Suggestions

[l'Ancien]

Perhaps instead of Murderer you could label him the Master Assassin. Murderer somehow seems less professional, more like an amateur killer, and this guy is supposed to be experienced and professional.

My other idea is to call him the Jester, because of his yellow collar, but maybe that's a little too creepy.

[l'Ancien]

I think fire elementals (only) should have something like 210% resistance to fire, but -100 resistence to water. (I'm throwing numbers out, but I would like to see greater than 200% resistence to Fire, and a susceptibility to water of at least twice the usual rate.

My goal here is two-fold.

Inferno appropriately punishes most fire worshippers (even demons probably aren't happy in hell). But Fire Elementals are actually made of fire, so it has to heal them, not hurt them, no matter how intense. On the other hand, fire has a unique susceptibility to its opposite among the four elements. Earth and Air do not actually destroy each other on contact. Water and Fire do destroy each other on contact, but generally if you mix equal parts water and fire, by volume, the water will remain, and the fire will be quenched, therefore fire elementals should be more susceptible to water magic than any other elemental to its opposite.

[Boaster]

I do not have any intention of changing the resistances of such Creatures. Fire Elementals and Water Elementals share -100% resistance to their respective opposites, and 100% versus their own.

As far as equal volumes or water and fire, and water winning. The intensity of the fire and the desinsity of the water is also a factor. Personally, I think Fire would win but its dependant on its intensity.

Inferno is so much of an intense spell, it hurts even its own worshippers, but annihilates water units (and even air units).

So there is no intention there, except for minor tweaks that I open my eyes to.

[l'Ancien]

I like the increased incidence of scrolls, because that makes it easier to use foreign mages discovered in towers (excellently structured by the way, the same, foreign, opposed balance is good for rescued prisoners).

However, there might be a few too many scrolls, especially if they are replacing other artifacts. Perhaps having 3 scrolls and 2 artifacts in every 7 encounters would be about right (naturally, they will mostly be in the higher level encounters). Don't forget, the chances of getting a non-native mage is about 2 in 9, and for self defense they only need one small attack spell each. It doesn't matter much whether it's the same faith or not. So a water priestess with scrolls of curse, heal self, cure wounds, meteor shower, gift of life, shimmering veil and forced march is very tolerably equipped, even though only two of those scrolls are water spells.

Speaking of water priestesses, I had a little trouble with the spell Gift of Life. I tried it on a dryad (I didn't want to try it on my Sorceress Queen), and it didn't do anything. I probably should have tested it on one of my native followers, but didn't think it would be helpful. (Funny perhaps, but not helpful).

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

I do not have any intention of changing the resistances of such Creatures. Fire Elementals and Water Elementals share -100% resistance to their respective opposites, and 100% versus their own.

As far as equal volumes or water and fire, and water winning. The intensity of the fire and the desinsity of the water is also a factor. Personally, I think Fire would win but its dependant on its intensity.

Inferno is so much of an intense spell, it hurts even its own worshippers, but annihilates water units (and even air units).

So there is no intention there, except for minor tweaks that I open my eyes to.

I agree in theory. I was only pointing out the Fire Elementals are not Fire Worshippers, they are Fire itself.
With your numerical information, I would have suggested 210% fire resistence and -200% water resistence.

The water elementals are fine.

Intensity of fire is a factor, but water does not change significantly in density unless frozen or evaporated. (and freezing it reduces its density anyway). And fire by its nature has greater intensity at the heart and lesser intensity at the edges, so the intensity tends to average out over the entire extent.

Over time a sustained fire would win (for example, a gas line or an electrical fire, or an underwater volcano) but a self-contained fire in a metal bucket (with flames extending slightly above the bucket) suddenly exposed to a bucketful of water sharing its space would be doomed. That simple picture is what I was imagining.

But on the same picture, I don't see how applying a more intense fire to a less intense fire would decrease the intensity of the smaller fire.

I know you're trying for game balance. I'm just trying for artistry. "My fire elementals got burned to death" seems to me to be a lame explanation, although I could imagine death by fire with any other corporeal fire worshipper.

[Boaster]

To this I say... if you're capacity for something has reached its limit, more than your capacity will definitely cause harm.

For example, eating too much. Drinking too much. Cooking your food too much.

Don't necessarily think of a Fire Elemental as fire itself, rather it is a creature that is made up of fire and/or gas.

Stars for example glow brighter and more intensly as its life comes to an end, then explodes.

