Pretender Balance Mod

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
You didn't post numbers about Earth Mother with those magics versus a human pretender most suited to the task, propably some kind of a druid for initial Nature magic. Also, I would be interested to see how Nagas compare. Could you please post the differences (in points) between the three?

Certainly. I thought people were basically ignoring the numbers, so I didn't include them in the Last post. But, to be thorough:

Great Mother: 75 points
Master Druid: 55 points
Great Enchantress: 55 points
Naga: 100 points
(I include the Great Enchantress even though she isn't optimal because her ability is much better than the human average.)

Increasing Nature to 4 --

Great Mother: 8 + 16 + 24 = 48 points
Master Druid: 8 + 16 + 24 = 48 points
Great Enchantress: 10 + 16 + 24 + 32 = 82 points
Naga: 8 + 16 = 24 points

Increasing Earth to 4 --

Great Mother: 8 + 16 + 24 = 48 points
Master Druid: 10 + 16 + 24 + 32 = 82 points
Great Enchantress: 10 + 16 + 24 + 32 = 82 points
Naga: 20 + 16 + 24 + 32 = 92 points

Increasing Astral to 3 --

Great Mother: 80 + 16 + 24 = 120 points
Master Druid: 10 + 16 + 24 = 50 points
Great Enchantress: 8 + 16 = 24 points
Naga: 20 + 16 + 24 = 60 points

Totals:

Great Mother: 75 + 48 + 48 + 120 = 291 points
Master Druid: 55 + 48 + 82 + 50 = 235 points
Great Enchantress: 55 + 82 + 82 + 24 = 243 points
Naga: 100 + 24 + 92 + 60 = 276 points

This is with the Great Mother having a Dominion 2 higher than the rest. If you give them all at least a Dominion of 3 (I hope no one has a problem with this), you get:

Great Mother: 0
Master Druid: 7 + 14 = 21 points
Great Enchantress: 7 + 14 = 21 points
Naga: 7 + 14 = 21 points

So we add 21 points to each of the other chassis, for:

Great Mother: 291 points
Master Druid: 235 + 21 = 256 points
Great Enchantress: 243 + 21 = 264 points
Naga: 276 + 21 = 297 points

This is at 3 Dominion. Any increase in Dominion at this point will give the Great Mother 14 points more than the rest. Working this up a bit... at 4 Dominion:

Great Mother: 298 points
Master Druid: 277 points
Great Enchantress: 285 points
Naga: 318 points

At 5 Dominion:

Great Mother: 312 points
Master Druid: 305 points
Great Enchantress: 313 points
Naga: 346 points

Human pretenders really seem to be wrecked when going for fours... Maybe they should have their base magic sttarting from two, this would give them a chance to let them take four in atleast one path.

If you subtract 65 points from the Naga's total, you will see what giving human a 2-path does for them. (65 = 45 to drop the Naga's cost to human levels, +10 for the extra cost for the first added path, +10 for the extra cost for the second added path)

Hope this helps.

[Chris Byler]

I think these numbers demonstrate the real problem with the humanoids: low new path cost only decreases the cost to get level 1 in that path. It doesn't change the cost to get level 2, 3, 4, etc.

There was a proposal a while back to give some pretender forms a new ability: increasing the level of a magic path would cost less (or more) points. If humanoids paid only 50% of normal points to increase the level of a path, in addition to their low new path cost, they could be real magical powerhouses and have strong blessings too. (This would of course be offset by their low dominion and physical weakness, but it would make them much more interesting to play.)

Or, of course, more humanoids could start with more and/or higher level paths. Frost father water 2 air 1, master druid nature 2 earth 1, crone astral 1 death 1 nature 1, great enchantress astral 2 nature 1, great warlock fire 1 astral 1 blood 1, etc. At the same costs they have now, this would make it significantly cheaper to get to higher levels of magic in those paths, while also making them more different from each other by having preferred paths. This would tend to encourage a 2-3 paths at level 4-6 humanoid rather than a 5-7 paths at level 2-3 one - although you would still be able to do either.

[PvK]

Seems like that might be a good idea (altering the base path costs by a factor, and then giving that sort of factor as an advantage to pretenders like the humans).

