Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Inspired by posts made by HoneyBadger, Endoperez, and JimMorrison. Endoperez wanted an item that made units immune to mindburns, soulslays, and charms. Jim was under the impression that is what the slave collar did by making the unit mindless. Badger made Jim aware that is not the case.

Currently the slave collar grants feeblemind (the affliction) and sets the units moral to 30. It is cursed and requires five blood slaves and zero research to make.

The poll asks if it should grant the mindless tag to units, but I'd also like to know if people even use it in it's current incarnation. I would assume that such a change would, of course, change the research cost for the item. Thank you.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

If it made commanders mindless I'd expect to see it used a lot on tartarian commanders pre-afflicted with feeblemind already.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

What is it used for now? I can't think of a situation where I'd find it useful.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Maybe if you had a thug with very low morale? It's hard to see it being useful really.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

You can try to screw the other guy's SC pretender early with it. Forge 2-4, put on scouts, and send them out to combat that wyrm, or cyclops, or PoD.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Also I do not think mindless protecs against soul slay. It may protect from enslave mind.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Do you really need a morale boost for -5 MR?
;)
I voted for first option because I like how it sounds, sorry;) But in fact I think that this generally worthless item should be improved - in this or that way. In the times of DOM1 it was a nice tactic to attack a mage army with a horde of scouts equipped with 2 slave collars each. Sadly, now slave collar can't be found and thus it lost its small niche:)

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Oh, konming already said what I was writing about... Yes, that's a nice idea but it doesn't work because collars can't be found)
AS for your second post, mindless does protect against most astral spells including soulslay, enslave mind and paralyze. The big downside of being mindless is the impossibility to rout - routing mindless always dies so mindless units are very vulnerable to teleports and so on.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Oh, did not realize it got changed in Dom3...

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

I've only forged it once, and could not find any concievable use for it after I saw what it did.

I have picked it up a few times when I use #randomequip map edit, and have always sent that chap into the arena hoping to lame up a pretender, but it never worked and now after reading Ano's post I know why.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Since we seem to have the consensus that slave collar is useless, I must say I'm surprised with the poll results so far.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

There isn't an option for, 'make the item better!' ;)

I wouldn't mind if the slave collar gave the wearer the feeblemind affliction, made them mindless, and put up an autocast 'sabbath slave' every battle. That would at least make it worthwhile in my mind.

Basically it would kill some slaves and then turn a commander into a slack jawed idiot who fed a sabbath/communion who either helped you win the battle or died for lack of being able to rout.

Is there a way to mod any of this into the item?

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Having it increase the likelihood of being selected by a succubus would seem thematic.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

I always wanted to wish for a doom horror and put a slave collar on him. Gotcha!!!
But I'm too lazy to check if doom horrors even have misc slots, or if slave collar prevents them from going Poof! when they are bored.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

What do you mean they can't be found? I killed a merc with one yesterday and picked it up.

Maybe they can't be found in the arena? I seem to recall a change there...

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Slave Collars "set" morale to a value, which means that they make units immune to Fear reductions.

They are ideal for non-spellcasting thugs who are not expected to face mages and commanders who are casting spells from items.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

I wouldn't say they were useless entirely, just remarkably specialised.

The main problem is it takes up a misc slot - there's always something more useful to fill those slots.

For a throwaway thug you intended to get killed perhaps (although beserk would be better), or maybe a thug afflicted with battle fright. Similarly, if you have a low morale commander you want to use as a shock absorber against horror causing chaff or the like.


To be honest, I mainly use it on the freespawns from random events (like the preacher and his militia horde) when I want to get rid of them.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Well, I am not 100% sure that they can't be found at all but the chance is so low that trying it isn't worth the efforts.
I once attacked a province where about 20-30 mages were doing research with 10 scouts equipped with 2 collars each. And guess what? My opponent later asked me about that attack and what it was supposed to mean. All scouts were slain but he didn't notice even a single collar equipped on them.
After that I may say, yes, maybe they can be found but the chance is ridiculously low.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Actually the only use I ever made of a slave collar was to render useless a mage mercenary when the contract was about to end.

I'd rather like a mindless effect instead of the current one (of course would be very good for already feebleminded tartarians, but for this use you usually would need to spend the 20 nature of a GoR on a magic-less tartarians, so it's not overpowered I think).

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

I vote for making slave collar wearers auto sabbath slaves.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

No, about 1 in 4 pops out as a commander, and if you don't have the chalice or GoH you're stuck with no magic and feeblemind anyway.

