Strange horror behaviour (likely bug)

[NickW]

Nerfix said:
The patch didn't mention of the spells being fixed. Did it work? O_o

Yeah it worked. I was playing Suaromatia and I'd run across a site that let me recruit S3 mages. So I'd recruited a bunch of them, equipped them with whips of command and the astral boosting hats, and was using them to zip groups of 35 troops from my capital directly to the front lines of my expansion. 35 troops doesn't sound like much, but it can be a big impact when it's 35 hydras suddenly showing up

[mivayan]

alexti said:

It's not much of a restriction on SCs. They aren't really bothered much by those attacks (unless they get morphed into something else, of course). Scripting is pretty much the same (whether for horror or for planned batle) anyway. Supporting battlemages are in worse position, because their scripts designed to support an army with powerful spells don't work so well vs horrors.

The bugged hunter of heroes attacks isn't much of a restriction on SCs? It's an assassination. Your unit goes first, then usually dies.

Or are you talking about normal horror marks?

[Meglobob]

2nd year, my pretender blue dragon got attacked by the hunter of heros, slain in 1 hit.

Hall of heros, contains 10/15 dead heros/pretenders by the 2nd game yr...the hunter of heros as been busy...erm...not what I would call in any way balanced.

Game destroyer/wrecker would be my words...

[alexti]

mivayan said:
The bugged hunter of heroes attacks isn't much of a restriction on SCs? It's an assassination. Your unit goes first, then usually dies.

I didn't notice SC having much difficulty in slaying Hunter of Heroes - it has rather mediocre stats by SC standards. I imagine you face the risk of failing MR roll if you're attacked before you can put MR items or spells on your SC. But considering that the time frame between getting into HoF and getting MR items is small and that early your SC is probably your pretender (with MR 18) overall chances of your SC getting killed are pretty low. I'm not considering a risk of getting morphed here (nobody else has seen it, so I suppose it's pretty rare occurence).

HoF full of slained heroes is usually a result of battlemages or early thugs quickly getting into HoF and they stand little chance vs HoH.

[biekert]

Man, the Hunter of Heroes is a bloodthirsty chap in 3.01... he attacks a hero every 3-4 turns!

[mivayan]

Year 8, early winter. I'm playing LA ermor vs AIs. My duskelder SC got attacked by a hunter of heroes (because of the bug in dominions 3.01).

Wormfeast the dusk elder
current hp 35 from previous life draining, max hp 30, prot 18 morale 20 MR 21 enc 0 fat 0 str 20 att 13 def 28 prec 16

These stats include the underwater penalty.
5 of the def is parry. then +3 att/def after round 1 quickness.
Magic W2 D3.

weapon is built-in life drain. items: Charcoal shield, helm of horrors, chainmail of displacement, boots of giant strength, pendant of luck, amulet of antimagic.

Rarku the hunter of heroes
hp 92 prot 25 morale 30 mr 20 enc 0 fat 0
str 17 att 20 def 20 prec 15
Fear +15.

Attacks: (attack/defence/length)
1x Consume soul. Damage: Death (0/0/0). MR negates.
1x Astral fetters, Damage: Special (0/0/0).
2x Astral Hooks, Damage -5, nbr of attacks 3, (0/0/0). Horror mark.
2x Life drain, Damage 0 (AP, life drain). (0,0,0).
1x Curse luck. Damage: special. AoE 1. (0,0,4). MR negates.
All these are magic weapons.

Round 1: My SC cast quickness. enemy attacks, gains +4 hp somehow, but my SC hasn't lost any hp or fatigue.
Round 2: My SC cast soul vortex (61 fatigue now). Enemy attacks, gains +9 hp, my SC loses 11 hp and gets a horror mark.
Round 3: My SC rounts in fear, with 24 hp remaining. And auto-dies.

Maybe i'd had a chance... but I lose 16 def from his attacks before the two life drain attacks, so need like 36 def to dodge those half the time.

[Shovah32]

In another thread i lsited what happened to my SC, it was a titan chassis (200ish health) with enough reinvig to keep him goings for good, a mirror image (air lvl 11) that took up 9 squares, mistform, around 6 high strength attacks, great def, good prot, 18 mr.
Went down after a few rounds of combat with this guy (getting severely horror marked in the process)

[Graeme Dice]

I believe that the hunter of heroes has an area of effect attack or two, and those cannot be dodged. Mistform wouldn't have helped, as most of the horrors attacks are magical, and a MR of only 18 means that 5% of the instant death attacks are going to succeed.

[Cainehill]

Gee, wonder why people are coming up with HoH nerf patches. If age patches were easier, I expect those would be there too.

[Twan]

This bug at least showed how the doom horrors are overpowered (able to kill not only an unlucky, or weak SC but any pretender even well geared, in a high dominion province and with bodyguards and a duel script). I probably continue to use a nerf horrors mod (with a smaller but general nerf like all doom/unique horrors = normal horrors with a little more hp) after the bug is fixed, and will prefer to play mp games using this kind of mod. I can't see the interest of these "bad luck you are dead" creatures in what is supposed to be a strategy game (and especially when horror mark is not an high level spell), even if they have 0,0001% chance of attacking someone (what is worse strategy wise than several %, who wants extremely random game-breaking events ?).