Do Miss Chances Stack?

[shatner]

I'm curious about the interactions of layered miss-chance spells/effects such as luck and mirror image.

For example, say an A2S1 caster casts the following spells on themselves:
+ Personal Luck (grants luck)
+ Body Ethereal (grants ethereal)
+ Mirror Image (grants 4 images)
+ Air Shield (80% resistance to missiles)

Now assume an arrow is shot at the caster and would hit were he not layered in spells. (In theory at least) To hit, the arrow would have to:
+ bypass air shield (1 in 5 chance)
+ bypass luck (1 in 2 chance)
+ bypass ethereal (1 in 4 chance)
+ hit the real caster and not one of his 4 images (1 in 5 chance)

That's a 1 in (5*2*4*5 = 200) chance, or a .5% chance of success. In theory.


However, do all of those effects stack like that, or do some effects override others?

Also, how many duplicate images does glamour provide for a unit without air magic? How many for a unit WITH air magic?

Thanks.

[Deadnature]

In short, yes those odds look about right (but my math is terrible) for an arrow to hit a commander with all those buffs.

Some buffs in this game certainly don't stack (IE eagle-eyes and aim) but the ones you mentioned would make you nearly un-hittable for an "ordinary" arrow or missile.

Of course, if someone tried to whack your hypothetical commander with a frost brand he would only benefit from luck and (i think) the mirror-image.

Moreover, if someone tried to soul-slay him then none of those buffs would matter, just MR.

[Kref]

Mirror image won't save against missiles, except of those which were shot at close range or with high precission. Missiles shoot in a ground. For example, if an arrow hitted a square and there is a size 2 infantry on it, there is 1/3 chance that an arrow strike would apply to that infantry; if there are three such infantries on that square, then arrow would apply on one of them for sure, of couse then air shield - luck - body ethereal would play.
I wonder about next thing: let's consider that an ethereal creature was attacked 4 times (for example), and one of the attacks was applied with unsucsesful chance of etherealness. What attack bonus due to swarming would apply to fifth attack on that creature? 4*4 = 16 or 1*4 = 4?

[llamabeast]

Not sure about your ethereal question Kref, but attack bonus for multiple attacks is only 2 (or rather, a unit's defense decreases by 2 each time it is attacked during a combat round).

[shatner]

Now, how do "when attacked" effects work with miss chances?

Say my mage is lucky, has awe, has fire shield cast and is carrying an eye shield. Now a lowly militia attacks my mage but:
1) the attack misses because his attack failed to exceed my mage's defense (in this case let's assume the personal luck spell had no effect).

2) the attack misses because luck deflected the attack.

3) the attack "fails" because the militia is overcome by awe and doesn't attack.

In scenario 1, does the militia unit suffer from the fire shield? Does he suffer from the eye shield?
In scenario 2, does the militia unit suffer from the fire shield? Does he suffer from the eye shield?
In scenario 3, does the militia unit suffer from the fire shield? Does he suffer from the eye shield?


Also, does the eye-loss effect of the eye shield first need to get past the target's magic resistance or is it an unavoidable effect?

[shatner]

An unrelated question I have that I'm wondering if you guys know the answer to:

Say I have two W1S1 casters communion slaved to a W2F1S1 communion master who casts Acid Rain (evo 4 - W3F1). The spell requires W3 to cast and the slaves would have an effective W2 each (native W and +1 to all paths for fatigue purposes from 2 slaves) so they'd suffer 2x the fatigue of the spell (base 30 x2 = 60) divided between the two of them plus whatever fatigue the master incurs (even after reading Baalz communion guide I'm still a little shaky on how spell fatigue is divided among the slaves and master(s)).

However, this water spell also requires a single path of fire. Does that further add to the fatigue cost? If the communion slaves or communion master had F2, would that reduce the fatigue cost?

For multi-path spells, other than the spell's description, is there any way to tell which path contributes to which +/-? For example, a spell might have range of 20+, damage of 15+, 3+ number of effects and fatigue of 30-; how do you know whether it is the primary or the secondary path which effects which + and -?

[thejeff]

No, secondary paths don't count towards fatigue. Or anything else. It's always the primary path.

[shatner]

So I went and re-read Baalz's communion guide and I have one additional question.

Say I have two communions that take place in completely different battles.

Communion 1: You have 2x S1 slaves and 1x W2S1 master. The master casts a W3 spell that costs 40 fatigue. The slaves are effective W1 casters so they should take (40 / 2 x 3) 60 fatigue...

Communion 2: You have 2x S1 slaves and 1x W5S1 master. The master casts a W3 spell that costs 40 fatigue. The slaves are effective W1 casters so they should take (40 / 2 x 3) 60 fatigue... or do they? Since the master is an effective W6, the fatigue cost of the spell should be reduced to a fourth (40 / 4 = 10 fatigue). Does the fact that the master has massive fatigue savings on the spell have any effect on the amount of fatigue the slaves get?