Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Hi,

I am in a EA game with Kaisala and I noticed something ... interesting and highly exploitable during a communion.

I have a double bless strategy F9A10, and I was using a sacred national summon to bless my troops. I wanted to cast a Holy 3 spell (divine bless) and my national summon was Holy 2, so I thought : communion.

So here is my national summon, equipped with a copper plate (the armor: resist lightning 100%, charge body) and a cristal matrix (for the communion). And his slaves, shamen, with slave matrix. I scripted the summon to cast divine bless on turn 1, then cast spells.

As soon as the battle starts, before anything happens, I click on the shamen just to see and - surprise - they have "charge body" on them. But not resist lightning 100%.

It appears that some of the effects of the magic items carried by the communion master also affect the communion slaves. Some, but not all ... weird.

Did anyone else notice that too ? Is it only with crystal matrices or with the bona fide "communion" spell too ?

Anyway, I think this is highly exploitable : get a few masters with buffs from items, a few slaves, and as soon as the battle starts you have an army of buffed slaves. It's dead easy to script the slaves to, say, attack closest : they get the buffs without spells being cast, so without any fatigue.

It doesn't seem to work with slaves that are not spellcasters : I put a slave matrix on a bandar commander and he didn't have charge body

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Slaves must have magic or communion does not work.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Do buffs cast by the master before the communion affect the slaves? If not the effect mentioned would only work with matrices.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

That is good, so most thugs can not be buffed that way. The bug is still exploitable with spellcasters though.

In the case of Kaisala, there are some pretty nasty 4 armed summonable thugs that are spellcasters too, and I can see how they would become very very deadly with just a slave matrix.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Wow, that's kinda weird. Sounds like things that effectively autocast a spell at combat start would also work (charcoal shield, rhime haubrik, crystal shield, ?boots of quickness?, amulet of missile protection....). Hmmm, wonder about that artifact that gives blood vengance...>:)

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

The 4 armed guys, imo, are better with self buffing as its very easy for a fragile mage to die(although a second of the summonable thugs/SCs doing the buffing and then joining the fight may work well)

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

I think all the items that mimic some spell effect function by actually casting the spell on their holder immediately at the beginning of the combat. That's why for example the wielder of Crystal Shield can't cast Power of the Spheres in combat (it's already cast on him).

And personal spells with range of 0 are transferred to communion slaves, just witness the fun of the master casting Phoenix Pyre and retreating.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

if i recall, in dom 2, slaves did get the self-buffs that the master cast.

I imagine it is still the same in dom 3.

the charge body is mimicking a self-buff spell, and the resist lightning is probably mimicking a buff others spell.

a quick test with pythium reveals this to still be the case.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

You can have multiple communion masters, too, huh? Buff-o-rama...

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Changing a little the subjet. If I have two comm masters will I need twice many slaves to rise magic paths of those two or I will need the same amount like having only one?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Same amount. All masters benefit from the same from having slaves. The only difference is that more masters means the slaves overload on fatigue faster since there are more people pouring fatigue into them.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Charge body is autocast at the start of the battle, the matrixes makes it affect slaves too like if the master had cast it manually. The lightning resistance is not a spell that is autocast at start of battle - since it shows up on the unit's stat screen even outside battle.

I doubt it. You need a crystal matrix and many slave matrixes (unless using pythium communion slaves) - since it happens before you can cast communion slave.

Seems you could give the slave only these four abilities from master's items (since other item abilities show up outside combat too):
-Charge body from the copper plate
-Power of the spheres from crystal shield.
-Breath of winter from the rime hauberk.
-Soul vortex from the Bone armor
needs testing.

Letting the masters cast a ton of buff spells and then retreating works, but you dont need slave matrixes for that.

No.

One or two or forty communion masters doesn't matter, except the slaves will reach 200 fatigue faster and start to get hurt and dead.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

no to soul vortex and breath of winter, but yes to power of the spheres, charge body, and ritual of returning (from that one artifact armor)

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

What about Charcoal shield?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

What about the Pyhtium communion guys? They don't have magic and it obviously works...

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Pythiums communicants are an exception.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Communicants are an exception in more ways than one. They take less fatigue than theurgs from casting spells in communion, especially for high-path magics. For instance, in a test game with an S5F4 caster, 2 communicants took a total of 112 fatigue (8 + 108) when the master was scripted to <Communion Master, Astral Shield, Flame Storm>. 2 theurgs scripted to <Communion Slave> took 23 fatigue from casting Communion Slave, 31 and 41 more from Astral Shield (making 54 and 64 respectively), and 115 and 136+ from Flame Storm (making 181 and 200, and the 200 guy was down 1 hit point). I have no good explanation for this, but Pythium communicants are far better than normal communion slaves for fatigue. Especially if you do like Wish and give them Standards of the Damned so they can Drain Life. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Max

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Wow, come on guys. He had an AIR 10 bless, casted divine blessing on turn 1 of the combat. Who can figure out what really happened here to the sacred shamans? If you guess right, you get a cookie http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

He got the air shield and shock resistance blessing effects.

I like peanut butter. Can I have some of that in my cookie?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Foodstamp and RamsHead, I did say in my post that I checked the Shamen before the divine bless was cast. So when I checked, they were NOT blessed. They had no shock resistance, no flaming weapons, no air shield but did have charge body.

After turn 1, when divine bless was cast, they still had charge body, plus shock resistance (75%, not 100% from the copper plate), air shield and flaming weapons.

So it wasn't a bless effect, but truly something from the master's magic item

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

I like peanut butter cookies too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Air 9+ gives 75% shock resistance. The bless on your guys would have been 80% air shield, 75% shock resistance. As far as the charge body effect, are you sure you didn't mistake one of the icons since your shammies would have two from the bless?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Neat to know. Sounds like you've tried it?

31 and 41 from astral shield is *Really* odd. Were the theurgs wearing really heavy armor or something?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Drain?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

I just tested it, and indeed mages who are communioned up when the battle starts receive effects from items that are only active in battles.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

So the deal is, they have to be communioned at the start of battles (Only can happen with slave matrix) and they gain the powers of the master if he is wearing an item that gives an ability at the start of combat?

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

I know, it was weird. This was a test game (all spells pre-researched), theurgs straight from recruitment, no drain scales anywhere. I didn't test with other astral mages (e.g. lizard shamans) to see if it was specific to theurgs or to astral shield, but this is not the first time I've seen certain casters take surprising amounts of fatigue from certain spells (even when not in communion) so it was only a moderate shock. My main point was to show that communicants are really great communion slaves who take low fatigue even if you use them to cast e.g. Master Enslave. I ran a couple of other tests with e.g. Enslave Mind and got similar results--2 communicants took very little fatigue, 2 theurgs took lots--even though according to DrPraetorious' figures on communion the communicants should have been taking (20/3)*3 fatigue from each casting (because they are 1S under communion and the spell is 4S). Communicants are different from normal communion slaves.

-Max

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

Well, they both have to be hooked up, so you will need a crystal matrix and a slave matrix. Also, just like how communion slaves count only if they are mages (with the exception of communicants), your slave with have to be a mage to receive the item's effect.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

So this won't work with robes of invulnerability, since they work outside of battle as well? Too bad.

Re: Communion - items of master affect slaves ?
 

yeah, so far just the 3 i mentioned above. everything else is an icon'd effect.