Little Bits: The new edition isn't just cards and a rulebook: it also includes enough gold and platinum pieces for up to six players, along with six 3DA Ability disks for to use for playing a 3DA game as your D&D characters.
100 Cards . . . : This Legendary Edition contains 100 cards. This includes 70 cards for the same ten colors of dragon that were in the original Three-Dragon Ante game, the five familiar chromatic and five traditional metallic dragons of D&D. Seven cards per dragon color is a bump up from the original game's six-per-color. I've noticed that people enjoy playing 3DA with big groups, and in the biggest groups it was possible to *almost* run out of cards and have to shuffle small discard piles too often. Adding a new intermediate-strength dragon card for each color means less shuffling for everyone.
. . . including 30 Special Cards: You don't play with just the seventy-card deck. The standard rule is that you play with 80 cards each game. The extra ten cards are selected from a pool of thirty special cards, split into two types. Half the special cards are Legendary Dragons, either powered-up versions of the ten familiar dragon colors or something special like Bahamut, Tiamat, and the Dracolich. As an example of what I mean by 'powered-up versions of the familiar dragons,' take the Legendary Dragon named the Red Destroyer. The Red Destroyer can be part of a color flight of Red Dragons. A normal Red Dragon steals a card and 1 gold from the strongest opponent; the Red Destroyer steals a card and 10 gold.
The other 15 special cards are Mortals. Yes, there are several new Mortals in this set, with new art by the original 3DA artist, Craig Phillips!
The standard way to play is to randomly select ten of the thirty special cards to add to a game, but the rulebook contains other sample deck configurations. You can customize or randomize each game.
Strengthening the Fun: There were a few cards in the original game that I thought were weak or not enough fun. I'm not going to detail all the changes, yet. But I will say that cards like the White Dragon and Black Dragon have stronger powers than they did in the original card set. Meanwhile, cards like The Priest and the Dracolich are no longer kind of meh; now they have interesting powers that can be worth planning around.
Brutal Self-Promotion: As I'm posting this blog, the Kickstarter for my new game, Wrestlenomicon, designed with Shane Ivey & Dennis Detwiller of Arc Dream Publishing, has 18 hours to run. Check it out for fun whiskey-and-pretzel gameplay, wonderful art by Kurt Komoda, and grievous Lovecraft puns from Shane and Dennis.
Will the new game be compatible with Emperor's Gambit (the expansion to the original 3DA)?
ReplyDeleteThe gameplay is entirely compatible. In fact, a couple of my favorite Mortals from Emperor's Gambit are the Legendary Edition. But the card backs will be slightly different, so if you're combining sets you may want to use tarot-sized cardsleeves.
ReplyDeleteWill be also an Emperor's Gambit Legendary Edition, with the card backs matching 3DA Legendary Edition card backs?
ReplyDeleteDoes the legendary edition have the ante effects? On special cards
ReplyDeleteHi Rob, huge fan of 3DA, quick question- is it intentional that all evil dragons are left-facing and all the good dragons right-facing? It's similar in the original game, but I noticed Bahamut, which was left-facing in the original, has "switched sides" and is right-facing in the legendary edition. Was it a design choice relating to subconscious left-right bias, or am I reading too much into it? Thanks!
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