A few bless and other questions
 

1) Do my nations bless effects change when my pretender's magic changes? I.e. what if he dies and is called back with lower magic, does my bless suffer? what about if he carries path-increasing magic items? what if i empower him?

2) what weapons get the flaming weapons bonus from F9? I can tell arrows don't get it. Do things like bite/claw/kick (i.e. non-weapon attacks) get flaming? what about multiple attacks, do all of them get flaming weapons or just the "primary"?

3) Does the spell flaming arrows affect only arrows, or also other missiles like javelins, slings etc?

4) How the heck do I save myself from blade wind?

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

1. No change, either by death or empowerment, set at creation.

2. curious about this myself, arrows are a negative as you said.

3. I believe others as well, but would also like confirmation.

4. Shields and armor, I believe the effects are considered missile weapons. High parry, etc. If the unit can stand up well to missile attacks it should stand up well to bw afaik.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Thanks jute - regarding blade wind, i'm curious if spells like Storm would affect the missiles or if they're magic or something. It's kind of a moot point since I can't cast air spells. i guess i need to see if there are some ways i can beef up my defense and protection, but i don't have earth either so i'm at a bit at a loss (I'm EA mictlan in this particular instance).

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Mictlan has good access to Wooden Warriors. It's not great but it's not bad either.

P.S. Don't forget to scatter decoys around. Mictlan does cheap chaff, doesn't it? "Archer decoys" should work just as well vs. blade wind, to buy your tough sacreds some time to close.

-Max

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

1) No. This is in the FAQ.

2) All melee weapons. They get the "bless fire" weapon added to them.

3) Flaming arrows affects longbows, short bows, crossbows, arbalests, slings, chakrams, javelins, shuriken and boulders, not sure about throwing axes. It should also affect banefire bows, but I'm not sure about other magical bows.

4) Units with heavy armor and/or good shields usually suffer less from Blade Wind.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

I'm currently playing MA Mictlan in an MP game. My armies are currenlty being whipped by Vanheim bladewinds. I have come to the conclusion that archer decoys are not necessarily a good thing, as BW outrange your spells and slings and can be used from the rear of the enemy lines to target your rear units, regardless of archer decoys.

Generally the spell AI targets to get maximum dmg output, which means it avoids buffed troops and is more likely to target your large group of archers or other shield less troops. If all rear troops are protected with wooden warriors the front ones will be targeted, but on the other hand, the buffed rear troops will not close for combat until the front chaff are destroyed. Might be better to place all your troops as close to the enemy as possible, together with buffing mages, expect some losses and hope that your troops get to the rear of the enemy before your chaff is dead.

Flying troops can be great to take out rear mages.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Thanks again - Edi what is a melee weapon? Is bite/claw/claw three melee "weapons" and they all get flaming weapons?

As for bladewind, the flying units and spreading chaff seem to be doing pretty okay.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

I thought the way to use archer decoys was to put them in front *and to the side* of your real troops, so they don't actually get in the way, but they're still nearer and thus targeted first. Since the slaves have 0 prot and are not buffed, they will take more damage. By the time they break, hopefully your real troops are within a round or two of reaching the enemy (or already have) and the dwarves are tired.

KO, in addition to the wooden warriors suggestion, you might also try mind hunting the dwarves with moon priests.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

From what I hear, the death bless (affliction rate) will affect spells as well. Is this an exploit or an acceptable thing to take advantage of in MP?

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Everything that isn't a ranged weapon (i.e. doesn't have "range" and "ammo" values) is a melee weapon. Hoofs of the sacred knights' horses will be aflame. A Stone Bird of a sacred thug will be aflame. Ice Blades of Temple Guards will be aflame. The bite of the sacred serpent will also deal fire damage.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Well, the affliction rate Does work with normal ranged weapons. Considering the Death bless is considered inferior to the Fire Bless, I'd think that the affliction rate would be acceptable to work with spells.

In reality (for this game, and other fantasy things as well) "Blessing" is the pretender god lending his/her/its power to the sacred unit, so there's no reason why it wouldn't or couldn't buff the units spells also.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

I'm not sure about flaming hooves. I answered the same question sometime before and said cavalry would have flaming hooves, and I seem to remember I was told I was wrong. I think "bonus" weapons may not get the flaming effect. One way of telling if a weapon is "bonus" is that it doesn't count towards two-weapon penalties.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

> From what I hear, the death bless (affliction rate) will affect spells as well. Is this an exploit or an acceptable thing to take advantage of in MP?

It was quite recently brought to our attention, and we had a good laugh. I think it is quite fun. For the moment the effect stays. I hope the death weapon effect also affects spell, although I suspect it doesn't. It would be beneficient in my current MP game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

@Chris: Archer decoys work mainly on archers, who doesn't reevaluate targets each turn. Thus an archer decoys are useful for making archers fire at them in the beginning of the battle, and then continue to do so when other armies close in. Spellcasters are more flexible and might fire at archer decoys, but will not if there are jucier targets elsewhere. Bladewind can target most units on the battle field and if any of those have little protection and stand in tight formation they will probably be targeted.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

In principle that's a good suggestion, since Helheim has zero access to astral. But aren't moon priests S2? Mind Hunt requires S4, and I don't think MA can forge astral boosters unless your pretender is specifically made for it.

'Course you can maybe trade.

-Max

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

appearently its a tough question, as no one has decisively answered it yet. i would assume though, that it only affects a hand held weapon, much like the protection bonus from earth magic, and therefor kick, fist, hoof, claw and such would not be affected. but i have no way to know.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

About the primary weapon stuff: the only way to know for sure is to turn on debugging flags when you start Dom3. dom3 -dddd (for however many debug levels you want). I've never gotten debugging output to work for me on Windows or I'd check this.

-Max

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

> appearently its a tough question, as no one has decisively answered it yet. i would assume though, that it only affects a hand held weapon, much like the protection bonus from earth magic, and therefor kick, fist, hoof, claw and such would not be affected. but i have no way to know.

Endo's answer was correct (unless I'm mistaken):

> Everything that isn't a ranged weapon (i.e. doesn't have "range" and "ammo" values) is a melee weapon. Hoofs of the sacred knights' horses will be aflame. A Stone Bird of a sacred thug will be aflame. Ice Blades of Temple Guards will be aflame. The bite of the sacred serpent will also deal fire damage.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

oops sorry. i read through through the whole thing, but must have missed that one.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

For blade wind, Air Shield, or the Air bless helps as would Arrow Fend.

Storm, or the other battlefield spells that lower precision, help, but not much since there are so many missiles and it generally targets large groups. Lower precision doesn't usually matter much.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Isnt there also some benefit in braking up large groups?
I know its a pain in the micro-management but for important fights I will look for commanders that have some of their 5 squad-slots free, then break up front-line troops and archer groups into smaller groups then space them out. It SEEMS to help as far as avoiding area affect attacks but Im not much of a tester so Im not positive when it does or doesnt help.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

A stacked storm and mist typically help a great deal, as the arrows shoot all over the map- or, in one interesting case, caused the enemy archers to advance into charging range just to be able to fire at my troops.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Doesn't Strorm effects cause 50% of projectiles to be lost all together, as the manual states? IF so, combined with half Precisicion I'd say its a pretty good deal.