How does the Vengeance of the Dead Spell Work?

[ioticus]

I've never used this spell, but the AI did use it on one of my provinces. I received a message that one of my commanders was attacked in a dream, but nothing happened to him and there was no battle replay. Could someone explain how this spell works or is this a bug? Thanks.

[Alneyan]

This spell is aimed at commanders having killed a lot of people: all those dead try to get even by killing the commander. However, for the spell to work, the commander needs to fail a MR save: only then will a battle occur.

[ioticus]

Thanks for clearing that up, Alneyan. So I take it the game reports you were attacked even if you make the MR save?

[Alneyan]

Indeed. There should be a message like "A dream was projected at XXX, but fortunately (s)he managed to resist the spell". I do not recall what the message is when the MR save fails, but you should then have the option of seeing the battle.

[Taqwus]

And, FWIW,

* It targets the commander with the most kills in the province.
* Undead are immune.
* It's the targeted commander against one weak undead ('dead one'? Can't recall) per victim.

* At least at one time, the undead themselves counted as kills, so repeated castings doubled in strength. I don't know whether this is still the case.

[sushiboat]

Does anyone find the spell useful? If a commander has lots of kills, how is one undead -- assuming it's something like soulless and not a Tartarian -- going to accomplish anything?

[Saber Cherry]

sushiboat said:
Does anyone find the spell useful? If a commander has lots of kills, how is one undead -- assuming it's something like soulless and not a Tartarian -- going to accomplish anything?

One undead per victim. A weak mage that assumes there is a storm, casts "Summon Airpower" and then lots of Thunder Strikes, will get toasted when there is no storm and can only toss a few lightning bolts before being swamped.

[Psitticine]

Sometimes it works wonderfully, sometimes it falls totally flat. It all depends on if the targetted commander can handle hordes single-handly or not. Mages tend to rack up large kill numbers with their magic, but as I think most would agree, mages are a heck of a lot more vulnerable without some cannon fodder between them and the enemy to prevent being overrun. That makes them more susceptible to this spell, IMO. That's mitigated somewhat by high MR, of course, but not overwhelmingly.

Oh, and another thought during the pre-post read through <g>. Mages tend not to be scripted to handle things as if they were solo. Those that are obviously do much better against this spell, but most (again, IMO) are scripted in such a way as to actually be handicapped when all alone. One sees that a lot during assassinations.

Powerful melee commanders, OTOH, are much less vulnerable. They got where they are by doing exactly what the spell requires: wading into hordes of enemies and mowing them down like wheat.

Oh, and powerful priests can often laugh this one off. Banishment is a great counter for hordes of weaker undead.