back up? 10 damage seems pretty high, and the stacking of all the retribution damage seems like it might get problematic.

Nightshade's Grim Gloves: Holy cow, this seems so overpowered now. Given other tokens that expand critical hits, this seems like it could give some Rogues 3x damage on most of their slides. Is the intent to make the Rogue one of (or the) top melee damage class? I would have thought the goal for Rogue would be no better than the middle of the pack in damage dealing given all of their other abilities (traps, flanking). It also seems very odd that it is no longer tied to sneak attacks, and yet is still limited to Rogue.

Holy Symbol: Very good change on the wording, it is clear now that the healing is tied to turning undead.

Picc's Grindstone: Very powerful, but appropriate for a tribute token. +2 damage to pretty much all attacks (or is it actually all attacks) and slotless is a must have for everyone.

Runestone Fitting Base: EDIT: I see this is available for just $80 at TDTavern, a reprint is probably not called for at this point.

Shield of Guarding: Thanks for dropping the AC for the Paladin to make up for the addition of an awesome ability. It is nice that is optional also, so the Paladin can choose which way to go. Does it prevent damage if it was aimed at the Paladin, or just if it was aimed at someone they were guarding?

A few quick thoughts from my phone. Apologies for lack of formatting.

Hedgehog charm:
3/6/8 would probably be better. Just the initial level of bonus would be 2x a rare.

Holy symbol
I still think it’s not great to have healing tied to a turn undead ability. If you want healing on a holy symbol, just make it a 1/game 8 point party heal. I foresee having to keep redirecting people to token db to show it does nothing if there aren’t undead in the room. If you want big damage vs undead, just have it double turning damage. Maybe 2 different UR holy symbols is too much, but it would be nice to have a choice, even if we have to wait for the second choice to show up later.

Grindstone
This should be a reusable runestone. That would pair nicely with the reprint of the fitting base - you can permanently fill your main runestone slot and still grab fitting bases to get others for the nice rares in this set.

Shield of guarding
Not clear on how it works with Paladin - is it always AC 3, or does pally choose?

Holy Symbol of Selinwa:
What if this was reworded to say that the Turning must be successful to heal; e.g., "2× dmg on Turn Undead & successful Turn heals party 3 pts".

Rogue is definitely overpowered with the ability to crit every attack with a range and be x3. Need to consider removing this token.

Charm of Ceitical Taunt: a pun for the ages. this token locks in enhanced critical as a level 5 Dwarf Fighter ability just ahead of class redesign, and grants the second 3x damage multiplier crit range expansion right before we are conilsidering reigning in the Rogue? It seems like this is all thin ice in design territory.

Earcuff of the Cabal: should probably be limited to classes that can use mystic staves.

Greaves of Deflection: slotless Kvothe’s bloodless gives -4 from missile and spell. It feels like these could be better as a slotted token. Since they are part of a multi year transmute it probably doesn’t matter much.

Nightshade’s Grim Gloves: this seems disastrous to me - once this effect is out there all rogues will need this or +2 assassins crossbow in high end builds. Which means this effect is going to need to be reprinted every few years (predictably moving to bead or charm in the near future as well). I would not print this: or I did I’d add “on natural 20 only.”

Picc’s grindstone: I’m not a fan of slotless power creep like this. A universal +2 to slotless damage is probably the best UR ever printed by some analysis. I’d make this slotted somehow, or make it take up one of your runestone slots, or limit the damage to melee and missile only (as a counterpart to Gregor’s Tome of Focus) and also consider restricting it to non-caster classes.

Runestone fitting base: if picc’s grindstone isnt going to take up a runestone slot, im not sure there is much demand for these. I’d look at other reprint requests instead.

Shield Maiden Bracers: needs a class list excluding Rangers (who can’t equip 2 handed melee weapons, or shields), and probably Rogues and wizards (who don’t get shields).

Thor’s mug of melee: should this state “must equip in melee off-hand slot for game” like the +2 mug of battle and some other off-hand items say?

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote:
Charm of the hedgehog
I say this as a lover of retribution damage, but this is probably too good. 6 by itself is a lot. Could be 4/6/8 and be very good.

Good point - there are rare charms that grant 2 retribution damage (one from as recently as 2022). Jumping from 2 at rare to 6 at UR with upside is a lot.

Impy wrote: Charm of the Hedgehog: +10 is a lot for a charm slot. Please consider [+2, +4, +6]. Or [+4, +6, +8]

Thor's Mug of Melee: I think this is probably too powerful. If we make AC matter more in game design it may be neat choice so all the damage gremlins (myself included) have to think twice before nerfing our AC even further. Consider lowering damage to +2

I like your energy, but there are printed at rare:

2 retribution damage charms

+2 to melee hit off-hand

+2 to melee damage off-hand

So the UR version should be better or no one will want them.

Does Charm of Critical Taunts extend the critical range just for the Dwarf or for the entire party? If it is the entire party, this is extremely overpowered. I'm sure eventually there will be tokens which combined will let the Dwarf Fighter taunt 3 or more times per combat, which would in many cases make this for the entire combat.

Mike Steele wrote: Does Charm of Critical Taunts extend the critical range just for the Dwarf or for the entire party? If it is the entire party, this is extremely overpowered. I'm sure eventually there will be tokens which combined will let the Dwarf Fighter taunt 3 or more times per combat, which would in many cases make this for the entire combat.

It’s expanding the ability of the level 5 Dwarf “Enhanced Critical” which is: ‘any time the Dwarf Fighter slides a natural 20 and it is a critical hit, it deals 3x damage instead of 2x damage.’

So it’s definitely just the dwarf.

It remains to be seen if the intent is also that this token makes 19s critical hits after taunting, or if the Dwarf needs to find another way to make 19s critical hits also in order for this to do anything.

Nightshade's is an interesting change... Makes the math easier for crits with Raphiel's and without, allows any melee weapon to take advantage of it. Does it allow Nightshade's Daggers to triple the Sneak on "Dagger Symbol too? That would be a cool 3pc set effect if it could extend to the Throwing Daggers too.. Would make them more competitive with Assassin's Crossbow. Sucks my melee Rogue build loses some strength to change these in... but the 3x crits across the board may make up for it, specially with other tokens on the field. and maybe one day there's a legendary equivalent that's better to choose from.

Grindstone simplified seems good. Agree that Fitting base reprint not really necessary this year if Grindstone no longer takes a slot. If this gets changed back, consider Fitting Base allowing any Rare or better Runestone or Grindstone. I assume Grindstones are subject to equipped uniqueness rules either way. I liked it being +1/+1 because it makes it more universal... and damage means little if you can't hit.

Shield Maiden bracers... I feel like Barbarians should be able to use a Shield in Melee or Ranged when using this....

I still feel like Charm of the Hedgehog should wait a year.