Strands of Astral Power. Worth it?

[Sombre]

It wouldn't demolish any invading army. It would make bringing mages in a lot harder, but then given the restrictions of the spell - high cost, dominion only, astral pearls, high research, hard to cast, negated by enough mr (even with lots of penetration items), can be stopped by whomping the caster, dispelled - well I think it deserves to be powerful.

[Tuidjy]

Lets not forget that this spell doesn't kill, it just mindblasts non-astral
mages, and feebleminds astral ones. And when it comes to feeblemind, the caster
runs the risk of getting feebleminded as well. And it is a level nine spell,
supposedly the Ultimate Evocation Spell. And it's not a cheap spell, either.

So lets see. High research, check. High price, check. High risk, check.
Effectiveness against a late game opponent with a clue? Zip, Nada, Zilch.

But hey, if everyone agrees that a spell with a brilliantly fluffy design and
that took so much programming work deserves to remain useless, so be it. As
I said, my gems are wasted already. I had just hoped that the spell may be
looked at.

------------

By the way, Magic 3 gives only -1 to MR, -2 compared to Drain 3. It makes very
little difference against the late game SC/casters, that have the HPs to laugh
at mind blast, and MR in the twenties. And SoAP does not affect armies or troops.
Hell, we are talking late game here, anyway. Let me go in that game and list
the Natural MR of my most numerous mages.

First most popular mage - MR 16
Second most popular mage - MR 18 (+5 as standard equipment, seldom +3)
Third most popular mage - MR 15 (+2 as standard equipment)
Fourth most populuar mage - MR 16
Fifth most popular mage - MR 17 (+2 as standard equipment)

This does not even include summoned SCs with MR 18, of which I may have a few :-)
Guess how many MR 13 mages I use in enemy dominion, especially without MR gear?

[Saulot]

I'll wait for KO to chime in before I start criticizing the spell, AFAIK, it could just be a bug somewhere.

Anyway, to correct the misconception (and repeat part of Tuidjy's post).

Magic 3 = -1 to MR
Drain 3 = +1 to MR

[Jazzepi]

What exactly does a mindblast do?

Jazzepi