Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Turin]

Nice job you are doing there, here is a bit of criticism .

1)the sacred statue is pretty useless compared to the oracle. She has +80 hp, poison resistance and gets new paths for 10 points less.

The oracle has + 1 astral, gets 2 magic gems and costs 30 points less.
hp and poison resistance aren´t that useful for an immobile pretender and as long as you take less than 5 magic paths the orcale is cheaper/equally cheap.
So the +1 astral and the two gems make the oracle pretty much a nobrainer.
I would suggest giving the statue earth 1 or 2.

2)nataraja is also useless.
Compare it to a wyrm. wyrm has twice as much hp/regeneration, far better stats, and costs the same.

nataraja has more leadership and attacks. At least give the nataraja some magic weapons.
a heroic quickness effect would be nice if that would be moddable.

[Zen]

Turin said:
Nice job you are doing there, here is a bit of criticism .

1)the sacred statue is pretty useless compared to the oracle. She has +80 hp, poison resistance and gets new paths for 10 points less.

The oracle has + 1 astral, gets 2 magic gems and costs 30 points less.
hp and poison resistance aren´t that useful for an immobile pretender and as long as you take less than 5 magic paths the orcale is cheaper/equally cheap.
So the +1 astral and the two gems make the oracle pretty much a nobrainer.
I would suggest giving the statue earth 1 or 2.

Interesting feedback. My goal with the Sacred Statue was to give a, stay at home rainbow. With it's ability to Teleport it can get into battle if it so chooses. I may have to look at it more.

2)nataraja is also useless.
Compare it to a wyrm. wyrm has twice as much hp/regeneration, far better stats, and costs the same.

nataraja has more leadership and attacks. At least give the nataraja some magic weapons.
a heroic quickness effect would be nice if that would be moddable.

Interesting feedback. I don't agree with you on your point that the Wyrm vs the Natarajah (however the Wyrm is a good pretender, to be sure). The slotability of the Natarajah as well as the ability to upgrade throughout the game makes me feel he is priced right in comparison with the others. I would also venture to say that he is still within the top tier (if not the top slot) of SC pretenders.

If you feel he is 'useless' could you give me a little more feedback as to why?

[Graeme Dice]

Turin said:
2)nataraja is also useless.
Compare it to a wyrm. wyrm has twice as much hp/regeneration, far better stats, and costs the same.

The Nataraja can also wear boots, armour, and wield four weapons. The arms alone more than make up for the difference.

[deccan]

Turin said:
2)nataraja is also useless.
Compare it to a wyrm. wyrm has twice as much hp/regeneration, far better stats, and costs the same.

Heh? I thought nataraja cost 0 or did zen change that too?

[Daynarr]

Nataraja is just fine IMHO.

[Edi]

Nataraja needs a +2 attack or something like that, it has very weak attack skill compared to almost anything (just 11 attack natively, not much better than regular human infantry), but otherwise it doesn't need anything more.

Zen, did you get my emails with the CB:S readme files? If you've taken a look at it, some feedback would be nice? Also, if you have made no changes to the Pretender mod, do you want me to organize the mod code for you?

Edi

[Kel]

With 4 arm slots, if you don't use a lot of long weapons (thus over-reaching ambidexterity), your attack skill has a lot of room to improve, via the weapon bonuses.

- Kel

[Endoperez]

Kel wrote:
With 4 arm slots, if you don't use a lot of long weapons (thus over-reaching ambidexterity), your attack skill has a lot of room to improve, via the weapon bonuses.

Not any more than if you only had one weapon, or two. Attack is calculated for every weapon, and weapons' attack rating only affect its own attack rating. With many attacks you hit more often, but using Nataraja with eg. two-handed weapon, weapon and shield should be applicable too. I think his att/def Ratings could easily be improved a little, four arms do have lots of uses and he is quite skilled at using them all (just take a look at his ambidextercity value!).

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Endoperez said:

Not any more than if you only had one weapon

Nothing related to weapon ATT bonuses, but it should be pointed out that when fighting big critters (of the sort that won't bow to a single blow), every attack (even unsuccesful attacks - IIRC) will reduce said critter's DEF by 1. In that special case, this is equivalent to granting a +1 ATT bonus to the second Naty attack, +2 ATT to the 3rd, +3 ATT to the 4th.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Turin said:

2)nataraja is also useless.
Compare it to a wyrm. wyrm has twice as much hp/regeneration, far better stats, and costs the same.

Useless?

The only pretender who can happily wield a wraith sword, a charcoal shield, and a shield of valour at the same time, useless? (or any other number of devastating combinations? You can even make a four-shield variant with insanely high defense, trampling, quickness and high reinvigoration fairly early in the game if you want to; again, charcoal, luck, valour shields are favourites for this)

The Demi-god semi-archmage wanna-be who can dual wield the elemental magic boosting staves (one of each type) when needed for specific rituals, useless? [Nobody would take the Nataraja just for this, but is is just one of the many things the Nataraja can do]. There are a lot of path boosters that can be carried in the hands, and the Nataraja has more than his fair share

The Wyrm is better at what it does best: Early-game expansion with extreme prejudice. On the other hand, it sucks at magic and can only wear few path-boosters. The Nataraja's strengths are entirely different - he is one of the most versatile pretenders since you have so many opportunities for equipping him due to his extra arms. Combat-melee, combat-magic, ritual magic - with the right kit he is excellent in each Category. The two extra arms are worth far more than the miscellaneous slot he loses.

The Nataraja is one of my favourite pretenders. Don't ask to make him stronger - he really does not deserve it.