Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Clockwork assasin? high protection, low hp, moderately high fatigue, incredibaly high movement, good attack rating but low defence and strentgh, multiple attacks. Should be good enough for one half of SC killing team...
earth obviously

Prince of steam... requires only fire to summon but with some water magic thrown in maybe a chance to get air. Allows for diversification, and the acid spells. Give it mistform and a full set of slots along with high strength and attack (compensated by lower protection)?

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Hmmmmmmm..... this machine constantly emits a piercing high frequency shriek from its gears as it closes on the target, and the fires burning in its furnace blaze with the white-hot fury of the sun. Multiple Paralyze/Stun attacks (to spam against high MR), a single AN main attack with x2 to Undead? I'd actually give them the Assassination ability, as with their "attack systems" powered down they can move silently, and are "stealthy" by virtue of no need for shelter or sustenance, allowing them to keep to inhospitable terrain as they approach their target.

Earth is going to get some really neat toys in this mod - which is funny, because they already have SO many things to spend gems on, how do you choose??


I like the Steam idea as well, but not for this first mod, I want everything single path. But, it's making me think there could be some fun after this is complete, doing a cross-path-summons mod, like Burnsaber's combat spells mod. Just something to add some extra spice to your Dom3 banquet, of course. ;)

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Clockwork assassin: good idea

Multiple attacks: good idea

Paralyze/Stun attacks: bad idea

AN main attack: bad idea

x2 damage against undead: bad idea

Assassination on an assassin: good idea

(seriously clockwork being hack with blades, not AN blades but AP blades which do damage and don't stun and certainly have no thematic reason to do more damage to undead.)

If he's to be SC material low def and low HP will be quite a hit on him though.. but all could easily be balanced to get him on the right tier.

To stay in the clockwork scene clockwork harvester with those nice scyting wheels in front (you know the one they uses now adays on big fields) trampling over armies :D Or Clockwork Elephant.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Clockwork Elephant would be cool... :) Of course, we already have Iron Dragon...
Another possibility for Nature could be (I think I mentioned it before in some other thread) just an intelligent Elephant with some weak magic for self-buffs. Think The Mountain That Walk...
A development of earlier thought of Aezeal: if we want to make an "anti-SC" it can have a good number of low-damage attacks. Variants:
Poltergeist: Astral or maybe Death, Ethereal creature, description states that it attacks by throwing various objects telekinetically. May get Sticks & Stones as a missile attack, but main would be "Thrown Objects" attack with high multiplier and low damage. Only miscellanrous slots, obviously. May be stealthy, though it's not necessary.
Chain Elemental (or somethin suitably impressive-sounding, there was some DD monster of such general nature and I believe that there was some movie where it appears 1st): Earth(?). Looks like humanoid figure totally wrapped in chains. Controls those chains, making them flail around striking his opponents. Obviously quite good protection. Possibly entangle defense (or secondary effect of attack?)

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

a good number of low damage AN attacks will be hell to most SC I'd say. But forcing it upon once chassis will be awkward. Personally I think a swarm of size 1 critters will be much more elegant and if they all have 2 attacks (and you don't need to much useless lore to talk that right).. much more original too. all those summonings where you summon 1 guy and then he get's to do all the killing is boring :D

The mountain that rides is the only thing I know (Song of fire and Ice)

An earth summon of a real mountain that lives would be nice htough.. but I already mentioned my immobile sentient vulcano (still quite original IMHO)

What about some sort of wolverine (the x-man not the animal) type summon for nature. Quick in attacks, adamantium claws, regenerates etc etc. A regular size 2 summon would be nice I'd say all those huge things are getting boring.

Some air person with onebattlespell summon valkeries would be rather powerfull just because of that spell. If he himself then is H3 so he can bless them, has some airmagic for buffs, maybe a Valkyrie herself.. some sort of Valkyrie leader. (would make the spriting easier since you could just adjust the Valkyrie sprite) yeah that sounds nice. Air/death/holy a nice magic sword with some death theme.. maybe the raisedeath ability? Sacred herself of course.

Would have all sorts of options.. buffing herself and the valkeries, just spamming skeletons, going melee and raising the dead. The Valkyrie stats are pretty decent, giving this Valkyrie hero a bit better stats would be acceptable.

hmm this idea is sweet if you won't use it I will, though it's much better suited for dom 3 vanilla than dom 3K.

Living clouds is nice for a onebattle spell too btw, some titan race, whose leaders are masters of the wind? A titan chassis decent HP, with air magic and that onebattle spell would be nice. Full slots etc. Not to much other abilities except shock res I'd say. Good for kitting out and having those airelementals as extra punch and just to cut through chaff.

