[chrispedersen]

I was working on giving Machaka some love in my balance series - but a lot of the changes I wanted to do are not working out well.

Here were the changes I had for the drawing board

I wanted Machaka spiders to be very effective vs. SC's. To this end I wanted a paralyzation effect ala petrify on the spit nets and stingers.

I loved the carcator effect in combat, yet I wanted to give a research bonus greater than +2. I wanted the cost to be 5F/5N - fire and nature to dry the heads and yet retain sentience. But the carcator curse spitting ... didn't fit.

I wanted to add some kind of gate ability, as well as a reaper ability to the assassins.

Unfortunately, I'm only a middling modder at best. When I teleport the assassin - he fights the province - he doesn't stealth there.

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Giving machaka sauromatia's poison arrows makes a great deal of thematic sense. You already have jungles, poison all over the place, and a familiarity with death and nature magic.

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Barring any of these, perhaps just giving machaka a national version of flaming arrows at one level lower in the research tree? But this really feels like a kludge

Comments?
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I also like the idea of working in ai totemic spirits

The spelled caleld something like Spirit Guide.

Mechanic - the wizard casts the spell is replaced with a form of himself with slightly different attributes.

For example: Raven totem - +4rp (wisdom)
Bear totem: double hp, berserk +2
Spider totem: Gains spit weapon, web, brachiationi
Frog totm: Gains ampibious, poison spit
Bat totam: Gains stealthy, domsummon bat

And or it would be nice if there were an onebattle spell for him ...

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On an unrelated note:
Anyway to give light lances the ability for the wielder to counter darkness?