Magic Items under CBM
 

Since i might make a Magic Item mod sooner or later, I want to hear people`s opinions/ideas about the current situation using CBM 1.6.
I think QM generally did a great job in balancing and polishing the items,but there is still room for improvement imo.
My plan is to not only improve balance but also make many items more thematic as well as adding some(not much) new items here and there.

I would like to start with the general situation concerning 1-handed and 2-handed melee items and some uniques.
I think this is where still can be done quite alot,thematically as well as for balancing reasons.

For a start,i think that:

-Fire and Frost Brands are too strong for the price
-many 2 handed items are extremely underpowered(e.g. Wraith Sword) and could need more thematic polishing(e.g. Hell sword).
-some uniques still need to be evaluated differently(e.g. Black mirror) or changed(Fever Fetish should be non unique again)

So far,i got the following ideas concerning some of the above:

-Fire and frost brand should remain massable therefore increasing the price shouldnt be an option.
I would like to see them dealing less base damage.
That would still make them equally strong vs chaff like PD,but it would make especially the Armor piercing effect of the fire brand significant weaker vs SC`s/thugs.
Shadow Brand i would like to see dealing AN damage ,and generally making it stronger and more expensive.
It is meant to be a Cons 6 weapon after all ,so it is thematically appropriate to make it actually stronger than the other brands imo.

-Wraith sword is the single most underpowered item in cbm imo.
Below average damage,average stats,nerfed life drain since dom2, uses 2 hand slots, very expensive with 25 gems+cons6.
It is actually dealing less damage than many single handed weapons!
Thematically it should be a no brainer therefore to improve the damage output by a lot and the stats also quite a lot.
On top of that i would consider to make it just 15 Death gems.
Hell sword on the other hand is also slightly underpowered atm.
Here i would like to see a more extreme version,while staying at the same price.For sure some more offensive power,like Armor piercing attack or improving Att/Damage.

-Some uniques are still too expensive in the light of the many changes to other items.
Fever Fetish should be treated differently than Clams imo ,making it non-unique again,but maybe making it 1 step more expensive.Blood stone is unique,therefore a booster item is needed for Earth using a misc slot(any ideas?).

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I wouldn't make Fever Fetish non-unique again. It may or may not be overpowered, but its use promotes micromanagement which is not ultimately very fun.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The wraith sword was 10 death gems in Dom 2, and with full lifedrain was just about the only weapon thugs tended to use other than blood thorns. With partial lifedrain, I'd probably try it at a cost of 15 gems to see if that makes it worthwhile before adding too much damage.

Are fever fetishes cursed? Because if they aren't, then they run into the gem generating problem again. Maybe make items that cast particular fire/astral/earth spells at the beginning of a battle rather than making the gem generators non-unique.

The only booster items available for Earth magic are the pebble skin suit and the tome of gaia (also does nature). It's not possible to add magic path boosts to new or existing items. One could also maybe reduce the path levels on some of the E5 spells so that E2 mages would only need one booster to cast them. petrify is a candidate here.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

My opinions:

Yes. I Agree.
Yes, some (especially) 2h items need to be re-evaluated price- and damagewise.
No. It's the most micro intensive gem gen in the game, and a gem gen which ultimately makes the game boring and predictable.

Tome of Gaia to con6, increase it to e4n1 or around that. Staves of elemental mastery + robes of magi are already f4w4/e4a4/a5n5, so at least e4. Problem is that most nations that benefited from blood stones can't get e+n in national mages (MA/LA Ulm, Agarthas). One more nature booster at that high cost shouldn't be an issue, as there is already a way of getting +4 nature without too much effort if the caster has full slots. Still, it's not usually a really bad idea to have nature magic on your pretender with these nations (especially LA Ulm).

Other option would be to make troll armor con6, put the price to around e4b1-b4 or so. It has severe disadvantages though, I wouldn't suggest this.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I've always thought tome of gaea should just be made into an exact copy of the blood stone in terms of reseach and path requirements. The nature boost is then just a replacement for the lost gem genning.

