[militarist]

Ok, my opinion, is that if it's OP, it is not much OP in the context it can be used in reality.
H3 is not a kind of a path that many races have access to. Usually those nations which have H3 are not bless-rush nations. So early in a game it's just helps them resist thug - spamming nations. And ability of the nation to spam thugs in early game makes it much more imbalanced.

But I don't see a crime in increasing value of H path. It's done exactly because H3 costs a lot, but has very strong limitation in usage during each game stage. And if it helps human-sized nation to resist early rush of giants or demons (and, I agree with Burnsaber, shield + band would be already quite enough, just make more thugs).

And who complains? Classy case with Lanka, with S9 bless against which Ctis just can't have ANY chance in early game. Bad bless units, tramplers just don't work against S9. How Ctis could fight against these thugs at all? So in this situation this , quite unreliable in most of situations, spell just made death of Ctis slower.

How the nation with no thugs can fight early game with thugs at all? It can't counter attack effectively PD defended provinces, it can't send thug against thug, mages have no access to real spells yet. I think it's just a ballanicing answer.

And moving the spell higher in research will not help a lot. When you use such unit for expansion, it's not an effective investment. And you justdon't meet equipped thugs. And you rarely will choose hiring H3 priest instead of mage, unless you have Ermor or Lanka neigbour. Or, with this spell, maybe also giant nations. And how can you use these hired H3s other then fighting 1 nation? No flexebility at all in comparison to mages - no sitesearching, no research, no summoning.

So this spell defenitely doesn't make H3 human-sized nation an overkill. The nation which is not humansised and has H3 will always have a better choice what to hire (it will just hiring thugs or mages to research alteration/cons and do forging/sitesearching).

P.S. Just an idea came to mind...How would this spell work in communion, if cast by master? Will it be several charms for one turn, with increased penetration because of communion's level? If it will, than it can be a danger. But when you have a communion army, you usually have quite nice research anyway.