Re: New pretender gods
 

Yes. I've been sort of busy over the summer but will contact you soon. I might even join one of your hosted games, though I prefer playing 5-10 turns/session quickhost with scheduled sessions such that a game does not take ages to complete.

Re: New pretender gods
 

Nice to have you back, Peter. BTW, you need to update the forum-referencing URLs in your sig, as the forum upgrade and subsequent domain name change has broken those links.

Re: New pretender gods
 

Agreed with Nagot and Alneyan, obviously enough. No need to taint this game with yet another soulless, senseless Tolkien ripoff.
Honestly, it's got depth, it's got flavor, and it's got C'tis(w00t!), and it's got much of what Tolkien himself originally bastardized(Albeit proficiently), would it really be improved all that much by vaguely Scottish dwarves?

Furthermore, when the premise of a game is the subjugation of the cosmos via full-scale, omnilateral war, questions of good and evil become kinda immaterial. Besides which, I don't see how cooking up a few demonbred is in any way more evil than pillaging a contested province.
And all warfare revolves around bringing about death, death and blood magic are just more direct about it than the other paths.


Getting back on topic, I love the idea of a pretender-artifact(Presumably available in several varieties, conferring different abilities?), and invite you to consider this: Immobile, cannot teleport, no attack skill or defense skill, no item slots, MR [lots](For globals such as Burden of Time), encumbrance 100, stealthy(+[lots]), glamour, good base dominion, starts with 1 in each path(Like a "new paths cost 10" pretender +80 points, basically). Size: too big to be subject to Wind Ride. Might want to make it Immortal, just in case**.

Not entirely sure what you'd call this thing, but it can represent:
A) One'a them newfangled incorporeal gods, or a nascent divinity that cannot take shape until it has achieved proper godhead, and not just that pretender nonsense. Or one of those snooty gods that won't sully itself with material form. Or whatever.
B) One of those saccharine, postmodern, thoroughly useless gods that are "in here"*, and in the hearts of all just and true Abysians. Kind of like the Tao Te Ching for people with a Blood Kitsch Level above 0.5, and a crippling attention deficit.
C) Not a god, but a race of gods! Gods that, for some reason, must be blessed by priests before manifesting the full scope of their divinity, but gods nonetheless. All the perks of animism and atheism, coupled with the megalomaniacal elitism of more conventional religions.
D) Just a really stealthy, really cowardly god, I suppose.
E) Some kind of a... a witch's bwew.


Doesn't seem all that unbalanced, does it?

Pros - Utterly indestructible, unless it decides to go into battle, for some reason. Awesome platform for rainbow blessings, rituals, and forgings.

Cons- Pretty much useless should your capitol be conquered or your lab razed, though does prevent your dominion from waning. Noncombatant, can only site search via spells.

Now, if there were some way to make this thing immune to Transformation, it would be practically exploit-proof. Then again, Transformation is high-level, insanely risky without Gift of Health/The Chalice/etc, and by no means likely to yield an SC chassis.
Although plenty of faiths would have trouble with the notion of the transsubstantiation of the divine to the base, there are also plenty that would find nothing paradoxical or profane in the idea.


* Accompanied by touching of finger to chest, as the soundtrack swells

** Though that does mean it would get to safely cast a single battlefield spell(Such as Communion Master), before passing out when defending the capitol. I see potential for exploitation. Not MUCH potential, by any stretch of the imagination, and nothing that can't be remedied by changing it's encumbrance to 300 or so. Aww, yeah.

Edit: Did I say "dully"? I meant "sully". Mind you, I was hesitant to correct myself, as "sully" doesn't sound half as awesome. I mean, c'mon, dully!

Re: New pretender gods
 

How to Mod a Completely Premade, Nation-Specific, Probably Unbalanced Pantheon in Several Easy Steps Incorporating Presently Nonexistent Modding Commands
Some assembly required

A) Give the nation in question a starting spell costing 1 gem of the type of your choice, with a requisite caster level of 20 in the path of your choice.
B) Also mod in a pretender with said level of 20 in the path in question, no other abilities or stats, no item slots, 1 hit point, an insanely powerful horror mark, and the "diseased" battle affliction.
C) Start a game with the nation and pretender in question. Give the pretender an appropriate name, like "a bunch of gods", as in "Prophet of a bunch of gods", or "Marignon worships a bunch of gods".
D) Have the pretender cast the aforementioned national spell. Watch pretender die of either horror attack or disease.
E) Enjoy gods summoned by path-20 spell, all of which function as mobile temples, more like Juggernauts or prophets than full pretenders. If possible, gods' stats should should be affected by dominion.
F) Do not call god, he'll just be eaten by a horror again.

And that's that. As long as we're being ambitious and hypothetical.

Update: Did I say 20 in one path? I meant 20 in two. That oughta make sure you don't Call God and empower the bastard while having elite bodyguards protect against horror attack. Anyone got an idea for an even better killswitch?

Re: New pretender gods
 

I gather there is no way for us to script a new summoning spell, but the rest should be possible to do with a mod. Would it be possible to give the "pretender" zero hitpoints, or would the game complain? You might also want to give this pretender a few abilities; what about the Heat ability and the Fire Vulnerability one? Fire Vulnerability might be overkill though, but that should make sure the pretender won't survive the Horror attack. Too bad it wouldn't be good enough to kill this pretender outside battle.

I like your artifact pretender, but then, I have always had something for rainbow mages (especially if they happen to be more or less useless; don't ask). You may need to make him Lifeless/Undead (I don't recall which is the one to use) to prevent the use of spells such as Twiceborn though. Transformation cannot be prevented as far as I know, but this spell is probably dangerous enough to make anyone think twice before making her Pretender cast it. Unless you really hate your divine avatar in the game, or fancy the thought of being the very first Dragonfly to access godhood, or merely want to show off you are so superior you can afford to lose your Pretender.

Re: New pretender gods
 

Easily supported by the server http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Just set it to quickhost and no hosting time. We would need a couple of people in hour time zone, though. Heh. We could even force a turn limit of xx minutes to avoid somebody taking ages to complete his turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Glad to hear you have more time again. Hope it isn't because your job has moved to India :O)

Re: New pretender gods
 

How about the Monkey King, shouldnt he be at least a special pretender for T'ien Ch'i

Re: New pretender gods
 

Stumbled across this webpage, might be interresting: http://www.geocities.com/fmunoz_/dominions/

Re: New pretender gods
 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work on lifeless bodies.

Re: New pretender gods
 

Nah.. I've just had too much to do, wrapping up a scrolling action game and a new levelpack. As for India, cheap wages/long hours/decent skills/lousy initiative, while attractive to many types of software development, is less useful in games development. (Well, management sure would not mind the cheap wages/long hours part http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)