New Magic School idea: Transmutation
 

Basically transmutation takes alteration's buffs and turns them into permanent effects. All stats could be buffed only to 30 at tops, with few exceptions (e.g MR 20, HP 60...). The amount of stat-buffs' strength depends upon mage's magic power, in relevance to the cast spell.

MP | STAT INCREASE
1 = 1
2 = 2
4 = 3
6 = 4
8+ = 5

So if you cast Mind's Eye with a A5 mage, the mage gets 3 to perception skill.

1-3 levels of this school is about stat boosting. From level 4 you start to get permanent ability-gaining spells. These may seem expensive, but there's a reason for that. In construction you may get some of these abilities cheaper, BUT you lose precious equipment slots.

Transmutation spell list:

I'll put only one example for each level. The descriptions of the spells are very brief, only to show, what this school is all about.

Lvl 0

Mind's Eye (A1 / 10 air gems) = increases perception by 1-5.

Lvl 1

Power Surge (F2 / 10 fire gems) = increases attack skill by 1-5.

Lvl 2

Jthull's Manifestation (N4 / 8 nature gems) = increases HP by 10.

Lvl 3

Equilibrium of Planes (S3 / 20 astral gems) = increases magic resistance by 1-5.

Lvl 4

Bestial Fury (N3 / 25 nature gems) = gives berserker +3.

Lvl 5

Binding Agony (D2 / 5 death gems) = gives 1-3 random afflictions to a mage in target province.

Lvl 6

Mystic Illusis (S3 / 3 astral gems) gives ethreal to three random units in target province.

Lvl 7

Ghostly Wings (A3 D1/ 15 air gems) gives the ability to fly.

Lvl 8

Natural Swiftness (3W 1N / 15 water gems) doubles the movement and gives 1 to map walk. [[affects only once per mage]]

Lvl 9

Elemental Augury (F2 W2 A2 H1 / 15 astral gems) gives protection from all elements.

The fearful question: what do you think of this? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: New Magic School idea: Transmutation
 

Sounds like a nice idea but is far too cheap, would allow certain pretenders with fairly low pathstarting cost (allfather is strong and his new paths only cost 30) to get too strong.

Re: New Magic School idea: Transmutation
 

If it's basically like Alteration but permanent, what's the downside ?

This school would be awfully powerful for SCs, no need to split research. Blood works this way, too, but Blood has a lot of hindrances.

I'm not directly against this idea, but I'd rather see some schools/paths made more viable. Water magic comes to mind.
I think Water magic should simply get more spells*, to compensate for the fact that at any time you have roughly half as much spells available. (water/underwater)

* and more variety. Underwater spells would feel unique... but the impression is dulled by low number of spells.

Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I like the idear that a god can bless some loyal servents whit supernatural ability, like the previous pantokrator blessed his generals whit devine bodies.

Things i like:

-Increase the stats of commander or basic troops permenantly.

-Extra ability's for commander or basic troops.

-Allow to give commanders devine bodies.

-The same way we use gift of reason to cast the spell on specific commanders or basic troops.

Thise things are already in the game, but only as flavor. The warden are echanted by the wiches of avalon. And some troops from vanheim are blessed/cursed whit beserker rage.

The spells will make SC's better. witch is actually its intended purpose. And it feels your trutly a god who can bless loyal men whit superhuman ability's http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Tought how to keep it balanced:

-Cant stack the same skill buff over and over again.

-National buffs, like vanheim gets the beserker rage buff.

-Expensive

-Lots of research

-Make a new path, Transmutation

-Downside of the enchantments, Like liqued body gives it increased defence and cold suspensive. And invunrable bodies poision suspensive whit lower AP's.

I already begin to droowl whit the trought of giving my commander who almost got killed in battle demonic powers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

(and see him getting banished a few turns later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)

Said that, I support thise idear.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Interesting idea, but conceptually pretty close to Alteration.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Yeah, these spells would be in Alteration. Check out Iron Pigs - it basically does just this, but because humans wouldn't accept it, it's cast on pigs.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

It is indeed true, that alteration and transmutation have some similar spells. The biggest difference however is, that alteration is 90% about quick battle buffs, whereas transmutation permanently improves or lessens coms/units stats & abilities with ritual spells. So more likely it goes somewhere between alteration and construction.

Personally I like this school, because it has so much variety. You could make an army of flying knights or turn Jotun giants into trampling nightmares. There are endless possibilities.

I also have one thematic improvement for this school, which gives additional excitement:

Each spell in transmutation has a very small percentage of failure (5%?). This would cause something very random to happen (e.g caster grows two new heads or goes hostile). This naturally grants even more hilarious moments to be written in Dom's history. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I always wondered why, when dominions has a troop selection mecanism for rituals (see gift of reason), there are so few spells using it (compare with MoM or AoW where perma buffes on troops are a part of most winning strategies).

As recruitable troops can't be improved over time, this kind of school/powers would really give a new dimension to the game, if made to work better for troops buffing than for SCs. I would suggest for medium levels small permanent buffs (max +2 to a stat, +25% resist) but affecting several soldiers (of the same troop type / squad) at a time, so casting them on a lone commander wouldn't be cost efficient (eventually high level spells can include some more powerful but one unit only perma buffs).

