New hero abilities - suggest them all!

[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...

[FrankTrollman]

Certainly one relatively easy way to program that would be to have each ability have something thatads to its chances of showing up. So the more MR you have, the bigger a chance you have of getting Iron Will. The more hit points you have, the more chance you have of getting Toughness. And so on and so on.

That way Extraordinary Researcher s never going to happen on an Ulmish Commander, but has a noticeable chance of showing up on a Wizard - your number of chances to get the ability is simply your Research value.

This way, everyone has a chance of getting the basic common ones, because everyone has MR, Strength, Attack, and Defense scores, everybody has some number of hit points. Furthermore, this way the game doesn't automatically shunt a Queen of Water into not getting Toughness just because technically she is a mage.

Some of the weirder abilities can have one chance of showing up basically and then add some obscure amount. So every 25 full points of undead leadership gets you one more chance to get Necromancy. Every path of blood you have gets you an additional chance to get Demonology. But these skills would show up occassionally on other characters as well.

So your chance of getting any particular ability would be:

(Number of Chances to get that ability)
-------------------------
(Total Number of Chances for all possible abilities)

And everyone is walking in there with a bunch of chances for the standards: Toughness (hit points), Heroic Strength (strength), Extraordinary Precision (Presicion), Lightning Reflexes (Defense)...

And some people are walking in there with chances for weird powers: Sorcery (total paths in Sorcery), Great Wealth (total upkeep cost, rounded down), Battle Bellow (total kills), Extraordinary Researcher (total Research), etc. etc.

-Frank

[Sandman]

Wheeeeee, more suggestions, ripped off from assorted similar games, or just made up by me:

Enchanter, Conjurer, Thaumaturg, etc: Casts the corresponding spell school with improved effect.

Armourer, Offense, Archery, etc: Shamelessly ripped from HOMM3, or Warcraft 3. Leaders with these skills give their units a hefty bonus. This would be a nice way to beef up the mundane units and commanders versus magical stuff.

Chosen: The hero is rendered immune to curse, horror mark and certain afflictions.

Creature Specialist: Creatures of a certain type get a boost when commanded by this commander.

Spell Specialist: Spell X has an improved effect when cast by this commander. This is already in the game for the Vine Men/Ogre spells, and a few others.

Crusader: The hero gains sailing, siege skills, supplies and perma-blessing.

Conquistador: The hero gains sailing, supplies, pillaging and patrolling. And spreads disease among the natives.

Raider: This ability allows ground commanders to initiate an attack from two or more squares away, like flying units.

Weaponsmaster: The commander can replace the weapons wielded by troops under their command with weapons from the province the army is currently occupying. This process costs resources.

Pilgrim: This hero gains increased experience and skills for each temple or holy site visited at least once.

Explorer: As above, but for each previously unentered (by your forces) province.

Wanderer: As above, but instead of stats, this hero gains research skills for each lab visited. Might need to be capped at some point. Same for all the 'traveller' skills.

Scavenger: The ability allows a modest % of gold and gems to be recovered from destroyed units in the aftermath of a battle. Enemy items are very likely to be recovered.

Freelancer: This hero can summon a mercenary camp and freely trade units for gold, gems or other creatures.

Forge Scrying: A unit using this skill can detect any magical items forged anywhere in the world (but not items gained in other ways). At high levels, the forging nation can be determined, rather than guessed at. At divine levels, enemy item stocks can be observed.

Incorruptible Essence: Anyone trying to use lifedrain techniques on this hero will take enormous damage, or, in certain cases, be mind-enslaved to the 'victim'.

Slayer: Grants substantial bonuses when fighting against certain classes of enemy; skeletons, devils, trolls etc.

Guerilla: Allows the hero and/or commanded troops to join the battle from the side or even behind. Some measure of stealthyness should be needed to use this skill.

Partisan: This hero can recruit troops from enemy-held provinces. The troops must be stealthy, of course. Maybe not high-level national stuff.

Terminator: If this assassin manages to kill his target quickly enough, the enemy will not even get to view a battle (and thus be unaware of the assassin's nationality or equipment). They just get a message saying that their unit has vanished without a trace.

Pioneer: This unit can perform the command 'colonise' which greatly boosts the growth rate of under-populated provinces.

Initiative: This commander attacks so quickly that the enemy doesn't have enough time to form up properly. All enemy units are slightly displaced from their intended positions.

Smuggler: Grants sailing, stealth and the ability to steal gold from enemy provinces that are adjacent to yours or one sea province away. It's twice as effective in coastal and river provinces.