Water 9 Blessing

[Gregstrom]

Max, the manual disagrees with you (p74). The way the game handles changing a unit's armour obfuscates this, as a unit's 'base' AP is considered to be the chassis' AP score as modified by armour. Going from base 2AP to 4 AP by changing armour just means an attack costs 4 AP instead of 2.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

BTW, note that if you have two actions or more per turn, it is possible to participate in melee combat AND spellcast (although you can never cast more than one spell in a turn). This means that a W9-blessed priest will have an improved chance of casting spells in melee combat. That could be important if you were doing a Caelum-style [Attack, Shockwave, Attack, Shockwave] combo.

-Max

I'm not sure that's true. The spellcasting action is attempted at the start of the turn, with a 50% chance of being an attack instead. Seems separate from the 2 actions quickened units take - I would imagine if you don't cast the spell and attack instead off that 50% chance, then you get your second action as normal, but that wouldn't mean another 50% chance to cast imo.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I'm not sure that's true. The spellcasting action is attempted at the start of the turn, with a 50% chance of being an attack instead. Seems separate from the 2 actions quickened units take - I would imagine if you don't cast the spell and attack instead off that 50% chance, then you get your second action as normal, but that wouldn't mean another 50% chance to cast imo.

Take any SC, or especially one with Heroic Quickness, and during his buffing cycle plop down a handful of units around him with Shift + 'U'. Frequently you will see him make an attack (or two, with enough Heroic Quickness), and then still do his buffing anyway. I just now verified this by going into my latest game and putting a bunch of 1509/Hirdmans around my Malik, and he made two attacks and then cast Personal Luck anyway. The next turn he cast Soul Vortex and made no attacks--I think spellcasting terminates the action cycle. Now it's possible that W9 quickness works differently, but for regular quickness and Heroic Quickness it's certainly possible to attack and spellcast.

-Max

[vfb]

I think I've just seen this recently when attacking Pan (harpy PD). It looked like quickened (admittedly true quickening, not the bless) units got in an attack as well as casting a buff, in a single round of combat. I can't look at debug logs currently because I'm on the road, but I'm pretty sure you'd see the attack and the spell cast together in the same round.

[chrispedersen]

I think this is likely a bug.

Consider the way the logic is supposed to work. *IF* you have have action points attacking is supposed to deduct the full cost of your attack.

So long as your ap's are positive, you still attack.

So, you have 15 ap. You move for 10. You can still attack - the attack sets the ap to a negative number. Next turn.. you add ap, are greater than 0, so you can still attack.

Now what has to happen to bugger up quickness and spell casting.
All that has to happen is that the AP cost to cast a spell has to be unmodified.

So for example - suppose a creature has 11 ap. Spell casting should cost 11 ap. Casting a spell should cost 11 ap... and so the creature should not be able to attack.

Suppose however that the recipient is now the beneficiary of a 100% quickness - so he has 22 ap. If the program for some reaon failed to update the 'cost' of the spell casting and only deducted 11 ap - then it would leave action points remaining to attack with.

I've never seen it enumerated - but it seems as attacks and spell casting *ought* to take a fixed amount of aps. This would allow units with heroic quickness etc to get multiple actions in a round.

Theoretically we could test this by taking an SCwith heroic quickness, and hitting it time and time again with a combat it cannot lose (blackhawks)- eventually, if I'm right you should see the actions creep up as the heroic bonus continues to creep up from experience.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I've never seen it enumerated - but it seems as attacks and spell casting *ought* to take a fixed amount of aps. This would allow units with heroic quickness etc to get multiple actions in a round.

Theoretically we could test this by taking an SCwith heroic quickness, and hitting it time and time again with a combat it cannot lose (blackhawks)- eventually, if I'm right you should see the actions creep up as the heroic bonus continues to creep up from experience.

I don't follow this last part. I thought it was already fairly well-known that units with Heroic Quickness get extra actions. It's even in the right-click description. I know I dislike getting Heroic Quickness on non-undead SCs because it makes it easier for them to fatigue out and die when they start making multiple attacks.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I don't follow this last part. I thought it was already fairly well-known that units with Heroic Quickness get extra actions. It's even in the right-click description. I know I dislike getting Heroic Quickness on non-undead SCs because it makes it easier for them to fatigue out and die when they start making multiple attacks.

-Max

Right. The question is - is the ability to spell cast & attack caused by an incorrect debit of action points.

Heroic quickness may work differently from quickness - it could be that increase in action points during combat is causing the problem.

But, supposing not, the reason that heroic quickess test would be interesting is that you should be able to see the evolution of behavior.

For example if you had Cast att attack Cast att att
as a script or perhaps attack cast atk atk cast
you could see how the behavior of the SC evolves as it gains action points.

Since lch has publish the algorthym by which aps increase you could see the number of action points required for extra actions. You could also see if variance between weapons and spells.