Magic shield effects
 

I have a questions regarding shields:

If you have a commander wearing dual shield say, Eye shield + Accursed shield.

A) When enemy attacks and you *dodge*, do any shield effect apply? (Guess: No)

B) When enemy attacks and you *parry*, do all effects on both shields apply? (horror mark + blind)

C) When enemy attacks and hits, do any shield effect applies? (Guess: No)

D) Do shield effect such as blind hit 100% with no MR roll? Do they apply to parrying arrows or parryable projectiles?

E) For vine shield, I know that attackers gets tangle before the strike can hit you, is this effect a MR check on attacker? I ask because I know spells like vine arrow and vine whip is 100% entangle no matter what.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

A) Yes
B) Yes
C) Yes
D) Blind is 100% hit, MR check, no effect of archers
E) Vine shield is MR check

Re: Magic shield effects
 

E) I'm pretty sure there's no MR check on the Vine Shield, or it'd be useless against thugs/SCs. There's a STR check to clear the vines once they're on you, IIRC, but that still means you miss a round of attacks.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

To be clear, Blind does not hit 100% of the time, but it checks against MR 100% of the time, and every time it succeeds, it hits.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Thanks for all the answers! I do wonder on the vine shield though, cause it always activate then wouldn't it mean your would never get hit? I ask because I read about the trick with vine whip, where you can keep a lone SC locked down with the 100% hit vine until the turn limit runs out and SC dies, since even if his STR is super high he still needs a turn to break it, and a new vine entangle is applied every turn.

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Vine shield only activates when you're attacked, so it effectively means the guy attacking you only gets to attack every other round.

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Ah I see! I always thought the vine entangles before an attack hits for some reason.

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A lot of misinformation in this thread. Let me try to clarify:
- Eye shield's effect is MR negating
- Vine shield's effect is MR negating
- Both effects are checked for each melee attacker on the target
- Both effects are checked before hit (so entanglement from vine shield prevents the hit to occur and losing the second eye from eye shield pretty much also prevents the hit to occur)

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Hmmm it is true that I observed that not all troops that attack a vine shielded commander gets entangled, so MR check sounds reasonable.

Meaning against high morale low resistance troops vine shield is good.

against low morale high resistance troops gleaming gold shield works better. Fear would also amplify it, as with access to large scale fear effect like blood rain. Though against undead vine shield is a clear winner...

Thanks, learned quite a bit from this thread!

Re: Magic shield effects
 

If you are comparing vine and gold shields, I'd say that gold shield has a better overall value.

You would prefer vine shield for troops with MR lower than moral - undead, ulmish troops, animals (monkeys). On the plus side compared with gold shield, it disables the target for at least two rounds as opposed to one. A niche combo can be achieved with evening star which reduces target strength on hit (no MR check), thus making it harder to release from vines.

Gold shield is better for troops where moral is lower than MR - that is usually more elite troops and thugs. Most thugs (Van, Eriu and the like) have 17-18 MR, but 14-15 moral. In addition it has much better parry and protection values, so it's overall more useful. Plus it needs 1 gem less to forge and needs less valuable gems (fire and earth compared to nature). There is the synergy with fear as well.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

You've added a lot too. It's too bad that the other people who would be able to correct you don't bother posting here anymore.

Correct.

Incorrect, and obvious if you've ever used it against something with high MR. It affects even the elemental royalty every single time they attack. It affects every single unit that attacks, which is improbable even with MR 10 attackers.

Correct.

Absolutely incorrect. Units with a vine shield are clearly damaged by units that are also entangled that turn.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Thanks, I'll do some testing!

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I can guarantee vine shield is not MR negates. It triggers way too often for that to be true.

Edit: Apparently should read second page before posting.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Many times people will see unentangled men next to a vineshield, and assume MR is involved.

There are many reasons such a unit would not have attacked in the first place. Sufficiently negative actions points is one; fatigue another.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Or simply broke out this round and thus didn't attack.
So if I understand this correctly: given sufficient strength (most thugs and SCs), you'll get to attack a vine-shielded opponent with every other attack action?

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Hmmm, I guess I was wrong after all. Units that get entangled do actually get to attack on the turn they get entangled. It's really funny how I managed to miss this in all this time playing Dominions. Well, I am sorry I spread this misinformation, but it's a good thing it is corrected.

As for the rest I said, it still stands. Squirrel, diceman and others - instead of posting your beliefs, you'd be better served by testing things. Finalgenesis, as you can see, not even the basic mechanics are completely clear to the veteran players of this game, so the best advice is to test whenever you are not sure of something.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

So Vine Shield doesn't check MR, but works on everyone no matter what, although they get to swing first?

Amazing if true, but seems to agree with in game testing (that first round of combat often makes or breaks borderline thugs with vine shield)

So at a minimum, it reduces attacks by 50% (attack one turn, break out one turn, attack one turn, repeat, but often a lot more vs low strength units?

Confirms my opinion that it's way more broadly useful than gleaming gold, although gleaming gold is probably better for really wimpy mage thugs facing PD etc.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

If it checks MR, as you claim, then you should be able to produce a debug log demonstrating this with about a minute of work with the debug mod.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

The vine shield does NOT always trigger on attack, just test it and see.

