Death and Magic

[Endoperez]

Frostmourne27 said:
A question in a similar vein, what happens to global enchantemnts an imortal/twiceborn unit casts if it 'dies'? Do you count as having died? I assume so, since they show as death in the hall of fame, but...

At least for immortality, the globals stay up. It'd make sense if the same was true for Twiceborn, but I haven't tested it.

[Psientist]

Well, it's not 1 level per death. I had an archmage pretender with S5 B5 D4 or thereabouts, and the first time he was killed / brought back he turned into S1B2. OUCH.

I wonder if there is a minor bug... that if during the process of being killed, the last turn perhaps, an affliction like "mute" can appear and cut the magic levels down in half, and those afflicted levels become "permenant" even though the affliction itself does not (the archmage was affliction-free upon call-backage).

In another recent MP game, one of the other players had a similar situation where magic levels were dropped down to 1s. I tell ya, in an MP game that is a SERIOUS handicap and death penalty.

[Endoperez]

Psientist said:
Well, it's not 1 level per death. I had an archmage pretender with S5 B5 D4 or thereabouts, and the first time he was killed / brought back he turned into S1B2. OUCH.

I wonder if there is a minor bug... that if during the process of being killed, the last turn perhaps, an affliction like "mute" can appear and cut the magic levels down in half, and those afflicted levels become "permenant" even though the affliction itself does not (the archmage was affliction-free upon call-backage).

In another recent MP game, one of the other players had a similar situation where magic levels were dropped down to 1s. I tell ya, in an MP game that is a SERIOUS handicap and death penalty.

Any details about this? This is a serious bug. I don't even remember reading anything about it in the bug thread. Scary, especially for rainbows!

[Shovah32]

Perhaps that drop in magic could be due to him picking up the mute affliction on being called back? It wouldn't completely fit Psientists scenario but its the closest thing I can think of.

[Psientist]

OK, here are the specifics since we seem to have interest. I apparently misremembered the details, but this example is every bit as scary.

Below is the "before" picture, the default pretender god I created for this MP game for this early-age Mictlan nation. The magics might have even been higher if I had done any empowerment, but not by much. The Pretender is one from my Mytheology mod; it has Recuperation (but not immortality). The regeneration is just from the Nature magic. Note, the exact same problem happened in another MP game, where one of the other players with the default Dagon pretender went from many-to-none, so it's not due to my mod.

[Psientist]

Ignore the HP and experience stats, the before picture was taken from starting a new game and reloading that pretender file.

Here is the "after" picture. Goodbye rainbow mage! Note the absence of afflictions. Also note, this is AFTER I re-empowered my Pretender back up to Blood 3... sorry, the game goes on and I didn't think to screen capture it right away. So, after death and recall, Myturtalitl had S1B2. It would appear the penalty is TWO levels in every path per death. It really penalizes rainbow mages alot then.



Geez, it's like a 10-step process to add images in this forum.

[Psientist]

This penalty seems a little unbalanced, if it deletes 2 of each and every magic path upon death. For example, a dormant Dagon could start with one of the following magic level combos:
1. W10
2. F2A2W2E2S2D2N2

Upon death and recall, the returned pretender would have:
1. W8
2. nothing

The "new path" cost will make this even more painful for most pretenders who have more expensive requirements to "rainbow" or just diversify.

IMO, I think there should be a maximum number of levels that get removed upon death/recall... because having figured this out, it DEFINITELY will change how I play and set up my future pretenders. I doubt that was the intent of the devs.