New hero abilities - suggest them all!

[Manuk]

Ceptomaniac - Gains An special action like assasination but called Steal Goods. Steals Random items from enemy commanders or Labs.

[Saber Cherry]

A steal ability would awesome, especially when dealing with pesky SC's. Sounds like a good combat command for Villains, actually.

[Chazar]

Mountaineer: gives all units under his command a temporary mountain survival skill.

Hmm, seems like I did not capture the heroic idea of this thread... But hey, maybe the survival skills will become incredibly useful in DomIII, who knows? Otherwise the Mountaineer might also reduce supply/upkeep costs when located in mountain provinces...

[silhouette]

Saber Cherry said:
A steal ability would awesome, especially when dealing with pesky SC's.

I suggested something like this as a new stealth commander orders in the Wishlist thread:

Oooh, how about two additional stealth commander orders...

- pilfer from lab: Allows a chance to take a random item from the enemy magic item treasury in the province (or gems?). If you fail you fight the province defense.
- Pickpocket from commander: Allows a chance to take a random misc slot item from a commander (or gems?). If you fail you fight [the commander and bodyguards | the commander and all his troops | the commander and troops plus province defence | all enemy forces ?]

Taking an item equipped from someones hand or head is pretty hard if you want to remain stealthy, but misc slot seems like good "pickpocket"-able items.

Sill

[FrankTrollman]

I would like a pathfinding ability, where the leader can move himself and his army a longer and longer distance over more and more hostile terrain on the world map.

Or an ability that made you good with armor and reduced your encumberance (eliminating the doubled casting encumberance at the normal rate). That would be really good on a warrior mage.

An Oratory ability that made you count as some level of Preacing each turn. It could start off as a 1 point preaching every turn (regardless of what you were doing), and eventually it would become some sort of massive temple check if you stayed on the hall of fame long enough.

A resistance skill, that gives you resistance to Shock, Fire, Cold, and Poison would be nice. It might even give you Acid Resistance just for added hilarity.

A Necromancy skill, where you get some Undead Leadership and every other level you get a point of unholy pristing could be cool. You should make sure that it never spawns on people who already are unholy priests (because the last thing we need is an Unholy Priest 10 making Lictors).

-Frank

[Saber Cherry]

FrankTrollman said:
A Necromancy skill, where you get some Undead Leadership and every other level you get a point of unholy pristing could be cool. You should make sure that it never spawns on people who already are unholy priests (because the last thing we need is an Unholy Priest 10 making Lictors).

-Frank

Necromancy like in HOMM would be awesome! X% of units killed in battle return as undead (soulless warriors). It should probably only be an ability for units that already have undead leadership... you don't want Cardinal Carmont automatically resurrecting the dead, unable to control himself. Ideally, Dominions III will allow "Undeadness" to be an ability (like mindlessness or amphibiousness) that can just be assigned to any unit, giving it a purple/green pallete shift, -4 MR, -4 ATT, -6 DEF, +2 STR, +50% HP, -60% AP, 50 morale, 3 strat moves, neverheals, resist cold, resist poison, vulnerability to spells that target undead. Then you could have a huge variety of undead troops!

[FrankTrollman]

There are a number of hero abilities from MoO2, MoM and HoMM that could be profitably put into Dominions:

Necromancy was pretty sweet (x% of enemies slain on the battlefield came back as undead troops under your control). I'd still like this to grant undead leadership, rather than requiring it.

Estates/Wealth: Character no longer requires upkeep and actually generates gold just for being around.

Instructor: All units under character's control gain bonus XP every turn.

Spy Network: (based on Galactic Lore) Character gives spying reports on a variable number of random provinces around the world each turn.

Lawmaster: (based on Telepath) Character gets a patrol bonus. The province she's in is also patrolled by a variable amount every turn, causing spies and unrest to get rounded up automatically.

Spymaster: Character becomes increasingly stealthy and gains the Spy ability. This doesn't really need anything else because there is stuff like the Black Heart that makes getting a decent hero with stealth totally the win.

Tactical Genius: Character's team gets the first turn when attacking. Also grants a variable morale bonus to troops nearby.

Medicine: Chance to heal battle afflictions in this army every turn.

Commando: Generates additional Province Defense troops every battle as the attacker or defender.

Famous Bureacrat: Counts as additional Admin rating in whatever province the character is currently in.

Master Smith: Available only to spellcasters, grants a variable Forge Bonus. Character generates a variable number of resources.

Master Ritualist: Available only to spellcasters, grants a cost reduction when casting ritual spells.

Pathfinding: Grants terrain movement abilities to troops under character's control. Also raises overland movement by a variable amount (starts at +0), at higher levels also grants seamanship.

Resurrection: Non-undead, non-lifeless beings who die in your army have a variable percentage chance to be raised from the dead at the end of the battle if you win.

Demonology: a pile of Imps of variable size shows up at the beginning of each battle to fight for you. You get a variable amount of undead leadership out of the deal.

Fairy Blood: a pile of Sprites shows up at the beginning of each battle to fight for you. You get a variable amount of magic leadership out of the deal.

Sorcery: Mages with at least one pick of sorcery magic only. Your spell penetration goes up for every sorcery spell you cast.

Elementalism: Mages with at least one pick of elemental magic only. Your elemental spells inflict a variable percentage of extra damage.

Summoning: A random elemental of variable size permanently joins your side every round. You gain magical leadership.

Charm: A percentage of independents/mercenaries who run away (and would die) permanently join your side if you win the battle.

Artillery: A variable amount of catapult attacks rain down on enemy positions over the course of every battle. The character gains a Siege bonus.

Luck: "Luck" is cast before combat a variable number of times.

Logistics: (actually based on Farming Leader) Character generates variable number of supplies.

Reverse Engineering: (based on Eagle Eye) Chance of adding a spell to your spells known if it is cast by the other side in a battle the character is in, or if it is cast overland into a province that the character is in. Also gives a chance of learning a global enchantment that is cast.

-Frank

[Chazar]

Truly interesting stuff!

I wish that the chances for heroic abilities would also depend on the class, i.e. each commander schould be assigned to a class (wizard, priest, warrior) and a wizard who gets e.g. "thoughness" will get a reroll, so that "thoughness" on wizards becomes rather rare...