A new idea (maybe)
 

I have never seen it posted here.
Here is the idea: Wouldn't it be cool if the pretender you chose impacted the point cost or effects of scales.

Meaning that if I chose a Great Mother I could buy growth scales for 10 points cheaper. If I chose a Prince of death I would get an extra ten points for each death scale. If I Chose a Father of Winter bonus points for cold.

Alternatively the pretender could strengthen the scales in some way. Maybe a Father of Winter provinces with a cold 3 would act as if it had a cold 4 (think of the poor abysians trying to invade a cold4!).

This could be a great way to make the less competitive pretenders more playable as well as more exciting and diverse.

The obvious problem is that these changes could not be made to dominions 3 b/c of the massive amount of balance and coding that would be needed. So this is kind of a suggestion of dom4 I guess.