Conceptual Balance Mod 5.4

[PDF]

Son of the Sea has been left with W2 D1 ? Death is IMHO pretty unthematic for him, why give him that (and not, say, N1..) ??

[quantum_mechani]

PDF said:
Son of the Sea has been left with W2 D1 ? Death is IMHO pretty unthematic for him, why give him that (and not, say, N1..) ??

Two reasons, the nerid is already water/nature, and I feel death fits well with sea god's traditional role as capricious and vindictive. Not that I feel it is set in stone, but I don't really have a better idea for making him interesting.

[Reverend Zombie]

PDF said:
Son of the Sea has been left with W2 D1 ? Death is IMHO pretty unthematic for him, why give him that (and not, say, N1..) ??

From Wikipedia on Greek sea gods (points to support for either death or nature, IMO):

The sea - at once barren and prosperity-bringing, loomed large and ambivalently in the Greek mind. Aside from the ebb and flow of piracy sea-travel was fraught with superhuman hazard and uncertainty until the Industrial Revolution. It is impossible to assess the spiritual crisis in Aegean cultures' relations with the sea's dangers and the capacity of its divinities that must have been engendered by the tsunamis that accompanied the volcanic explosion and collapse of Thera, ca. 1650 – 1600 BCE. Can the sense of the sea and its deities have survived the cataclysm unchanged? It seems unlikely. The sea could therefore stand as a powerful symbol of the unknown and otherwordly.

Thus Cape Tanaerum, the point at which mainland Greece juts most sharply into the Mediterranean, was at once an important sailor's landmark, a shrine of Poseidon, and the point at which Orpheus and Heracles were said to have entered Hades.

[Cainehill]

As I have said in the past, water and air would really make thematic sense for a pretender like the Son of the Sea. Waves, winds, storms : the oceans may take many lives, but that's merely incidental, collateral damage if you will.

[PDF]

Cainehill said:

As I have said in the past, water and air would really make thematic sense for a pretender like the Son of the Sea. Waves, winds, storms : the oceans may take many lives, but that's merely incidental, collateral damage if you will.

Agreed. I admit Poseidon was not overly a nice dude [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img], but he has no tie to necromancy either - and THAT'S Death magic. Water+Air is the way to go to have an Ocean/Storm/Wind pretender God.

[quantum_mechani]

PDF said:

Agreed. I admit Poseidon was not overly a nice dude [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img], but he has no tie to necromancy either - and THAT'S Death magic. Water+Air is the way to go to have an Ocean/Storm/Wind pretender God.

Air could be argued to fit better... but there are very few air spells that can be cast underwater, while death has many.

[Endoperez]

Unfortunately, Water has even less spells castable underwater than Air:

Water-based Evocations:
Cold Bolt/Blast -no
Slime -no
Rain -no
Water Strike -yes
Falling Frost -no
Ice Strike -no
Niefel Flames -no
Murdering Winter -yes (castable, but not targettable)

Total: 1 castable combat spell. Of the Water/Fire combination, only Geyser works underwater.

Air-based Evocations:
Lightning bolt -yes
Shock Wave -yes
Mist -no
Thunder Strike -yes
Orb Lightning -yes
Storm -no
Wrathful Skies -no
Shimmering Field -yes

total: Mist is negated, but archers can't be used underwater. Besides that, Air only loses Storm and Wrathful Skies; all 5 other Air evocations can be cast underwater.

Water/Air Freezing Mist can't be cast underwater. And I forgot Globals, it seems. On combat boosts, Water gets Water Shield (+5? def), but neither loses anything. Even Mistform works underwater.

Googling defineoseidon yielded an interesting idea:
"God of the sea and earthquakes. Horses and bulls are sacred to him. Originally the god of earth tremors, of vegetation and fecundity, Poseidon fought for the Olympians against the Titans, and his reward after the victory was dominion over the seas, lakes and rivers. Poseidon's fits of rage manifest as storms"

Water-Earth, anyone? Besides Water, only earth, mud and rocks are easily found under water. And Death, for some. Mechanical Men, Iron Dragons and Enlivened Statues can go underwater, even though MMs have to be constructed on land. Earth and Water/Earth Evocations don't work underwater, but all the boosts do.

It would also make Shrouds of the Saint an interesting option for both Atlantis and R'lyeh. 50% Quickness, reinvigoration 5 and natural prot +5 (maybe +9 with +5 armour of Shroud?) for no extra encumberance seems like a good deal for mages. And the fun I would have with Enchantment-driven Claymen - Enlivened Statues fest with W9E9... I considered modding a Head of Clay pretender god just to try out crazy Pythium blessing goodness.

[Oversway]

Isn't frozen heart castable underwater? I think you overlooked that one. Numbness, and sailors death, too. I'm not sure why you restricted it to evocation only...

He already was water-earth. I'm not really sure why people wanted to change it, I guess to be more interesting.

I'd say that earth or air make for a better SC than death or nature, although nature wouldn't be that awful.

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I see drakes used more as well. I think the buffs are great for them. Not sure about the gem cost. Since they are such a low level summon, usually people get better options and so don't summon many of them.

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Anyways I'll be happy with whatever is done. I think this mod is a great improvement over the base game.

[PDF]

About Vine Ogres : I don't find them ultra-powerful, but
1/ They are an incredible bargain at 1 to 4 Ogres PER GEM ! Cite me anything even marginally useful costing that little... For example you can get 32 of them for the cost of those famous Drakes

2/ The whole Ogre Factory stuff is totally gamey. With say 10 natures/turn, every 2 turns you get an Ivy King (summoned by a previous IK with a Mace), all kings set to Ogre summoning, you get ridiculous masses of Ogres. Kind of same than clam-hoarding, gamey ... So it has to be addressed, the most obvious way being to prevent auto-summoning of IK so at least you've to devote some mage(s) to do the work !!

[PDF]

QM,
I criticized the mod for having nerfed things that did'nt require it/were not unbalancing. OTOH I've noticed that some things were still too strong, mostly Blood Summons (Elem Rulers went up to Conj7/path7, ID only to Blood6/B3W3)

As for my nerfs, why would having IK only nature-2 and not capable of summoning easily their own kind so bad as to make them useless ? (and BTW, another, less nerfing, way to make it would be to make the summon Nat5 )
And even at 3 gems/spell, VO summoned by batches of 3-4 would still make very cheap and good chaff. What can you have in such great number for such a low price ?
About drakes, maybe they're useful on turns 15-20, but as I wrote, how many will you make with the poor gem income you get at that stage ? And noone will make them anymore once they have a decent research/gem income ...