The problem of low hit points on humans

[Forrest]

A little common sense please!

If I want to play giants I play giants. If I want to play munchkins I play munchkins. If I want sea I don't play land.

Each makes for a totaly different playing style. That is what makes this game great.

If you want a mighty commander than give him toys. If you don't like the toys then you can mod some. What more do you want?

[Turin]

I don´t think anyone wants humans to be giants. The problem is simply that most human thuggie heroes are practically basic commanders with a trivial stat increase.

Take marius lorca for example:
Unmodded he is an 80gp Emerald lod with +1 hp +1 str +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale, + 2 ap and one less encumbrance.
A recruitable emerald lord with 2 stars of experience is a better fighter than marius, who is supposed to be a living legend.

Shouldn´t a living legend excel the run of the mill recruitables a little bit?

[Hullu]

One thing popped to mind.

If it's 'unrealistic' or whatever that human heroes have more hp.

How is it not unrealistic if they get it from a heroic ability?

Why can't our HEROES have more than average hp, if our HEROES can?

[Action]

Hullu said:
One thing popped to mind.

If it's 'unrealistic' or whatever that human heroes have more hp.

How is it not unrealistic if they get it from a heroic ability?

Why can't our HEROES have more than average hp, if our HEROES can?

Yah, this is the point I get stuck on too.

An Emerald Lord or something who gets unequaled obesity or the other HP boosting heroic ability and hangs around in the hall of fame for a while can gain a decent cushion of HP and will indeed survive hits that would kill a normal man.

If he can do it, why can't some of the national heroes do it? Why is it that the only way to get that HP up is via a random ability?

[PvK]

Action said:

Yah, this is the point I get stuck on too.

An Emerald Lord or something who gets unequaled obesity or the other HP boosting heroic ability and hangs around in the hall of fame for a while can gain a decent cushion of HP and will indeed survive hits that would kill a normal man.

If he can do it, why can't some of the national heroes do it? Why is it that the only way to get that HP up is via a random ability?

Other, non-random, ways are Prophetizing and Wish.
Heroic abilities are a bit exaggerated, especially when some of them get to high levels. People with high heroic abilities are more like the characters some people are wanting to see. I prefer to get legendary Defense skill to legendary ability to not die when butchered (i.e. Hit Points), personally. I agree that it's too bad it requires the attention of the gods who oversee the Hall of Fame to get them, and that they are a bit much in some cases. I'd like to see more minor abilities, and a different way to earn them besides the HoF.

[PvK]

Turin said:
I don´t think anyone wants humans to be giants. The problem is simply that most human thuggie heroes are practically basic commanders with a trivial stat increase.

Take marius lorca for example:
Unmodded he is an 80gp Emerald lod with +1 hp +1 str +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale, + 2 ap and one less encumbrance.
A recruitable emerald lord with 2 stars of experience is a better fighter than marius, who is supposed to be a living legend.

Shouldn´t a living legend excel the run of the mill recruitables a little bit?

Yes, you're basically right - The way it currently works, many of the randomly-arriving heroes are just above-average and slightly unique. They only live up to their descriptions if they survive to get experience and items and/or heroic abilities or are made prophets or whatever.

I don't really see that as a big problem, though I think they could be several levels better in abilities like fighting skills without breaking balance. On the other hand, if the mundane heroes were to be given boosts so that they arrived much better than average commanders, I'd miss having the kind of heroes we have now - the "hero material" guys. Though those could be added too as regenerating heroes for all nations. Especially now that we can mod two types of those in for every nation...

As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective. Vanheim's Vanlade is even less impressive compared to typical Vans (he's about the same), though again, mounted Vans are some of the best mounter human combat commanders (and they have magic too).

PvK

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective.

Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.