Alteration and enchantment are already powerful schools, so I think a new one for this kind of spells would be a good idea. If transmutation is too close to alteration, perhaps it may be called the enhancement or sublimation school ie, a school using magic to develop/give natural abilities to mortals more than to transform them. With this idea of amplification of natural abilities, spells having effect in relation with the natural stats of the targets can also be imagined (ie : the same spell "improved dissimulation" increasing stealth for stealthy unit or giving a 25% air shield before they attack to other units ; "improved health" giving +1 to regeneration for units with a natural regen when it adds some hp to others, etc...).

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I'd like to see permanent troop-affecting buffs with some mechanism to make sure they're not obesely good on SC's. Perhaps gem cost that scales with base stats and size and so on.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Hmm, lets give my f9w9 helhirdlings extra defence and health http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

With the current interface I'd hate to buff 5 soldiers per turn with such spells.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Then make it very expensive and have it affect 20+ troops/a single commander.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Why bother? It can make some troops even more unbalanced and rigged. Or make new things rigged, it would only cause more balancing trouble then needed

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

If we left things out because we had to balance them, Dominions wouldn't be much of a game. Granted, this is harder to balance than many other things, but it's a neat idea, and I think it might well be worth the hassle. The most obvious solution (IMHO) is to simply make it so that commanders cannot benifit from anything more powerful that stat boosts. That still leaves Vanir or doom, but I'm sure that something could be worked out. Limits to the number of bonuses allowed on the same unit maybe. We should discard things because they're stupid, or conceptually flawed or whatever, not because they're difficult.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

This school isn't a good idea, I think, because it breaks some things that already balance the game. "Leaving things out because they need balancing" is very different from "leaving things out because they will unbalance things." The number and location of item slots is a definite balancing factor for determining the value of various heroes and pretenders; allowing universal buffs that circumvent item-slot limits will dislodge that pre-existing balance mechanism. Even stat boosts can make a big difference, especially for things like MR.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I concur, right now the only means to upgrade non-commanders permanently is through blesses (which aren't technically permanent but might as well be) or very expensive means (Gift of Reason + items/empowerment/etc). One of the core ideas behind Dominions, for better or for worse, is that your recruitable troops stay the same for the entire length of the game. Changing that would throw off the basic design of the game.

There's also the problem that balancing one or two effects is not too hard, but balancing an unlimited number of them is very hard. That's why items are so expensive, slots are limited, and finding items that do all the right stuff in the right slots for what you want is so hard.

Or think of it this way: Alteration is already one of the strongest magic paths. Does it need to be made stronger by allowing the effects to be made permanent? Look how strong blesses are, and this seems like it would be even stronger than that.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

For me the concept of dominions is to give priority to the quantity of content over (build in) balance so I think these arguements are not very relevant, Dominions would have less than 300 units and 100 spells with such a conservative philosophy. "How hard the implementation of such a school and its effects on units would be ?", looks like a better question IMO, and probably explain why we are not going to see this kind of magic (before an eventual dom4 or 5 perhaps).

In general, I also think that Dominions won't stay long the best and richest TBS fantasy game if all systems other TBS fantasy games have developped better are discarded because there weren't in dom-ppp or are supposed to create unbalances (like a good xp/heroes system with *choices*, a good gestion of magic buffs, possibility to design items with a budget instead of forging already made things, upgrade of national troops, non-magical buildings/research, etc...). With the success of dominions it's probable that some bigger companies will realise that a fantasy magic-heavy strategy game giving priority to content is a good concept but if they steal the good part of the dominion system (like how magical research works) they will also probably use the good ideas of MoM and AoW, and end with the game all a generation is waiting for.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I fail to see how blesses are any more permanent than, say luck. Luck can be gotten through cheap items, as can blesses (shroud of battle saint, pendant of luck, lucky coin, faithfull) In fact, it seems to me that blesses are one of the harder buffs to aquire, since you have to be sacred most of the time, or you need an item, or you need to be a prophet (limit of 1, very weak in strong enemy dominion) Luck OTOH needs astral 1 or an item. Empowerment to S1 , a cheap item, even an astral 1 mage beside you set to cast luck, luck, luck, spells. Ok, it needs research. But try blessing a banelord...

Very true. Is there a Dominions 4 wishlist thread yet? Balance seems unimportant to me (if the school starts with few spells, and they are carefully thought out, it seems quite reasonable to excpect no worse from it balance wise than we have from dom3 already. (which isn't _too_ bad...) However, I think that this would be prety darn hard to implement code-wise. I'm not too sure though. Also it would take up an awful lot of time from the devs (who, we mustn't forget actually do have lives)

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Most of the value of blesses is for recruitable non-commander troops. I say they might as well be permanent as any old cheap priest can bless, and few people will use sacred troops without priest(s) along to turn the bless on.

Anyway, the point of my original argument is just what you said. Very few troops can have blesses cast on them, which (tries to) balance the otherwise very good strength of the blessed troops.