I'll be interested to hear the opinions of folks who have played humanoids and rainbows successfully as to whether they think this could be unbalanced for strong RB/human players.

PvK

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Or, of course, more humanoids could start with more and/or higher level paths. Frost father water 2 air 1, master druid nature 2 earth 1, crone astral 1 death 1 nature 1, great enchantress astral 2 nature 1, great warlock fire 1 astral 1 blood 1, etc. At the same costs they have now, this would make it significantly cheaper to get to higher levels of magic in those paths, while also making them more different from each other by having preferred paths. This would tend to encourage a 2-3 paths at level 4-6 humanoid rather than a 5-7 paths at level 2-3 one - although you would still be able to do either.

That's what I say.

Hey, why don't I do it?
Well, let's see if I find the time to do the mod.
(doesn't look good. I'm in the midst of doing a 'scenario', catched a cold lately and have some deadlines to cope with in RL)

A.

[Sheap]

I think if you were to give a few of the various humanoids several natural paths and a high (60-80) path cost this could help solve the problem with lack of diversity among human pretenders.

Right now they are all used as rainbow mages, and one rainbow mage is much like another. Making some of them ineffective in that role, for instance giving the druid 2 points in all four sorcery paths and prohibitive path cost with elements (just an example) would make a powerful multi role mage with a good potential blessing (maybe even dual 9s) which is still not a rainbow mage.

Such creatures would still be weak in combat and (unless used with a nation that has excellent blessability) probably worse than regular rainbow mages at more or less everything. But at least there would be some diversity.

I have decided to take it upon myself to do a minor Mod (I'm still working on the Spell Ref Liga! No worries).

Look for it later tonight with Pretender modifications.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by PvK:
Seems like that might be a good idea (altering the base path costs by a factor, and then giving that sort of factor as an advantage to pretenders like the humans).

I'll be interested to hear the opinions of folks who have played humanoids and rainbows successfully as to whether they think this could be unbalanced for strong RB/human players.

I had thought the idea Chris mentioned was interesting as well and was thinking about bringing it up, so thanks for saving me the effort, Chris!

I'm not an expert on the balance issues, but I have done some calculations on what you could do with cheaper costs per point.

Let's assume the Crone, with 10/point initial paths, no starting magic. Costs listed are just for the magic paths, and don't include the initial Crone cost (25) or dominion increases, etc.

At standard 8pts/level:
One path to L2: 26
7 paths to L2: 182
8 paths to L2: 208

One path to L4: 82
3 paths to L4: 246
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 376
7 paths to L4: 574
8 paths to L4: 656

One path to L8: 290
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 372
2 paths to L8: 580
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 662

At 7pts/level:
One path to L2: 24
7 paths to L2: 168
8 paths to L2: 192

One path to L4: 73
3 paths to L4: 219
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 339
7 paths to L4: 511
8 paths to L4: 584

One path to L8: 255
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 328
2 paths to L8: 510
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 583

At 6pts/level:
One path to L2: 22
7 paths to L2: 154
8 paths to L2: 176

One path to L4: 64
3 paths to L4: 192
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 302
7 paths to L4: 448
8 paths to L4: 512

One path to L8: 220
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 284
2 paths to L8: 440
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 504

At 5pts/level:
One path to L2: 20
7 paths to L2: 140
8 paths to L2: 160

One path to L4: 55
3 paths to L4: 165
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 265
7 paths to L4: 385
8 paths to L4: 440

One path to L8: 185
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 240
2 paths to L8: 370
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 425

At 4pts/level:
One path to L2: 18
7 paths to L2: 126
8 paths to L2: 144

One path to L4: 46
3 paths to L4: 138
5 L2, 3 L4 paths: 228
7 paths to L4: 322
8 paths to L4: 368

One path to L8: 150
1 L8, 1 L4 path: 196
2 paths to L8: 300
2 L8, 1 L4 paths: 346

Overall, it seems to me that 7pts/level wouldn't be an unreasonable boost for the human pretenders. Maybe 6pts/level might work, particularly if it was offset with a larger new-path startup cost. Anything below 6pts/level IMHO seems like it could be very unbalancing.