Marius Lorca is impossibly skilled - unfortunately, that doesn't help him to survive in battles. Not much. He'd need expensive equipment, and could still easily die. He'd be easy to kill as well, if he did survive to become enough of a threat.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, Marius Lorca is a hero, but lets talk Emerald Lord (who is nearly as bad-***.)

The emerald lord costs *80 gold*.

That's roughly equivalent to a four or five gem summoned monster. The emerald lord, on average, smacks a wyvern like a red-headed stepchild. So, the emerald lord doesn't need more than 15 hit points - if he had 25, he'd beat the wyvern almost every time, which would be unfair.

Now, it's true, the niefel lord is a *way* better chassis than he is. This is why the niefel lord costs six times as much.

So, I'd agree that -
Mantle of Life (Constr 6, NNEE) - Body Prot 13, +20 hp.
Blood Vigor Charm (Constr 4, BB) - +10 hp. That's 1 hit point per blood slave.
Equinox (Constr 8, AAAANNN) - Sword, poisonous, does lightning damage, resist poison and lightning, +30 hit points.
etc. would be fair and reasonable.

[PvK]

That explanation makes it clearer what you were suggesting, Uh-Nu-Buh, and it sounds quite reasonable to me when explained that way.

[HoneyBadger]

Rather than argue for or against humans with more/less hp, I thought I'd put forth an alternative system for dealing with hp. because I enjoy designing role-playing and game elements better than I do arguing about them (which I end up doing a lot anyway ) I'm not sure what the copyright laws have to say about things posted to this forum, but to the extent the forum rules and the law allows, I'd like to retain the rights to the following:

Size: expanded, 1-12
hp: based on levels of size, each unit recieves 1-12 hp per size level. This means that a Hoburg unit (for instance, not taking into account any rebalancing necessary with size increase) can have between 1 and 12 hp. Very weak Hoburg children have 1 hp, while mighty Hoburg warriors with mutant genes and adamantium bones have 12. The same thing applies to size 12 titans, except that with every increase in size level, the unit gains a minimum hp base of their size PLUS the minimum hp they could otherwise have, thus size 12 titans have between 24 and 144 hp, while size 2 humans would have between 4 and 24 hp. and size 1 hoburgs actually have between 2 and 12 hp, despite what I just said in the above example. In addition:
Commanders, not because of their own personal, physical body, whether they're Alexander the Great, Ajax, Hercules, or Napoleon, but because of A: their status on the battlefield, B: the unseen but present national network of support they gain by being commanders-better equipment, better food, better triage, all that stuff, and C: because they are better able to both understand and to determine their place on the battlefield, have double hp. Example: a human commander could have between 6 and 48 hp.
This system allows for a wide range of variation between the very weak and the very strong up to heroic levels, allowing an extremely mighty buff human to go "toe-to-toe" with an extremely weak, scrawny, out of shape, but still size 12 titan, atleast in terms of HP. The greater size variation is there for personal preference, and to add a greater range of sizes for purposes of demonstrating that there's a big difference between what is very small and what is very large aka scale. Also, it helps this system cope, in terms of sheer numbers of hp and gradiants of size, with both a wide range of hps in the game and a wide range of units, and the effect they would have on a battlefield. Lastly, it enables the general advice that most races in the game have members which will vary in size by 1 level. Thus you can have humans from size 1 (Verne Troyer) to size 3 (Andre the Giant) and heroic abilities/disabilities could raise or lower size by a step without being unrealistic.

As far as legality goes, if Illwinter wants to use this system in Dominions, they are more than welcome to, and I'd probably be open to others using it as well. I just would appreciate it not blatantly being stolen, since it is something I came up with a long time ago, for my own gaming purposes, and am rather proud of. If you want to use it, feel free to let me know, (and I really have no problem with anyone using it as long as they don't plan to publish it, or plan to publish it without my name on it, and once again Illwinter/Dominions is free to use it regardless) and we'll talk about it. Thanks!

Edited because the first time through I didn't really understand the rule I was espousing, but now I think I do.