Core mechanic of posture/tension took a little getting used to, but the more I play the more I like it. Really spicy tradeoffs between greed and safety and scaling. Strongest part of the character.
Tension is excellent mechanically, but flavorwise is treated like a scary drawback when it's often helpful.
I feel there's some small missing tweak to how posture/tension/syrettes carry over to future turns. The balancing act is between "how do we let a player setup a parry next turn" vs "they shouldn't keep banking resources and scaling indefinitely".
Balance is already solid, power feels similar to vanilla characters. No cards are super broken or super weak.
-> Remove AOE from some cards:
Warlord has 8 commons/uncommons that deal AOE damage.
Ironclad has 5, Silent 4, Defect 2, Watcher 3.
-> Add some resource manipulation cards:
Warlord 5 commons/uncommons that grant card draw or energy.
Ironclad has 9, Silent 11, Defect 11, Watcher 10.
-> Remove all starting parries except sidestep.
Initial deck should contain only 2 non-strike/defends, helps new players understand what's going on. Would have to buff starting deck damage, maybe composite armor gives thorns?
-> Move all/most common parries to uncommon.
Seeing a bunch of new "parry" cards right away can be overwhelming for new players. Most presented cards should be simple and instantly understood (flaying knife, firecrackers are great here).
Vanilla characters have no powers and no "hard scaling" at common (except: claw / perfect strike / deadly poison). Biggest offender here is "Sharpen" (compare repeatable +2/4 strength at common versus inflame giving +2/3 once at uncommon).
-> Lean more into "thorns" as a subtheme. Add a new power "your thorns deal bleed damage". Add a new common attack "deals (6 + your thorns) damage".
-> Give the player more to do on non-attack turns. Parrying is super satisfying, but what if the enemy is not attacking? Add a new common skill "Respite" - "If enemy is not attacking, gain 4 posture. Otherwise gain 3 block."
-> Give the player more tools to land parries. Add a new common attack "0 cost, deal 5 damage, reduce your block by 2"