So if you add more Fire to a Fire Elemental than it can handle, it will surely suffer.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

To this I say... if you're capacity for something has reached its limit, more than your capacity will definitely cause harm.

For example, eating too much. Drinking too much. Cooking your food too much.

Don't necessarily think of a Fire Elemental as fire itself, rather it is a creature that is made up of fire and/or gas.

Stars for example glow brighter and more intensly as its life comes to an end, then explodes.

So if you add more Fire to a Fire Elemental than it can handle, it will surely suffer.

But I should think that it could handle more than it already has. And you've already added a cap to damage absorption healing when you have greater than 100% resistence.

Well, at least make the fire elemental have greater than 100%, so it normally is healed by conventional fire spells.

Or, give the fire elemental 200% resistence, but set it so that if it reaches the overhealed hit point cap, it loses 600% resistence and casts its own inferno automatically. (Oops, it looks like my Fire Elemental ate too much, it popped and we're all gonna die!)

[l'Ancien]

Anyway, that's enough about the Fire Elemental Resistance, I didn't mean to start the whole inferno debate over again, I just thought tweaking the elemental would be more accurate (I'm tired of burning my fire elementals).

What about my other two suggestions? (Much less contentious, I hope.)

[Boaster]

lancien said:

admin said:

To this I say... if you're capacity for something has reached its limit, more than your capacity will definitely cause harm.

For example, eating too much. Drinking too much. Cooking your food too much.

Don't necessarily think of a Fire Elemental as fire itself, rather it is a creature that is made up of fire and/or gas.

Stars for example glow brighter and more intensly as its life comes to an end, then explodes.

So if you add more Fire to a Fire Elemental than it can handle, it will surely suffer.

But I should think that it could handle more than it already has. And you've already added a cap to damage absorption healing when you have greater than 100% resistence.

Well, at least make the fire elemental have greater than 100%, so it normally is healed by conventional fire spells.

Or, give the fire elemental 200% resistence, but set it so that if it reaches the overhealed hit point cap, it loses 600% resistence and casts its own inferno automatically. (Oops, it looks like my Fire Elemental ate too much, it popped and we're all gonna die!)

Now that would be interesting. If I were to able get Fire Elementals to cast an Inferno after having so many HP, that would be awesome. But this would also be extremely difficult to accomplish.

Also, Fire has the spell called "Fire Heal" which is a really good spell. Heals Fire followers, damages Water followers.

Fire Elementals have a good advantage. They will take no damage from most fire spells. You can cast Fire Sword on one of them, or Frenzy, and they will be healed through being hit from Fury Fire.

Also, Fire Warriors, Cavalry, and Infantry will recieve healing and an armor bonus from Heat Metal. This is a nice little touch as far as Fire spells. This would sort of help negate a Rust spell.

If I really tried to figure a way for that to happen, it would become abusive.

Also, the only creatures I would allow to have greater than 100% resistance would be tier3 creatures like Vampires, Spirit Warriors, etc, and Legendary Creatures (not Legendary Champions).

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

lancien said:

But I should think that it could handle more than it already has. And you've already added a cap to damage absorption healing when you have greater than 100% resistence.

Well, at least make the fire elemental have greater than 100%, so it normally is healed by conventional fire spells.

Or, give the fire elemental 200% resistence, but set it so that if it reaches the overhealed hit point cap, it loses 600% resistence and casts its own inferno automatically. (Oops, it looks like my Fire Elemental ate too much, it popped and we're all gonna die!)

Now that would be interesting. If I were to able get Fire Elementals to cast an Inferno after having so many HP, that would be awesome. But this would also be extremely difficult to accomplish.

Also, Fire has the spell called "Fire Heal" which is a really good spell. Heals Fire followers, damages Water followers.

Fire Elementals have a good advantage. They will take no damage from most fire spells. You can cast Fire Sword on one of them, or Frenzy, and they will be healed through being hit from Fury Fire.

Also, Fire Warriors, Cavalry, and Infantry will recieve healing and an armor bonus from Heat Metal. This is a nice little touch as far as Fire spells. This would sort of help negate a Rust spell.

If I really tried to figure a way for that to happen, it would become abusive.

Also, the only creatures I would allow to have greater than 100% resistance would be tier3 creatures like Vampires, Spirit Warriors, etc, and Legendary Creatures (not Legendary Champions).

Good enough. I see your point, even if it looks funny in the game.

Balance is a big issue, and something that's fun and logical that could also become abusive could be a problem.
I knew about the flame sword -> 125% idea, but I thought it would be nice if it happened automatically.

