Niefelheim Strategy for the Early Era

[Felgar]

Endoperez said:
The shapeshifting Skrattis are a new addition to Dom3.

and perhaps better armor.

Isn't it the armor they wear that allows them to shapeshift? I'll have to test it and see if new armor takes away their ability to shift forms.

[thejeff]

My thought was more to use the Neifels as troops with the full blessing. Godes would bless them and cast spells staying out of the fight, so the lesser hp and regen wouldn't be a drawback.

Since the Godes are much cheaper, you could field more Neifels for the same cost and rough effectiveness.

Essentially it seems a waste of Neifel Jarls to be fighting on the line, and they're not that effective as artillery until you're fairly high up in research. Skratti may still be more effective for that.

In dom2 at least, I'd happily send a Jarl out solo against any indies other than Knights or Heavy Cavalry, even at Indies 9. With a good bless, Luck Pendant, maybe horror Helm? Cast Quickness, Breath of Winter.
Haven't done much with them in Dom3.

[Endoperez]

Felgar said:

Isn't it the armor they wear that allows them to shapeshift? I'll have to test it and see if new armor takes away their ability to shift forms.

First, I haven't tested it but other shape-shifting creatures don't have limits with what armor they can wear. They might lose the armor they have when they change shape, but they won't lose their ability to change just from wearing strange armor. Furthermore, I think it'd have been easier to just have Skrattis not have a body slot than to program a new mechanic that'd be used just for them.


Also, my message had an annoying typo. While I hope Skrattis can make good SCs, I meant Niefel Jarls in my post. They are much tougher, have much better starting equipment, more resistances, and have better magics. Death and Blood are both quite weak in the buff spell department, but Blood Vengeance is harder to get than Soul Vortex.

[alexti]

To Felgar: you're losing Niefel Jarls because you don't have earth bless. After casting quickness and blessing you get around 30 fatigue which gives you -3 defense and as jarls attack it quickly gets worse. Even though they don't fall unconcious they're getting hit so often that you need high regeneration just to survive (and of course, it causes you moral difficulties). With Earth bless you manage your fatigue on somewhat acceptable level which means you maintain good defense and don't get hit often.

So essentially, that's lack of earth bless that causes you to go in massive armies instead of being able to send your jarls alone.

Hey all,
Good to see so many old faces still around. I have been unable to recover my old identity, hope there is np with starting a new one.


Alexti is right, fatigue is a killer for SCs, particularly when quickened.

The worst part is not the penalty to defense, but the fact that it allows for armour piercing hits (IIRC from Dom:PPP & Dom2).
30 fatigue means opponents hitting through your defense have a 30% chance of scoring an armour piercing hit...thus why the Earth bless is even more important for Niefels than the Nature one: better not suffering any damage from mundane troops than trusting your regen to make up for it.

Besides, Niefels cannot trust any longer Breath of Winter to do the killing for them, so battles take longer, and that means still more fatigue.

[Foodstamp]

Quick question about the earth bless everyone is proposing. Since he is taking nature so high, won't he have a TON of reinvigoration items he can forge for the jarls at a relatively cheap cost? Wouldn't this eliminate the need for earth being added to the bless? Also, I think two of the neifel casters get nature picks to make items with as well.

[Nerfix]

Casting Bless/Divine Bless is a lot cheaper than forging those ,mmmm, what was it, 10-15 Nature Gems items for them. And it also affects regular Niefel Giants.

[Endoperez]

Manual, page 76 lists fatique effects, and gives an example with 30 fatigue. Defence would be lowered by 3 (-1 /10 fatique), attack would be lowered by 1 (-1 /20 fatique) and if 2d6oe roll -2 (fatique/15) is lower than 2, a critical hit would be scored. 2d6oe means a simulated roll of 2 six-sided dice, with 6s added to the sum and rolled again. I won't bother to calculate how often the critical hits happen, but it's far less than 30%.

[Foodstamp]

Ah, I didn't think about the regular niefel giants

[alexti]

Wendigo_reloaded said:
Hey all,
Good to see so many old faces still around. I have been unable to recover my old identity, hope there is np with starting a new one.

Welcome back!

Wendigo_reloaded said:
Alexti is right, fatigue is a killer for SCs, particularly when quickened.

The worst part is not the penalty to defense, but the fact that it allows for armour piercing hits (IIRC from Dom:PPP & Dom2).
30 fatigue means opponents hitting through your defense have a 30% chance of scoring an armour piercing hit...thus why the Earth bless is even more important for Niefels than the Nature one: better not suffering any damage from mundane troops than trusting your regen to make up for it.

Good point about critical hits, I haven't thought about that. I think it's less than 30% at fatigue 30, but without reinvigoration fatigue will quickly get at the level where chances of critical hit will get to 30% and more.

Wendigo_reloaded said:
Besides, Niefels cannot trust any longer Breath of Winter to do the killing for them, so battles take longer, and that means still more fatigue.

But now many of them can cast Soul Vortex, which is even better