magic dueled by the comp...
 

ok, here's a little scenario for you.

While preparing to storm a castle with my Jotunheim army, including Myr my pretender who is a son of Niefel with 4 astral and 4 water a pitiful pithium force attempts to break the siege.
after my pretender has buffed himself up and is about to lay down the unholy smackage with falling frost..... Canin the astral 1! theurg acolyte casts magic duel and prompty annihilates my pretender. But it gets better... i still win that fight but then the next relieving force manages to rout my giants, and since i was sieging a castle with a vastly superior force (with my pretender in there anyway) i hadn't pulled out when they cut off my retreat. Total loss of my pretender, my prophet, about 15 jotun hirdmen, and 4 endless bags of wine. Because of magic duel cast by a astral 1 theurg acolyte. I do believe pythium is going to award Canin the Royal Pythic Cross posthumously, they damn well better anyway.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

One word...OUCH that hurt! LMAO

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

Yeah, that's how magic duel works: If you don't have at least 6 ranks of astral magic above the dueller, you will die. The more ranks of astral magic you have greater than the target, the less likely this happens, but unless you are >= +6, you will die. That's the hidden gotcha of astral magic, which can otherwise be the Real Ultimate Power.

[ April 27, 2004, 06:17: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

wait a second here... i was thinking that through some extreme quirk of luck this happened. Are you saying an astral 1 mage has a better than likely chance of taking out someone who isnt at least 6 astral better? Does that mean that if I magic duel with MY astral 1's i'll be able to slaughter all THEIR astral mages with little chance of death? Does being the one to initiate the duel matter that much???

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

According to Saber Cherry, the mind duel death probabilities are:

-6 :100.000%
-5 :100.000%
-4 : 97.212%
-3 : 91.673%
-2 : 83.331%
-1 : 72.212%
0 : 58.346%
1 : 41.718%
2 : 27.856%
3 : 16.725%
4 : 8.402%
5 : 2.807%
6 : 0.000%

The number to the left is relative astral level. So in your case, the 1 Astral Thurg (the spell caster) has 91.7% of being dead himself. Guess the Thurg beat the odds that time ^_^

In reality though, the situation favors weaker but expendable astral mages more, as a tie roll kills both duelists. So who cares if he loses a few astral 1 Thurgs if he can bring down an Astral 4 mage or pretender with them? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Saber Cherry's post can be found at http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=000772#000000 (one post down)

-Gateway103

[ April 27, 2004, 08:36: Message edited by: Gateway103 ]

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. The percentage chance of death is significant and nonzero. It WILL happen: The percentage chance of any event, no matter how unlikely, so long as it is possible, when performed repeatedly for the express purpose of succeeding, is 100%.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, the chance of death for a lower level astral mage is extremely high and can pretty much be treated as near certainty. Do not duel higher-level astral mages unless the target is of great importance, such as the enemy pretender, and/or the mages duelling are of little or no importance, such as expendable nationals.

[ April 27, 2004, 08:36: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

ahhh i see. Well it seems that theurg acolyte was pretty heroic after all, oh well, live and learn. Im currently trying to extract my just and righteous revenge but they are resisting admirably with living statues.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

You also subjected a low-level astral mage to the vagaries of Pythium. That's kind of a no-no, as Pythium has fairly expendable astral mages out the wazoo, and with communicants backing even their lowest level mages, magic duel leans strongly in their favor. Your pretender, having just been demoted another astral rank, does not belong anywhere near there, or he WILL die again, that much is a certainty.

Just because it's a slightly unlikely event doesn't mean it won't happen: As any veteran RPGer can tell you, something that happens a even mere 5% of the time is going to happen with absolute certainty sooner or later.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

I didn't think the computer even knew how to use magic duel.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm, I've heard several times that communion/shabat does not affect magic duel. Are you sure about that Norfleet?

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm pretty sure that that's a rumour dating back to the time when the caster always won the duel.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

yeah, he's being kept far away from that area right now. I've unfortunately been dragged into a 3 front war so im trying to hold out for conj 9 and GoR'ed Tarrasques. On that note, whats the best way to equip a Tarrasque if he's GoR'd ... or should i just leave him a peon?

another question, i've noticed that some of the titans from tartarian gate arent commanders but are feebleminded, now if i was to GoR them and THEN heal the feeblemind, do you think they would have magical skill? Every titan that i've gotten as a commander has ended up having magical skills after i got rid of feeblemind.

[edit] man these living statues are a pain when your main strat is nether bolts... i've got an army of 2 ether gates worth of ether warriors that cut them down like butter... but they seem to beat my jotunheim national troops pretty easily.

oh, and btw norfleet i like your total annihilation commander bot, i scanned a bunch of Posts without ever actually LOOKING at your avatar until recently.

[ April 27, 2004, 23:27: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ]

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didn't think that you could heal them anymore, but if you can, then that's exactly what would happen.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

that used to work, i got a blood 7 tartarian after goh and healing.

odd_enuf

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

oh yeah, GoH doesnt work on undead anymore does it? Damn... that was one of the main strength's of tartarian gate, the commanders made good spellcasters after you got rid of feeblemind. well shoot.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

The patch just mentions that the heal command of an Arco priestess doesn't work. Are you sure GoH wouldn't?

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

it says arco priestesses and others can no longer heal undead, so i guess the question is whether GoH is considered one of the others. I seem to recall from another post that it is, i could be wrong though.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

Gift of Health still removes afflictions and gives bonus hp to undead.

Re: magic dueled by the comp...
 

Yeah, if it didn't, then any undead, non-immortal chassis would be permanently dead as an SC and Tartarian Gate would be about as useful as tits on a bull. The Arco Gate/Healing strat is dead, though.