Pretender Balance Mod

[Scott Hebert]

While I feel I understand the current rubric behind assigning dominion strength, that rubric is actually not conducive to game balance. I believe that the mod I am making will offer more choices for Pretender design.

As an example, let's say you're playing a nation that has access to the Lady of Fortune. If you want a 6+ Dominion and 4W/4N/4E (say) on your pretender, it is actually cheaper to take the Lady of Fortune as opposed to the Frost Father. (The Lady has 164 points left at 6 Dominion, while the Frost Father has 128.) This is with the Lady of Fortune's higher base cost _and_ much higher path cost. I don't think this was intended by the designers.

Under my mod, the costs would change as follows:

Lady of Fortune: 100 points
Increase Dominion from 2 to 6: 7+14+21+28 = 70 points.
Increase Water to 4: 8 + 16 = 24 points.
Increase Nature to 4: 8 + 16 + 24 = 48 points.
First pick in Earth: 40 points.
Increase Earth to 4: 16 + 24 + 32 = 72 points.
Total: 100 + 70 + 24 + 48 + 40 + 72 = 354 points.

Frost Father: 55 points
Increase Dominion from 4 to 6: 7 + 14 = 21 points.
Increase Water to 4: 8 + 16 + 24 = 48 points.
First pick in Nature & Earth = 20 points.
Increase Nature & Earth to 4 = 144 points.
Total: 55 + 21 + 48 + 20 + 144 = 288 points.

That's a difference of 66 points. About fair when you take into account survivability differences and the Lady of Fortune's better specials.

Note that if you take out Earth magic, the Lady of Fortune gains 112 points, but the Frost Father gains only 82 points. That means that the Frost Father, at this point, is still 36 points ahead. The Lady of Fortune can raise her paths more cheaply than the Frost Father can, while the Frost Father has cheaper Dominion increases.

In any event, this will be an ongoing work, but the start will be this.

As another way of thinking about Dominion strength... who are you more likely to follow, a Giant Overlord, or someone who was like you and is now trying for something greater? You can give the 'home court advantage' to the humans using this logic.

Then there's also the question of what is more impressive, a 2-headed Serpent that could eat you before you ran, or a mage who can look at you and turn you into any number of nasty things.

From a mechanical standpoint, I don't see the use for any of the humans, as they are right now. If you want your Dominion to be 'competitive' and you want your scales to be 'competitive', you can't afford to take a human pretender. Even the one difference in starting dominion between the humans and the Ghost King makes the Ghost King a better Rainbow than most of the humans.

This mod is for the sake of balance. Unfortunately, some of the thematic arguments will fall secondary to the primary goal, which is to even out the use of the Pretenders.