Conceptual Balance Mod 1.84

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by rdonj

I'm not really sure that sidhe lords should be sidelined though due to them being able to solo PD without any gear, and tuatha sorceresses being somewhat necessary for magic levels. If you're building mostly ri then you'll have a strong force for raiding anyway, but I'm really not sure you actually need to put any gear on your sidhe for just light raiding.

I'd agree that they can solo a few points of PD without gear but I've found that things get iffy with even middling level PD. The problem being that even with an abbreviated script their post-buff fatigue makes them vulnerable (and I'm assuming an E9Nx bless for reinvigoration and some extra protection as well as regeneration). And without a vine shield to keep attackers off them they end up taking a lot of hits. Without a brand they also can't kill things quickly so the battle goes longer and they take more hits. Even if mistform holds, those 1 HP hits add up.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

CB1.9 includes a comprehensive review of items, with many being gently buffed. I think this will somewhat help thugs, and may partially counter the nerf you describe as a result of the hammer loss.

I thought my previous comment about secondary effects on weapons was kind of vague so I thought I'd explain in more detail what worries me about some of the items and perhaps about some of the other intended changes.

I ran some tests on just man's cross under the current release. In one of my previous games playing TNN I had a back-and-forth with TC. One of (many) measures he used against my thugs was equipping cheap mages with black bows of botulf and having them fire away. He ended up feebleminding some thugs with this method and effectively removed them from action. But at least in this case a hit was required for the effect to trigger. With just man's cross the secondary effect is aoe 1 so all that is needed is to hit the opponent's square. And the weapon actually has good precision so the chances of doing that are improved. And the damage is brutal at 15 AN. On average, one hit will kill a glamoured thug. If they've gotten up mistform they can take the first hit, but without mistform they'll be much more likely to die to just PD anyway. Since mistform is so important even 1 AN damage would be tough since it would dispel it - but 15 means that even adding a magic item to boost protection or regeneration to recover from a second hit likely won't matter. Also, this would be great at killing any human level HP elite/sacred troops that are used for raiding. Even raiding units with more HP like the lower end angels would be very much at risk. And this is on an item that only costs 5 gems...

It's the combination of cheap cost, high damage, armor negating damage, good precision, and always taking effect aoe 1, that seems too much to me. If it's an anti-thug/raiding weapon then it seems like it should be less powerful. If it's an anti-SC weapon then it seems like it should be more expensive.

Btw, just for fun I gave one to an NW mage (precision 10) and scripted: eagle eyes, personal quickness, attack one turn, fire. This actually worked very nicely as the mage was able to fire every turn and move forward a bit due to extra action points to continuously get closer to the target, but was still behind the PD as a buffer. The kill rate with this method was 100%.