You could think of something with phantasmal army but I dislike the phantasmal spells... masters of illusion etc, not that heroic.

Same with living earth, fires, water etc as for the living clouds, a titan themed for the magic path that autosummons them seems nice.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Quite


Well yes, especially to kill an SC.


I'm not sure why. Paralyze attacks are MR checked, I think Stun can be made so as well. The point is that he is fragile, but is a specific counter to SCs.


Care to explain why? It's not the hardest thing in the world to make a Dusk Dagger. I was still envisioning the Golden Army, they have this big blade on one arm. I could just have it do massive damage, but it seemed more as if it were sharp, than anything else. I will be testing these beasties, you know. If AN is too much, I can make it AP.


His intended use is to kill Tartarians.


Well I mentioned that because the primary goal was things for the battlefield, so I first saw him as a "battlefield assassin", or a guy meant to counter SCs in direct combat, but not necessarily 1v1.


It's not the blade that stuns, reread what I said. :p The stun is caused by intense pain and sensory overload from the bright furnace that powers it, and the horrendous noise it creates when in combat. Again, my apologies if you have trouble imagining it, try this video: Golden Soldiers. Just imagine the fires inside much brighter, and a hellish scream emanating from the clockworks. :p Also note the blades are glowing, but perhaps if I remove the undead multiplier, the rest will start making more sense to you. (Also note they look kind of pathetic in this clip, this is just before they all start spontaneously regerating/rebuilding.)


http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4124639513/If he's to be SC material low def and low HP will be quite a hit on him though.. but all could easily be balanced to get him on the right tier.[/quote]

I didn't see this guy as an SC, but as an SC killer. This is the point of building a concept for him that allows him the ability to Stun a single target. It partially comes down to luck, if he gets on you first, you're dead. If you get him first, he's toast.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Ritual Spell: Aether Spawn

Cost: 1 astral gem

Summons one commander and a number of identical 'troop' units, numbers balanced to taste.

Creatures are small, stealthy, fast moving/flying, 1 hit point etheral that do a 1 AOE AN attack.

To be effective one will need significant numbers of them, meaning one or more astral mages will have to devote many turns to accumulating them. However once massed, they would form an effective deterrent against raiding, as an attacker will have no way of knowing whether or not a province is haunted by these things.

I expect we would see a production line of clammed astral mages with ritual orders set to autocast.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

you can talk it right al you want but a stun attack would be stupid, AN too.. just a lot of whirling blades doing AP damage would be better and not need such a long explanation (which isn't even working for me)

I like the Aether spawn too, resemble my idea but that stealth idea is fun. Though I doubt they would be a real deterrent for a raiding force that existed of more than a single SC or a few mages.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Yeah, I don't think heat and unpleasantness can give you a stun attack. Mindless constructs would be unlikely to be fazed by it, but a stun attack would affect them just the same. If you wanted you could give him a heat aura. Doesn't seem thematic for a clockwork assassin to me though.

With AP, and AN, it's worth remembering that ordinary sharp weapons have no armor-piercingness. Magical super-sharp weapons are AP. AN is very rare indeed. In fact I'm pretty sure no creature in the game comes with an AN weapon (apart from mental attacks and so forth).

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

The different air elementals/lightning hawks and the swarm spell's Dragonfly are the only creatures with AN attacks that immediately come to mind, another AN attack wouldn't be out of place.

Don't forget the "strength of wielder not added" tag

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Yeah sorry, I was thinking of the clockwork assassin, not the aether spawn. AN for the aether spawn would be fine. Might be best to set it to #dt_cap (max one damage) though, otherwise the DRN can make even damage 0 AN attacks quite vicious.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Hmm I gave the souls in my shiar mod all AN low damage attacks too.. that seemed thematic..aetherspawns woudl be similar.. but imho except the most magical weapons the best a "solid" attack should be is AP. high strenght, high damage and AP will have about the same effect though. Strenght 15+ for a construct wouldn't bother me, nor would damage 5 on it's blades.. combined with AP that will put dents in most SC if there are a lot of attacks raining down on them.. and I can imagine some sort of construct with 6 flailing blades easily.. if he's really fast he could even make each blade strike 2x (I must say I find that always hard to put into creatures.. just fast attacking --> you can only really do it with eitehr giving it 2 of the same attacks.. but that would look like it's using 2 swords, or giving the weapon 2 attacks.. which means you need to create a new weapon and can't use an ordinary weapon. or giving ti onebattlespell quickness but that would make it all magical (and I still don't know if it works on troops or only commanders.)

actually I think the aetherspawn spell would very well suit me for dom 3K (they could easily move through space too) since it has quite a lot of high prot SC chassis and this would be a nice way to even the field if needed. I'm thinking a bit higher cost though if it summons multiples.