You can also use a slave collar on thugs which have horrible MR anyway, like a caveman commander.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

A Captain Caveman? :p


And I believe it's 1/5.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

In my current solo game, the merc Günter Blukraft was wearing a Slave Collar when I hired him.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Might be nice if it made the unit immune to Awe/Fear effects? Or maybe just add a "rose-tinted glasses" helmet to the game 8)

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

I'm pretty sure that having a 30 moral would effectively make you immune to awe and standard fear checks. I'm not sure if it prevents moral damage though. So I suppose the slave collar already fulfills your request.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

... what I envision:

Commanders on the battlefield should route immediately if wounded.
Without any morale check involved, no matter how low the sustained damage is. Unless, of course, they're
- immortal and in friendly dominion
- berserk
- mindless

This would have the following effects
.. at least I hope so. Open for discussion ..
- make SCs quite a bit more difficult to build and risky to use
- give use to seldom-used items: Berserker Pelt, Slave Collar etc.
- give a little bit more survivability to human commanders and -especially- heros

Slave Collar should be changed to give "mindless" tag instead of "feebleminded"
Basically, I see little use -and sense- in a feebleminding Slave Collar, but quite some -thematically- use if with the changes above. Oh, and regarding spellcasting .. I don't see where an enslaved mind is unable to cast the formulaic magic spells in the Dominions universe. A big hit to the research ability should be in order, though. I think these changes should be quite easy programming-wise, but sadly we cannot test them via modding ..

Whaddoyou think ?

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

@ Arralen,

I always appreciate reading about someones ideas, so your one too ^_^ But as you ask waddusthink, excuse me but I think this wouldn't make sense. A Wyrm with 900+ hitpoints running away for a scratch got from a lucky slinger? :o Seems unthematic - what kind of useless high-hitpoints SCs would those be? I want my commanders and heroes to fight epicly to the bitter end for me! And why really a commander would run away for just a wound? And why soldiers don't so too?
I think i.e. flyers would become extremely overpowered also - they attack rear and if they start just scratching the even most powerful commanders, all the huge army routes?
I think the way it works now is ok as it is, with routing and fear and morale mechanics and all that stuff. ;) just my opinion of course

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Even though I tend to dislike SC's, and like my human commanders to stay alive, I wouldn't want all commanders to rout when injured. I would like more control over what causes specific troops and commanders to withdraw, but then, I like to micromanage combats. AI tweaks for routing would be welcome.

As for the Slave Collar, yes I have almost never used it because of the feeblemind effect. I'd suggest just removing that effect, if anything. The cost and slot use seem like enough of a disadvantage to me, and while feeblemind is interesting I'm not sure it makes sense and I do think it tends to add up to an extremely niche item.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

It might be interesting if commanders would always run at 75% though. Unless Mindless or Immortal of course. But discretion IS the greatest part of valor, and all that.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

On the long-running question of human surviveability, it strikes me that if human commanders (commanders only) were given a 1 hp. firstform, it would make them a good deal more surviveable, while at the same time not altering their overall Hp.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

Sounds better than "as soon as damaged" .. but 75% might still too much for SCs/Gods, but too low for humans. Actually, every fixed value would be less than ideal, be it a %age or a fixed number of remaining hitpoints ... .

New suggestion:
Check at start of battle for max. damage per hit the enemies can do .. e.g.:
STR 30
DAM (weap) 10
dice roll 2x6
=> 52 damage points per hit ... so any commander who has less than 53HP left routes .. might slow down the start of battles unacceptivly if there are several hundred units on the battlefield, though :(

On the other hand, this test might help (the battle AI) with the detection of SCs, so it might be useful enough to warrant a little bit more calculation before combat starts ?!

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

"Oh god, Cyclops with a Gate Cleaver, I'm out."

"Yeah me too, Gunter."

"Hey wait for me guys."

"Where we going?"

"Dunno, that was scary, I need a drink."

"Right, well I'm heading over to Grey Forest to see a girl, so catch up with you all later."

"Sucks, I was all pumped up for a war today, and they had to bring that stupid Cyclops....."


:shock:

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

The more I read some of these suggestions, the firmer my belief that the game works perfectly well as intended.

Re: Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?
 

:D :) ;) :)

Key word, though, is HP left - remaining HP after being damaged and doing the morale check.
No way that all the mages just turn around and go home when something big&strong appears on the battlefield somewhere.

Though .. maybe JO should introduce a "milita" tag for milita .. which makes the poor bastards just behave that way .. "Oh, a Cyclops!! Run !!!!!"
;) Only joking .. those units are useless enough already :rolleyes: