Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Is it possible to increase the output of the gemgens? I definitely agree with making them artifacts, but comparing with the Ruby Eye, the original artifact gemgen, they are really subpar, and I think most people agree they aren't worth forging. And that kills some thematic strategy, like the conversion of water/nature into astral for nations with lots of astral summons, or getting use out of the now completely worthless fire/nature crosspath and only slightly more useful earth/blood crosspath.

Say quadruple the output and triple the price of the clam and fetish to turn them into poor man's gem globals. The bloodstone is still worth forging regardless since it's a booster, but double its output to match the similarly priced Ruby Eye.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I would hardly call earth/blood a useless crosspath. Can you say demon knight apocalypse?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Depends. The mass summoning for demon knights is at blood 9, while tying up mages summoning one demon knight at a time is pretty bad, unless you have a cheap recruit anywhere that can do it without boosters. Is LA Marignon the only one that can pull that off? Otherwise, you'd get demon knights with ritual of 5 gates which doesn't need E/B.

But yeah, it's F/N that really is worthless with a worthless fever fetish. W/N can...summon Naiads if your only water access is your pretender, I guess, though its main strength did die with the clam. E/B is definitely the most useful of the lot now.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I just got back from a year hiatus from Dominions, and I'm curious why Jomon Samurai Archers have a precision of 10, but all the others have a precision of 11.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Have you ever tried firing a bow when aiming through one of those samarai masks?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Of course I have!
Just kidding, but seriously, why should Samurai without bows have a greater precision then samurai without bows?
Also it is important to keep in mind that Samurai were first and foremost uses of the Bow and Spear, the use of swords became more prominent after the invasion of the Mongols in the 1200's.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

OK. theory 2.

Based on my extensive research watching samarai movies its because they always give the bows to the noobs and the more experienced ones are the ones that go out and actually fight the good fight.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I guess that could work, but I find that explanation lacking.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Quite right, but now it's a later version of CBM and if no one says anything then llama may not catch it. :) Squeaky wheel gets the grease right? ;)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Just some feedback, I have to say that the last CBM game I played completely turned me off the mod.

While I like the idea of EDM, at the moment the easy availability of these summons, massively overpowers any nations with a good early game.

They really need to be balanced better against the vanilla summon spells available, because at the moment they are simply overpowering them in every way.

My views on the ones I have seen in action:

Summon Zmey - The unit is overpowered, available too early and too easily summoned. Im less concerned about the power than the fact that it should be a level 9 spell requiring at least 6F.

Summon Shishis - Pretty decent core design, a little bit too much better than the other options at that level, maybe just a bump to level 7.

Great Kraken - Again a decent core idea, but like the Shishi is better than the other options at that level, bump to level 7 5W.

Call Grendelkin - Needs to be level 9 and require 5W, it's a better summon than water queens.

Overall I think my biggest problem is less that they are overpowered as individual units, as most can be countered, but that they are all way too easy to research and summon. The end result of this being that they effectively eliminate the mid game entirely and make most of the vanilla summons in the game redundant.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

This pretty much makes it impossible to take anything else you say seriously...

Just because you got stomped by a player better than you, dont blame the mod, blame yourself.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I kinda agree on Zmeys being a bit too tough, too cheap (since they can be totally decent with 15 gems of gear, just about anything in their weight class would need more) and available too early.
I actually like giving them cold blooded as a glaring weakness.
They are very hard to kill, even compared with actuall high end summons costing twice the gems.
Grendels are blobs of hitpoints with full slots, that niche is actually suprisingly empty (Iron Angel?) apart from them. Elemental royalty is indeed a bit underpowered in general, but comparing them with Grendels is imho not a good way to establish this.
I have no hard opinion about Shishis and Krakens.
I find Wendigos interesting, while they are available quite early, it will take between 5-10 turns for them to be battle capable, and thats actually quite interesting.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I haven't had any problems killing zmey... What are you guys trying to kill them with? Srsly.