Does anyone know of an existing sprite (smallish) that would be fitting?

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

They would be imbalancing if they were a deterrent for a serious force. The idea is to make one's opponent just a little less caviler about easily romping through one's 'undefended' territory with solitary commanders. If they want to raid, fine, but they should have to work for it. And worry about it. ;-)

Description:
The souls of those who have died filled with anger often do not pass to the afterlife, but are rather trapped in the akashic plane. A gifted mage can harness these spirits and give them a quasi existence in the physical world. Their hatred remains unabated and can be felt by those near to them; a painful, deadly hate.


To minimize the need for micromanagement (having to equip multiple mages with gems regularly) it would be nice to keep the spell to a single gem. The idea is that a player would have to invest in dedicating multiple mages over time to amass adequate numbers. This is meant as a balancing feature 'in addition to' the gem cost. Increasing the gem cost in order to summon larger numbers would have the effect of both increasing micromanagement (manually adding gems) as well as reduce the number of mages that need to be dedicated to production. For balance, reduce the numbers summoned, don't increase the gem cost.

For the sprites, just have a shadow on the ground.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Okay, my own concept for this Clockwork Assassin is rapidly moving out of the realms of this mod, and into the next potential mod.

I don't know, I haven't used Edi's DB, maybe with the number of sacred mages in the game, a summon that required E4/H1 would be available to enough nations to justify it. Anyways, I would give it 2 Holy Scourge as built in weapons. So there, haters. :p


I'm growing fond of this Aether Spawn spell as well. Would it be possible to give their commander the unique ability to cast Gateway for free? Give him a small Magic Leadership number, and no normal/undead leadership, and that should limit abusability of the spell. They wouldn't be insanely mobile, but would be able to jump to sieged labs before reinforcements arrive, for a nasty surprise.

Or even better perhaps, make the summon just give you 1 guy, and he has the Teleport ability. In combat, he automatically generates "Aether Tendrils", which are size 1 units with the small AN attack.

I like the idea of weakish units with autosummons in combat. I'm not married to one yet, but there's got to be something here that it would work beautifully for - could be this guy. :p

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

you want things that can't be done. You either make a gateway spell for free and give ti too all nations or restrict it to 3.. can't give ti to a single mage.

Summoning units can be done, summoning in combat can only be done with regular spells not with self made spells.

I don't see why the better suggestions for the clockwork assasin would be moving it out of your general mod idea.

#newweapon "razorsharp blade"
#dmg 5
#armorpiercing
#att 2
#def 1
#rng 3
#nratt 2
#end

#newmonster "clockwork assassin"
#descr "It slices it dices it's fast and it's sharp, hoburg's nr 1 kitchenappliances factory now presents the clockwork assassin. Order one now and get this stainless steel knive-set for free."
#spr as needed.
#hp 25
#size 3
#prot 20
#mr 15
#mor 15
#att 15
#def 15
#mapmove 2
#ap 25
#blind
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#inanimate
#fireres 50
#coldres 50
#shockres 75
#magicbeing
#noleader
#nomagicleader
#noundeadleader
#slots for 4 arms and whatever.
#end

perfectly suited as a SC

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

To Aezeal:
Mountain That Walks was a real-life guy: a particularly large and shrewd elephant who managed to kill quite a number of hunters. Locals attributed various mystical abilties to him. What is known for sure is that he both tracked hunters and made regular ambushes, military-style. :)
More on mystically powerful animals: Vietnamese had an idea of a maneater tiger getting an ability to summon spirits of his victims and using such shamanic powers to lure more victims... Blood/Nature summon? ;)

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

They are only "better" because you prefer them. :P I AM looking for suggestions and advice, and I do want this to be something people will use and be happy with, but I do have to make the final design decisions on whatever it is that I put together.

There are multiple reasons that it could push it out of the realm of what I have imagined for the mod - because the specific goal of the mod is "to introduce summons of comparable power, availability and cost to the existing Bane Lord and Elemental Royalty".

This means all summons should be single path. This also says certain things about the roles that these summons will be suitable for. I can only reiterate - this isn't just a "we need more summons" mod, it's a mod to increase the competitive nature of large games where there are not enough Unique summons (and items) to go around to all of the stronger players.

For this reason, my own imagining of this "Clockwork Assassin", was as a readily available (who wants to be without Earth in the late game?) Tartarian killer. He's not a 1-hit-wonder, he's not an instant trump card to a pristine Tart, but he is something designed to be better at fighting them than most other things.


