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Originally Posted by llamabeast
I agree that Just Man's Cross is definitely bugged - kianduatha had already pointed out the crazy AN damage, but I hadn't noticed the AOE1. I think I will remove that as it negates the best counters to missile weapons (shields and air shield). Also the damage is changed to AP. Hopefully it is still a pretty nasty weapon against shieldless undead. Thanks for the report!
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Thanks again for taking the time to read through the comments and for taking on CBM in the first place after all the other stuff you've already done.
Changing the damage to AP helps a lot. 15 AP damage is nothing to laugh at but at least you could equip a thug to maximize protection. You may to give up something else but having to make such decisions is part of the fun and challenge of the game. Removing AOE 1 would of course also help a lot though shields may block it more often than you intend?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kianduatha
Oh, yeah. The AN damage was scary because it ignored shields and was AOE, hence the reference to it being a more damaging, aoe Piercer. For the record the Holy Scourge is also AOE-1 and ends up being basically a 2-handed better Fire Brand(which might be okay if the #nostr thing helps it to not do crazy damage)
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I agree; AN damage and AOE 1 are a scary combination. At least the Holy Scourge requires closing to melee range and also requires two hands, but I think it would also lend itself to a similar approach as llama mentioned with just man's cross.
Llama, for both these effects was your intention that this be a dangerous weapon for undead troops, both with and without shields? If that is the case could you change the secondary effect to fire damage and leave the AOE? Relatively few undead have any fire resistance so even if they were buffed to FR 50 they'd still take damage (tripled because of #dt_holy) - however thugs (including undead ones) would be able to invest in FR gear to protect themselves.
I also wanted to mention a different magic item: master/slave matrices. Since I rarely play S nations I've sometimes found these useful to form communions. But items with a 5/5 forging cost take a big jump without hammers, from 6 gems to 10. I don't know if you've gotten other feedback but it's hard for me to see it being worth forging them at that cost. OTOH I like the whole ES crystal magic theme that has magic items as well as a site where you can recruit the mages that invented those items. It occured to me that pricing the slave matrix at 5 S gems and the master matrix at 5E5S would lower the overall price to about the same level as before but also keep the theme somewhat intact.
Also a comment about hammers. I was wary of removing them, especially because I think their removal hit thugging nations hard (nope, I never get tired of lobbying for glamour nations or thugs
). In one of my current modified rules games I used CBM 1.6 as the basis since I'm most familiar with it and it's the easiest for me to balance when I start changing rules. And after playing several post 1.6 games I realized that I've come to view hammers the same way I viewed gem gens - as a hassle that I just didn't want to bother with. I was reading Calahan's comments in the Tempest thread. He makes some good points and one that applies to me is regarding "casual" players. I'll do my best to win and I'm quite willing to fight to the last province but the most important thing to me is to have fun. And for me, hammers aren't fun. But I can see why people would prefer keeping hammers in the game. One option is to keep playing 1.6. It's a good, stable release. But if you'd like to take advantage of some of the new content then you'll have to modify the current CBM release. Of course anyone can modify CBM as they see fit and start a game but there is an advantage to having a "standard" version that incorporates hammers (for one thing, it makes it easier to recruit players for those games). But, especially with 1.9, making those changes won't be as simple as adding in hammers. You'll also have to restore item pricing (and presumably effects) to account for the existence of hammers. And what about nations that were hit especially hard by their loss and compensated for it? Those changes should probably be removed as well (though perhaps you could avoid this part since I'm guessing most of the compensated nations were low-mid range in power and not the top level). My point being, that it's not reasonable to expect you to maintain branching versions of CBM so I think one or more people would have to take on that task. Well, I ended up rambling when all I was going to say was that I've come to like not having hammers. Sure, balancing items will probably take some time but for me it's a good change.
Ok, one last thing. Vanheim lobbying! TNN/Eriu got some boosts to balance out the removal of hammers but Vanheim has been hit even harder with recent changes. So FWIW here's a list of ideas (only presenting stuff I think thematic): forge bonus for dwarves or maybe forge bonus on dwarven elder heroes (perhaps a reason to take luck with Vanheim?), reduce Van cost at least to original pre-glamour nerf cost of 75 gold, reduce cost on mounted hirdman (maybe 45 gold?), Vanjarl B1 is a lot less useful without SDRs - give dousing bonus or perhaps reduce cost and/or remove B1 and change to something like 25-40% chance of AEDB. Also, I think EA Van probably needs more help than MA given that they've got tougher competition and MA has better sacreds as well as recruit everywhere skinshifters and einheres.