The Behemoth

[tinkthank]

When I revive a Behemoth, is that supposed to make the mage who cast that ritual spell unable to cast spells in combat until the Behemoth dies or only the commander under which the Behemoth is placed? To be honest, I could have sworn I have seen Behemoth-masters cast spells, but am no longer sure if they switched commanders....

[Norfleet]

The behemoth is simply a normal unit with no spellcasting ability. There's no "behemoth master", and the mage that summoned the behemoth doesn't lose his ability to cast spells: A Behemoth is an entirely seperate unit consisting, thematically, of the undead elephant with a mage riding on it: It's just like a knight or heavy cavalry. The blurb text about not being able to cast spells basically is meaningless fluff that exists only to justify why the mage on the behemoth has no spellcasting capability (because he's not a commander, he's a normal unit).

Technically, you can GoR a Behemoth, and then empower it so it CAN cast spells. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
The behemoth is simply a normal unit with no spellcasting ability. There's no "behemoth master", and the mage that summoned the behemoth doesn't lose his ability to cast spells: A Behemoth is an entirely seperate unit consisting, thematically, of the undead elephant with a mage riding on it: It's just like a knight or heavy cavalry. The blurb text about not being able to cast spells basically is meaningless fluff that exists only to justify why the mage on the behemoth has no spellcasting capability (because he's not a commander, he's a normal unit).

Technically, you can GoR a Behemoth, and then empower it so it CAN cast spells. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK, but I think you misunderstood me. I meant the blurb in the text; I thought it was refering to the mage casting the ritual spell, I didnt realize there was supposed to be a little magelet on the behemoth itself. Well whatever, ok, I was mislead by the text then.

[Norfleet]

No, I understood you just fine. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif You were mislead by the blurb text, believing that the mage summoning the behemoth was drafted into the behemoth-control role and lost his ability to cast spells. However, that's not the case: The mage casting the behemoth-creation spell also creates the mage riding the behemoth.

[Arryn]

I, too, was misled by this poorly-phrased text when I first began playing Dom 2. I learned the truth about the spell by doing a search on this forum's old Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Norfleet]

I managed to totally evade this trap through a combination of age-old biases from other games: Firstly, in pretty much every game of this type I've ever played, summoning has always been a subpar to useless route, and the undead have never been worth spit.

So naturally, I saw "summoning, undead", and nothing about "blow stuff up", and quickly passed over it for immediate consideration.

Since then, I've come to realize that Dominions II has a far smaller list of stupid stuff than you find in other games: Nearly everything is useful to SOMEBODY, at some point, if not you. Even the stuff that I personally don't tend to use, in Dominions II, I no longer dismiss as a useless gew-gaw. Like those Vine Ogres: I ordinarily don't use them, due to my national and pretender preferences, but nor do I consider them to be useless.

[moodgiesanta]

Well, I've never summoned one due to the fact that I thought your mage was taken down while the elephant corpse was animate. I guess I'll try it now . . .

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by moodgiesanta:
Well, I've never summoned one due to the fact that I thought your mage was taken down while the elephant corpse was animate. I guess I'll try it now . . . <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ditto !

Considering that the Behemoth is one of the very strong death summons, especially early game, especially with a few buff spells.

You've been missing out.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Arryn:
I, too, was misled by this poorly-phrased text when I first began playing Dom 2. I learned the truth about the spell by doing a search on this forum's old Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hah! That will teach you for reading the spell description. I just go by those that have a cool-sounding name, and try them out.

Of course, I also suck at this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

same over here, i actually never dared to summon a behemoth, mainly because i dont like loosing Demiliches or powered lamias ^^

[Taqwus]

Oh, give 'em a whirl. They're fun, and are good targets for boosting spells like Mass Flight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , although the cost adds up quickly.

[RonnyRoy]

Im joining the club. Very very poor wording http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If it didn't make you summon it, it may not have been poor wording at all. If it had such an impact as you to not summon it because the flavor text says it uses a dead mage to power the Behemoth, it just means to me that they did a very decent job of flavoring that particular unit.

[tinkthank]

Well thanks for clearing me up. Looks like I wasnt the only one.

Oh btw Zen: I didnt understand your Last post here, what did you mean?

[mivayan]

If it had such an impact as you to not summon it because the flavor text says it uses a dead mage to power the Behemoth, it just means to me that they did a very decent job of flavoring that particular unit. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Here is how I read the description: "bla bla reanimate dead elephant bla bla bla high magic resistance. As all of the mage's energies are used in controlling and preserving the beast, he or she is unable to cast spells".

This made me think that my mage would be unable to do anything usefull for as long as the behemoth lived, which seemed almost reasonable considering how impressive an undead elephant might be. It was not untill I read the description 10 times that I realized that a dead mage was reanimated as well to controll it, and that the reanimated mage was the one not casting spells.

[Ragnarok-X]

i think he meant that the devs did a quite good job, because its actually THIS deep that you dare not to cast certain spells ^^

[ March 03, 2004, 15:45: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]

[Aikamun]

I think the spell description is poor. I have also ignored the spell. It does not say a mage is also summoned to control the behemoth. I had no doubt the casting mage would be unable to cast other spells, because he was stuck in a "heal behemoth" link.

So many nuances in this game to become knowledgeable. Why cause additional confusion with the current spell description?

Aikamun

[ March 03, 2004, 19:39: Message edited by: Aikamun ]

[E. Albright]

Well, um, I never fell into this line of reasoning because all the other summons behaved in a similar fashion. It's difficult (for me) to believe that a fairly low-level summon would merit the addition of complex, non-standard behavior...

"With this enchantment, the necromancer (you) has mastered a dark ritual enabling him to reanimate the largest of all animals. The former elephant is preserved in a state of perpetual decay by a revenant mage (not you) who constantly fuels the Behemoth with energies from the Underworld. The most important part of the reanimation ritual is the binding of the mage's (not necromancers) spirit to the Behemoth. This direct spiritual control of the Behemoth gives it high magical resistance. As all of the mage's energies are used in controlling and preserving the beast, he or she is unable to cast spells."

Seems pretty simple if you take a minute to read it instead of just picking out key words like "mage"

[Arryn]

The problem comes in that the description of over half the spells refers to the caster as "the mage", while some say "caster" and the revive spells use the term "necromancer" to mean the caster. If a new player fails to catch on to the change of terminology, which is easy to do when reading spell after spell after spell and trying to soak in so much new info, it's easy to make the mistake. Much easier than you're allowing for, Zen, with all due respect.

Might be. All things considered, especially with multi-language barriers anything and everything could be misconstrued. Though if there was a spell that ate a mage for casting it, I'd probably be the first one to cast it to see what it does. But that's just the kind of person I am.

[Arryn]

Heh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif