Warrior Pretender

[Sombre]

There are loads of ways to make him balanced. For one thing, there's no such thing as 'size 2 hp' really. He said he wanted a D&D style warrior. High level fighters in D&D are obscenely hard to kill - even completely naked it would take a large number of regular soldiers with decent weapons to take them down and it would take a long time. It's a fantasy game after all.

[BigDaddy]

Here's the mounted (size 3) version. And, yes, he will die if you send him alone into knights and heavy infantry. Thank you Sombre.

I was going to go with awe and regen and 75hp but he was too strong. I was thinking recuperation, but, even still he's pretty much too strong to have on turn 1.

He's wearing for black steel, has 18 attack, 20 defense, and 50 hp. He has javelins, a lance, and 2 swords of swiftness for 4 magic attacks at normal warrior pace (it does, however result in him having defense 36 rather than 32, if he had the same sword with 4 attacks rather than 2 with 2 attacks... it also has the effect of keeping his final attack score down to 19).

He can take (solo) knight provinces that aren't too large, so I made him cost 150.

If I took him down to 15 and 17 he would have to gain some levels to get to were he is now... he seems too tough, and I'm sure he could a dragon as long as he didn't get hit.

[BigDaddy]

dbl post sorry.

[Belac]

Rather than Awe, I would give him Fear. Units with Awe are generally really special; Fear is more common with units that are just extra-badass, like this guy seems.

[BigDaddy]

He creates fear by killing, and if you want fear you need to give him 5 death. If you want awe you need to give him 9 dominion.

I don't think I need to add that stuff unless I nerf him... because he can take most provinces on tgrn1 with a starting army... even set on 9... so I think he might be way too strong... because a dragon cannot do that... even if a dragon has a good chance of killing him 1 on 1.

Thanks for the input though. 30 protection would certainly have been overkill.

[Tollund]

A cyclops gets fear, earth 3, full slots, fire immunity more hitpoints, and a starting dominion of 2 for 25 points less. Dragons are just as good at expanding and are 100 points less. His good base stats aren't as important as if he had full slots available, since it's not really possible to take advantage of them.

[BigDaddy]

Well, I was thinking it would follow that he could be cursed and recuperating... or even horror marked too.

I think a pretender that can take a province, solo, reliably, on turn 1, even on independents 9, should be expensive bases just on that fact alone. VQ can't do that until like turn 3.

But, maybe you are right in that his slot selection nerf would warrant a large reduction in cost, or I should just give him his slots back.

??

[Tollund]

Wyrms, cyclops, dragons, great bulls, virtues, etc. can all take provinces without any research or equipment. Not every one of them can take every kind of province. The vampire queen is hideously overpriced because of her immortality. A lich is actually cheaper and not much worse once you give them the same equipment that a VQ needs.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

I think a pretender that can take a province, solo, reliably, on turn 1, even on independents 9, should be expensive bases just on that fact alone. VQ can't do that until like turn 3.

You mean like a naked Wyrm with Dom 9? Who has 180hp, crazy regen, fear, PR100, 2 attacks, and with the awe from dom 9 can expand blind on turn 1 with virtually no chance of losing. 50pt chassis. (Note that bonus hp from dominion are a percentage of base hp, so the wyrm gets boatloads of hp from being in friendly dominion, and regen scales as a percentage of hp as well...) Oh yeah, and its new path cost is only 50, and it starts with Dom 3.

You have to give out something competitive with that to justify even 50pts.

VQs just suck as early expanders, and aren't worth comparing such a pretender to. In addition to being horribly overcosted in vanilla (and arguably still overcosted in CBM), they are a rainbow pretender who can SC by midgame, not an early SC.

[BigDaddy]

Really? That overpriced? Did you try him?