Exalted Mod

[Scott Hebert]

While an interesting idea, Tris, I need to have Blood magic for summoning Demons. Alternatively, I can make the Demons like the Tien Chi national summons, and do what you suggest... but I don't think I like 'bloodhunting' for Solars.

BTW, is there anything to prevent you from having spells that do the exact same thing (say, summon the same unit), and simply make it different reqs? I mean, the Exalted have the means to bind demons through Sorcery, but anyone can use Blood magic to summon those same demons...

Preliminary tests with the Solar end of the mod have some interesting results. Night Castes are excellent Assassins... unless they go up against HC/Knight Commanders. Caveat Emptor. As for the rest, the Dawn has severe fatigue problems, the Zenith runs around with the troops, and the Eclipse is being overlooked. The Twilight stands out as the best, but they're your only really good researchers.

It doesn't seem nearly as 'broken' as the stats might suggest... that, or I don't know how to make SCs (or when).

Scott

[PvK]

You can't currently duplicate spells - only change the requirements of existing spells. But you can make a spell become a national spell, which sounds like it might accomplish what you want.

PvK

[Tris]

Hmmm...

Ok more ideas:

The blood was supposed to represent a thorough search through the populace to root out Solars. You find lots of people, check, and find 1 is a Solar.

If every Solar is a lvl 1 priest (at least) they should all have a lvl 1 priest spell called "Spend Essence" which allows them to recover all/some fatigue. Would solve Dawn problem.

Daiklaives (sp?) :

Make a large number of named Indy commanders, to be placed randomly. Each has a single powerful item. When you conquer the province, your Exalted will have a chance of finding an ancient weapon, perhaps from a past life.

[Scott Hebert]

PvK, thanks for the info. Most of these would have to be national spells, but I'll work on it.

Originally posted by Tris:
Hmmm...

Ok more ideas:

The blood was supposed to represent a thorough search through the populace to root out Solars. You find lots of people, check, and find 1 is a Solar.

Right, but that's not exactly how it works. Besides, I don't want the Solars to have Blood magic. That's the province of the Abyssals and the Infernals.

If every Solar is a lvl 1 priest (at least) they should all have a lvl 1 priest spell called "Spend Essence" which allows them to recover all/some fatigue. Would solve Dawn problem.

Very similar to what my twin has come up with. It would be a FS national spell, since all Solars have at least FS. BTW, I should mention that my brother is doing quite a lot of playtesting and making balance suggestions for this mod. Don't think I'm doing all of this by myself.

Daiklaives (sp?) :

Lose the second i, and you're fine.

Make a large number of named Indy commanders, to be placed randomly. Each has a single powerful item. When you conquer the province, your Exalted will have a chance of finding an ancient weapon, perhaps from a past life.

I could do that, but I'm not sure how. You can't mod magic items at all right now. I can make daiklaves and such 'normal' equipment, and make them the base equipment of the Exalted... but that'd make them a little too powerful.

Ah well. Must work within current restraints. I almost have the Terrestrials done.

Scott

[Jurri]

Another thought:

If you are limiting sacred status to Exalted only, Battle Aura could be implemented through bless. Then just mod the pretenders to acquire the correct bless effect and you are ready to go! Fear, berserk, flame weapons, etc. All appropriate.


Concerning Lunars:

It could be cool to mod, say, 4 or five shapeshifts to the Lunar Exalted. Either just different skinshifters, or even better, a cycle similar to lamias, but longer. To elaborate, when your initial Lunar commander dies, it changes to, say, a wolf. Then when this wolf dies it changes to a bear. And so on. This would give a dramatic twist to battles, as the Exalted changes form time after time.

Dunno if that's even doable, don't have the documentation at hand right now, but it would be cool if it would.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
...

quote:

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Make a large number of named Indy commanders, to be placed randomly. Each has a single powerful item. When you conquer the province, your Exalted will have a chance of finding an ancient weapon, perhaps from a past life.

I could do that, but I'm not sure how. You can't mod magic items at all right now. I can make daiklaves and such 'normal' equipment, and make them the base equipment of the Exalted... but that'd make them a little too powerful.

