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On the Brink of the Edge Page
THE EDGE GREAT FIX
by Eric Jome ejome@execpc.com
| The intent of the Great Fix is to improve design problems and broken cards in OnTE. Effectively, this is an unofficial errata sheet, created by me personally. I am very interested in feedback. |
The first and greatest design flaw in On The Edge is risk-free Influence. There are some simple classes of cards which provide risk-free Influence. Note that one primary area of nearly risk-free Influence is not covered in this first installment; flipping your own cards will give you one turn of invulnerability as the rules and cards now stand.
One group is conditions which set a characters pull = 0. These should be changed to say the character may not crank for pull. Some examples of this group are Smear Campaign, The Skids, and Atavism: Ninja.
Another is conditions which provide extra pull for a character. These should be changed to cause an influence loss equal to the pull bonus they provide if they are popped and the character they are on remains in play.
A third type is any card which pops a character in any way which is not an attack. These cards should be amended to note that they cause an Influence loss as if the popped character had been attacked if they are used or played by a player on their own Conspiracy. You may, for example, use an Immunity to pop the Tulpa in an enemy Conspiracy without causing a loss of Influence, but if you use it against your own Tulpa, it is considered like an attack for Influence loss.
Are Tulpa's Secret (9) and Deadly Inspiration (74) repairable? Well, you could errata both of these to make them very playable with a simple clause on each.
For Tulpa's Secret, make it "3 pull to call a Character with a Tulpa condition" instead of "crank to call a Character with a Tulpa condition". This makes it useful (provides generic pull for any group), but not overpowered (provides only 2 pull for any group, after paying for the Tulpa, barely scratching the surface on big characters).
For Deadly Inspiration, adding "Non-Influence Pull Only." will solve the problem. I justify this by saying that the artist's suicide masterwork can move people to do things (ie. call cards or power effects) but it cannot influence the struggle directly because the artist is no longer alive to be manipulative or manipulated in a power structure. Also, it would be smart to add "The artist remains in play only in terms of Uniqueness.", making this like Dead, Dead, Dead.
Subversion of cost is a fancy term for any card which allows you to call other cards by ignoring their cost. The classic example is Tulpa's Secret; crank it and call a Tulpa condition and a Character, no matter what the cost. This can lead to calling highly expensive and effective characters on the first turn! The point of having a cost on a card is to restrict the utility of powerful cards. Effects which ignore the cost of the card to bring it into play thus short circuit the rules and lead to abuse.
To correct this problem, all cards in On The Edge marked with the phrase "crank to call any" should have that phrase replaced with "crank for 4 pull to call". This opens up the option of calling several cards with a lesser total cost, but helps to avoid the quick call for some of the bigger, more effective cards. Listed below are all of the cards that employ this phrase and are subject to this correction
| Gladsteins' Secret (2) | Glorious Lords' Secret (3) | Glugs' Secret (4) |
| Hermetics' Secret (5) | Pharaohs' Secret (7) | Tridents' Secret (8) |
| Mattias Allemande (15) | Robert Richardson (198) | Karla Sommers (228) |
| May Ferendi (D30) | Dr. Maria Valdez (A148) |
There are a few cards in this category that require special attention:
| Tulpas' Secret (9): This card provides 3 Pull to call a character and with a Tulpa Condition. |
| Jean-Christophe D'Aubainne(70): This card proveds 3 Pull to call Terminal cards. |
| Really Quite Angry Kid (C72): The text on this card should read as follows: "Once per turn if Really Quite Angry Kid is in play, you may call a piece of Sub-Random Gear ignoring its cost. This does not count against your limit for playing 0-Cost cards." |
There are also a few cards that may seem to be affected by this changed, but actually ignore this fix. These should all be played as printed.
| Kergillians' Secret (6) | The Dirt on Dr. Nusbaum (10) | Eyeballs Drillbit (C29) |
| Vortex (D104) | The Secret of the Saou (A5) | Madeline Svora (A138) |
| Mattias Allemande (15) | Robert Richardson (198) | Karla Sommers (228) |
| May Ferendi (D30) | Dr. Maria Valdez (A148) |
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