Strands of Astral Power. Worth it?

[Don_Seba]

I find it hard to disagree that if kiting out your mages to protect them works, and kiting out your mindhunter does not, something is not right.

I still find it hard to believe that out of 80 mages in your dominion, not one was detected. Come on, with odds of one single percent, it is still unlikely.

[Edited because of typos]

[Ironhawk]

Yeah something does seem amiss. Even a weak spell will get lucky and defeat high MR if cast enough times. If this spell really is being cast 80 times a turn with no results then something does appear to be wrong.

Perhaps there is a mechanic to it which we are not aware? Maybe the spell literally has no effect if you are in drain dominion? Needs testing!

[VedalkenBear]

Just FYI: With a 1% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found would be 0.4475. (0.99)^80

With a 5% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found drop to 0.0165.

I can't seem to find my rulebook ATM. I'd be more than happy to calculate values for the case at hand.

[Tuidjy]

It's on the second turn that the caster failed to detect anyone. The spell
managed one feeblemind on the turn it was cast, so it's not failing in 100% of
the cases. Of course, I have no idea whom it got, and where. It was not one of
the mages in the provinces I hit (with teleport) on the next turn.

I just did some testing in one the testing mods (the one that give both sides
a ton of X10 angels with very high MR. With penetration bonuses adding to 9 on
the caster, there is no difference on the effectiveness of the spell. I think
it is quite clear that the caster does not benefit from levels or items. And
he definitely does in mind hunting - he pops the angels much too often, if anything.

I call it a bug. Can one of the developers chime in, please?

Is Strands of Astral Power supposed to allow bonuses for the targets but not
for the caster?