Demon Pretenders

[Thufir]

I was trying out Moloch with Abysia when on turn 5 it seems I was banished by an indie. Is there any kind of defense against this? Are undead pretenders (e.g. the Liches or the VQ), similarly vulnerable? If this is the case I'm wondering how people cope with undead/demon pretenders, as this seems to be a very serious vulnerability...

[Boron]

Originally posted by Thufir:
I was trying out Moloch with Abysia when on turn 5 it seems I was banished by an indie. Is there any kind of defense against this? Are undead pretenders (e.g. the Liches or the VQ), similarly vulnerable? If this is the case I'm wondering how people cope with undead/demon pretenders, as this seems to be a very serious vulnerability...

hm that never happened to me so far .

there is one banishment order : smite demon .
but it "only" does 15+ an damage .
mr saves though .
so either you were very unlucky and lost your mr save throw a couple of times which is very rare or perhaps only your imps routed and your pretender fled and it looked like he got banished ?
because demons are almost "immune" to smiting even "fodder" demons like devils or fod's have about 16 or 17 mr which makes them hard to hit with smite demon .

[ July 28, 2004, 04:16: Message edited by: Boron ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Thufir:
If this is the case I'm wondering how people cope with undead/demon pretenders, as this seems to be a very serious vulnerability...

A magic resistance of 18 makes it very so that a "MR negates" spell will succeed about 8% of the time. A pretender's MR increases in friendly dominion, and with appropriate equipment you can bring it up to more than 25. This will make all MR negates spells succeed only around 1% the time. At that point, you are fairly safe.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Boron:
there is one banishment order : smite demon .
but it "only" does 15+ an damage .

... and there's the blood spell 'Banish Demon', and this one kills. The Moloch probably died to an indy blood mage.

[Chazar]

How different are undead from demons? Does smite or that blood-spell "banish demon" only affect Demons like Moloch or also undead like VQs? What about the holy low-level mass spell "banishment"?

[spirokeat]

From my understanding...

the conditions of 'undead' and 'demonic' are similar only in the ability for wielders of blood and death to lead.

In terms of damage they are entirely different, hence banishment as the description states, will work on both, but dust to dust for example only works on undead not demons.

There are a number of spells intended for undead only, as it would seem the massing of undead is far more prominent than demons.

Spiro.

[Endoperez]

Demons and undead were't separated until DomII, and they share many traits. However, there are some differences.

Undead are usually cheap and from weak to mediocre with few exceptionally good ones (wraiths, banes, their commanders). Undead are easy to mass, except those few really good ones. All undead have encumberance of 0, so they do not get fatique. Many undead, but not all of them, are mindless.

Most demons are elite types but have next to no equipment. They have very high abilities (att/def/magic res. of 18 plus very high hp... ). Demon knights come with good equipment, but there are no national mages capable of summoning them. Other demons might have a weapon but have no armor. They have good natura protection, and although it helps it does not protect them if they get hit. Unique demon commanders are very tough mages that often have special abilities and/or come with magical equipment build-in. I think demons have low encumberance but no 0, so they will fatique out if the battle takes long enough.

There are spells and items that are deadly against undead, demons or both undead and demons. For spells, nature Maggots kills undead, blood Banish Demon demons, Wither Bones, Dust to Dust etc. death spells devastate undead. Priests have Banish versus undead and Smite Demon vesrus demons. Both are negated by magic res. and better undead and all demons have so high magic res. that priest spells only rarely work versus them.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Chazar:
What about the holy low-level mass spell "banishment"?

This works on both demons and undead.

[Taqwus]

One note: if you're an undead pretender leading an army of non-undead, then you risk being the focus of every anti-undead spell the enemy throws.
Some of them can be quite brutal -- if you're not ethereal, then Maggots can be surprisingly dangerous, for instance.

[En Forcer]

Now here's a thought...

What about giving an amulet of focus and a rune smasher to a priest? And maybe a druid's eye as well?

Does the penetration value apply to holy spells?