Unstable Stygian Paths

[NTJedi]

greetings everyone,

I tested stygian paths(death spell) on a game where I was easily winning. I'm not sure if the spell is broken or if I stumbled onto a rare bug, but the spell worked but said that 9.3 million units died during the travel to an enemy province also my pretender caster was dropped to 1 hitpoint. It appears most of my hundred-plus units arrived but I'm quite sure that if I combined all the units and enemy units for every game it doesn't even come close to 9.3 million... has anyone else seen problems with this spell especially with large armies??

[Agrajag]

I had a problem with stygian paths once...
I sent several armies with stygian paths all to the same location (there were easily >1000 units total).
Can you guess what happened?
It took my computer so long to host that turn that the game just froze :O
Luckily though, as is easily understanable from my post, it was a SP game =P

[Verjigorm]

I had the same problem. Many of the units I sent ended up back home, some ended up in the target provice, some died, and the transporter (my pretender) also died. I haven't used the spell since.

[NTJedi]

With the number of responses it appears this spell is almost never used so the bug in the spell may not be rare after all.
After watching my pretender arrive at 1 hitpoint despite his 300+ previous hitpoints... I doubt I'll ever use the spell again too. Not to mention it said I lost 9.3 million units... that's a record.

[Kristoffer O]

There was a bug in the stygian paths prior to 2.10 that made it useless. I'm not sure if it has been much tested lately.

9.3 mil seems like a bug, but dying regardless of hit points is not strange. Everyone using the paths has a slight chance of being caught by the lord of the underworld. Hit points does not protect you from being kept in the underworld.

[odd_enuf]

immortality does protect you, I useually only use the pather with a lich or a vampire lord, bringing vamps to the front lines

[Yossar]

In 2.14, I used it three times in one turn with two demiliches and my pretender. I believe everyone was alone. One demilich died (I think he was moving into enemy territory) and each casting said something like 50,000+ units died.

It's a spell I'd only use if desperate.