Bloodroot Manual or something as a name.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

That's certainly the least disruptive option available, but on the other hand the only nations that don't go through crazy hoops to get bloodstones are the Pangaeas, LA Ulm and MA Abysia. Do we really want earth-heavy nations to keep on getting blood-4 on their pretender(or worse, setting up scout-provinces)? At least lower it to B2 or something to account for no longer having gem generation. E2B1 or E3B1 seems much more reasonable if you're not also getting infinite earth gems.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Vanheim/Helheim is able to get them via Vanadrotts. On the other hand, these later can't use boots...
Generally, an idea is about as sound as is possible under existing mod commands, I think.
Still, I don't see these 3 items as actually disruptive - and I see them being artifacts as effectively banned for they would be just useless as unique items - especially true for the Fetish.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I completely support the frost and fire brands nerf idea. That should make it's way into CBM.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The first question that springs to my mind here, is whether you have thought through what kind of balance you have in mind.

Dominions is an intricate game and consequently so is trying to balance the magic items in it. Magic items do not just require a certain level of researched construction magic and a number of gems, they require a particular kind of gem. And just as the magic paths differ when it comes to summons, rituals and battle magic, so they differ in how they perform in the area of forging.

I do not think it a mere happenstance that it is fire and water - two paths not generally though of as very powerful in other areas - that are needed to craft these. However that may be, in comparison to the other weapons at construction 4 they do not seem that out of place.

Take the Fire Brand for example. Its damage and attack/defence are not that much better than the Sword of Sharpness at construction 0 and the area attack is the same as that of the Demon Whip at construction 2. Personally I think it a very bad idea to have the Demon Whip as is in CBM at construction 2 - it is just too early for that kind of area attack - but even if you bump it up to construction 4 the argument remains the same.

Also, I have to wonder if making the fire brand less effective against SCs and thugs this way is really a good thing. Big and strong commanders will not care much that you knock off a couple of points of inherent damage, but smaller and weaker commanders will. CBM has already made it easier to kill ordinary troops through price and path reductions of items (cfr Demon Whip), so I have a hard time seeing it as balance promoting to tip the scales even further in the direction of physically impressive commanders.

Nevertheless, if you really wish to take them down a notch, how about just bumping them up to construction 6? They will still be massable, but come sufficiently late that there will be a lot more counter measures available at a relatively cheap price.

It is already a decent weapon that does what it sets out to do and death is already a powerful path, so I really do not see the need. Also, if you actually intend to lessen the power of the other brands, the difference will be huge. That seems not quite well advised.

That seems rather extreme. To say the least.

Whatever the glory of lifedrain in the hallowed times of Dominions 2, it is still a very powerful effect. A weapon with lifedrain is as good as having a small amount of regeneration and a huge amount of reinvigoration. Using other equipment, this would cost you a couple of slots and at least 15-20 nature and earth gems. Giving the sword all around better stats and making it cost just 15 death gems makes it not just very powerful, but also very, very cheap.

As is, the Wraith Sword is very useful when you are not swimming in nature and earth gems but have a sizeable death economy. As such I really do not think it needs a boost.

Again, lifedrain is powerful. And it goes very well with berserk.

Thinking of my earlier words about balance, look at your weapon suggestions as a whole. The primary beneficiaries of your changes are death and to a lesser extent blood. Do these paths really need the boost?

Water and fire take the hit. Do they need toning down?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Any sizeable death income tends to veer towards tartarians, not somewhat useless 2h weapons that cost a ton. I could see this argument if you used athame (ie. Blood Thorn) as your example, as blood is cheap and easy to get to those nations with access to actually forge the aforementioned item in general, and it allows you to actually wield either another 1h weapon or a shield alongside it. I don't know if this problem is due tartarians being so easy to get or being so cheap. Either way, I wouldn't certainly lose out two tartarians (gemwise, counting without hammer which would bring it down to around 1½ tarts) to a 2h weapon that can be surpassed in many ways by several 1h weapons at con4 or less.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Amorphus, if you had the choice of crafting a Hero Blade, a Frostbrand+Vineshield or a Wraithsword, would you honestly even consider Wraithword? Lifedrain *is* good, no question about that, but IMO Wraithsword simply sucks donkey-poo compared with the other options available.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Especially as the Standard of the Damned has the same cost.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

So, because death has powerful summons available it should also have powerful magic items?

I do not agree and moreover, your comparison is rather suspect for several reasons.
Wraith Swords are available at construction 6, Tartarian Gate requires conjuration 9. There are a lot of research points in between. This is not even considering the availability of a sufficiently accomplished death mage.

The powerful Tartarians are also not quite as cheap as that. Sure, summoning one is a mere 12 death gems, but what you get is only a commander in 20% of the cases. If you were just spending death gems you would need an average of 60 gems to get a commander. Using 15 nature gems you can bring that down to 12 death gems.
That said, when you fulfil all the prerequisites, you will indeed seldom choose a Wraith Sword over a Tartarian. However, the same goes for a lot of things when you have everything researched.


It depends. Which is sort of my point.
Even if we assume that I have all the paths necessary to craft all the options, necessity and gem availability might make the first two choices much less efficient than a Wraith Sword.

Consider for a moment a situation where you have a big beefy guy who needs some form of regeneration and reinvigoration. Neither the Hero's Blade nor the Frostbrand+Vineshield provides that, which means that you must fork over about 20 nature gems to attain it. Furthermore, as you are big and beefy, the Hero's Blade while good is nothing special and your opponents might not be very impressed with cold damage. Some of them may be naturally immune against cold, others through magic. And you may need your nature gems for other things like diversification or GoRing.

Maybe you want to set up a Tartarian factory. If you want to GoR your Tartarians you need as many nature as death gems, so if you have a larger death than nature income, you have more death than nature gems to spend.

It is a mistake to only think of situations where everything is researched and all gems are in equal demand. I can of course only speak for myself, but it is not uncommon for me to get into mid and late game with huge difference in gem income even in the paths I have covered in full. It has certainly happened to me that I had more than double the income in my most numerous gem kind than in the two following together. And that without any gem generating global up.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

You'd be better off in almost any real situation to just forge a standard of the damned over a wraith sword.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

There is no reason that every item needs to be equally usefull. If some items are more used then others that is fine. If a particual item on average is only used once per multi-player game, and that use is a valid tactical option at that time, the item will have served its role. We just want to make sure there isn't items that are never usefull.


I am not all that familiar with the wraith sword, but would it not be a good counter against thugs and SC's in certain situations?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

That's not true for the simple reason that you will be saving death gems throughout the game, so that you have enough available once you reach conj 9.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Following up on one of Amorphous' points, the proposed gem cost changes to the various brands have the net effect of helping SCs and harming thugs. A few more gems investment in an SC is not a big deal but thugs need to be equipped cheaply. I also don't think frost/fire brands need to have their damage nerfed. Though they are commonly seen weapons they aren't unbalancing. And again, SCs will benefit nicely since thugs will pose less of a threat to them while their own generally high strength will enable them to still do plenty of damage if they use these weapons. Of course, I doubt they'd choose a frost/fire brand since they'd have an AOE and AN (!) weapon available in the form of the boosted shadow brand. Everyone has their own opinion of balance but I prefer not to do anything to make SCs stronger and I think that's what these changes amount to.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

In most cases you are probably correct, but I can certainly think of exceptions.

You are not really doing that much damage with the standard and the defence rating is very bad. For strong commanders the sword may be a better choice. You do not get as much life leech, but you will kill your opponents much faster and they will damage you less. Also, four-armed units can combine an attack with the sword with other weapons, while the standard cannot be used in such a fashion.


Aside from the thing about gem-flow, this presupposes that you are at liberty to wait for effective thugs and SCs. A Tartarian a couple of years in the future really does not help when you need something now.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Of course! And I think that's a common mistake which CBM authors often do. :(
As for Brands, etc., it was a main CBM trend for some time to make AoE items cheaper/easier to research. This also includes Boots of Behemoth at 0 Construction currently, and Evening Star at 2 Construction (don't remember current version, but it was some time ago - I used it with devastating results).
Wraith Sword is quite useful - though it's possible that Standart of the Damned is better. But on the other hand, the latter reduces bearer's combat abilities, so he can be swarmed and needs bodyguards...