EDM summons are balanced to the stuff people actually use. Yes, they're better than the random junk at their level - because no one uses the random junk.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

No one uses the junk cause EDM pushed it out of the way. People used to rush conj 8 to get ERoys. I think it's been quite a while since I've actually seen one in a game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

And that has nothing to do with it... but is a good go to when you don't have anything worthwhile to say.

If you are trying to claim that a Sea King's Court (an equivalent level spell) is better or equal summon to 2.75 Great Krakens, I'm not sure that it's my credibility that's a problem.

End game diversity mod is a great idea, mid game diversity mod, which is what it is right now, is, in my opinion, terrible.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

And this is my point, when the royalty are now considered junk, there is a serious problem.

Sure, there was some stuff that was always junk, but there is a lot that was usefull midgame that isn't any more if your using EDM.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The royalty have always been junk. They were the poor-man's nation SC (poor insofar as they had no other options except tarts if they could get the factory going or wishing for Seraphs). They were and are extremely overcosted.

FWIW, i stopped seeing elemental royalty when gemgens went unique, even before EDM was released. They were never cost effective, and when gem supply got tight, people stopped using them. And i still see QoAs and QoWs, who were the only ones even plausibly worthwhile before. (And anyone who thinks a Grendelkin is better than a QoW doesn't know what he's talking about).

So anyone claiming that its EDM which has marginalized elemental royalty has it wrong. Its not. They were marginalized because they were not efficient summons, and making gemgens unique forced people to be more efficient. No one wishes for Seraphs any more for the same reason - 100s is simply too expensive when gem supplies are tight. They'll never pay off in the long run.

I think there was also a metagame shift at some point. SCs tend to be *very vulnerable* to certain tactics, and people figured out what these tactics are. The value of SCs fell through the floor. I rarely see lone SCs tearing it up these days. They accompany armies or act as glorified thugs raiding PD. No one takes just an SC or a handful of SCs into an army and expects to win these days. (I've seen it attempted just once, and it resulted in the deaths of 2 out of 3 of the SCs involved).

So yes, elemental royalty became less desirable. They don't see as much use these days. But the cause was most certainly not EDM. The change happened before EDM was even released.

--------------------------------

But using Sea King's Court as an example of a good spell is hilarious, btw. Really? It wasn't really worthwhile even when gemgens were non-unique and you could blow gems on useless crap. Its a bad spell, its always been a bad spell, and its lack of use has absolutely nothing to do with EDM.

Streams from Hades, which has more right to feel trod upon by EDM than anything else, still sees play.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Junk compared to what, Tarts and Chayots/Seraphs, which both require a much more massive amount of investment in research and boosters. Gems used directly in the summon are only one part of the cost of a strategy shift.

I didn't say this, but nice strawman, and my comparison was between vanila and CBM(with EDM). I think you'll have a hard time making the case that a QoW is stronger than a grendelkin in any situation other than where you need a high attack, but then that isn't an equivalent comparison anyway, you need to compare 1.5 grendelkin to a QoW. Sure the underwater regen on QoW can be great, but they don't really have enough hp to leverage it.

Once again your setting up a straw man. I used that comparison only to refute the inference that it was ridiculous that great kraken were better than other summon spells with similiar requirements.

All that is required to prove I'm wrong is to pick a spell and put forward the case that it better, I'm open to being convinced, but insults aren't going to do it.

I was responding to Executor about the elemental royalty, not you. And you don't seem to know what a Strawman actually is. He did specifically advance the claim that elemental royalty don't see play/get rushed because of EDM. That is absolutely false. Elemental royalty faded from play shortly after gemgens were made unique, which was *almost a year* before EDM was created. So the facts do not support Executor's claim that Elemental Royalty suffered due to EDM - they were already virtually unplayed before EDM was ever created.

Seriously, you don't know what a Straw Man is... I don't have to create weak positions to argue against - you created the position yourself. Its not a strawman if you actually argued it!

You specifically advanced the position that Sea King's Court doesn't see play because of EDM, or more appropriately, that SKC was weak compared to GKraken. Sea King's Court has *always* been a bad spell. Why would you ever use it over almost 2 Streams from Hades (you wouldn't). So its *not a useful comparison* at all. Your own argument fails because you chose a craptastic spell.

