[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Humer:

quote:

---

Originally posted by apoger:
Any other opinions? Does anyone out there ENJOY what magic duel brings to the game? This is perhaps the question that needs to be asked.

I like mind duel. Astral is said to be the most powerful Arcana (in manual, if I'm not mistaken). There's nothing like having your mages picked up one by one by a superior astral mage. It really makes you think strategy. Really. It pisses me off, but I tend to take it as a learning experience.

Counter-balance-wise other paths have better summons and mass-destruction spells. What astral can do to that end?

---

Don't underestimate the Angelic Host.

But the main problem is not that astral isn't useful to mages that have it: it's that it's too dangerous to mages that have it, especially if they represent a large fraction of a country's magical power.

Dabble in astral and be ready to pay the price. Master the astral and be one to collect the price.

That works fine if you have a choice. Marignon and T'ien Ch'i don't.

I don't have any problem with the loser of a Magic Duel dying: what I have a problem with is the winner walking away completely free.

I think that any time a magic duel occurs, there should be a chance that the astral energies used during the duel will attract the attention of horrors. This results in a chance of the winner becoming horror marked (or the strength of his horror mark increasing, if he is already horror marked and they come in variable strengths), and a chance of a horror materializing in the vicinity of the winner. Both effects should rise with the sum of the combatants' astral levels (so a duel between two Astral-9 gods will almost certainly horror mark the winner and is likely to attract a Doom Horror; in the case of the horror attracting effect, both the chance of attracting a horror and the strength of horror attracted should rise with the power of the combatants).

This still doesn't save Celestial Masters or Grand Masters from being harassed by packs of lizard shamans, astral sages or crystal priestesses, but it does save them from being gunned down by the dozen by a single archtheurg, astrologer or starspawn (or at least make it risky for the professional duelist).

A chance for the winner to be feebleminded (and a large chance that he takes 100+ fatigue damage - one duel per caster per battle unless you have strong reinvig) would help too, but not be nearly as cool. Although the feeblemind part does recall the old saying about knife fights - the winner is the one who goes to the hospital (or in this case, mental hospital).


I'd kind of like to see a Helm of Mind Shielding - protects against Magic Duel and everything else that doesn't affect mindless units - but it wouldn't really solve the magic duel problems, IMO. You can't practically equip every commander with them.