Strands of Astral Power. Worth it?

[Sombre]

Why would you waste that many gems to feeblemind crappy mr 13 fire darters?

[Don_Seba]

I find it hard to disagree that if kiting out your mages to protect them works, and kiting out your mindhunter does not, something is not right.

I still find it hard to believe that out of 80 mages in your dominion, not one was detected. Come on, with odds of one single percent, it is still unlikely.

[Edited because of typos]

[Ironhawk]

Yeah something does seem amiss. Even a weak spell will get lucky and defeat high MR if cast enough times. If this spell really is being cast 80 times a turn with no results then something does appear to be wrong.

Perhaps there is a mechanic to it which we are not aware? Maybe the spell literally has no effect if you are in drain dominion? Needs testing!

[VedalkenBear]

Just FYI: With a 1% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found would be 0.4475. (0.99)^80

With a 5% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found drop to 0.0165.

I can't seem to find my rulebook ATM. I'd be more than happy to calculate values for the case at hand.

[Tuidjy]

It's on the second turn that the caster failed to detect anyone. The spell
managed one feeblemind on the turn it was cast, so it's not failing in 100% of
the cases. Of course, I have no idea whom it got, and where. It was not one of
the mages in the provinces I hit (with teleport) on the next turn.

I just did some testing in one the testing mods (the one that give both sides
a ton of X10 angels with very high MR. With penetration bonuses adding to 9 on
the caster, there is no difference on the effectiveness of the spell. I think
it is quite clear that the caster does not benefit from levels or items. And
he definitely does in mind hunting - he pops the angels much too often, if anything.

I call it a bug. Can one of the developers chime in, please?

Is Strands of Astral Power supposed to allow bonuses for the targets but not
for the caster?

[Jazzepi]

Tuidjy said:
Jazzepi, the enemy mages in my dominion range from MR 18 to 26, with the majority
at MR 20. The difference between Drain 2 and Magic 3 is 3MR. That would give
a bonus of chance of 8% (Wowsers!) for the wimpiest targets, and no appreciable
bonus for the tough ones.

Mine is a simple argument. If the spell depends on the modified magic resistance
of the target, it should depend on the modified penetration of the caster.

Oh, I agree! I still think the spell is fine as is. shouldn't it just demolish armies that have non-astral, and thus lower MR, mages?

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

One more thing. If this spell did work with spell penetration, and you equiped all the penetration items you can think of. Let's say it gives you +6, plus a natural S9 pretender used for a bless, plus the -2 MR off of Magic 3, then wouldn't you just demolish any invading army?

Just from a viewpoint of balance it doesn't sound terribly workable.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

It wouldn't demolish any invading army. It would make bringing mages in a lot harder, but then given the restrictions of the spell - high cost, dominion only, astral pearls, high research, hard to cast, negated by enough mr (even with lots of penetration items), can be stopped by whomping the caster, dispelled - well I think it deserves to be powerful.

[Tuidjy]

Lets not forget that this spell doesn't kill, it just mindblasts non-astral
mages, and feebleminds astral ones. And when it comes to feeblemind, the caster
runs the risk of getting feebleminded as well. And it is a level nine spell,
supposedly the Ultimate Evocation Spell. And it's not a cheap spell, either.

So lets see. High research, check. High price, check. High risk, check.
Effectiveness against a late game opponent with a clue? Zip, Nada, Zilch.

But hey, if everyone agrees that a spell with a brilliantly fluffy design and
that took so much programming work deserves to remain useless, so be it. As
I said, my gems are wasted already. I had just hoped that the spell may be
looked at.

------------

By the way, Magic 3 gives only -1 to MR, -2 compared to Drain 3. It makes very
little difference against the late game SC/casters, that have the HPs to laugh
at mind blast, and MR in the twenties. And SoAP does not affect armies or troops.
Hell, we are talking late game here, anyway. Let me go in that game and list
the Natural MR of my most numerous mages.

First most popular mage - MR 16
Second most popular mage - MR 18 (+5 as standard equipment, seldom +3)
Third most popular mage - MR 15 (+2 as standard equipment)
Fourth most populuar mage - MR 16
Fifth most popular mage - MR 17 (+2 as standard equipment)

This does not even include summoned SCs with MR 18, of which I may have a few :-)
Guess how many MR 13 mages I use in enemy dominion, especially without MR gear?

[Saulot]

I'll wait for KO to chime in before I start criticizing the spell, AFAIK, it could just be a bug somewhere.

Anyway, to correct the misconception (and repeat part of Tuidjy's post).

Magic 3 = -1 to MR
Drain 3 = +1 to MR