Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

For the Lord of the Desert Sun you could just bump his Awe rating up to +4 or so. Should make him a *fine* early SC.

Oh wrt. the spell mod I was wondering why no change ( ie: nerf ) to mistform. It's considered to many to be the best early defensive spell in the game and it powers many of the early SCs. Bumping it up a few levels would put it out of reach of early SC's while keeping it for the people that want to protect their casters. Sadly this would eliminate yet another option from the early game. You could bump the path requirement by quite a bit making it only for Air SC's. Or you could do nothing!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Mistform isn't that spectacular. 25 damage will end it, or even less than that on low hitpoint units.

Body ethereal and personal luck are both quite a bit better than mistform.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

LOL!

<EOM>

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

well, together I'd say they're better.

trouble is, the lord of the desert sun also suffers from the "moloch" syndrome; without, to my eyes, the Moloch's compensatory qualities.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Whoops I was thinking of the Son of the Sun. Yes the Lord of the Desert Sun is lacking I totally agree. So how do the allies work? Do he simply cast : Pride of Lions before the combat? Or is he hard coded to get some set number of a set monster number? In either case I would guess that the solution would be to bump the power ( substantially ) of his summons. If this also requires you to rework the cost ( and/or level ) for the spell which summons the troops then so be it. I guess. You may even have to rework the text ( since maybe now it summons something of the power of Kithaironic Lions ... if that's what you are looking for ).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The Lord of the Desert Sun has hard-coded great lions, like the Moloch has imps. Kithaironic lions would be too powerful by a lot, unless he had only one or two. I'm not sure if battle auto-summons can be modded (other than being removed) at this point. Boosting Great Lions is also problematic from another point of view, which is that they can be summoned with Summon Animals. True enough that you would also get useless chaff like wolves, black hawks and giant spiders, but if great lions become Kithaironic equivalents, it'll be worth it with the new lower cost for Summon Animals.

It'd be better to just remove the lons altogether, it's not as if they can actually accomplish anything, and the LotDS isn't that spectacular on its own (unlike the Moloch).

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Well they would not have to be the full power of Kithaironic lions. They could be somewhere in between.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Still think assassin ability works better. He gets normal lions as a meatshield. Fire and Nature magic are very potent spells for one on one battles. I tried this configuration out and it seems fairly interesting. A Pretender Assassin is powerful in the early game when he can fight inside his own dominion. Later this ability become more of a gamble since the lions provide little support against higher tier commanders with bodyguards.

Also gave the Moloch the assassin ability. I didn't try it out for any longer period but it seems imps are a lot more powerful in one on one combat.

Anyone got a clue on how to make the Mother of Lions useful? I haven't come up with a reason to select her as a pretender (and the graphics are odd. I can't make out her head). In the end I simply removed her from the Pretender pool together with other "hopeless cases".

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Both the Moloch and the Lord of the Desert Sun have to be used differently from other pretenders, which to my mind is a *good* thing. I find both useful just as they are. If you must have a pretender who operates strictly solo, then choose something else by all means, but that those two come with auto-summons is interesting for variety's sake.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

This weekend will be a new release of the SpellMod as well as the initial Release of the ScaleMod. If you would like to try out a blitz with them try the IRC channel during the weekend.