Vengeance of the dead, what the hell

[lch]

PvK said:
but also not multiplied by killing souls during VOTD - it doesn't make sense to me that killing a returning soul (or mindless living unit) would cause it to appear twice in the next VOTD attack.

Yup, I have to agree that I don't think that this is thematic in any way. Killing VOTD undeads should not count towards the ghosts that haunt you in your dreams, because there won't be another spirit to haunt you after you killed its body the second time, at least it's not understandable why it should.

[Tuidjy]

It would be great if the vengeful souls reflected the slain enemies, but I am
afraid that no such information is kept at this time. After all, every single
troop(!) has a kill counter, it would be unthinkable to remember the type of
enemies killed.

And yes, the kills during the nightmare should not count, but I am pretty sure
that the counter is incremented during the 'die' method, and it may be too
much bother to fix that. After all there are plenty of other examples where the
enemy lacks a soul and still increments the counter.

And because it is impossible to prevent the doubling of enemies until the
target fails to kill them within the time limit and dies, I think that if he
wakes up, he should live.

As for the souls carrying the target to Hades, they wish! They had plenty of
time, and could not manage to subdue him. Empty handed they leave :-)

[BigDisAwesome]

I lost a W9 Blue dragon really early in a MP game because of this spell. He had a 20+ MR but after 2-3 turns of 4 mages spamming it he eventually lost one and couldn't defeat all the ghosts. I was pretty bummed out.

[LoloMo]

How about in a draw, you survive but is feebleminded.

[lch]

Ah, it seems that if the poor victim can't kill off those that haunt his dreams in time he just NEVER wakes up. So what?

[Salamander8]

Kind of a side question, but related to VotD. I know your guards don't help against this spell, but do say, Dai Oni's wolf pals appear for this spell?

[lch]

Kuritza said:
No I can't because if you do read what I say, you ignore it. Lets see. 18 MR base, +3 mr rainbow armor, +4 antimagic amulet. Thats 25 already; also he was in a friendly domain. Is that HIGH to you?

Being a good fellow reader of all your posts I'm fairly sure that this is the first time that you posted any actual numbers. Give it a rest, will you? So, I'm not that good at statistics, but not counting any other kind of bonus, I think that your enemy beat you at a 81% chance (or better) of resisting said spell. Good for him. Especially since he caught you "off-guard", wielding an uneffective Frost Brand against cold immune troops.

Kuritza said:
You keep pointing out that everything should have a counter.

I keep pointing out that this spell is ineffective under certain situations, yes. It won't work against undeads, it won't be a danger if your pretender doesn't waltz through the enemy lines and kills hundreds. I think that it might not work against glamor or even stealthy units, not sure.
If you employ a SC-type pretender then usually you should be aware that he is going to go down at one point or the other. I for one would not like if there weren't any early-game counters against those - yes, even with low-tech research.
The turn limit is a necessary evil that we have to live with and raising the bar doesn't help against reaching it eventually. Alternatives to what happens after the turn limit are open to discussion and pro's and con' have to get weighted. Most suggestions here would help to make SC types even stronger and cement them as unbeatable foes in game.

Salamander8 said:
Kind of a side question, but related to VotD. I know your guards don't help against this spell, but do say, Dai Oni's wolf pals appear for this spell?

They should, same about undead from the Wraith crown or water elementals from the bottle of water. Anything you summon will help, and these auto-summon at start of battle.