Fear?
 

Does the fear ability do any good at all?

I've been sending Fear +0 guys attacking for awhile now but in watching the battles I havent really seen much happen because of it.. so I outfitted a commander with the Gift of Kurgi to see what it would do.

So this commander has Fear +35 and I still dont see anything happening because of it. People still charge her and they dont seem to be running away any earlier.

If Fear +35 isnt doing much what hope is there for Fear +0 to do anything?

I have read the manual and have seen what the check is about and that higher fear mostly just increases the radius of effect.. but that is a huge area of effect and is still a pretty hefty check!

What gives?

Also, does anyone know how Fear from different sources stack? The commander above started with Fear +5 and the manual says that the Gift of Kangi gives Fear +25.. there shouldnt be any other factors in play there such as death magic or anything.

Re: Fear?
 

What else was he wearing? Lots of things give fear and they are not always obvious. Horror helmet, lantern shield, panic standard, stymphalian wings etc are examples. All items that give fear give +5 (so take fear from -5 (nothing) to +0 in one go, a legacy of Dom2 mechanics).

The heroic abilities Battle Bellow and Legendary Cruelty also give fear that keeps increasing the longer you stay in the Hall of Fame.

Fear lowers morale of enemy units in an area determined by the fear bonus. In the case of +35, 35 squares, forcing opponents to make morale checks and lowering their morale. It does not autorout them. If you faced things with morale 30+, they do not run away and do not make morale checks as such. Especially mindless units (mor 50)

Re: Fear?
 

Fear is a excellent ability but you after force the opposing force to make a morale check to take advantage of it.

You force a morale check by killing the enemy forces or inflicting alot of hps in damage vs thugs/SC's. Fear then makes it more likely they will fail and flee the battlefield. Hopefully you will then slaughter them before they escape.

Re: Fear?
 

Fear works best when combined with awe. Prince of Death with high Death (it adds to fear), dominion 9 or 10 (for awe) and some armor can work miracles.

Re: Fear?
 

Fear does indeed stack. In response to another thread, I tested 10 Iron Warriors-buffed Umbrals vs. 40 Hydras. The Hydras could barely scratch the umbrals (probably not enough to force a morale check, maybe 9 damage or less to three or four umbrals each round, easily healed by drain) and several hydras died ignominious deaths... and then suddenly all the umbrals broke and ran away. Apparently, hydras have fear +0.

If not for the fear, the umbrals would have wiped the floor with the hydras. I repeated the battle after giving the umbrals morale 99, and lo and behold, all the hydras died without any losses to the umbrals. (Not quite true. The first time I tried this, one hydra was still alive when all the umbrals routed. I don't know if this was fear overcoming morale 99, or just the 50 turn limit autoroute. The second time, all the hydras died. Most of the umbrals picked up a couple of afflictions.) So, fear can sometimes save your bacon.

-Max

-Max

Re: Fear?
 

That's something else that confuses me. The way "area" is used in Dominions 3 game mechanics, am I right to assume it's not talking about a radius?

Re: Fear?
 

Correct. Area 25 means 25 squares, not 25^2*pi=1963 squares. This makes area 1 spells with high precision (like Petrify) better than you would think relative to area-effect spells like Falling Frost and Magma Eruption.

-Max

Re: Fear?
 

Fear can surprise you. In my current game, I have an abomination with the Gift
of Kurgi, and the enemy squads rout pretty much as soon as it hits them. It has
Fear + 33, and enough attacks to clear two full squares per turn. The enemy
routs so quickly that unless I have cut off retreat routes, it's not worth
attacking armies, as they rout without significant casualties.

In another battle last turn, I was at the receiving end of fear, in a rather
ridiculous situation. It was a battle of 50 enemy mages/SCs and 700 medium sized
summons against a dozen of my commanders. At some point in the battle, I had
five SCs left on the field, all of the enemies were unconscious, and I was
getting the "The armies of T'ien Ch'i are routed" message. My guys had both
Relief and Mass Regeneration, so that they were neither hurt nor tired.
Basically, it was all over but the slaughter. Well, one of the commanders
waiting to have his throats cut happened to be a Tartarian Spirit, which had the
underwhelming Fear+2 ability. So one of my Jarls approaches, takes a look at
the unconscious spirit, and turn to run, despite having a morale rating of 23,
full health, and no conscious, non-routed opponents. A friends who was watching
suggested that the Jarl remembered that he needed to feed his pet dragon.

Re: Fear?
 

The issue going on here is that "Fear +0" is way better than baseline. Somewhere in the manual, it points out that adding "Awe +0" (from Dom 9) to a pretender chassis that already has "Awe +0" will result in a total of "Awe +2". 0+0=2, right? The math is actually 2+2=4, where the printed "Awe" value is the mathematical value -2, because minimum awe is (apparently) -2.

For fear, I believe the numerical value of "Fear +0" is about 5. (Can you get troops with "Fear -5"? You could in Dom2, haven't checked lately.) Therefore, instead of 5+25=35, you have 10+30=40... which prints out the "Fear +35" value you see.


In summary, for some attributes (Fear/Awe), the mathematical value is higher than the printed/effective value, because "+0" is not equal to "nonexistent". They stack according to the mathematical value; the conversion from mathematical to printed/effective is done last.