Mod: Epic Heroes Mod -Version 1.5 Released

[Turin]

You are forgetting nature 3, which you can´t get and which is a huge jump in power because it lets you access gift of health and mother oak with boosters.
Also air 3 which is very important considering it lets you forge boosters. You can get it from CMs, but the chances are only one in 160.
Additionally he gets earth 2, CMs only get earth one and earth 2 is another milestone for earth boosters.
Well and s3 as well, which is another 1 in 160 chance.

So maybe he doesn´t add a lot of diversity, but he significantly increases the maximum realistically attainable magic level of Tien´chi in 5 paths right from the start of the game. If he lost one in every magic path he would be comparable to the worthy heroes version of tien´chi´s heroes. And those are generally considered to be among the best heroes in the game.

[DrPraetorious]

I certainly wouldn't argue that Li Bo is useless. HOWEVER, if you were to take away his +1 on all paths, he'd be an EA celestial master. That's quite nice to have but hardly epic.

If you gave this guy to MA Ermor I agree, he'd be completely frickin' nuts

Put another way - most of the epic heroes are inferior pretenders. Some of them are inferior SC pretenders, some of them are inferior magic-diversity pretenders, and some of them mainly spawn troops (which more pretenders should do, IMO, some of them can but it's pretty useless.)

Li Bo, on the other hand, is an inferior rainbow pretender. If you think rainbow pretenders are backflips of better than SC or magic diversity pretenders, yeah, he's unbalanced. Otherwise he's not.

[Turin]

Ok if EA Celestial masters get a total of 10 magic picks you are right, but last I checked they get only 7 to 8, aren´t immortal and are old.

As for inferior rainbow pretender, creating him with a the cheapest rainbow chassis for the paths he has would be the frost father, which costs 255 points. Add at least another 100 for immortality, the holy levels, blessability and the low dominion a standard rainbow brings. I don´t think inferior applies here. Are any of the other heroes worth even close to 350 design points?

[DrPraetorious]

Let's compare him to the Abductor that EA Niefelheim gets in the basic game (who is also a sacred priest, so that's a wash.)

To get WWWDDDAAA off of a destroyer of worlds (a roughly equivalent chassis, and the only giant IIRC that starts with two of WDA) costs 247 points.

I think you greatly overestimate immortality - if you really think that's worth as much as 6 magic picks, strip the immortality off, but on a unit that can't actually fight, it's only a big deal because of the recuperation, and *all* the heroes get that. Also, rainbow pretenders are penalized for their flexibility by lowering their starting dom - and since Li Bo *doesn't* take paths which T'ien Ch'i doesn't already get (except for two fire) it's really unfair to penalize him in that respect.

If you really must give him fewer magic picks, give him magic picks in other categories instead of what he gets now, otherwise he's just a researcher.

Totally design points, by the way, is a much better comparison than totalling picks since, as has been pointed out, more picks in one category is generally better (up to a point) than a few picks in many categories.

[Turin]

Edit: Just noticed that Xietor has toned the tien´chi hero down reasonably, so the stuff below doesn´t really apply anymore. I´ll leave it here, because it´s fun arguing with Dr. Praet.


Umm why not use the Son of Niefel, which is actually a far better chassis than the hero in question, costs only 213 points, spawns units and has one point higher dominion than a rainbow chassis.
Considering that the abductor is probably the best hero in the base game that should tell you something about li bo.

And immortality on a high level mage hero with access to teleport spells is incredibly useful for suicide tactics like porting, summon earth power and casting rain of stones. Later on you can use him as a wrathful skies caster together with a retreating staff of storm wielder and the only thing you risk is an air booster.
He also is the bane of any SC, you can simply teleport in and then try to charm/curse/horrormark with no risk at all.

The immortality gets even better when you consider that you can easily take a high dom thug pretender, since libo covers virtually all your magic needs with the exception of death magic.

In addition Li bo gives you easy access to the following important globals, items and spells which tien´chi usually doesn´t get/would need to design a pretender for:
Mother oak
gift of health
flaming arrows
dwarven hammers
air boosters
earth boosters
treelords staff
gaia´s blessing
golem construction
army of gold

etc

[DrPraetorious]

You greatly overestimate the importance of the nature - you can summon that off of a Naiad at conjuration 5, not exactly science fiction level stuff. Those combat spells (of which you forgot arrow fend) can be cast pretty easily through a communion (except gaia's blessing) - one of the few things MA T'ien Ch'i actually can do well is build communion matrices.

Yeah, he enables MA T'ien Ch'i to cast somecool stuff which it can't otherwise do. The real question is: why can't MA T'ien Ch'i do any cool stuff?

Is it because it's a MA nation that only gets one 3, and that's in water which is easy to boost? All you've done is drive home the point that MA T'ien Ch'i can get a really good hero without unbalancing anything.

If you were concerned about his total points cost or total number of picks, you could pull off an air, drop the water entirely and he'd be much cheaper, no less powerful, but less thematic. He's a master of the way, he has to have water magic even though you don't even want it. Likewise the nature; that's more useful than the water but still hardly where you'd invest points if you were designing a T'ien Ch'i pretender. It's a small research bonus mainly included for thematic purposes, which is also why he's immortal.

[Endoperez]

How big of a research bonus did you give the Medium, Xietor? I'd like to keep my version on line with yours. Also, have you changed Monkey King any further? I didn't notice anything on that.

[Xietor]

I did not touch the monkey king, and the research bonus was a modest "researchbonus 5"

[Horst F. JENS]

Question about Man's Hero (Beowulf) summoned Allies, the Geata Stoneguards:
Those thoug guys carry a throwing axe, a shield AND a battleaxe (dam 9, length 3) into combat. Is a battleaxe with those stats not a 2-handed weapon ?
I suggest removing the shield, (or replacing it with an buckler) or giving the stoneguards a shorter weapon instead of the battleaxe.

[Xietor]

Good point on the battleaxe.

While i am not an expert on weapons from the middle ages, the fact they can wield a longer weapon in one hand is an attestment to their combat skill and strength.

I know the normal 1h weapon is length 2, and the battleaxe is length 3, and the longer weapons 4,5 , and 6.

It was not an oversight on my part, as it is specifically mentioned in their descr. that they can wield a large battleaxe in one hand. They are a hardy race of warriors, and the stoneguard are the elite of that warlike race.

I envision the throwing axes being carried in belt loops, not in their hands while traveling. And in battle, I think the battleaxe would be carried in the offhand, shield slung on their back, and throwing axe in their main hand.

In the end, it is a fantasy game, and i would not try and get too realistic.

I played defensive end in college. In my 20's(i am now old) I benched well over 400 pounds. If you put my stats on a DnD stat sheet, the str, size etc would be much greater than your average guy who never trained with weights, and was not 6'2 230 lbs. And I was not the biggest and strongest
athlete. Pro football players are commonly 6'6 350 lbs.

Many of your bigger football players are twice as strong as the average guy. In the days when the biggest and strongest guys were warriors, I do not think it is a stretch that they could carry and effectively wield a battleaxe in 1 hand that the average guy needed 2 hands to swing. Especially a length 3 weapon, where weight, not length would be the crucial factor.