Re: Guide to communions
 

Even if they could cast they'd count for fatigue distribution! That's a feature of all communion slaves. The fatigue is spread around to them that masters would ordinarily gather from casting spells, no matter what unit id they have.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Quick question: just to make sure, self-buffs cast by masters affect all the slaves, but NOT the other masters, correct?

I had an idea. Reinvig on communion slaves is nice: you can get 2-4 from boots, summon earthpower, etc. But, suppose you dont have enough slaves, and your masters are casting big fatigueing spells. Fatigue damage turns into hit point damage at 10:1, right? Now, what if the slaves have Personal Regeneration? Its around 20% IIRC, which on a standard human is 2 hit points. That is the equivalent of 20 fatigue! All you need is an N1 master to cast Personal Regen.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Sounds right to me. You'll pick up afflictions, but that's better than death.
A nature bless & sacred slaves will work too. And stack with Personal Regen.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Hrm...makes me wonder -

1) If you pick up feeblemind affliction, does it drop you out of any communions you may be in at the time?

2) If you have Life After Death/Ankh active, do you remain in the communion after converting to soulless form? I'd think this would be similar to whatever happens for mages w/secondshapes, but I've never tried...

Re: Guide to communions
 

Interesting idea, but keep in mind that's not gonna kick in until you get to 200 fatigue which is a pretty dangerous place to be. Works as a last ditch thing though.

Re: feeblemind I don't know for sure, but I'd be very surprised if it dropped you out of an existing communion. Pythium's communicants for instance are in a communion with no magic paths so presumably magic paths are not directly tied to communions.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Alternatives to armor in protecting your communions:

Suppose you are on defense. You know your opponent is going to Stone Rain (aka Communion Bane) their first turn. How do you protect your communion? Putting armor on your mages has been mentioned, but I suspect most nations can recruit cheap communionable mages faster than they can forge armor for them. My thought would be, have a crystal matrix on a mage at the end of the ID list (the bottom of the commanders listing), and have them cast Stoneskin or Barkskin or something like that the first turn. The slaves above that crystal-matrix-enabled buffer have all cast CSlave already, so they should be part of the communion when the buff gets cast, so they will get it. You still need armor on the other masters though.

Suppose you are on offence, same problem. If all the slaves have slave matrices and a master has a crystal matrix and an amulet of barkskin, will the barkskin get auto-cast before the beginning of combat and affect all the slaves? In fact if I read the discussions of Crystal Shields etc. in the thread above, it sounds like in this case you don't even need to worry about the order of the slaves/masters. The only disadvantage to this plan is that slave matrices are expensive, it may be cheaper just to forge armor.

If the enemy throws Earthquake against your communion, I'm not sure what to do. Same trick, but use Boots of Quickness, to buff Defense? Does that even work that way?

Re: Guide to communions
 

I'm almost sure that barkskin amulet will not give barkskin to the whole communion because it is just an effect the item gives and not the "auto-cast" spell. In fact, only items that autocast self-buff spells will affect the whole communion when worn by the master with matrix and all slaves have matrixes too. The two items that come to mind are Crystal Shield and Copper Plate

Re: Guide to communions
 

On the other hand, there's nothing saying that you can't have a master at the bottom of the list carrying a crystal matrix and cast bark/stone/ironskin/invulnerability the first turn. That would work just as well.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Not when you're on offense. The only thing I know that CAN protect your mages from Stonerain and such on offense is the Sword of Aurgelmer (and partly the Ankh). And that really makes these items splendid and very important to have. When I have to choose what to forge - Sword of Aurgelmer or Boots of the Planes, I will always choose the first one. And I will prefer the Ankh to the Pain Sickle if I have to choose among them.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Yeah, that only works for defense. I was saying for defense because he specifically mentioned being on the defensive. On the offensive, options are definitely limited.