Malazan Mod concept

[Murph]

I'm Canadian so I'm not totally sure, but stores like Coles or Barnes and Noble should have at least the most recent ones. The new book is slated for release in the next few months in trade paperback, though. And I'm sure you could get it on amazon.com.

Back to the previous point of this thread, I've done some preliminary design work on a Malazan army mod.

The basic design of the army set is to combine good mage skills, flexible, high-morale infantry, sappers, marines and some light cavalry with high-leadership commanders. Most of the core units have survival of various types to reflect the ability of the Malazan army to operate indendently from support.

I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate Moranth munitions into the Sapper units, without making them too powerful or too expensive, and I'm open to ideas on that score, since I'm not really content with just giving them a siege bonus and waltzing away.

Otherwise, priest powers will be weak, although the Priest of Fener will have decent leadership, to reflect his role as a battle priest.

In terms of missile weapons, they will have inexpensive light cavalry and Marines with assault crossbows (higher rate of fire than crossbows, lower precision and higher damage). They are not a missile-heavy army, although the assault crossbow provides short-range punch.

Mages come in 2 types, Cadre Mages who are relatively inexpensive and have astral 1 and 2 random picks, and high mages, who have astral one and 4 random picks, making the Malazans extremely flexible and unpredictable in terms of magery.

The Malazans also have Claw and Clawmaster units, stealthy assassins, and the Clawmaster have access to 1 random level of mage powers and leadership 5, which allows them to lead a full Claw into battle.

I'm also thinking of doing a special Pretender for the Malazans, the Ascendant Assassin, who would be a glamoured, stealthy very nasty combatant with air/death magic and the ability to summon Shadow Hounds (stealthy Shade Beasts) when his dominion is high.

Any feedback would be appreciated, as I'm trying to design this and also play enough games to get a feel for game balance, which I don't feel I have a handle on yet.

[PhilD]

This looks like the blueprints for a very powerful nation - between high-morale Infantry, flexible mages, and strong specialized assassin-mages, plus a tailor-made Assassin pretender, I'm afraid you'll have trouble balancing the thing...

[Teraswaerto]

The Malazan Empire will have to be powerful in order to be faithful to the concept. It has, after all, conquered 2 continents, and was working on a third at the beginning of the Gardens of the Moon. It should, IMO, be right up there with Pythium in relative strenght.

High mages are rare, and should be quite expensive and definately capital only. I'm pretty sure weapons can't be given area effects, so it isn't possible to model the Sappers accurately (yet).

If you include the Hounds of Shadow, they should be a lot tougher than Shade Beasts.

[Murph]

I agree that they do look powerful on paper. That will somewhat be balanced by relatively high costs, both in gold and resources, and weak priests.

They should be tough, but they're also going to be a bit of a crapshoot to play, with random picks on mage abilities you can get lucky or screwed, and they'll play somewhat differently each time. I'm also going to give Malazan mages relatively low research values, so research will be a bit of a soft spot.

I also agree on the high mages, based on Illwinter's modding guidlines those boys will cost a pretty penny and will of course be capital-only. Likely looking at costs around that of a Demonbred or so.

As for the sappers, I'm thinking of doing something like the Star child ranged/spell effect, but with limited accuracy, fireball effect and very limited ammo. Might simulate the chaos that sappers cause pretty well.

Could be I'll make the infantry less high-morale and just give them lots of survivals skills, so they can go anywhere.

Hounds of Shadow *would* be tougher than shade beasts, but I'm not putting *real* Hounds in because that would make the balance problem worse.

In people's opinions, would those proposed negatives balance the powers somewhat? Or do I need to build in more weaknesses?

[Teraswaerto]

Lots of random picks are more powerful than lots of picks in predetermined paths, so you probably should make the High Mages more expensive than the mere number of magic picks would suggest.

Maybe you could set the mod in the time before Laseen's rule (and before Dancer and Kellanved gained mastery over the T'lan Imass too, since including them would make the mod pretty impossible to balance). Dancer and Surly could be in as assassin-mage heroes, Kellanved as a high mage hero and Dassem Ultor as a warrior hero. This would avoid any issues with the Hounds of Shadow, since they wouldn't be active yet.

Just some ideas.

[Wauthan]

I don't see why you couldn't tone the power down a bit and thus get full use of all the units you want. Perhaps this is a Malazan expedition outpost sent from their homeworld? Thus they would have to rely on the skill of the "natives" and be slightly worse than they are on their home turf. Perhaps the local setting works against them as well? There are a bunch of godlings walking about in the neighbouring empires after all. Perhaps something very dramatic happened which explains the presence of the pretender god in their empire?

[PDF]

Originally posted by PhilD:
This looks like the blueprints for a very powerful nation - between high-morale Infantry, flexible mages, and strong specialized assassin-mages, plus a tailor-made Assassin pretender, I'm afraid you'll have trouble balancing the thing...

Well that'll be just a cross between Abysia, Arco and Pythium... For once we'll get a more powerful nation than those !