Strange horror behaviour (likely bug)

mivayan · #1 November 10th, 2006, 09:42 PM

Year 8, early winter. I'm playing LA ermor vs AIs. My duskelder SC got attacked by a hunter of heroes (because of the bug in dominions 3.01).

Wormfeast the dusk elder
current hp 35 from previous life draining, max hp 30, prot 18 morale 20 MR 21 enc 0 fat 0 str 20 att 13 def 28 prec 16

These stats include the underwater penalty.
5 of the def is parry. then +3 att/def after round 1 quickness.
Magic W2 D3.

weapon is built-in life drain. items: Charcoal shield, helm of horrors, chainmail of displacement, boots of giant strength, pendant of luck, amulet of antimagic.

Rarku the hunter of heroes
hp 92 prot 25 morale 30 mr 20 enc 0 fat 0
str 17 att 20 def 20 prec 15
Fear +15.

Attacks: (attack/defence/length)
1x Consume soul. Damage: Death (0/0/0). MR negates.
1x Astral fetters, Damage: Special (0/0/0).
2x Astral Hooks, Damage -5, nbr of attacks 3, (0/0/0). Horror mark.
2x Life drain, Damage 0 (AP, life drain). (0,0,0).
1x Curse luck. Damage: special. AoE 1. (0,0,4). MR negates.
All these are magic weapons.

Round 1: My SC cast quickness. enemy attacks, gains +4 hp somehow, but my SC hasn't lost any hp or fatigue.
Round 2: My SC cast soul vortex (61 fatigue now). Enemy attacks, gains +9 hp, my SC loses 11 hp and gets a horror mark.
Round 3: My SC rounts in fear, with 24 hp remaining. And auto-dies.

Maybe i'd had a chance... but I lose 16 def from his attacks before the two life drain attacks, so need like 36 def to dodge those half the time.

Shovah32 · #2 November 10th, 2006, 10:29 PM

In another thread i lsited what happened to my SC, it was a titan chassis (200ish health) with enough reinvig to keep him goings for good, a mirror image (air lvl 11) that took up 9 squares, mistform, around 6 high strength attacks, great def, good prot, 18 mr.
Went down after a few rounds of combat with this guy (getting severely horror marked in the process)

Graeme Dice · #3 November 11th, 2006, 12:02 AM

I believe that the hunter of heroes has an area of effect attack or two, and those cannot be dodged. Mistform wouldn't have helped, as most of the horrors attacks are magical, and a MR of only 18 means that 5% of the instant death attacks are going to succeed.

Cainehill · #4 November 11th, 2006, 01:28 AM

Gee, wonder why people are coming up with HoH nerf patches. If age patches were easier, I expect those would be there too.

Twan · #5 November 11th, 2006, 08:32 AM

This bug at least showed how the doom horrors are overpowered (able to kill not only an unlucky, or weak SC but any pretender even well geared, in a high dominion province and with bodyguards and a duel script). I probably continue to use a nerf horrors mod (with a smaller but general nerf like all doom/unique horrors = normal horrors with a little more hp) after the bug is fixed, and will prefer to play mp games using this kind of mod. I can't see the interest of these "bad luck you are dead" creatures in what is supposed to be a strategy game (and especially when horror mark is not an high level spell), even if they have 0,0001% chance of attacking someone (what is worse strategy wise than several %, who wants extremely random game-breaking events ?).

Hammerstein · #6 November 11th, 2006, 01:02 PM

Can you use Wish to get a Hunter of Heroes for yourself ?

Endoperez · #7 November 11th, 2006, 04:20 PM

Yes, you can. He might attack the caster instead, and will leave after a battle or two or couple, or gets bored. And I think you might get some other Doom Horror even when you Wish for a spesific one. Slave to Unreason doesn't follow your orders... and makes random units, possibly commanders feeble-minded in the province he's in. Pretty nasty, as he will stay parked in that one province.

Saxon · #8 March 13th, 2008, 06:13 AM

So horror marking is required unless Astral Corruption is up? Our game is way too early for AC.

Also, I seem to remember horror marking being permanent, even with pretender revival. Is that correct or can it be removed?

Kamamura · #9 March 13th, 2008, 07:05 AM

Old Standard... hmmm... sounds like a name of an exceptionally good booze :-)

Endoperez · #10 March 13th, 2008, 09:19 AM

Horror Mark is indeed permanent, but getting it to the levels where it's dangerous isn't easy. Huge amount of Horror Marks, or perhaps that astral geysir spell, and then a Titan who is hit by a huge horror's Astral Hooks (cause horrormarking) might eventually get so badly horror-marked that it would be useless, but I haven't actually heard it happen after Hunter of Heroes was fixed. There might have been other changes to horror marks at that time as well, so it might not be possible any more.