buggy blade wind?

[Pocus]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
PDF,

Yes...I do think Ulm and Abyssia are meant to be played with eye-enhanced mages. That's how I always play them. Try that if you haven't and vive la difference!

Its rather weird to think that to have a fireball-caster mage perform correctly his job, one must pay him an air item. IMO spells like firebal, magmabolt, etc. should be somehow of use, even with unenhanced mage. A 200 gp salamander with prec 7 is an absolute waste on a battlefield, so in essence his fire-2 profeciency is only of use for rituals.

[Pocus]

Fear my awesome 380 gp Anathemant Dragon, that cant hit an elephant juste before them!

Ah, I now understand their use : they make the enemy die by laughing frantically.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Its rather weird to think that to have a fireball-caster mage perform correctly his job, one must pay him an air item. IMO spells like firebal, magmabolt, etc. should be somehow of use, even with unenhanced mage.

This is especially true when you consider the number of ways to make fire magic even less useful. Storms, mist, and cold provinces for example.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Fear my awesome 380 gp Anathemant Dragon, that cant hit an elephant juste before them!

Ah, I now understand their use : they make the enemy die by laughing frantically.

And what about a Medusa killing herself with her own Blade Wind?

[PDF]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
PDF,

Yes...I do think Ulm and Abyssia are meant to be played with eye-enhanced mages. That's how I always play them. Try that if you haven't and vive la difference!

No, I don't think they were *meant* to be weak and unbalanced *unless* you succeed in finding indy/mercs Air mages ..
I agree that they *perform better* this way, but that's very different.
What happens is that Fire and Earth magic are underpowered to their frequent (crappy) precision-based combat damage spells, and that it is counterbalanced if/when you get Air items.

[Psitticine]

Originally posted by PvK:
I think I've mentioned the following idea before and it was well-received. I tend to think the scatter should be greatly reduced, but then the chance to avoid getting hurt when it lands in the right place should probably be increased to compensate somewhat and not make ranged attacks too sure of success. The result would be:

1) It would look a lot less silly.
2) Friendly fire would be less common.*
3) If tweaked properly, even inaccurate ranged attacks would have a fair chance of having an effect, especially against dense Groups.
4) If tweaked properly, even accurate spells, and fire into a dense group, wouldn't have too certain a chance of hitting someone without a shield.

(* Friendly fire would still be bad, though - again, my only real complaint with the game is units killing their friends by firing at targets near their friends.)

PvK

I agree wtih this 100%. Increased chance of hitting a square, combined with an decreased chance of hitting someBODY in that square, would make for a lot of improvements.

Increasing spell percision can handle the first, but what would make a good mechanism for the second? Right now, shields give a form of defense roll but most armor doesn't help. Possibly all units should have a chance to defend against missiles, with that chance increased by possession of a shield? Are units assumed to be able to dodge incoming shots as is, or would that make a good addition, possibly with encumberence levels cutting it down. (I don't think size should be a factor as size is already factored in the way larger units have a larger chance of being "chosen" as the target for an incoming missile since they occupy more of a square.)

Any kind of addition should be able to be auto-calculated by the system, since editing all those units to add unique Dodge stats or some such would be undoable.

[Truper]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Fear my awesome 380 gp Anathemant Dragon, that cant hit an elephant juste before them!

Ah, I now understand their use : they make the enemy die by laughing frantically.

Well no. They make the enemy die by casting incinerate. Or they make the enemy die by summoning fire elementals. Or they make the enemy die by casting fireball - when the enemy army is large enough that the fireball is unlikely to miss. I think there's a balance issue here - if Anathements were too precise, the combination of that precision with Abysia's fire immunity would make them too powerful. Imagine a Caelum whose troops were all lightning-immune...

[Wauthan]

After a Anathemant Dragon with heroic precision appeared in my army I now agree fully with Truper. Abyssians would simply flatten everything in sight if their mages had high enough precision to back up the more powerful firespells.

That doesn't mean you should be forced to rely on the 100 precision spells. Just that you'll have to be both skilled and lucky to work around it. In the game with the Dragon I found a site that produced airmagic casters in the first province I attacked. I set them to massproduce eyes of aiming and to cast Aimx5 in battle. I quit the game after a while because it became too boring.

[SurvivalistMerc]

You don't have to be lucky enough to find enemy air mages...you can take air power on your pretender and have your pretender site search for air gems and craft eyes. Eyes only require 1 air.

For these nations, eyes of aiming are definitely worth the gems.

[Pocus]

perhaps some of us should take the burden of putting up a mod which alters by some points nearly all non-area evocation spells?

I'm unsure I can take the gauntlet though...