[Chris Byler]

First of all, I assume you're talking about the size-2 humanoids (crone etc.) and archmage on a horse, not the giant humanoids like Son of Niefel, Titans etc. (which I think are mostly fine, I wouldn't call the Father of Serpents or LotDS useless as SCs although they don't have the instant appeal of Vampire Queen; maybe you just mean you can't send them to take provinces alone because of their free troops, but one archer way in the back on fire (whatever) solves that problem).

Rainbow mages were greatly weakened by the new bless system: they're pretty much guaranteed to have no useful blessing or a very weak one, while something like a Cyclops or Titan gets a useful blessing practically free. Father of Serpents and Lord of the Desert Sun both start with two paths, one of them at 2, which makes a significant difference at higher levels, and they're physically strong so they can lead armies and cast on the battlefield without fear. (In fact the Father of Serpents causes fear in his enemies.)

They have no magic skills except what you buy for them (thus they effectively cost another 50 or so points above their base cost - you have to get a lot of paths to make them even semi-worthwhile), are physically weak and have weak dominion. Few have any useful special ability. 0-20 points seems fair (0 for crone, maybe 10 for ones that start with 1 in a path like frost father/master druid/etc, 20 for the ones with a path *and* a good special like enchantress) - although they might be a little weak even then.

Having all possible paths of magic isn't that useful anyway: you can still only use at most two paths at a time (and that's only if they have a cooperative spell), except when searching; and pretender searching is slow and inefficient. The only real advantages rainbow mages have are high pretender research and a wide selection of personal buffs in combat, but that isn't enough to offset more powerful battlefield magic with less fatigue, easier access to high level rituals/globals and a strong blessing, even without the increased physical might (and often dominion too!) of demigods, rocks, monsters and other pretenders.

Actually, I think the best solution would be for the archmage pretenders to pay a reduced cost to buy up magic paths. If they pay 10 for new paths *and* half price for buying up paths, then they could really be magical powerhouses, and be pretty effective even with a modest point investment. This counterbalances their physical weakness (which makes them glass cannons on the battlefield), weak dominion and even their current high base cost.

In fact, if different gods can pay different amounts to buy up magic paths, there's no reason that can't be applied to all pretenders: humaniod mages and most immobiles pay 50%, nagas, ghost king, liches and medusa pay 75%, demigods, virtue, moloch and PoD pay 100%, vampire queen, bulls and dragons pay 125%, wyrm and manticore pay 150%, for example. Since the most physically mighty pretenders pay the most for high levels of magic, this would make it difficult to have physically strong pretenders that are also powerful mages (unless you count immobiles, which are physically tough but have a hard time using it offensively).

This makes the most "instant supercombatant" gods more expensive (at least if you want strong magic on them), while making the less popular and less directly threatening mage-gods cheaper. I think it would lead to more diverse pretender selection in both SP and MP. I do admit that it would require some new code, though; it's not something that can be playtested quickly in a mod.