[Boaster]

Well, I'd suggest a Legendary creature for the more than 100% data. In fact, I don't think it is like that right now, so I will more than likely have an update soon containing such changes.

I know that the Earth Worm has 200%, to the best of my knowledge. I'll have to check when I get home.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

Well, I'd suggest a Legendary creature for the more than 100% data. In fact, I don't think it is like that right now, so I will more than likely have an update soon containing such changes.

I know that the Earth Worm has 200%, to the best of my knowledge. I'll have to check when I get home.

You know what? Thinking about it, I can't think of any unit that ought to have higher than 100% immunity automatically, except the Fire elemental, and we've already gone over that. But if the Fire elemental doesn't have greater than 100% immunity, no one else should either. I'm not thinking so much about rank here as physical form.

Elementals are more or less pure magical element, so naturally they would essentially only be strengthened by their element's magic. (Golems are not elementals, to my mind, because they are created, not summoned).

Dragoniforms are frequently assumed to be very magic resistent, particularly in their preferred element, because of their size, magic nature, and the thickness of their skins, but they aren't normally actually healed by magic, they're just extremely resistent to it.

The phoenix, spiders, and the legendary champions would presumably have relatively high magic resistence, but are not generally identified with imperviousness to any magic.

So, I'd say that 100% should be the top natural limit for anybody.

[Boaster]

You have a point, but my objective is to maintain balance.

Units can gain more magic resistance through buffs of their own magics. So with Magic, any unit can become immune.

It all depends on the unit, in my opinion. Not all creaturs have 100% resistance to their own faith. Skeletons and Zombies, for example do not have 100% death resistance. Goblins only have 50% chaos resistance. Wisps and Air Elementals have 100% magic resistance. Shamblers only have 75% earth resistances.

I would say that among the lower 2 tiers of creaturs, the Elemental creatures have the best resistances versus their own magics. But like I said, there are some exceptions. Wisps, Demons, Golems, Kraken, and Shades.

Some have it, some don't.

Golems and Demons are more like tier 3 creatures than tier 2 creatures, so this is one reason I've made an exception. Krakens are in water all the time. Wisps are as close to pure wind spirits as Elementals are. Shades are blackened souls.

I know what you're saying. What you say makes sense. But at this point I'm not willing to match the idea with the mod. Perhaps another time.

[l'Ancien]

I agree. The resistence should vary artistically, based on the creature concept. The individual exception examples for tier 1 and tier 2 you gave were clearly appropriate. I like all of them.

I was just saying in this last post that Tier 3 and Tier 4 creatures should have natural resistence (natural = no spell buffs yet) of no higher than 100%. This was in response to your comment that the Great Worm might have 200% resistence. As a dragon-type creature, the Great Worm reasonably should have high natural magic resistence, but it should probably not start higher than 100%. I think 75% to 90% would be appropriate for the GW, and for other dragon types of both tier 3 and tier 4.

The other tier 3 creatures, tier 4 creatures and tier 4 champions should probably have resistences around 50% to 75%, depending on conception, similarly to the way you decided for tier 1 and tier 2.

[Boaster]

You get what you pay for. Tier 3 cost plenty more than Tier 1 and 2 combined. Tier 4/Legendaries cost more than the lower 3 tiers combined. I'd also like to keep a rate of progression going as well.

The Lich has 100% Death Resistance, but The Bronze Knight (Lancelot) has only 95% Order Resistance. He'll take damage from Order magic, but very little if any. I think this works well for these two.

I'm thinking about reducing the resistances of legendaries to 125% and tier3's to just 100%. I'll likely do that when I get home. From a recent change, Legendaries have 150% and Tier3 Temple creatures have 125%. So I'm more than likely going to set them both back by 25% versus their own faith resistances.

[l'Ancien]

If they all hovered in the area from 90% to 100% that would make sense too, but it might seem a little crowded. Perhaps Dragoniformes and the Lich at 100%, and living humanoids (and the Phoenix and the Arachnids) at 90%?

[Boaster]

lancien said:

If they all hovered in the area from 90% to 100% that would make sense too, but it might seem a little crowded. Perhaps Dragoniformes and the Lich at 100%, and living humanoids (and the Phoenix and the Arachnids) at 90%?

It doens't make sense for High Level Magical creatures to not be immune to their own magic type.