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Very nice discussion,keep it on guys.
I got several new/slightly altered ideas in my mind,but i will wait a bit befor posting them.

Just a few thoughts so far:

-Fire/frost brand should only nerfed for damage value,not making it more expensive.They should still be a very good choice after the nerf...say you make the fire brand from 12 damage,to 6 or 8.
Its still armor piercing,its still only 5/5 E/F gems,its still only cons 4 ,its still got ok att/def being 1-handed and its still got the main thing:Area of effect damage.
I think many people here are underestimating the Power of (a) armor piercing attack,which effectively doubles the damage vs every mid to high level opponent and (b) being 1 handed and cheap,you easiliy put on a shield for much better def/prot and more special effects/resistances.
Any 2 handed weapon therefore has to overcome the combined strength of a 1handed weapon and a shield or two 1handed weapons to be a viable choice.

-My idea for the shadow brand is to make it much better but much more expensive.AN damage is an idea,but for this to be balanced i would reduce the base damage.
I just think its thematic.I look at that sword and think it should bypass armor.Also its meant to be Cons 6 that could be a seen as a hindsight from the devs imo.

-Wraith sword and Regen/reinvig aspect is slightly flawed,since u need to hit first and you actually need to deal some damage at least for max partial life drain.
Now,if you look at the combat mechanics,a wraith sword with that pretty low At/def values has a tough time actually hitting a Shield+Sword kitted SC,not to mention its pretty hard to inflict damage with the abysmal low 9 normal damage vs say 24-30 Prot guys with shield...
I agree it should not be made that powerful again like it was in Dom2 ...but....at the moment we got it at least 2 times less effective for 2.5 times more the price compared to dom2.In addition,there are much better weapon choices in general that compete with it in DOM 3 and CBM did make some other weapons even more effective.

-really balancing the spell paths is very,very tough.
But e.g. its basically pretty easy to say nerf the frost brand just a bit,but then make the sword of swiftness slightly better if the majority is worried about Water magic after the slight nerf.No big problem there.

Basically i want to improve diversity,make more choices viable besides the like 90% standard kits of brand+shield.

-i agree with the fever fetish regarding more micro,therefore i no longer support making it non unique again.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

In terms of gemgens is it possible to instead of making them unique, make them more expensive and add other abilites to them. They could raise stats such as magic resitance and protection, or auto cast some spell. The idea would be to make them expensive enough so they are only worthwhile for certain mages or SC's equipped for combat.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I agree the wraith sword is pretty bad currently. 2 handed weapons need to be particularly powerful in order to make up for the fact they're two handed, or they need to be cheap so you can use them as throwaway weapons on anti-SC thugs, who you wouldn't want to give a shield or second weapon necessarily.

Wraith Sword is neither. It drains life, which is good for killing chaff and armies, but two handed weapons aren't really suited to that duty. It does reasonable damage so you can use it vs SCs and thugs, but there are a variety of other two handed and even one handed weapons that are better at that and cheaper too.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

No.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Maybe vine shield can be nerfed as well, since it is definitely the best choice for the shield by far. I'd put it higher in the research tree - constr 6.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I got a different opinion here.
Currently,the Brands are great vs chaff and great vs SC`s,all while being cheap.
That makes it a no-brainer almost every time for any SC or Thug to give it a Brand.Thugs with a Brand are pretty good vs chaff,too.
In turn,any SC equipped with a brand is well rounded.
By reducing the damage,generic SC`s become weaker vs specialized SC`s/Thugs,equipped for maximizing damage on just one target.
This is mainly the place where i see many 2 handed weapons in future use.
U could e.g. make the flambeu slightly better or cheaper and it would be a viable choice for anti sc purpose with its triple damage vs undeads.There are many,many possibilties here if you manage to nerf the brands so that they arent a no brainer anymore,while still being a good choice.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Frost brand isn't so great vs SCs and thugs, but man it's cheap for what it does.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Indeed, 5w gems and requires just w1 mage to make.

