Malazan Mod concept

[PDF]

Originally posted by PhilD:
This looks like the blueprints for a very powerful nation - between high-morale Infantry, flexible mages, and strong specialized assassin-mages, plus a tailor-made Assassin pretender, I'm afraid you'll have trouble balancing the thing...

Well that'll be just a cross between Abysia, Arco and Pythium... For once we'll get a more powerful nation than those !

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
The Malazan Empire will have to be powerful in order to be faithful to the concept. It has, after all, conquered 2 continents, and was working on a third at the beginning of the Gardens of the Moon. It should, IMO, be right up there with Pythium in relative strenght.

OK (still reading book 2 - which is much easier to get into than book 1; have ordered the rest from Amazon...)...

You have to think big. Clearly, the Malazan empire has just been bashing some indie provinces, and has not yet encountered real opposition, by the start of Gardens of the Moon.

[Teraswaerto]

Lots of random picks are more powerful than lots of picks in predetermined paths, so you probably should make the High Mages more expensive than the mere number of magic picks would suggest.

Maybe you could set the mod in the time before Laseen's rule (and before Dancer and Kellanved gained mastery over the T'lan Imass too, since including them would make the mod pretty impossible to balance). Dancer and Surly could be in as assassin-mage heroes, Kellanved as a high mage hero and Dassem Ultor as a warrior hero. This would avoid any issues with the Hounds of Shadow, since they wouldn't be active yet.

Just some ideas.

[Wauthan]

I don't see why you couldn't tone the power down a bit and thus get full use of all the units you want. Perhaps this is a Malazan expedition outpost sent from their homeworld? Thus they would have to rely on the skill of the "natives" and be slightly worse than they are on their home turf. Perhaps the local setting works against them as well? There are a bunch of godlings walking about in the neighbouring empires after all. Perhaps something very dramatic happened which explains the presence of the pretender god in their empire?

[Murph]

Well, in the books the Malazan armies do most of their best work when cut off from supplies, reinforcements or aid. One reason I thought that the whole Book of the Fallen would apply well to Dominions is because there ARE pretender, or aspiring gods wandering all over the place. Bloody books are crawling with Ascendent meddlers, which is pretty much the same thing.

When you add in the fact that Ascendents in the books can empower priests and their warrens can be used in sorcery, it does draw a lot of parallels.

I'm not sure about setting them pre-Laseen, though. I wanted my heroes to be Dujek, Whiskeyjack, Tayschrenn and maybe Coltaine. So many to choose from, really. But I don't want to create a munchkin nation, this is not my purpose, and I don't want to cc another nation. I'd like to get something that plays differently, and requires different strategies.

So, tone-down and still use what I want. OK, heavy-medium infantry, but not high morale. I'm going to use standards, though, although they will be expensive. No astral for the mages, and increase their cost by one step from the true number of picks they get. Assassins still, but uber-pricey, much like Machacka assassins.

I'll start testing this week, when I finish moving. Thanks for the continued feedback.