A new idea for magic scales

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

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Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Furthermore there is only a small chance of getting it and only when you buy mages (which are expensive to begin with).

Or maybe mages and priests, too... priests are more expensive in Doms II, and do kinda use magic. But getting a random astral on an otherwise healthy priest or mage would be annoying=)

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I actually thought of a similar effect for priests based on dominion strength instead of magic scale (5% chance of bonus priest level per candle above 7), but didn't include it because of the length of my original post.

As for the random astral - that's one reason I limited it to paths the mage already has. The other is to keep standard Pangaea from getting too much versatility - their lack of randoms is a balance factor, forcing them to rely on indies or their pretender to branch out into other magic paths. Since I often take magic with them so that Dryads are better researchers, letting them get Dryads with randoms (even occasionally) might be too good.

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Now that I thought of this idea, I like it better than Saber's and my other ideas about extra gem income or reduced gem costs for rituals, forging, empowerment etc. It gives the talented mages more individuality, and therefore makes magic scales more interesting (as well as more useful) to play.

Maybe so, but why put in one new cool scale effect when you can have lots of cool new scale effects?

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Two reasons: it's easier to implement one thing at a time, and it's easier to balance one thing at a time.

Boring, I know. But practical.

Why don't you give a full -3 to +3 magic scale statistical rundown of what a player would expect? Right now I'm a little confused about drain, since obviously you couldn't have a less than zero chance of getting talented mages.

I briefly entertained the idea of anti-talent in drain dominions, but discarded it as too damaging - strong drain is bad enough already, that's part of the point of your original post.

Drain 3: -3 research, +1 MR
Drain 2: -2 research, +1 MR
Drain 1: -1 research, +0 MR
Neutral: +0 research, +0 MR
Magic 1: +1 research, +0 MR, 5% Talent
Magic 2: +2 research, -1 MR, 10% Talent
Magic 3: +3 research, -1 MR, 15% Talent

P.S. Aside from the astral thing, I think this would be more useful if it gave totally random magic, opening up new fields to a nation with talented, curious mages. Possibly weighted toward, but not exclusive to, existing paths.

I think that would be too good for nations that have limited magical versatility to balance out their other strengths. Especially since it also gives you randoms on cheap mages (Marignon Initiates, Theurg Acolytes, etc.) - with my original proposal they can only get reinforcement in their existing path.

Nations with limited natural mage versatility would still have to rely on their pretender, site-based mages, druids, amazons or amber clan tritons (any other population-based mages?) to branch out. I don't think that's unduly difficult.