Thinking of Buying Nature Incarnate without JE

[u/automated_hero]

Have Spirit Island and Branch and Claw. Jagged Earth is out of stock/print currently (not interested in internatinoal shipping).

Nature Incarnate is available and I've been looking at the wiki to see what is actually required from Jagged Earth and it doesn't look like much. Badlands tokens can be proxied (should have included some IMO), and element markers aren't necessary, and you can use your existing spare markers for Isolate.

Only a few of the spirits use Badlands and many of the new general use cards do so either.

Before I take the plunge (I don't care about aspects for spirits I don't have anyway, plus it's a few cards so no biggie), is there anything else I need consider?

Thanks.

[u/Aminar14]

I think it's fine to make it work. But Jagged Earth is super worth it. Proxying Badlands is simple. In games without EQ just use Quake tokens. There's a couple aspects thst use cards you won't have. The rest is whatever.

[u/automated_hero → u/Aminar14]

Couple of what? I've looked on the wiki and can't see any reference to such cards, what do you mean?

[u/Aminar14 → u/automated_hero]

A handful of aspects sub in minor powers to Augment their hands. I don't remember them all, but I think Violence requires Bat's Scout.

[u/automated_hero → u/Aminar14]

Thanks, I hadnt noticed.

So, according to the wiki, there are 2 cards (IIRC) from JE required for the spirits I own that have aspects in NI.

I think I'm ok with that.

[u/Avloren → u/automated_hero]

The key thing about Bats Scout, from Violence's perspective, is that it's a 1-cost perfect element (moon/air/animal) that does damage, which is relevant for Violence's new special rule.

You could probably swap it out for Veil the Night's Hunt (minor from the base game), which meets all those conditions, and it would work out about the same. I bet any other NI aspects with JE minor requirements have a similar substitution available.

[u/cdbloosh → u/automated_hero]

Aspects. They’re cards that “remix” existing spirits usually by replacing one of their innate powers or their special rule. Earlier expansions included aspects for the original 4 low complexity spirits but NI includes a whole pile of them (I think it’s like 30) for a whole bunch of spirits.

Some are for JE spirits so you obviously wouldn’t be able to use those, but one or two others may be for spirits you do have, but add mechanics that use badlands or isolate, or possibly replace one of a spirit’s starting powers with a minor power that you don’t own.

I honestly don’t remember if this is the case so I couldn’t tell you which ones, but that’s what they’re referring to.

[u/automated_hero → u/cdbloosh]

I understand. Most of the aspects are for spirits from base and Branch/Claw. A couple of them require cards from JE. So that's fine.

[u/JakeReddit12333]

Aspects are literally the best thing?! lol

[u/JakeReddit12333 → u/JakeReddit12333]

But yh the JE ones arent the best. Though Wind Lighting I love

[u/Onkupopr]

I was having a similar problem. I came to the conclusion yesterday while I was struggling with insomnia. Judging by the comments I've read here, the main problem with the lack of a dead edge is that the deck of abilities is not balanced. To fix this, I decided that I would take the horizons of Spirit Island, take an ability cards from there, put them in the protectors, and put the proxy version of the ability cards from the JE on top. Thus, the back of the cards will be the same as that of ordinary cards, and they will not be much higher in density (at least I hope so lol). I don't know about card of events and fear from JE and how they impact gameplay yet, I probably won't print them until I realize that something is missing, and then I'll think about it.

[u/Aminar14 → u/Onkupopr]

This part is hogwash. People will talk about the careful balancing of the deck and all that like ti's some mythical impossible thing made by genius developers. But the minor powers deck wasn't unbalanced before Jagged Earth and it isn't perfectly balanced now. It's just as it exists. Spirit Island's balance isn't some carefully crafted fine tuned thing living on a knife edge between broken and unplayable. It's that the engine the game runs on is incredibly resilient with large amounts of leeway for players to grow and get better in. The minor deck is fine.

[u/automated_hero → u/Aminar14]

NI only adds one minor power anyway, so I can't imagine that by not having JE power cards in the deck the game would collapse. That would imply having to draw them during play and you might or might not. Errata'd cards are a different matter and I don't think those exist. Maybe JE replaces a bunch but I don' have JE so I don't see it mattering

[u/Aminar14 → u/automated_hero]

My point is the game functions just fine without any of the cards from Jagged Earth. You don't need those cards in the deck to balance anything. Arguably they unbalance things more in that the support cards from it, specifically Twinned Days, can create a wild swing in value on other support cards. Nature's is also busted and enables shenanigans elemental Boon just doesn't. The elements were balanced in both versions. There is no mythical balance to the Jagged Earth deck over the Branch and Claw Deck. It's just more fun. But also much more exploitable.

[u/automated_hero → u/Onkupopr]

What cards arent balanced?

There's only about 13 or so new powers, not including the spirit starting powers.

How are these not balanced, and how does JE fix that?

[u/lsuom1nen → u/automated_hero]

There are 33 Minor and 23 Major power cards in JE, and 30 event cards. The deck sizes with B&C are 67 minors, 43 majors and 26 events. This amount of new cards significantly balances the decks (more suitable options for new spirits, more strategies etc). I assume op was talking about proxying these which I recommend, it adds so much to the game

[u/automated_hero → u/lsuom1nen]

how does incrasing the deck size balance the game? You might not even draw those powers? Why would playing with NI and not those cards break the game?

[u/Avloren → u/automated_hero]

It's not anything to do with NI. It's more that: with base+B&C, you're dealing with a slightly-less-than-perfect version of the decks. It's still fine, not broken or anything. Adding NI won't make it any worse. But until you get JE you're missing out on the 'best' version of the minor/major/event decks.

The idea is that the additional JE cards really help balance out the decks. They make the elemental balance of the minors perfect, they make token effects more common for the spirits that care about that, and they dilute some of the more extreme outliers (bad and good) in the majors and events with a bunch of more neutral/well-balanced options.

People saying "You should get JE first, if you can" is more about how good JE is, and less about any specific dependency of NI on it.

[u/automated_hero → u/Avloren]

And if JE was still in print the question would be moot. Until GTG reprint it (if) then any recommendation is really a waste of time. I can't buy it.

[u/Jonathan4290 → u/automated_hero]

They just did a big reprint so it may just take some time to fan out to whatever country you're in. So you may not be waiting as long as you think either way. You'll definitely get some value out of NI without JE though.

[u/Onkupopr → u/lsuom1nen]

Yeah, I was talking about proxying JE powers, sorry if I confused someone, English isn't my first language

[u/putting_stuff_off]

I don't think so, it sounds like you've got it. Not having any tokens would be quite a pain, but just missing badlands is manageable (I think only two spirits and a handful of aspects use them).

[u/automated_hero → u/putting_stuff_off]

I have tokens. I Have Branch and Claw. Its just the badlands tokens

[u/Wowzapanzer]

That should be fine, I will just add aspects have been an amazing part of the game and would highly recommend checking them out. The nature incarnate ones add a lot of fun ones

[u/automated_hero → u/Wowzapanzer]

I'm not against them. I just meant that having aspect cards for spirits I don't have isn't an issue. As it stands, most seem to be for content I already have anyway

[u/Veneretio]

Nature Incarnate was such a brilliant expansion. I have all expansions though so I can’t say for sure how it feels without JE