Vengeance of the dead, what the hell

[Baalz]

Well, yeah, as others have pointed out you need to fail a MR check for it to take effect, so would you prefer to be mind hunted? MR fail = insta death. Ah, but you can counter that by having an astral mage present...well, you can counter Vengence of the Dead with effective chaff killer stuff like a strong fire shield, trampling, the ageis... or script returning, or having access to cleansing water. There's lots of times where MR fail = you're screwed, and VotD is only terribly effective in a handful of situations.

[lch]

Kuritza said:
As for 'kill them all', he WOULD kill them all were it not the turn limit. Did you even bother reading the post?

Yep, I certainly did. Failure to kill a hundred undead before the turn limit hits you makes it sound an awful lot like your commander either does not have enough reinvigoration to never pass out from fatigue or didn't use area attacks like Fire Brand, and didn't employ what SCs usually do: passive effects like a fire shield, the aegis, or other weapons of mass destruction. And as Baalz repeated again, there are far worse things to happen after a failed MR check. Mind Hunts are only 2 astral pearls per cast, BTW.

[llamabeast]

It does sound to me though like it should be the undead who die, and not the victim if the turn limit is reached.

[Kuritza]

1) Mind comparing the research levels needed for a mind hunt + soul slay and vengeance of the dead?
2) Mind hunt is easy to counter.
3) Caelum has no way of crafting a fire brand or fire shield, and it was FAAAAR to early for Aegis. My ally was just about to make a fire brand for me ofc, next turn, but alas.
4) For aoe, my pretender had a frost brand, but of course, these undead are immune. Still, he was good enough to slay anything that went his way. My point is: its rediculous that unkillable otherwise SC dies to a lvl4 spell without a chance to defend himself just because special mobs in an assassination-type combat dont have a commander (or he is just as mindless) so routing doesnt affect them.
5)

Failure to kill a hundred undead

Not hundred. Over four hundred.


As for 'its a resistance check' - he resisted it several times in a row, but eventually any repeatable roll WILL be failed. Even despite friendly dominion, rainbow armor and an amulet of antimagic, there's nothing you can do about it.

[Tuidjy]

It's a powerful spell, that's fine. But when the turn limit expires, the
target should wake up, i.e. win. I consider this a bug. And I am scared.
My pretender in one of my games has 1073 kills. She may or may not be able
to kill them in 75 rounds. In the same game, I have a wraith lord with 247
kills. He is set up for SC hunting, and I know he cannot kill 247 targets
in 75 rounds. His MR is nothing to write home about, either.

Just make it so that they rout or dissolve at the end of the turn limit.
It's both fair and thematic.

[Gandalf Parker]

Purely on an RPG thematic argument (translation: getting Kristoffer to bug Johan about this)...
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win. If you want a thematic result to the fact that the combat ran into overtime with attackers still on the field, then toss them into a general combat as if they were attacking the province.

[Yucky]

Kuritza said:
My point is: its rediculous that unkillable otherwise SC dies to a lvl4 spell

An "unkillable SC" is ridiculous, everything should have a counter.

[Baalz]

Yeah, the thing is there is no such thing as a un-killable SC, that's the way the game is designed. Your unkillable SC could obviously fail a MR for a soul slay, or disintegrate, or be hit by another SC, or simply be banished to inferno. VotD is designed to be a SC stopper, but even still is only that effective (referring to a time limit death) if you have:
An astral + death mage
A guy who has killed hundreds of people
Who also has a low enough MR to be vulnerable (just try to cast it at an in-dominion god with a lead shield, starshine cap, and amulet of antimagic)
Who also doesn't have aoe damage that hurts undead.
Who isn't expecting it (because you've been casting it for a couple turns), and scripted something more appropriate to dealing with hoards of undead. (returning, wrathful skies, etc.)

Plus, it always targets the biggest kill count in a province, so if you start getting hit by it you only need to set up one "shield" guy, and you know who it should be.

Sure, Mind Hunt is counterable...if you have astral mages. In some situations though mind hunt can be completely devastating. Many spells are devastating if used in the right situation.

[lch]

Tuidjy said:
In the same game, I have a wraith lord with 247 kills.

He is not susceptible to Vengeance of the Dead since undeads never sleep. One of the exceptions to it, just like Mind Hunts have theirs. And since Vengeance of the Dead takes two different magic paths to cast, your enemy needs Spectres or would have to be either Ermor or Agartha, or something. And I like that they have a thematic SC-counter. Why should you have an unbeatable unit that they can't counter? In any case, important commanders should carry MR-boosting items like the amulet of antimagic before anything else.

You can even prevent your thugged out unit to get too many kills. I'm not sure about Fire Shields, but somewhat certain that the Snake Bladder Stick doesn't raise your bodycount.

[Kuritza]

1) Please do read the post and comments. His mr was high, I equipped him for it, but you are 100% likely to fail one roll eventually.
2) He was unkillable for this stupid chaff. Otherwise, he was just a very strong combatant. You can still kill him with thugs if you catch him (eye of the void to take care of his main protection, mirror image), paralyze him and swarm with F9W9 shadow vestals (its MA ermor for a reason) - same lvl4 thaumaturgy research btw, shoot him with massed nether bolts etc.
3) For a soul slay to work on him, he should end up on the same battlefield with a soulslaying mage. I used my god to finish off small parties and to harass to avoid it, successfully.
4) I had no astral caelum mages, but I could counter mind hunt with indies - lizard shamans and sorceresses, I had both.
5) Yes, it was MA Ermor, so what? Lvl4 spell killing SCs on overland map is still stupid.
6) Preventing SC God from killing too many units? Is it a joke?