Holy Pyre and Fire Resistant Demons

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Considering Holy Pyre should strike properly (I mean hit the target), and it's area damage to that it could strike eventually your troops fighting the demons, I don't see it too strong if modified in this way.

All area spells automatically hit all troops in the target area. (6.4.2, page 16 of the manual.) Assuming the target area hit is the area you intended to be hit, as the spell may deviate.

The real problem is confusion on the part of players due to this spell being misleadingly named. It isn't Holy, that is, a Divine spell. It's fire-based Evocation. It could just as well have been (and more appropriately) called Demonbane or Flame Wrath. IMO, the word "Holy" should have been reserved exclusively for spells actually in the Divine school. Once you get over the fact that the spell isn't holy, nor was it intended to be, the spell is just fine as is.

It really should be renamed.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Boron:
i think it would
1. overpower marignon which has it as starting spell and already good enough against undead / demons . the holy damage already exists in form of the holy spell smite demon this is enough .

Wouldn't overpower Marignon at all as a starting spell - it'd only make it somewhat effective against devils / demons, which one is generally not going against early in the game.


2. if it would be really so powerful it would imbalance the whole game especially if the damage would be (14+2d6 oe)x3 as caine supposes in his possibility 2 .


How would it imbalance the game? The damage is already being tripled against undead and demons, and would continue to use whatever math is currently used, simply shifting the extra damage to holy damage instead of fire.


if demons further on even couldn't get fire immunity via items it would be really unbalancing.


They'd still have fire immunity. Fireballs, etc, still have no effect on them. We're only talking about one spell that is supposed to be very effective against undead and demons.


if it is made holy damage instead demons / undeads should be given the ability to get 100% holy resistance too.
and for thematic reasons the arch demons / undead/devil pretenders should start with 50% already or even 100% .
because they are so evil and strong that they should easily find a way to protect against unimportant holy units like priests.


First - "unimportant holy units like priests" can't cast Holy Pyre. It's only fairly powerful (Fire 2) mages who can cast it. As others have said - what priests have is Smite Demon, which anything more powerful than a rodent-sized imp shrugs off already because of magic resistance.

About them being able to resist holy damage 100% - why? Can liches, vampire queens, the Prince of Death resist the 'Dust to Dust' or 'Wither Bones' spells? No. Why should devils get near invulnerability to everything more easily than various undead Pretenders?

[Vynd]

If there was a way to change the spell so that it affected all demons and devils at full strength, regardless of fire resistance, I would like that. There aren't many spells that are specifically targeted against demons, so it is odd that one fo the few that is supposed to be particularly strong against them is in fact ineffective against many of them.

On the other hand, I think it would be a mistake to change the spell so that its damage type is holy, or something like that. Because it ought to be possible for a non-demonic/undead unit with fire resistance to be able to protect themselves. The spell would definitely be too strong if there was no way for anyone to resist it, even if most units did not take triple damage.

I think this is what Cainehill is getting at with his suggestion to make the basic damage fire and the tripling holy. But does the spell really work that way? If it generates the base fire damage and then triples it, then against a fire resistant target the base damage would be zero and so would the triple damage, wouldn't it?

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Vynd:
On the other hand, I think it would be a mistake to change the spell so that its damage type is holy, or something like that. Because it ought to be possible for a non-demonic/undead unit with fire resistance to be able to protect themselves. The spell would definitely be too strong if there was no way for anyone to resist it, even if most units did not take triple damage.

Any non-undead, non-demonic unit with 100% fire resistance would be immune to damage from the spell, because the added 'holy' damage only happens to undead / demonic, just as right now the triple fire damage only happens to them.

Currently, it's always possible to do damage to undead, no matter their stats, equipment, spells, and magic resistance, albeit you need death magic to do it - Dust to Dust and Wither Bones. But demons, especially commanders w/ equipment, are easy to make immune to virtually everything except spells which require a failed magic resistance check, which they rarely fail with MRs of 18+.

[Boron]

[quote]Originally posted by Cainehill:

Originally posted by Boron:


2. if it would be really so powerful it would imbalance the whole game especially if the damage would be (14+2d6 oe)x3 as caine supposes in his possibility 2 .


How would it imbalance the game? The damage is already being tripled against undead and demons, and would continue to use whatever math is currently used, simply shifting the extra damage to holy damage instead of fire.

simple because now 1. devils are 100% fire resistant so the spell doesn't apply on them.
so are many unique blood summons like arch devils and some of the demon lords.

if it would be holy damage against which is no possibility to resist at the moment and it would be armor negating then the (14+2d6 oe)x3 would even kill demon lords quite quick.


i don't want to quote the rest because i am too lazy at the moment but caine you misunderstood me
the triple resistences and so on were suggestions by me for dominions 3 because i thought that would be cool

would you like a rpg were a really unimportant priest without the help of a god could defeat an archdemon ?
it can only if his god helps him directly but not by himself .

[Cohen]

I suggested that thing ...

However it's
[14 + (2d6oe)] - [(DefenderProtection/2)*(2d6oe)]

This is the base damage done to everyone.
So it isn't so easy to kill a demon lord even if you multiply for 3 the result.

Even if the spell triples the damage don't forget to think that you've half of the protection value due to armor piercing, and you've too the 2d6 open ended to add to your halved protection value.

I'm glad that many ppl agreed to allow Holy Pyre to ignore the fire resistance of Demons and Undeads.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Cainehill:

quote:

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Originally posted by Vynd:
On the other hand, I think it would be a mistake to change the spell so that its damage type is holy, or something like that. Because it ought to be possible for a non-demonic/undead unit with fire resistance to be able to protect themselves. The spell would definitely be too strong if there was no way for anyone to resist it, even if most units did not take triple damage.

Any non-undead, non-demonic unit with 100% fire resistance would be immune to damage from the spell, because the added 'holy' damage only happens to undead / demonic, just as right now the triple fire damage only happens to them.

Currently, it's always possible to do damage to undead, no matter their stats, equipment, spells, and magic resistance, albeit you need death magic to do it - Dust to Dust and Wither Bones. But demons, especially commanders w/ equipment, are easy to make immune to virtually everything except spells which require a failed magic resistance check, which they rarely fail with MRs of 18+.

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petrify would work always or ?

since demons are not lifeless drain life should kill them easy too or ?

otherwise you are right but doesn't count what you wrote for every lategame sc too ?
and if blood hadn't at least strong sc's because it has not many combat spells it wouldn't be worth considering it at all or ?

then abysia would most probably not beeing worth played anymore