spell questions: Breath of Winter, Communion M/S

[Zooko]

Is there any point in Niefel Jarls casting Breath of Winter, or do they already have all the cold aura that they can get? (I guess there must be a benefit from doing it or else they would refuse to do so.)

If I Mind Burn my enemy Communion Master, will it also damage the slaves?

Or to put it another way -- my enemy has got way too many communion spell casters and I'm trying to figure out which spells my spell casters should try to counter them.

Mind Burn is negated by magic resistance, but maybe if I give my Mind Burner lots of Astral Pearls...?

Thanks!

[Zooko]

More questions:

Suppose my Paladin has a Broadsword (damage 6) and Strength 13. Now suppose my pretender has Fire-9, so the Paladin, when blessed, gets Flaming Weapons. Flaming Weapons says "8 a.p. damage". Now is my Paladin going to do 13 + 6 + 8 + d, all 27+d of which is armor piercing? Or 13 + 6 + d, plus 8 armor piercing? Now suppose my enemy's pretender has a ring of fire resistance and 100% fire resistance. If my Paladin strikes him, is it going to do any damage? 27+d? or 19+d?

My Wish for Dom 3 is that these kinds of questions can be answered by playing the game instead of by asking on the forum. I don't think all such questions could be answered by the manual. It would be too much to write, too much to read, and anyway it is sometimes fun to discover things by playing that you can't discover by reading.

However, these questions should be answerable by playing the game. There should be some way I can determine whether my Niefel Jarl has more winter aura after casting Breath of Winter than he had before. There should be some way I could tell how much of my Paladin's damage is negated by the enemy pretender's fire resistance. Okay, that sounds challenging to design and code, but that's my Wish.

(I guess the third question *is* answerable by playing -- if I successfully Mind Burn the enemy Communion Master, then I will notice whether some of the Slaves also go poof.)

Regards,

Zooko

[deccan]

AFAIK:

1) Breath of Winter does damage to non cold-immune things, chill does not, so Jotun Jarls do benefit from Breath of Winter.

2) Damaging a communion master with a spell (even a mind-affecting one) does nothing to the communion slaves.

3) The flaming weapons bless effect is a separate attack indepedent of all other attacks the blessed unit has.

[Zooko]

1. Err, did you mean that breath of winter damages cold-immune things and chill doesn't?

Does that mean Breath of Winter could damage my own cold-immune Jotun troops?

2. Any suggestions as to how to attack communion mages? My next attempt is "hordes of militia set to start at the front line and attack rear". Also some archers set to fire at enemy archers.

3. So, the broadsword stays unchanged and the Paladin makes another attack which is 8 a.p.? Does it add his strength? Does it increase his fatigue from making an extra attack?

3. b. How do you know this?

[Zooko]

Oh, I'll bet you meant that Breath of Winter does *damage* to non-cold-immune things, and Chill only increases fatigue of non-cold-immune things. Got it.

[archaeolept]

BoW is, in fact, especially useful for the jots as their own regular troops are immune to it's effect.

the F9 blessing adds a bonus 8ap attack, no str added, to each of the sacred unit's attacks. it does not increase fatigue - i don't even think it has a seperate attack roll (ie one attack, two damage rolls).

as to taking down communions: area effect spells, flying units, flanking cavalry...

[Vicious Love]

Just clarifying the above post, were your blessed paladin to use a weapon in each hand, a flail or Sword of Swiftness, or otherwise have two or more primary attacks(Attacks which aren't #bonus, like horse hooves), he would get two or more 8 independent ap attacks.
By "independent", I mean that damage for these attacks is applied seperately, but methinks the jury is still out on whether or not they get their own attack rolls. Though obviously it'd make more sense for them not to have their own rolls.

[Zooko]

archaeolopt:

How do you know this? I mean, how did you figure out that the fire-9 bless effect added a separate damage instance instead of increasing the damage of the normal attack?