Not necessarily so. Either the items need to be toned up or the summons toned down.

The already stated Standard of the Damned is a better choice than Wraith Sword. And yes, I know con6 vs conj9 and possibly ench8 for demiliches does require more research (difference of path 6 vs path 9 on normal research is 3560 RP afaik), and you basically need both to fully utilize tartarians, both construction and conj9. Not to talk about figuring out how to heal those tartarians, and afford the GoR you'll want with it. Still, I wouldn't WASTE my gems on such a low quality item vs the gem cost currently. The pretty much same effect comes from slapping skullfaces on scouts and using the raise skeletons it provides. Probably better one actually. With the same gem cost. Besides, Wraith Sword, should it be used with current stats, would require HUGE strength most of the time to utilize, in addition to very big attack skill to quarantee hits, and preferably used with quickness (10-15 gems or water magic on the commander). And it doesn't let you use shield or another weapon. Only 2h weapons I can see use for are a) some of the ranged weapons b) Gate Cleaver c) Flambeau (or Holy Scourge in a pinch). And the last two again require quickness to utilize well enough.

Generally, for death gem income, it's simply not worth the effort to forge items with (with the exception of boosters, and few select items depending on the situation, which do not include Wraith Sword), unless you have some useful national summons, such as Lankas blood summons or other monkey people astral conjurations.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Agreed. This is the most used shield by far - unless I don't have Nature gems... :(
As for Brands - I agree with Sombre that cheapness is main attrcation of the Frost one. Same price Stick and Demon whip (CBM) have worse att/def. Shadowbrand is more costly with a risk to user, which is also true for Evening Star (but how famously the latter clears crowds! Definitely shouldn't be too cheap/easy to make). So in this group Fire brand is also the cheapest considering that it also gives FR and is AP. This second group can be used against thugs/SCs, but it still isn't optimal for it - better options are present, unless, of course, you didn't know that you would fight other thugs or are constrained in gems. So - I wouldn't say they should be nerfed in damage, but I also wouldn't say they should be placed low in the research tree as current CBM does. With Stick & (probably) Whip at 2, Frost & Fire brands at 4, Shadow & Evening Star at 6 it should be OK, I think.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Really? I almost universally prefer the Eye Shield, since even if you run into an unexpected thug it means you have a good chance of killing it.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I find eye shield, vine shield, charcoal shield, lucky coin and gleaming gold all pretty much equally useful. Which is a good thing.

qm doesn't tend to like moving research levels or path requirements around for commonly used items, because it does confuse people a fair bit. So I doubt the brands will be moved. At most I would expect a stat tweak.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Nerfing the brands is going to suck for raiding nations, like Eriu. But Eriu is OP anyway, right?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

If you dropped the weapon damage, but left the AE damage the same it wouldn't make much difference against chaff/PD, but would weaken it against thugs/elites. That shouldn't hurt the raiders too much.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

exactly.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

No. This would hurt them plenty, as it cuts down their options against enemy thugs and SCs, the glam nations have very low strength scores on their raiders and need good, cheap weapons. This is where they ALREADY have trouble in games, raiding and killing PD isn't the issue.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

That seems more like an argument to boost 2H weapons as cheap anti thug equipment.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

exactly:)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I like what is being said here. Make the brands do less base damage, and keep them tailored for chaff destroying. Make two handed weapons better against thugs.

This will add more depth as you try to guess what your opponent will be equipping their thugs with. It will become more important to have different types of thugs around, and use different thugs for different tasks.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I want to add, that I love what has been done to the midget masher in CBM. It has definate uses and weaknesses. This makes it an interesting weapon. We need to find ways to make some of the other rarely used weapons just as fun.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Absolutely right.
We got a very nice base of thematically interesting melee items atm,but most are only of minor use or just plain useless.
I really think,that maybe changing half a dozen 2h weapons and 2-3 1h weapons would be enough already,to make for a much more interesting and fun game,all while being more balanced,too.
Later you could maybe even add 1 or 2 new items.
Thats not much work to do!