However, recently I have changed the Fafnir Dragon and Hydra's resistance to their respective faiths to 100% rather than 125% because their faith has vortex spells.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

lancien said:

If they all hovered in the area from 90% to 100% that would make sense too, but it might seem a little crowded. Perhaps Dragoniformes and the Lich at 100%, and living humanoids (and the Phoenix and the Arachnids) at 90%?

It doens't make sense for High Level Magical creatures to not be immune to their own magic type.

However, recently I have changed the Fafnir Dragon and Hydra's resistance to their respective faiths to 100% rather than 125% because their faith has vortex spells.

Totally immune is OK, just not absorptively immune (without spell help). But since that would be a lot of units right at 100%, I thought maybe something similar to the Bronze Knight could be applied to some of them that wouldn't normally be assumed (just from the name, for example) to be completely immune, and drop the immunity down by a little bit, so a powerful spell would scratch them, and a weak spell wouldn't hurt them.

The Bronze Knight for example may be almost completely immune to a high level Righteous Bolt, but is he completely immune? Should it heal him?

Fafnir and the Hydra should be perfectly (100%) immune to respective Fire and Chaos, because they're massive, tough and highly magical (conceptually) monsters.

Maybe all temple and legendary creatures could be exactly 100% immune to their own magic (unless you choose a lower level for some reason, I won't argue with any justification for an immunity lower than 100%). I just think that vortex spells or attack spells shouldn't be allowed to heal a unit that has no active immunity spells. It appears that you realized that with Fafnir and the Hydra already and their vortex spells. Conceptually the same thing applies to other spells. Should a Gnome be allowed to heal the Great Worm merely by casting Rocksling at him? Shouldn't he at least have to cast Stone Skin on him first? What about a Stone Giant? The same issues applyto all faiths but Life. (Even Water has to sacrifice health to use its Gift of Life battlefield healing)

[Boaster]

lancien said:

admin said:

It doens't make sense for High Level Magical creatures to not be immune to their own magic type.

However, recently I have changed the Fafnir Dragon and Hydra's resistance to their respective faiths to 100% rather than 125% because their faith has vortex spells.

Totally immune is OK, just not absorptively immune (without spell help). But since that would be a lot of units right at 100%, I thought maybe something similar to the Bronze Knight could be applied to some of them that wouldn't normally be assumed (just from the name, for example) to be completely immune, and drop the immunity down by a little bit, so a powerful spell would scratch them, and a weak spell wouldn't hurt them.

The Bronze Knight for example may be almost completely immune to a high level Righteous Bolt, but is he completely immune? Should it heal him?

Fafnir and the Hydra should be perfectly (100%) immune to respective Fire and Chaos, because they're massive, tough and highly magical (conceptually) monsters.

Maybe all temple and legendary creatures could be exactly 100% immune to their own magic (unless you choose a lower level for some reason, I won't argue with any justification for an immunity lower than 100%). I just think that vortex spells or attack spells shouldn't be allowed to heal a unit that has no active immunity spells. It appears that you realized that with Fafnir and the Hydra already and their vortex spells. Conceptually the same thing applies to other spells. Should a Gnome be allowed to heal the Great Worm merely by casting Rocksling at him? Shouldn't he at least have to cast Stone Skin on him first? What about a Stone Giant? The same issues applyto all faiths but Life. (Even Water has to sacrifice health to use its Gift of Life battlefield healing)

The Bolt spells cannot target friendly units any more, because a long time ago I changed these spells into radius effect spells which will only target enemy units. So even if a player did cast Rock Sling on their own units, the spell would not proc (in lamens terms "fire").

Water does have to use health and mana to heal other units, however Water also has Heal Self. Four mana for 100% health could be worth it. Gift of Life costs a minium of 8 mana, but if you target a unit that is still alive 4 mana is returned and the caster only loses 4 life. With that 4 extra mana, a Heal Self could be used during or after combat.

However, Water also has the drowning spell, which is a mass heal and damage spell combined. It heals friendly water units, damages enemy non-water units in an area of effect. The staff of drowning even procs the Drowning spell 25% of the time during combat.

Also, many of the Legendary Creatures are highly vulnerable to other magics which do not belong to their faith. Fafnir takes plenty of damage from Water, likewise with the Earthworm and Air magic.

[l'Ancien]

I didn't realize that side effect of the bolt spells change to area effect.

So that only leaves the question of attacking an encounter with your own type of legendary creature in it.

Good enough. I still think it's a little funny to have some of them heal from magic, but it doesn't look like there's enough of the effect left to be abusive, now that you've considered the vortex spells.