Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Won't it be even simpler to add a "Mind Blank" spell (Enchantment 4 (?)- Astral 1 or 2) that will have the same effect ?
So we would have a magic counter to a magic threat, like Fireballs has Fire Resist, etc...

Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Better yet, make the "Mind Blank"-spell cause feeblemindness of battle duration: "No magic duel... durrrr...*drools* " http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

- Humer

Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I like mind duel. Astral is said to be the most powerful Arcana (in manual, if I'm not mistaken). There's nothing like having your mages picked up one by one by a superior astral mage. It really makes you think strategy. Really. It pisses me off, but I tend to take it as a learning experience.

Counter-balance-wise other paths have better summons and mass-destruction spells. What astral can do to that end?

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't underestimate the Angelic Host.

But the main problem is not that astral isn't useful to mages that have it: it's that it's too dangerous to mages that have it, especially if they represent a large fraction of a country's magical power.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That works fine if you have a choice. Marignon and T'ien Ch'i don't.

I don't have any problem with the loser of a Magic Duel dying: what I have a problem with is the winner walking away completely free.

I think that any time a magic duel occurs, there should be a chance that the astral energies used during the duel will attract the attention of horrors. This results in a chance of the winner becoming horror marked (or the strength of his horror mark increasing, if he is already horror marked and they come in variable strengths), and a chance of a horror materializing in the vicinity of the winner. Both effects should rise with the sum of the combatants' astral levels (so a duel between two Astral-9 gods will almost certainly horror mark the winner and is likely to attract a Doom Horror; in the case of the horror attracting effect, both the chance of attracting a horror and the strength of horror attracted should rise with the power of the combatants).

This still doesn't save Celestial Masters or Grand Masters from being harassed by packs of lizard shamans, astral sages or crystal priestesses, but it does save them from being gunned down by the dozen by a single archtheurg, astrologer or starspawn (or at least make it risky for the professional duelist).

A chance for the winner to be feebleminded (and a large chance that he takes 100+ fatigue damage - one duel per caster per battle unless you have strong reinvig) would help too, but not be nearly as cool. Although the feeblemind part does recall the old saying about knife fights - the winner is the one who goes to the hospital (or in this case, mental hospital).


I'd kind of like to see a Helm of Mind Shielding - protects against Magic Duel and everything else that doesn't affect mindless units - but it wouldn't really solve the magic duel problems, IMO. You can't practically equip every commander with them.

Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

Chris,

I actually don't like your horror mark suggestion. It would allow a weak astral being such as one of the Ry'leh assassins to cause a horror mark on a Pretender much more powerful in astral than the assassin. I don't see this as remotely desirable.

Horror marks on sages or shamen...bah...what's the use?

I usually have astral 3 or so on my pretender. I just keep him out of combat.

As an aside, does anyone have a chart of the relative chances of winning/losing an astral duel given given powers vying for success?

Astral 1 vs Astral 3?

Astral 2 vs. 3?
Astral 1 vs. 4?

I'm curious as to how this generally plays out.

Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He can already do this by casting the spell Horror Mark (no MR save, IIRC). You could make the chance of this effect lower for very unbalanced duels (which are presumably over more quickly) - perhaps tie it solely to the lower of the two combatants' astral skills. 9 vs 1 attracts no more horror attention than 1 vs 1, but 9 vs 9 has the doom horrors drawing straws for who gets to eat the winner.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I think the threat of a horror materializing near the winner would be a bigger problem in that case. Because after it eats the shaman, it is probably still hungry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is, of course, one possible strategy - for your pretender. Do you play Marignon or T'ien Ch'i? Would you suggest keeping all their astral mages out of combat? In the case of Marignon, that is all their mages except the inquisitors and initiates, none of which have more than 1 level of magic. You can't lead very many magic beings with 1 level of non-astral magic.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good question. I'd like to see it too.

But if the challenger is both cheaper and more skilled (not hard to do against a CM), or cheaper and equally skilled, then it obviously favors the challenger on a cost killed/cost lost basis.

That isn't even counting the possibility of star children assassinating with Magic Duel.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So am I, but:
* if the bias for unequal skills is small, cheap astral-1s (shaman, crystal priestess) are the preferred duelist
* if the bias for unequal skills is large, astral-3s (4 with the right randoms) are the preferred duelist (Starspawn, Astrologer, Archtheurg)
* in either case Grand Masters and Celestial Masters get easily killed for relatively low cost.

The only situation that would make magic duel not that big a threat between most mages is if the defender had a substantial advantage (perhaps even enough to make up for a small skill difference). Like, attacker's skill + dice compares to defender's skill + dice + 1, ties result in the deaths of both combatants. Then it would only be the Astral 6+ gods that could fight half a dozen duels every battle without breaking a sweat.

But I don't think it actually works that way.

Re: So far what nations look strong... and weak?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good question. I'd like to see it too.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I've understood the recent MD change correctly, it's now a perfectly symetric 6x6 matrix. So if the opposing mage is

X levels higher than you - Win - Tie - Loss
6 - 0 - 0 - automatic
5 - 0 - 1/36 - 35/36
4 - 1/36 - 2/36 - 33/36
3 - 3/36 - 3/36 - 30/36
2 - 6/36 - 4/36 - 26/36
1 - 10/36 - 5/36 - 21/36
0 - 15/36 - 6/36 - 15/36