Looking for SC pointers

[Janlm]

Hello everybody

I was wondering if anyone had any good advice on how to make a great SC? They get mentioned quite many places, but I have so far seen very little actual detailed advice on how they are made, or what kind of characters make a good SC (or thug) base. Except for perhaps the obvious like good defences and how important fatigue is.

I would appreciate any good advice

[NTJedi]

Is this a SC for singleplayer or multiplayer?

[Morkilus]

For example, a small group of Mind Hunt casters can kill off any SC without lots of magic resistance or Astral magic. You don't have to worry about that when fighting the AI.

[Janlm]

eh multiplayer then

[Morkilus]

Without discussing specific builds (seriously, there are hundreds of threads about this. Use your search function) I'd say you are looking for:

Hit points (at least 30)
Reinvigoration
Regeneration (not as necessary)
High defense
High protection
Damage shields or large AoE effects
Magic resistance
Strategic move (flying)

Forge a huge variety of items and play around 'til you get a good mix of these. The elemental Kings and Queens and the unique blood summons are a good place to start. Or just equip a Niefel commander.

[lch]

Morkilus forgot:

Luck
Ethereality
Mistform

Okay, the last one can only be gained through buffing with the appropiate spells, but Luck is the most useful ability to have bar none and ethereality is nice to have, too. You don't need high def / prot if the enemy cannot hit or hurt you.

For MP, you typically have to focus on MR boni very much.

[Micah]

I'd say reinvigoration (or life drain) was a lot more important than luck on anything without 0-enc actually. Especially since luck doesn't protect against mind hunting for some reason from the looks of it. It is really handy to have though, and available from a lot of different items/spells.

Basically just worry about keeping your SC alive with equipment and worry about how well it kills stuff later. Fire brands give you elemental resist as well as an AE attack, so they're good dual purpose weapons. Just watch out for skel-spam nations, against them you'll want more offensive punch to get through the chaff screens. 50 turns of killing stuff is a long time, and if your SC can stick in it for the long haul all that happens after that is running away (unless he's entangled or paralyzed, that can be a problem) so you won't lose much.

And never let your fatigue go over about 50, it will make you die.

[Jazzepi]

This is probably the most difficult part of Dominions simply because there are so many options. Encumbrance is a little weird, and deserves special mention.

Commanders with zero encumbrance do not heal fatigue naturally, but their encumbrance will NEVER rise above zero. Even if you give them ridiculously heavy items. Undead make great units to place stupid heavy stuff onto like the full black plate. The elementals also have 0 encumbrance, making them great chassis.

Jazzepi

[Zylithan]

do luck and ethereal stack?

liek, etheral means 75% of nonmagic attacks automiss, right?

and luck means 50% of attacks automiss, right?

so with both, do 87.5% (7/8) of normal hits count as misses?

or am i wrong on a hundred things already?

tx

[Jazzepi]

I believe they stack like this.

If a normal weapon hits a lucky/etheral one of the abilities checks first, and then if it passes that check, the other ability checks. If the weapon succeeds at passing both checks, it deals damage.

So the probability is (1/2)*(1/4) = 1/8. So a ethereal/lucky unit will only get hit by 1/8 of all the normal strikes.

Therefore, you're correct

Jazzepi