I don't have to disprove anything. That's not how argument works. You are making a positive claim and thus you have to prove it.

But if you really want counter-examples to your general position:

I did specifically note that Streams from Hades still sees play. (It has useful path requirements for bootstrapping into D, for example).

I might also note that Hidden in Snow is better than the same number of gems spent on Krakens. In fact, the only EDM summon I don't routinely prefer HiS against is Wendigos, who may be a little too good for their price. But I use both of them, so maybe Wendigo are about right. I also prefer both to Grendelkin (who, being without magic, I don't find very useful).

I might note that the same number of gems in Manifest Vitriol are better than Krakens, and probably better than Grendelkin.

I might note the same number of gems in Wolven Winter, given the right circumstances (circumstances you can arrange by using chill aura units or thugs), is superior to Krakens.

I would rather forge Bottles of Living Water than summon Krakens. Or boots of quickness. Or frost brands. Or several other magic items.

I might note that Krakens are considered unplayably weak right now by the people who are actually good at the game. They get too few paths, and those paths tend to be really short, so they aren't any good as mages. And they aren't that good as thugs either (insufficiently many slots, too many weaknesses). And they aren't cheap enough or mobile enough to qualify as a budget thug. The only thing EDM krakens have *ever* been useful for was breaking into blood magic during the incarnations they had guaranteed blood picks.

In short, Krakens are junk compared to all the uses water gems have historically been *actually used for* by experienced players. That SKC compares badly to Krakens is mostly evidence of just how bad SKC is.

Edit: I suppose now you're going to shift goalposts on me and require me to demonstrate old spells for another path of magic that are still viable... Well, go ahead, which path or EDM summon would you like me to handle next?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Squirreloid, I think you're wrong regarding Sea Kings. And I hope I can consider myself an experienced player.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

If you'd like to defend SKC you're welcome to.

I'll admit, I've screwed around with SKC in games. I'm not going to pretend I think its actually good though. I certainly don't think the King himself is worth the 55w cost, or that he's anything special as a thug or mage. And the gold upkeep from a single casting of SKC alone is substantial and punitive.

But if you have a case to make that SKC is a worthwhile spell, please make it. My curiosity is perked.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

piqued. Curiosity is piqued. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

Sorry, I am reading the discussion properly as well, I just couldn't resist since I've been reading about eggcorns this morning.

Can't reply properly to the discussion since I'm at work. But Nightfall - the EDM creatures are the result of a great deal of testing and community feedback. Many of them have been strengthened as a result of this feedback. This certainly doesn't mean that they are perfectly balanced yet, and more feedback is always welcome.

Personally I feel that there is a chance that the Zmey is a little too powerful. Previous iterations were extremely weak. I think the Zmey is interesting in that it's an almost unique example of a "monster" in dom3 - it's powerful in combat, but certainly isn't an SC and doesn't really benefit very much from magic items. It is easily killed by heroes kitted out to kill it or by elite troops, but it is powerful against standard troops.

As for the Kraken, I am pretty sure that it is underpowered. I've had real problems getting it to be at all interesting without either giving it excessive magic or making it more powerful than the pretender Kraken. I think that for the next iteration I may add some fluff to say that it's a different kind fo the pretender kind - less intelligent but more physically powerful. Then I can give it better stats and it can be a proper sea monster to be feared, a little like a watergoing zmey.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Anything people used to rush probably isn't junk. You either got Tarts or you rushed to get Eroys.

EDM in fact has marginalized elemental royalty. As Eroys are not cost efficient compared to EDM summons now. And I've seen them used in the brief time between no clams and EDM.
As for Seraphs, I'd for one still use them, but it's not the 100 gems cost that'a s problem, it's the some 300-400? gems you have to invest without hammers and clams to get a mage to summon one. That's why I suggested lowering Wish to S8.

