Legendary Cruelty?

[Wrana]

The conspirology squared: you look for conspirologists under your bed...

[MaxWilson]

I'll keep my eyes open and try to accumulate data. I have noticed that my Adonim keep getting heroic agility (ambidexterity, increased att/def) and heroic endurance (increased reinvig).

-Max

Edit: Heh. I guess I should say "that Adonai keep getting..."

Adonai = "my Lords", which is also the way Hebrews vocalized the name of God because they didn't want to pronounce it. Very punny in my mind and I had to share it.

[Aezeal]

I've seen thick skin once, higher protection was only on a dwarf (EA vanheim dwarfie)

I the awesome presence is indeed rare too.

[Lingchih]

Edratman said:
Would I be correct in guessing that you recently changed the nation you are playing?

Yes, I was playing the new nation of Hinnom when I first saw legendary cruelty.

I get the unequaled obesity one a lot, which is kind of cruel since I am a bit overweight myself.

[Edi]

The truly rare abilities are

• Awesome Presence (awe + leadership)
• Legendary Cruelty (fear + greater chance to cause afflictions)
• Battle Bellow (fear)
• Adept Researcher
• Undead General

Some of the more commonly seen ones:

• Valor
• Heroic Battle Prowess (attack)
• Heroic Strength
• Lightning Reflexes (defense)
• Heroic Precision
• Tough Skin (protection)
• Unequaled Obesity (strength + hitpoints + extra encumbrance)

Uncommon

• Heroic toughness (hitpoints)
• Heroic Endurance (reinvigoration)
• Heroic Agility (battle prowess + lightning reflexes + ambidexterity)
• Heroic Quickness (action points)

These are all based on what I have seen personally. In a large SP or cooperative hotseat game I consistently see all of the common and uncommon ones, with Heroic Toughness being the rarest of that lot. I see one of the rare ones in maybe 1 game out of 5 if I'm lucky. In the current cooperative hotseat game I'm playing with Kaljamaha, I have two units with the Tough Skin perk and they both have base prot around 11 or 12 (starting from 0).

Some of the more memorable heroes I have had:

• The Abysian Newt with Adept Researcher and research around 34 points per turn. My Great Warlock pretender got thoroughly schooled in the research department, he was lagging over 10 points behind easily.
• an Ulmish wolfherd (in Dom2) who had Awe(+10) by the time that SP game was done
• A Raksharaja in one of my games got Heroic Toughness and he was absolutely ridiculous, with well past 100 hitpoints
• This one is Kaljamaha's, a Raksharaja with Heroic Quickness and action points going past 40. Once he's done buffing, his boots of quickness take him on a rampage through the battlefield, leaving corpses in his wake.

[B0rsuk]

I suspect it's not tied to nation, but to unit stats instead.
My machakan sorcerers would often get heroic endurance, precision, quickness, etc. Heroic Obesity is often mentioned in context of giants (Jotuns, and now Hinnom). Warrior type commanders get strength, reflexes, obesity, toughness and other combat buffs more often.

[Randvek]

B0rsuk said:
I suspect it's not tied to nation, but to unit stats instead.
... Heroic Obesity is often mentioned in context of giants (Jotuns, and now Hinnom).

I agree. I've seen unequaled obesity on EA Agartha fairly often compared to other nations I frequently play.

[Dana]

I've also seen an ability called Third Eye, which was both increased Precision and increased Magic Resistance. I was pretty pleased. I don't recall who got it, unfortunately, other than that it was a battlemage who ended up with 25 precision or so, was kinda silly.

[Edratman]

B0rsuk said:
I suspect it's not tied to nation, but to unit stats instead.
My machakan sorcerers would often get heroic endurance, precision, quickness, etc. Heroic Obesity is often mentioned in context of giants (Jotuns, and now Hinnom). Warrior type commanders get strength, reflexes, obesity, toughness and other combat buffs more often.

I am sure that you are correct in that the traits have a distribution probability factor that is related to unit stats (somehow). That is why there appears to be a change in the set when you switch nations because there is a change in the units stats.

Edi, you also forgot Heroic Stupidity. It only appears rarely in the game because about 2 dozen of my employees have the trait and the game is rebalancing the global distribution.

[B0rsuk]

Last time I checked 'specialised' heroic abilities gave more bonus than ones that boost multiple skills. So Battle Prowess would give more attack bonus than Agility.


Some wild speculation:

The heroic ability a commander gets may be related to his actions in battle.
The only time (as far as I remember) I got Adept Researcher was with Black Duke of Ulm. It's a SC from 'epic heroes' mod. I don't like the mod, but that's not the point. If I remember correctly, the Duke attacked enemies in melee, which is quite unusual for a spellcaster. The Duke of Ulm has some magic skills in 3 or even more paths.

The following is completely ungrounded speculation. Heroic Stupidity may be granted to commanders who actually do something very stupid, such as accidentally killing lots of allies. If true, it should appear quite often on machakan/black sorcerers (it doesn't).

Perhaps some heroic abilities only seem less common because we don't know what triggers them ? Some ideas for tests:
- test a bunch of ordinary melee commanders (with and without leadership to see if it affects presence/awe like abilities; big and small thugs separately)
- test some evocation mages (I often see endurance, quickness, precision on machakans)
- test some commanders with ranged weapons like bows
- test smiting priests

I'm not familiar enough with map editing, so these tests would be too time-consuming for me.

About obscure heroic abilities: I believe pale ones get Second Eye :-).