I am sure this issue has been thrashed about here, so forgive me if I am reviving a tired topic. Nonetheless, it is extremely frustrating for me to play Arco or Marveni in the Demo, as it was extremely frustrating for me to play human nations in Dom II due to the extremely low hit points of their commanders. And after seeing my super-kitted Arco hero Pathos getting one-shotted by a Mind Blast (and he had like 24 MR due to the MR trinket, Solaris Helm, and the MR increasing battlefield spell), I've had it.
The fundamental problem is this: the hit points for the human commander are so low (usually 10-15) that he is constantly menaced by the possibility of getting one-shotted--even by low quality units--and this makes the possibility of turning him into thug a problematic endeavor, to put it charitably. Absent turning him into a prophet or acquiring hit points increasing heroic skills such as Toughness or Unequaled Obesity (I believe these two are the only ones), a human commander will typically have less than 15 hit points. Compared to the durability of a Niefel Jarl or a Basalt King or a Dai Oni, you can see there is a serious imbalance.
Now, I understand that it is unrealistic for humans to approach the hit points of these giant-sized creatures; and that is not what I am asking. But surely, there is a way to slightly increase human commander hit points across the board so that the one-shot phenomenon unique it can be mitigated? It seems to make sense both gameplay-wise and context wise, given Dom III's fantasy-like setting. (Yes, Dom III is not an RPG, but it has an RPG element, and the current system where the commanders/heroes are only some 10-30 percent stronger than the base units that they are modeled on seems a bit out of whack.)
So I think a reasonable solution would be to double the base hit points of the human commanders; say, if an average human soldier has 10 hit points, why not 20 hit points for a human commander? In conjunction with something like 1 hit-point or 2 hit-point increase per experience level, this would enable a fairly experienced human commander to approach 25-30 hit points, which seems more reasonable.
Would this unbalance the game? I don't think so, if the human commanders would cost slightly more. While this may concededly be a serious adjustment in the game mechanics, I do not think it would unbalance the game in a way that would require other serious adjustments. Am I off on this? Or is this simply a dead horse topic?
The problem of low hit points on humans
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