Ah well. Must work within current restraints. I almost have the Terrestrials done.

---

You can't currently create new types of magic items that can be looted, but you can create weapons which can't be looted.

You can place lootable magic items on independent commanders if you are creating or modding a specific map.

PvK

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Jurri:
If you are limiting sacred status to Exalted only, Battle Aura could be implemented through bless. Then just mod the pretenders to acquire the correct bless effect and you are ready to go! Fear, berserk, flame weapons, etc. All appropriate.

By Battle Aura, are you referring to the different Exalted's anima banner, and their Caste effects?

Incidentally, I think the Exalted are going to be the only 'Sacred troop', but there will be priests, and of course they will be Sacred as well.

Concerning Lunars:

It could be cool to mod, say, 4 or five shapeshifts to the Lunar Exalted. Either just different skinshifters, or even better, a cycle similar to lamias, but longer. To elaborate, when your initial Lunar commander dies, it changes to, say, a wolf. Then when this wolf dies it changes to a bear. And so on. This would give a dramatic twist to battles, as the Exalted changes form time after time.

Dunno if that's even doable, don't have the documentation at hand right now, but it would be cool if it would.

If I knew I could mod the Lunars to be able to change shape, I'd do something like that, but I'm not sure if it's possible. Lunars are fully intended to be the be-all, end-all SCs for the game, though. When you get stuck with nothing but Barbarian troops for nat'l troops, it's really going to depend on the commanders.

Scott

[Jurri]

Animas, exactly...

On second thought they are better implemented through various other means, as they really are quite diverse. For Dawn, awe and/or fear, for Zenith a weapon that destroys undead, for Night glamour, etc.

You could do the Lunars by doing them over Machaka, this would allow you, what, 4 shapechanging commanders. Just overwrite Sorcerer, Soreress and the spider riders with Lunars (without using the #clear command) and their other forms (riderless spiders) with the changed forms. This would, I believe, give you two classes of Lunar, those that change shape from the first scratch and revert after battle, and those that change form after the first form dies. Haven't tried though, so don't know if this works for sure.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Jurri:
Animas, exactly...

On second thought they are better implemented through various other means, as they really are quite diverse. For Dawn, awe and/or fear, for Zenith a weapon that destroys undead, for Night glamour, etc.

Well, currently, the Dawn gets Fear, Zenith minor awe (I can't give them Undead-only Fear), Twilight gets Regeneration (but less HP), Night gets Stealthy (+30)/Spy/Assassin, and Eclipse gets better Awe.

I might give the Dawns Awe as well, which would fit, and give them the little bit of 'oomph' they need to get over the top.

You could do the Lunars by doing them over Machaka, this would allow you, what, 4 shapechanging commanders. Just overwrite Sorcerer, Soreress and the spider riders with Lunars (without using the #clear command) and their other forms (riderless spiders) with the changed forms. This would, I believe, give you two classes of Lunar, those that change shape from the first scratch and revert after battle, and those that change form after the first form dies. Haven't tried though, so don't know if this works for sure.

I could, but I don't think I'm going to. I'll simply have the Lunars in War form. Glamour will be reserved for the Fair Folk, and the Changing Moons. The Night definitely _won't_ get it. It's just antithematic.

I like the idea of Machaka, but it'd be hard to get them right without losing the shapechange ability. And besides, IIRC, Machaka's shapechanging is involuntary. I definitely want the Lunars to shapechange voluntarily.

Scott

[Jurri]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
Glamour will be reserved for the Fair Folk, and the Changing Moons. The Night definitely _won't_ get it. It's just antithematic.

Well, if I recall correctly the main feature of the Night anima was that it was not visible the way the others were, allowing them oftentimes to pass for mere humans, which is what glamour does. Anyway, just a thought.

As for the Zenith, couldn't you arm them with Flambeaus or Just Man's crosses? Wouldn't this be close enough? Or give some anti-undead spell to them as a national spell, and tweak the casting levels so that only Zenith can cast it. The coolest would be to make Banishment a 4 holy spell and make only Zenith have 4 holy. As a side effect this would also make the Abyssals more fearsome. Can holy spells be modded at all?