Involuntary Shape Shifting and Items...?

[Chazar]

My Machakan Black Sorceror won the Death Match Arena and gained the Champion's Trident! Next turn, he goes to battle, shape shifts due to hit point loss into a Black Hunter Spider as usual...and is freed of the Trident!?!

Can someone clarify this for me? I thought that items of shape-shifters are just hidden and recovered when shifting back? Is there a difference of item handling between voluntary shape-shifters and involuntary shape-shifters (like the Black Sorceror)?

Furthermore, I thought that cursed items are always found, but the trident is missing since the battle (although someone else managed to find the boots of flying, which apparently came from the trident wielding black sorceror as well).

What happens if another death match is scheduled? Will the black sorcerer still be forced to participate, even without holding the trident?

[Vicious Love]

Chazar said:
I thought that cursed items are always found

Almost always, especially if they're higher level. I suspect your other commanders were simply lucky/unlucky.

[shovah]

not always found, one time i accidently shape shifted my mictain smoking mirrior while he was kitted out (elemental staff, robe of the magi ect :C it sucked

[Endoperez]

And Dragons work that way, too. In a patch of DomII (or possibly {although I doubt it, no offense meant towards Illwinter} Dom:PPP, can't remember), it was changed so that the items go to LAB instead of just vanishing. Still sucks if there is no lab, or during a fight.

[NTJedi]

Chazar said:
What happens if another death match is scheduled? Will the black sorcerer still be forced to participate, even without holding the trident?

From my experience... once the trident is gone that individual is no longer forced to participate. The death match is never worthwhile to attend during singleplayer games unless you have a diseased/dying commander looking for a more honorable death.

HOPEFULLY... the death match prize has been improved for Dominions_3 because currently it's not worth risking the life of any great or good commander.

[Agrajag]

NTJedi said:
The death match is never worthwhile to attend during singleplayer games unless you have a diseased/dying commander looking for a more honorable death.

That's not entirely true.
First of all, if the deathmatch takes place very very early in the game, it could be worthwhile to send good commander to take the trident, which can be useful early on, especially on above-average recruitable commanders, which can be easily replaced. And if that commander is also immortal, that means you could easily get rid of the item and avoid having to participate in future matches (by suiciding in your own dominion).
Second, since the AI seems to send his pretender to the death match (and more often than not - quite weak pretenders), it may be wortwhile to send in a powerful thug or SC to kill the pretender and cripple the AI a bit.

EDIT: Just to clarify - I still think that most of the time the deathmatch seems quite useless, but it has its uses, and is quite interesting

[Chazar]

I still like to send an arena champion in MP, since it is just a lot of fun!

In addition to the trident, a couple of gems or some gold would be nice as well though (e.g. a prize of ((x/2)+10) gems of a random sort would seem apropriate to me, where x is the number of turns played, i.e. 15 gems at tun 10, 20 gems at turn 20 and 35 gems at turn 50).

The trident is not much of a problem, if one may get rid of it just by shapeshifting, hehe...

[NTJedi]

Agrajag said:

That's not entirely true.
First of all, if the deathmatch takes place very very early in the game, it could be worthwhile to send good commander to take the trident, ........

Well if you're only playing against two AI opponents this can work. Usually the single player games I do have at least 7 AI opponents... thus sending any good commander during early game is still suicidal since one or more opponents could be a dragon, wyrm, lich or some other powerful pretender.

Agrajag said:
Second, since the AI seems to send his pretender to the death match (and more often than not - quite weak pretenders), it may be wortwhile to send in a powerful thug or SC to kill the pretender and cripple the AI a bit.

I've never seen weak little mage pretenders sent into the death match... and I've played many games. There's so many opponents already attending the death match that your SC will do little or no effect for the results. Whether you send someone or not all of them will die except one. And the one which wins will most likely never meet your SC. As a test see how often you win the death match early game against 10 AI opponents... after a few of these tests you'll see it's better just to sit in the stadium and watch the results.

[Endoperez]

Especially as only one of the contestants can survive. Even if the AI did send an expensive mage, or even a mage pretender, it would probably be killed by the other AIs.

[Wish]

don't look at deathmatches as a way to gain a trident. look at it as a way to kill the AIs commanders, and sometimes their pretenders.