Above: The Gnome Artificer working on his trusted Golem. We think that this picture perfectly fits the mechanics and the character.
Now, for the second character in our introductory series, Jere’s favorite also liked by everyone else in our team, the Gnome Artificer!
The Gnome Artificer was originally conceived through a game mechanic of a character having a constant “minion”, and being slightly weaker in other aspects such as their special powers. There was also a vague idea of some kind of a tech-mage or artificer to fit the mechanic – obviously some sort of an animal companion would have also fit the mechanic, but we felt that it would be too common in the fantasy genre.
Hence, the idea coalesced on a “Gnome Artificer” with a constant bonus of having an extra sub-player on his side, the Golem, a creature with only one card that the Gnome cannot even himself look at. This is of course not entirely unique in the genre – such a character is somewhat archetypal – but it does fit the roster of characters quite nicely (the Gnome Artificer, like the Night Ogre, are not the newest character in the roster). Obviously, we were well aware that a constant extra card – even a hidden one – was a potent benefit, as it mathematically does increase the character’s changes of winning any given deal by a small, but not insignificant amount.
Hence, we had to make sure that the separate sub-player cannot play separately and even more crucially that the player cannot gain an advantage of knowing what the card would be. At the end of the day, poker is a game of knowledge and bluffing – and it takes quite an amount of fortitude to bluff or call someone else’s bluff, if you do not know what your extra, separate card is. This is why we felt that the character remained balanced with the others.
This is the core mechanic of the Gnome Artificer that has remained unchanged from the character’s first inception. Next, we had to also come up with an activated ability for the character, because we strongly felt that each character should have some activated abilities to add strategic depth to the game when playing each character.
At first, we thought of a very simple ability fitting the theme of artifice: “Tinkery”, which added a card to the Golem, while still keeping them hidden from the player. Originally, the Gnome Artificer had four, or even five Soul Gems, and there were no limits on using the ability – we had not come up with the action economy the game now has. Something was missing. The character felt like a one trick pony – in practice, most of our play-testers opted to use the Gnome Artificer in a simple way: they always bought the maximum amount of cards to the Golem in a particularly large pot. In this way, they sought to overwhelm the opposition with the sheer force of mathematical probability of scoring a good hand with a pile of hidden cards. While this mode of play did not make the character over- or underpowered, it did make playing with the Gnome Artificer somewhat boring.
When the game development moved forward, we came up with the rule that you can only use one special action along with one poker action on your turn of action, spamming the Golem with a pile of cards suddenly became impossible. Now, the character seemed a bit weak. Then, we came up with an ingenious, but fitting solution: we decided that it would be plausible story-wise that the Gnome Artificer gains an insight on his Golem if he performs his Tinkery on it, and thus, when expending a Soul Gem, the Gnome Artificer not only draws a card to the Golem, but is also allowed to look at the Golem’s cards.
Then, keeping in mind that the character is mathematically slightly better than the others constantly, we decided that just three Soul Gems is enough for the character to be balanced. Now, the Gnome Artificer is, in our opinion, just perfect – both when it comes to the game mechanics, and the theme and the style of the character.
Thus, as alluded, the Gnome Artificer has two abilities and three Soul Gems. The first is always on, the Golem. Place the Golem card next to the Gnome Artificer, and the dealer always deals one hidden card to it. When the Gnome Artificer folds, the Golem folds, and the Golem does not have its separate gold but plays as an extension of the Gnome Artificer. The Golem is immortal – it always returns in the next deal even if it is defeated and is always dealt a new card.
Above, the playing card of the Gnome Artificer, showing the passive ability and the activated ability.
The second is the activated ability “Tinkery”. With this ability, you sacrifice one Soul Gem to draw an extra card for the Golem at activation, and now you can also look at the cards – both the new one, and one previously hidden even from you. Please note that if you get an extra action, you can draw even more cards for the Golem -but think carefully, as the Soul Gems the Gnome Artificer has are preciously few!
Conquer the poker tournaments using your own Golem with the humble yet resourceful Gnome Artificer!