Would it be possible to see the game mechanics in the debug log? It would be great if someone familiar with the log would test vine shields, eye shields and the Medusa shield :)

I've assumed that the eye shield is non-resistible. I had SC with 25+ MR lose his eye in his first attack. (On second though, I think that SC was using the Mage Bane. He must have had 30+ MR) I've Also assumed that the Medusa shield (and ordinary gorgon petrification) used a MR check with a -4 penalty or something like that. I've had anti-thugs with 18-22 MR drop like flies against the medusa shield.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Some shield effects have surprisingly good pen - I've seen some noted as pen 12 previously on the forum.

While the vine shield doesn't always trigger on attacks, it seems to trigger a whole lot more often than a standard MR check would.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

My laundry list of things to test is getting to be of epic proportions, thanks for all the observations and contributions!

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Do your own homework.

You can. Start Dominions with dom3 -dd and you will see shield effects being checked against MR in the log.

All basic MR checks are made against penalty of 12 (shields, mind burns, paralysis, etc). You really shouldn't trust your manual.

Re: Magic shield effects
 

Epiphany

Re: Magic shield effects
 

You're the one making the claim of a MR check. It's thus your responsibility to provide evidence that this statement is correct. Not mine to disprove it.

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LOL. That reasoning is so flawed.

Believe what you will, I don't care.

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Oh, right. I had forgotten about that. The manual had me fooled with it's claims of basic penetration being 10.

I meant a -4 penalty to a basic MR check. Which would mean a penetration strength of 16. I guess the pen in the debug log stand for penetration strength and not penalty.

I ran some tests and it turns out:

Vine & Eye shields: Pen 12
Medusa: Pen 13
Totem: Pen 16 (so a -4 penalty, just like the manual claims)

The eye shield kind of surprised me. It seems to work more often then that. Too bad I don't have the turn file when Gregstrom and I duked it out with eye shields, mage bane and the aegis. It would have been interesting to see the die rolls.

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I have an archive. Do you remember the game name and turn?

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It was Strolling 2 but I don't remember the turn. Don't bother looking for it for my sake. I don't think it's worth the effort :)

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Was I in Strolling 2?

Oh, I was. Old age is getting to me :(

Edit: Also, AARGH! That was two years ago - what have I been doing with my life??

Edit Edit: I wonder if the mechanism changed in a patch sometime?

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Eye Shield vs Vine shields:

With open ended die rolls eye shields will seem more effective - each hit has a chance of resulting in eyeloss; whereas vine shields will result cancel attacks, if successful.

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14-15 morale would, for all due intents and purposes, pass the morale check every time unless you have fear.

Practically speaking, vine shield is almost always more effective than awe, which is really fickle even against standard 10 morale units. Syncing with fear is another story, but remember that many units simply don't care about morale. Vine shields will work against undead, berserks, morale 30, etc. Gleaming Gold Shield would not.

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Yah Vine Shield is def. MR based.

I made a troll king with 30 MR hit an opponent with vine shield for 50 rounds.

He never got entangled even once.

I made him strip down to naked and hit an opponent with vine shield for another 50 rounds.

He got entangled a couple times (Troll King = 17 MR, which is still pretty good).

So the high MR units don't have to worry so much about vine shields.

Good to know, I guess some other shields are useful after all, although vine is still the most broadly useful.

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I looked up the Gorgon and the Aegis in the wiki. The gorgon is listed as petrify +2 and the aegis is listed as petrify +1. I've tested the gorgon, which have pen 13. So I assume that the aegis is pen 12. I guess that they would stack, so that a gorgon with the aegis would have penetration strength 14.

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I wonder what I have been doing with my life. I recently started my first game since then :D

I guess the mechanism was the same and I just got really unlucky. The open ended die must have hit that 0.5% chance of blinding my tartarian. According to the probability table in the manual a 18MR thug would have an 11% chance failing the MR check. Even with a decent MR of 20 he would have 6% chance of failing the check. So thugs failing the save will not be too uncommon.

By the way, didn't someone claim that the probability table in the manual was wrong and posted a more correct one?

Re: Magic shield effects
 

I am going to disagree here. In particular about the 'almost always' bit.

Yes, the Vine Shield is better against generic human chaff and I even agree that it is useful in more situations than the Shield of Gleaming Gold, but there are also quite a few situations where the latter is better.

Given that the penetration numbers in this thread are correct - and they seem to agree with my in-game experiences - MR needs to be 2 higher than morale for the two shields to be on even footing when it comes to averting attacks from sizeable numbers of units. This is not that uncommon in standard troops as long as you go outside the purely human nations - firbolgs and agarthans would be two examples.

Thugs with higher MR than morale are definitely not uncommon; particularly not since MR-enhancing gear is very common. Added to that is that when we are talking about fewer, but harder, attacks per round, the fact that the Shield of Gleaming Gold has much better parry and protection values really comes into play.

Furthermore, it is not particularly relevant to view the Shield of Gleaming Gold and awe in a vacuum. Fear attacks are pretty common, not just as items or inherently on thugs, but also from spells. For that matter you can just fight in your own dominion and automatically give your opposition a penalty on morale. These are all things that at least I tend to use regardless of access to awe. The shield is often a rather effective way of capitalizing on what I am already doing for other reasons.

As mentioned there are some units against which awe just does not work, but reasonably speaking you equip your thugs with whatever you have that is effective against the expected opposition. Sometimes an item is just not right for the situation, but that goes for all things - including the Vine Shield.