As far as the Aether guy goes, I am not sure I wanted him to have S3 on his own. I just wasn't sure if a unit could be given an effect like an Item Spell that casts a ritual for free. As I said before, this will be my first mod, and while the size of it is a bit daunting, I had already intended to keep the core concepts fairly basic, so I wouldn't have to range off into the realms of "new, and previously unimagined taste sensations". I would love to do some really daring and interesting summons, but I can't seem to say this enough - that sort of thing will likely have to wait for a different mod. I'm glad that you want to help make this mod cool, I just worry that you are trying to make it be the mod that you wanted, and not the mod that I offered to make. <3

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Just give the aether dude and his troops flying, and if you want mapmove 4 or 5. Then they're super mobile and you have no modding problems.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Thief of fire? Fire summon that autocasts darkness (make him see in the dark, give him a terrible precision rating, to stop some of your more obvious fire evocations), has awe and a fire weapon? Giant (Titan)sized (modify the smith god or the cyclops art)... basically an army killer, not that fire needs more of those really. Would need specific counters, but the idea of a giant that autocasts darkness and has some obvious ways to deal with undead apeals to me.

"In the days when the All-god (I can't be bothered to attempt spelling the other version :D, Pankrater?) controlled the flame many heroes attempted to steal this source of power. All were foiled and many were put to death, but the most powerful were imprisoned within the very source of fire itself. Furthermore they were cursed, even when trapped within the source of all fire they were surrounded by darkeness. A firemage must use a great amount of magic to free these titans from their prisons but the very fact that they have survived millenia of eternal heat and darkness is a testemant to their physical and mental might" Hmm sounds more like a pretender chassis, it will probably have to be toned down a little to see use."

Hey I like spewing forth half formed ideas... I really should learn to mod :D

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Sounds good, but autocasting darkness is really uber!

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Yes I was thinking at least more gems than royalty and higher research but generic... As I said it would probably need to be toned down... but then again if you give it the same magic level (In fire obviously) and research requirements as Tartarians, but ask for 60 gems or something... I'm talking real late game fare basically designed to kill late game 'chaff' or anything that isn't an SC, or blind/darksight. Feel free to butcher as you wish, this guy could easily be man sized with a heat aura and natural fireball attack, actually that would be a decent counter to non fire resistant SC's... if easily massed... thats a bit to normal for me though... I'm musing over how to give a fire summon AoE non fire Ap damage... or an insane attack rating...

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Perhaps a re-envisioning of him (since he is undead killer?) that autocasts Solar Brilliance. Not -quite- as powerful as Darkness, as you can't use it in support of an army without Blinding your own units, and also actually hurts undead, where Darkness technically kind of helps them (they are 100% Darkvision by default, same with Demons).


As for the Aether dude having Flying + high map move, I thought of that, but I wanted him to be able to strike during magic phase, which is when you normally have to hit raiding thugs/SCs.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Create a new weapon and give it normal damage and AoE 1.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

That bits not my problem :D, I meant how to thematicly give a fire summon such an ability...

WHich leads me on to... the avatar of rage (yes it needs a new name) A fairly lowcost fairly high research/magic path fire summon. The idea is to give it lots of high strenght high attack attacks so that it can actually kill SC's.
So it has high attack and a the ability to go beserk (a large beserk bonus?) give them some AP claw attacks (two? four?) (their hands are so hot they melt through none magical armour) They also have a high battle movement and strength. Make them etheral. Give them human HP and and defence (but perhaps a decent protection, nothing good enough to stop a SC though) . The idea is four or five of them could take an lone SC (provided it doesn't have multiple magic weapons, or AoE spells)give them full slots and you have something that at least has a chance of afflicting an SC...

disclaimer: Most of these are ideas with what I think of as appropriate abilities, sort of bent to fit around the roles JM seems to want... please assemble/disassemble/throw away to taste :D

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Somebody has been playing the King's Bounty remake, methinks... ;)

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

In my defence I have no idea what your talking about... time to run a search on Kings Bounty...

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Do so - it was a very funny game at the time and from it HoMM series was developed...

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

I was talking about the remake, I don't know the original game. But it's pretty enjoyable and you should know it - it's been developed by a russian game company! The same guys that made Space Rangers 2. Definitely worth trying out the demo at least.

Re: SC and Thug Diversity Project
 

Well, I'm not monitoring new games with any degree of regularity. Due to the fact that most of what they produce is... let's say, I wouldn't play most if I'd get paid for it! :mad: I'll look up this one - maybe they didn't screw it up - such accidents do happen, fortunately. :)
By the way, King's Bounty 2 existed previously - it was some garage-style work by some Ukrainian student at about 1995 :confused: - quite good at it, too, if only he wouldn't make a starting placement of your character completely random without checking for playability - so one often had to restart several times before being finally able to do something (the first time I played it I started square in the middle of impassable mountians)... :) Oh, ye goode olde times... :)