Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

I seek the wisdom of the forums. I have two questions. First, is the spell penetration bonus you get from an item the same as the bonus you get from having a higher level? For ex, are these equally hard to resist?

B4 mage casts hellbind heart
B3 mage with spell forcus casts hellbind heart
B2 mage with eye of void casts hellbind heart

I just got a little less lazy and looked up magic in the manual (p.86), so now I see that what I'm asking is: is the penetration bonus (from items) added to the caster's roll BEFORE it gets divided by 2 (like the spell level bonus) or AFTER?

Second, does either or both spell penetration bonus and higher level make for a more effective (each reflection less likely to be resisted) blood vengeance?

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

I don't know for sure, but my assumptions until told otherwise are that your three examples are all equally hard to resist, and that Blood Vengeance is just a state that doesn't remember what power level of magic caused it. But I have no special knowledge.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

i would also believe that all three examples have the same penetration.

blood vengance has a rating (like awe and fear) which shows how difficult it is to overcome for the attacker. someone casting the spell gets blood vengeance 0, angel of fury has blood vengeance +2. this rating does not go up when cast by a powerful blood mage, so i am guessing the answer is no.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

No, they won't all have the same penetration I think, because the bonus from extra magic levels is (number of extra levels / 2).

So: B4 mage casts hellbind heart - MR roll against penetration 11 (the default 10 + 1 for two extra levels)
B3 mage with spell focus: penetration 11 again (10 + 1 for spell focus, +0 for extra magic levels, since they're rounded down)
B2 mage with eye of the void: penetration 12 (10 + 2 for eye of the void)

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

Yes.

edit: oops. Llamabeast is right. erm. I seem to have failed very basic math here. It's +1, +1, +2 penetration. (/edit)

Penetration does't affect blood vengeance.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

Thanks for your wisdom. I see I was reading the formula incorrectly. So eye of the void really is worth the hassle...

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

I would just like to say something funny. I gave one eye of perception (whatever the +8 to perception eye is) and then my commander lost an eye as an affliction. So alright, I give him another eye of perception, and unfortunately that made him BLIND, and he couldn't fire the ethereal crossbow I had given him to shoot.

Geeze, I guess you live and learn. Never replace both eye sockets with magical rubies. Only one. I ended up redoing a extra 15 minutes of my turn because of that.

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Shouldn't he have a precision of 5? Two Eyes of Aiming don't stack bonuses, so you'll have a base 0 precision with +5 for magic.

So he can still use the crossbow...

-Max

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

You get the "blindness" affliction, which I believes prevents you from even attacking with a ranged item.

It was awful.

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

FWIW, if you have more than 2 natural eyes you can use multiple magic eyes without going blind. The first magic eye gives you the affliction "lost a couple of eyes" which suggests you'll lose the rest of them by using another eye, but in fact the affliction doesn't change with a second eye (only had to two slots, so not sure if you can replace all your eyes)

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Also if you give 2 eyes of the void to a fountain for example you get 2 affictions with the description, 'lost some unimportant body part, no effect', so fountains and suchlike can never be blind. But AFAIK they get +4 penetration bonus still.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Usually bonuses from multiples of the same item don't stack - 2 skull mentors won't both give you a research bonus, 2 thistle maces won't give you +2 nature, etc. Penetration is a bit harder to check, but I'd be surprised if it stacked this way. +4 penetration is pretty significant, and there are lots of spells just as effective when blind.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

It'd probably work if you had a void eye, and a green eye, but not two void eyes.

I would assume that a character with darkvision 100% can take two magical eyes without penalty?

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Nah, dark vision is different than being "normally" blind. The Void Lord for instance has a feature "blind", when you click on it it says he orients himself without the use of eyes (psychically, presumably). Dark vision uses your eyes, you can just see in the dark.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

To Baalz & Jazzepi:-

Look at the fountain pretender, astral version, it has 4 misc. slots so you can have crystal coin/eye of the void/crystal coin/eye of the void. Take S10 on start up, thats S12 with +4 penetration or you could have spell focus/eye of the void/spell focus/eye of the void for S10 +6 penetration!

Lots of 'fun' combos really. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

I don't think two crystal coins stack, and I doubt two eyes of the void stack, but you could stack a bunch of other stuff and get something just as wicked.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

You can stack equal items with 4 slots. Combinations like 1/3 or 2/4 with eg. cristal coin do the deal.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

They all stack, as long as you equip them like I said in my earlier post. All tested and verified. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

They can still fire, they just have a base precision of 0.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Does the 1/3 combination work with 3 slots?

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Wow. I've got a high level astral mage pretender for one of my games. I'll have to deck her out like that and have her cast master enslave with +6 penetration.

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Don't forget Rune Smasher for an extra +2 penetration. And I think it's been mentioned that you can Teleport on top of large enemy armies, Master Enslave them, and cast Ritual of Returning (or whatever the version is that brings your whole army back with you). Alternately, you could just cast the spell that returns only the caster, and make sure you have commanders ready to move in and control your new army. Like, say, Disir or Eagle Kings.

-Max

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

it is a known bug, so i can't recommend doing it in MP, but yeah, as long as theres a different item between the like misc items, they will stack.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

technically you will need a commander to stick around if you don't want the enslaved army to auto-route.