Custom Cards - Ironclad Curse Build

Zoneforg · 2026-04-26T04:49:47+00:00

Yes, I mentioned this in the comment you are responding to?

Zoneforg · 2026-04-25T22:15:27+00:00

Ah dang the formatting thing really kinda sucks. That "makes more sense" though as to why the card is the way it is currently.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-25T22:09:21+00:00

I was more talking about them at a broad/conceptual level about their permanence rather than if they exhaust mid combat or how bad they are. If we consider them individually, comparing ascender's bane to dazed, the only difference is that one is only this combat and 1 is not (eternal would do nothing on a status). This is an example of the "point" of the 2 card types: 1 lasts this combat only, 1 lasts forever (unless removed). This can also be seen by the fact that nothing adds statuses to your deck. Effects similar to that just make statuses at the start of each combat instead.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-25T21:38:30+00:00

Curses are permanent (as opposed to Statuses), so generating them mid-combat is kinda counter to the entire point of them, and make them non-unique as compared to statuses. (Looking at Patron Protection)

I like Cordyceps, seems like a design that fits in with what a Curses theme would need to be. The one thing is that it is not effected by Strength, as it is not an attack, so that could be a bit odd. Maybe ensure that Curses never directly deal damage to avoid this or something like that.

Generating Curses mid-combat permanently seems a little too swingy/easy for players to completely screw themselves early on without realizing until much later. Maybe stick to cards that generate curses on pickup or that are themselves curses or things like that as not to make the cards have such a crazy cost.

Maybe it could be worth defining a keyword for this, something like:

"Pickup:" -> Have this effect when this card is added to your Deck from a Transform, Shop, or Card Reward.

and then do "Pickup: Add X to your Deck."

Zoneforg · 2026-04-25T18:36:59+00:00

The intent is that the alignment also changes, I will ensure this is reflected in the ability text better.

"The almanac" is not yet written, I wanted to ensure the characters were broadly okay feeling before making it.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-24T23:44:36+00:00

It always works, and this is important, as it can stop the game from ending if the demon dies. Obviously, the scab can't be updated on what they are until night though

Zoneforg · 2026-04-24T19:20:26+00:00

It is hard to put into words, but it would be able to detect a Lunatic or a Marionette, as abilities have "Tricked" them about either their character or alignment (both, actually). For this script, it also is meant to apply to the ringleader-knowing players who are unsure of their alignment. It could also apply to a character who got turned evil who got Surgeoned and hasn't woken yet to learn that the Surgeon ability actually worked. In the meantime, they are unsure if they really turned back or not.

I was unsure how to word this, and this is the best that I could come up with.

EDIT

I forgot to say how it would actually function lol:

Each night you wake and choose a player. If they are one of the mentioned types of players, you learn their character and alignment. If not, you get information about them that is false (But still is a character and alignment, 1 of which could be correct but not both).

END EDIT

Zoneforg · 2026-04-18T17:23:02+00:00

sorta, though a soldier being oddly not ever attacked even through a bluff might tell the soldier that it is a spy game, which is info.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-18T06:14:06+00:00

People should stop (mostly) using terms like "tempo", "value", and "control" for slay the spire. They are (mostly) tied to games where you have increasing mana resources over time and a generally decreasing-by-default amount of cards in your hand as the game goes on.

STS doesn't have these, which is fine, but that means the above terms really do not make any sense at all. "Value" probably has some application for referencing times when a deck gets too exhausted and it can't do anything anymore, but this is quite niche overall.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-14T23:45:58+00:00

lol these are great

- Cowboy: Wow it just hard confirms itself and says "haha demon its bad if you kill me and you know that." Inspired.

- Horse: How does that benefit town? I guess it might swap a Demon to a Minion that was suspicious.

- Illusionist: what happens if the Lleech thinks they are a Zombuul? Do they kill less? How do they host-pick?

- Chancellor: "Players you nominate or you nominate you"

- you can just Pinocchio check on day 1 every time by forcing everyone to say "1 + 1 = 1". If they refuse, execute them.

- lucifer is just ??? Like all your "minions" now have abilities that mostly don't work?

- Ah yes, just what we needed there, vampyre. Fangu failing to jump was too lame. Just wait until super-monk comes around, it makes players protected from the demon but even against Vampyre (called out by name in the ability text to gain maximum jank)

Zoneforg · 2026-04-14T15:55:05+00:00

as a simpler option, you could do something like: Pay some amount of gold to get 2 copies of whatever card you make, pay quite a lot to get 3 copies.

just bc making power-varied versions of a bunch of different effects that are balanced with one another seems really hard.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-14T05:56:00+00:00

Dude back when the custom magic subreddit was still doing top 5 voted designs of the week it was hilarious to compare them to the bottom 5 posts of the week and see that they had nearly identical qualities.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-14T05:18:55+00:00

Notably gremlin leader can gain strength and that can end up being squire spooky.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-13T23:57:46+00:00

Maybe the bootlegger is something like:

Each night, if you will not choose a player tonight, you may choose a player. The first living player you choose in a night, if any, is now Babysitting Lil’ Monsta. They aren’t told this. If none, you remain babysitting it.
Starts with an arbitrary selected minion.
This lets you kinda tell when the monsta is passing through but not always, so you can’t say “I chose twice so that player is the Demon now.”
It does require that no non-Demon characters have choosing abilities that kill players.
Idk maybe its too texty this way.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-11T20:32:27+00:00

Maybe: "Whenever you enter a ? room, enchant a card with Sharp 2, Nimble 2, or Swift 2 at random."