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Definitely. Vine shield is better against chaff, better against elite units as you can't get swarmed easily and better against thugs, since eye shield requires a MR check which a thug will often pass, but if he gets tangles by vines you get a free hit, which can be enough to kill him.

It's also better than gold shield, since it doesn't have problems with bersekers and undead. And charcoal and lucky coin are rarely used - you need units that can survive being swarmed to use them. Vine shield is the goto shield.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Ive never used the vine shield vs physically strong SC`s.
There is a strength check involved IIRC,so do you still get a free hit vs very strong units or do they instantly break free?

I like to mix in the eye shield vs chaff ...only a few turns and there is generally no one left that can hit you.Also,vs stronger units/thugs u can often do some serious affliction problems with abit luck,even if you lose.

generally,Nature gems are pretty sparse in mid to late game,thats something to consider when evaluating the Vine shield
vs the Earth/fire gem shields.

Also,the parry and protection value for the vine and eye shield are much worse than from most others.

I do like the scutata a lot,btw,its pretty good at what it does AND offers Lightning protection which can be useful as it is generally more needed than fire/cold protection which u often already have natural or via brands.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Eye shields inflict permanent damage though. If your guy runs, or theirs gets away, you've still done major damage. As for resisting the effect, its a pretty high check to make, like 18. I blinded a 32 MR Allfather once. Its also almost as good as the vine shield against chaff.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I'm willing to be proven wrong here Psycho, but i've used the eye shield a lot, and the MR check is very very hard to pass. i'd say that over 98% of the times i've used it it results in a lost eye. this includes vs tartarian, arch devils, jags, seraphs, pretty much everything.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

This reminds me of my most amusing Dominions blooper. I was playing Agartha and was being attacked by Man. Man's army consisted of lots of knights, and backed by lighting blasting mages. I tried to hold off the army with a a risen oracle. I equiped the oracle with the best that I could at the time, which included lighting proof armor, two shields, one of them being an eye shield, and boots of the behometh. I had the oracle cast stone skin, and then try to trample the knights.
The setup almost worked. The knights couldn't damage the oracle. My plan was to get the army to route. The problem, though, was my pretender slowly started to get fatigued. I couldn't figure out why. He was undead and shoudn't have been able to get fatigued. This caused him to route first. He was two fatigued however to actually move. As a result the army of Man didn't route like they should have. The battle got to turn 50. Since I counted as the attacker from breaing siege, I auto lost. Despite being immortal, the oracle did not come back.

It wasn't until a bit after the battle that I realized why the oracle was getting fatigued. I had cast stone skin. He was killed by his own chill aura. :doh::doh::doh::doh:

I lost that game, but at least I had the satisfaction to blind a whole army of knights using the eye shield. It was a funny sight: a clumsy size four risen oracle with two shields trying to trample an army of blind knights.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

MR check for wielded items is vs 12, according to the debug log.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Is that the Eye shield specifically? Cuz its a lot more effective than a check of 12 would indicate. Even if it does turn out to be 12, the number of checks you generally get almost guarantee the enemy's eyeloss.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

All MR checks in the game are against base value of 12, for all items and spells. Sure you can blind a MR 32 creature, but that requires a great deal of luck. Lama, I guess you just had luck with the eye shield or maybe your opponents didn't bring enough MR to the table. But it's not something you can rely on and if the eyeloss effect doesn't work, then you brought along a near-worthless parry 5 shield. It's easy to blind a bunch of knights or jags if they can't kill you fast enough. But then it means that they probably wouldn't be able to kill you anyway.

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Surely you don't say that glamor thug nations have troubles against SCs? That couldn't be further from the truth. I don't think it's a good thing to be able to equip your cheap thugs with universal gear that is good against both chaff and SCs. Chaff killing gear should be ineffective against SCs and SC killing gear should be more expensive.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Agree!

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As a matter of fact, they do. I had them as Helheim about a year ago - vs first Bane Lord, then Tartarian. Of course, it's possible that I should have brought larger numbers of thugs - but still. Raiding was quite good at the same time...