As for the Sea King, I've seen him used a load of times before EDM, and he was in fact, great. Someone who didn't catch a Water Queen could still get a Sea King. I've seen Dimaz use them regularly, WingedDog, Psycho, me, etc.
Corwin used them to smack my tartarians in a game not long ago.

But as for Krakens, I agree they are junk. And Ettins too, if they were free they'd still be useless.

But as far Eroys go, I said it before and I'll say it again, either their cost needs to be lowered or the cost of all EDM increased.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Sea kings have regen, quickness, cold and poison res and some prot without items. With helmet and fb you have fr also. With vine shield and rainbow armor, ama and resilience it's a killing machine with more chances to survive battle involving lots of mages than Grendelkin, unless you equip Grendelkin with resistance items only, but SK also deals lots of damage with quickness. I managed to kill equipped tarts with such sea kings. And before EDM they were *the* water summon, unless you needed water queens for underwater conquest. With CBM1.6 (I never played later versions) + EDM it's a hard choice for me between Grendels and Sea kings. Also, the free units are really nice under Army of *+ FW + AM + MR. They can absorb lots of damage and act as a very good shield due to high HP.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

There is a _massive_ difference between balancing something at turn 60 and turn 20, which is when a lot of these chassis can _easily_ hit a game.

To me it just seems obvious all the emphasis has been put on the former and not enough on the latter. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe the fact that I played a few vanilla games in between playing CBM 1.6 and CBM 1.92 gives me a different perspective.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Turn 20? Which chassis are you thinking of? That's pretty early.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

An awake sage plus capital mages can open level six in a school of magic by about turn 16 (Depending on nation).

If your capital income then matches what you want to summon your golden.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Sure, but for the almost the same cost of that sea king with brand and dragon helm you could have 2 bane lords with boots of quickness, brands and dragon helms. Bane lords start with decent armor and no enc, so we can grab 2 vine shields for the same number of gems as your shield/armor combo. The only thing we're missing at that point is regen, but we gained chill aura and 0 enc, and we have 2 thugs instead of one for basically the same cost.

Now, you can argue that isn't w gems, so we could compare to Hidden in Snow which gives us a thuggable commander, a bunch of good troops (better than trolls), and 1-3 decent to exceptional mages.

And neither of those options cost us gold in upkeep.

I mean, yeah, its not that the Sea King is that bad, its that he costs far too much.

-----

Executor:
Yeah, i saw *some* ERoys after gemgens went unique, but no one was rushing them anymore. And I still see some. I'd say I see them with about the same frequency. In both cases its mostly the queens. Fire Kings and Earth Kings have always been pretty lame.

I will agree they are overcosted, but I would argue they have *always* been overcosted.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

So.. if you're Abysia with a very focused research strategy you could have early Zmeys? With no gear? I'm... not really that impressed.

You do realize Zmeys lose to skellie spam without a RoR and some sort of reinvigoration, right?

Being able to pull something awesome out early is the whole point of an early research strategy. I don't think a turn 20 naked zmey is really all that more awesome than kitted Eriu thugs by turn 10...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I agree. The Troll could use a little discount.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The thing is, while Bane Lords and HiS commanders are pretty good thugs, Sea King is a proper SC.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

That I don't believe. In large part because i don't believe in 'proper SCs' at all anymore.

Any army fielded these days that a SK could take down, 2 banelords could do so as well.

There's no such thing as a proper SC anymore. Competent players don't lose armies to SCs. The primacy of mage-backed armies is a huge meta change, and it really changes how certain units need to be valued.

Edit: I'd say the unwarranted nerf to Rain of Stones was a cause, but really it just helped a trend that was already in motion in late 1.6.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I don't know about post-1.6 changes, but IMO SCs weren't supposed to kill heavily mage-supported armies alone from the beginning, by proper SC I mean the guy who can easily kill ordinary thugs like mentioned banelords, deal with medium armies (low magic support) alone and survive in big battles.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Doesn't have to be that heavily focused, and why would you deploy them naked unless it's appropriate to do so. It takes a whole extra 1-2 turns to research construction 2 for some basic gear.

Fire shield works pretty well to, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that.

I agree that the awe on Sidhe Lords (Was that Eriu as well or just TNN?) was also a ridiculously bad call, but that's not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Also while Zmeys are certainly the most blatant issue at Conjuration 6, I intentionally didn't limit it to them.

I'm starting to think that a big part of llamabeast's problem is the fact that some people are more invested in finding and using the exploits to notch up a win or two than giving him good feedback.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I agree that in general they don't and never have.

I guess they can, in some situations, if they are specifically equipped to nail a force with known tactics and scripting.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

How would you go about giving Zmeys fire shield?

Squirrel wasn't referring to the awe on Ris (Tir na n'Og), which was indeed OP. Eriu didn't have that, but Eriu's thugs are indeed available early and very powerful.

I think the problem is that dom3 is basically a game made up of "OP" things. If you have just been hit by a rush of E9N9 Niefel Giants, or well blessed Jaguar Warriors, or anyone using Fog Warriors, or a massive Eriu stealth / cloud trapeze attack, you could say quite legitimately that these strategies seem "overpowered". Luckily there are many opportunities to create overpowered strategies so a good player can generally create their own with any nation.

So, turn 20 zmeys would be really powerful, I agree. I don't really agree that it's more powerful than many other strategies. It does succeed in increasing the diversity of options available to Abysia, which I consider a success. I would be concerned if the Zmey strategy was difficult to counter, even by a skilled player.

Balancing for EDM can be difficult, because the whole point was to correct the lack of viable powerful summons for many of the paths. So if the Zmey, for example, stands out as an exceptional Fire summon, that's because there weren't any before, and that was the problem that EDM was trying to solve.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Const 2 does not get you RoR, iirc. Nor does a research blitz get you the necessary gems to build the gear you need. How many nations can you name that can have 30+f by turn 20 and also enough n and probably e,s to forge the necessary gear to make it really good *while* doing a research rush. And the mages to forge that gear.

We were talking about Zmeys, right? Fireshield? (honestly confused, my 1.92 Zmeys don't have that).

Zmey are also weak to archers, especially xbows.

I wasn't referring to Ri with awe. Vanilla sidhe lords with brand and vine shield.

What else at research level 6 would you like to talk about?

Wendigo? Needs at least 14? turns to mature, 7 if its in battles every turn (although its going to have to piggy back your army for much of those).

Roc? Not a very effective solo thug. I mean, sure, it can raid light PD... but what can't?

Shishi? Honestly not that good and very easy to counter. People had a big hardon for them when they were first released, and now you don't see that many of them - they just don't actually perform against any real opposition. They have one real use - anti-thug/SC against people using demon/undead thugs and SCs.

Krakens? lolz. If you wasted your time beelining enchantment over conjuration underwater, be prepared to lose. (And I don't mean to conjuration UW EDM summons - since i don't think there are any - I mean to Shark Attack, a vanilla spell.)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Yes, we did! It was just more expensive to do the one thug = expansion party strategy than it was for TNN since Tuatha cost more than Ri. The funny thing is in my one game with them I ended up with a horrible start position surrounded by undead, lizardmen and (as an "easy" province) knights. And got attacked early by apostacizing, smiting Ermor. So sometimes even OP things don't work out as planned. :p

I've heard good things about Sea Kings as thugs but since I usually play thug nations this isn't something I'm looking for. I do like using sea trolls as durable units that can draw enemy fire but it's cheaper to just summon some individual trolls for that purpose. So I think part of the problem is you're paying a high price and may only have need of either the troops or the commander. You could of course have a spell to just summon a Sea King and price it competitively but that might detract from the theme of the original spell. Something that I think would cause this spell to see a lot more use is increasing the Sea King's gem gen from one to two gems per turn. Even if you use him as a thug and he gets killed in a half a dozen turns you've still defrayed the cost of the spell significantly. The main drawback would be creating a gem gen mentality but I don't think 2 gems/turn is enough to cause that.

Zmeys are an interesting unit. I like the idea of monsters without full slots being feasible combatants. They are challenging because with flight and without any need to buff they can attack immediately. And of course they can dish out a lot of attacks. But the lack of slots really is a significant drawback. Actually, the main thing that frustrates me about them is that they often have lychantropos' amulets. Please change the cost of those things to 25 gems - not because they are that great but because it's maddening to keep losing mages to them. :mad:

As regards the elemental royalty, rather than make them cheaper I would prefer to keep the price as-is and make them significantly better. Generally speaking, I think unique summons that are available to all nations should be better than the non-unique options as a reward for getting them. As to how they are better, well it could be through combat abilities for some of them (ex. earth king have a large AOE attack like the zmey), useful #onebattlespells for others (ex. AQ autocasts fog warriors), and improving the summoning abilities for others (instead of summoning one unit per turn, summon five, etc.).

Speaking of the cost of summons, what do people think of the cost of angelic summons? Perhaps I'm underestimating them since I never play these nations but it seems like these are kind of pricy in comparison to other options.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I kinda like your idea for ERoys Valerius. I'll second this.

As for angelic summons, I remember Harbingers were the only ones I found cost effective in the end. Angels of Vengeance, I think?, were nice but too expensive for me.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Tend to be grossly overpriced, but I'd have to go through each of them individually =P

One battle at a time...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Without clams, pearls are too valuable to use on summons. If by some freak accident, you end up with more pearls than you need for forging, they are pretty nice with a good bless though. Though Pythium/Marignon don't tend to have good blesses.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The Angel from Blood for Mari is quite usefull, it opens paths and needs B and not S.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Umm, I have one in a test CBM 1.92 game right now with F1, although, I admit, I'm not sure what the chance is.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I usually prefer to play luck, because I find it more fun, having gems for minor kit isn't usually an issue.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I absolutely agree 100%; the Eroyals and Archdevils should not compare badly to stuff added by a mod that is across the board easier to summon.

The unique stuff should be the baseline, not tarts, if tarts are still too strong address them, not everything else...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

While rushing Krakens would admittedly be very situational, the potential problem isn't with underwater nations, it's with nations that already have a large benefit from going skelly spam and/or gift of health early. Both of which just happen to combine really well with an early kraken or two.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

While I agree to an extant, the difference, as I see it, is that most of those things have a huge up front cost. And in some cases, it's an all in strategy.

Currently you can get some early EDM chassis at a relatively insignificant cost.

Sorry for the multiple posts, I just caught up on the thread.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

That's quite lucky as they only have a 10% chance of getting fire magic. I've tangled with them a fair amount and I don't think I've come across one with F1.

Well, I think you have to balance the EDM summons against tarts because they fill the same category: non-unique summons available to all nations. If they aren't competitive with tarts then you'll end up with the same old "must get Chalice/GoH in order to spam tarts" mentality. So, I'd say balance those summons against each other (and make non-unique national summons competitive as well) and then look at making the unique summons special. I think you have a bit more leeway with unique summons because even if they become a bit over the top their numbers are limited so it's unlikely to throw balance off.


On a different topic, I've been thinking about some of the magic items that have been made unique. Some are very good as unique items (dwarven hammer is the one that comes to mind), others not really. In a current game I finally got around to forging the unique SDR, more out of pity than anything else. I guess maybe if you reached Constr. 8 and your only blood access was from something like a lamia queen it could be useful at that point but other than that... So what about giving it boosts along the lines of what was done with owl quills? The drawback is that thematically you'd really be forging them for the secondary ability rather than the primary but I think it's worthwhile in order to make them useful as a unique item.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

On a completely unrelated note, I don't think I've seen anyone ever use a vampire queen...

Has anyone suggested upping her base dominion to 3. It's a small change that might make her a little more viable?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Another item that should get a discount would be the Sunslayer. 40D gems for this is quite a lot. It was rarely forged even with hammers.
Something which might make it interesting is changing it to a one handed sword and keeping the price. Or at least lowering it to 15-20 gems.