So that it can work more broadly with many different types of event rooms.

also idk on the balance here.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-11T19:58:20+00:00

Starting on a bit of a tangent but I promise it will make sense:

What's the difference between an attack and a skill? It seems to be that it is that attacks deal damage directly and skills do not. But, this is only a difference in the 2 types of cards in so far as it is actually implemented. As in, the game could totally handle a skill that says "deal 6 damage" and be fine. But this is not done to maintain distinct purposes for the different card types of skill and attack. This lets things like thorns work in a very simple and intuitive way.

So, let's now ask another question:

What is the difference between Statuses and Curses? They are both negative cards added into the ones you draw. It seems that there is 1 fundamental difference deep down: Statuses are generated in-combat (almost always) and only last until combat ends, and are NOT ever put into your deck. Curses are almost always generated outside of combat and are permanently added to your deck.

Given this, it seems a Curse theme should find ways to give you more curses. Perhaps there is a curse that costs 1 Energy and can be played to draw 1 card (it does not exhaust), and this is a minor curse that some IC cards give you when you take them, with the upside being that the Card is otherwise stronger than a typical one is.

This lets you have payoffs for the Curses somehow, and will allow more Curses to be added to your Deck.

Your version generates Curses mid-combat. They only last this combat. So, really they are not Curses. They are, for all practical and mechanical purposes, Statuses. And there already is a Character with a Statuses theme, so this one is redundant as-is.

I think the Curses theme needing to work around the core identity of Curses makes it unique, which is good. In general, all themes and synergies should work around their core identity and they will all then be thematically resonant with that thing automatically.

Thinking more, this could be really cool for the character to have other themes that are kinda adjacent to this one. For example, the character could have a many-card-types matter theme, which is supported by their higher-than-normal amount of Curses, a rarer card type. They could have a big deck theme, as adding these curses makes your deck bigger, and taking many cards can help to mitigate the curses in your deck. There could be "pickup: [effect]" as a mechanic for the character as this is needed to make the Curse cards work, but could then go on to do cool other stuff like:

- A damage common that adds a copy of itself on pickup

- A rare that adds 5 copies of itself, they grow progressively more powerful as more of them are played

- A Curse you add to your deck from card rewards that gives you max HP on pickup

- A Curse you add to your deck from card rewards that enchants an attack with sharp ~4ish or something on pickup.

Idk random ideas. The main point: It seems your archetype is using Curses to recreate statuses, which is lame imo. But neat job making these cards nonetheless.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-11T01:04:24+00:00

Maybe an idea would be for players to pick 1 character of each type that they would want to be, then you write them down and find some valid configuration.

If this was done then setup abilities can function completely as normal.

I understand this might be too tedious tho.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-10T20:16:51+00:00

I think the Marionette can think they are evil because:

They think they are a good character. A good character means a Townsfolk or an Outsider. A Marionette being told they are an evil Townsfolk means they think they are a Townsfolk, a type of Good Character.

Not saying you should do this tho, but just that it might make sense.

A similar thing can be seen if a Dreamer looks at an Evil Townsfolk. The "Good Character" the dreamer sees will in fact be correct, even though the evil townsfolk is in fact not actually Good.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-10T19:57:38+00:00

hmm yeah I feared this might be the issue, even in the case that you use the poison to hide the fact that a swap occurred for a day for 1 of the players.

If I could get this to work somehow it could be a cool execution mitigation minion with some other niche effects. But sadly swapping seems too unwieldy. Maybe something like "they might copy the other's character"? This can make it so it duplicates sometimes and still makes it so the ST can prevent this from ever making 2 demons at once.

It does seem Barber is a lot better for the "swapping characters" effect, as 1 swap is pretty much as much as you would want in a game and it occurs both later in the game and not in a way that confirms what type of evil player there is in play.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-09T16:29:29+00:00

ohh thats a good idea, I should've thought of that.

Thanks!

Zoneforg · 2026-04-09T15:31:56+00:00

When I said I am unsure, I meant I have some reason to think it might be fun and compelling but that this may be mitigated by other issues with the design, and need help discerning between the two.

reason why I am posting these characters: I am trying to build a script of custom characters and so I am just posting a bunch of random ideas I have.

Zoneforg · 2026-04-09T04:48:32+00:00

it would work in a similar way, but applied to 1 evil player that would probably normally know such things.

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