Hello everyone, and I could use some advice.

[Saulot]

Welcome. It's nice to see a new modder.

(This will likely cover things you know, but better to lean on the side of caution and explain more thoroughly than not, for the benefit of all.)

By default, pretenders aren't sacred... or priests.

There are reasons for that, and balance isn't even chief amongst them. Dominions consists of two major groups of units. The first being a pretender (a god by definition), and the latter being everyone else, who worships the god.

As you can see, one couldn't really pray to oneself.

The world of dominions is one where the focus is belief. Belief is a powerful, almost tangible thing. Belief is what makes the pretender god powerful. Absolute belief grants absolute power, and no belief means your pretender god goes poof (the tinkerbell effect). That is the reason your pretender god is fighting the other pretenders, to attain the belief of everyone.

In exchange for believing in your pretender, your pretender grants his/her followers powers. The very faithful who completely believe in your pretender are sacred, and there are some (priests) who spread the pretenders message and thus spread belief in the pretender.

Your pretender spreads belief (represented by your dominion) simply because well, if I saw Zeus riding his horse through my neighborhood, or Thor throwing a lightning bolt, I couldn't help but believe.

Anyway, I understand that the concept behind your unit is that it isn't actually the pretender, just an important prophet, (and this out of the box thinking is good), it is for intents and purposes a pretender (especially if one wants to think about balance).

So, after the sacred and the priest thing (and the inquisitor ability with it), there are a couple other things which stand out about your unit. First it has Magic Res. 12. Which is real low. It has protection 12, which seems to be unexplained. It has 18 hitpoints, despite being a human (humans tend to have 10, but I could see an older mage/priest-type as having 8). It also has 0 encumbrance, which is mostly reserved for undead and very powerful magical beings. Fear stands out very much on a human, as strange. Pillage and Patrol is something unlikely to come up, as those aren't really tasks for a pretender.

I recommend you look at the Dom 3 database, to see the stats of various units, to give you a better idea of how most units and pretenders are set up. Balance is a difficult thing, so don't give up.

[Luckmann]

Yes, like I said, the "Sacred" attribute of the Ecclesiarch is an unfortunate side-effect of there not being a #inquisitor command. As far as Priest levels go, it never DID make sense to me that the pretenders doesn't all have the ability to bless their faithful themselves.

I realize that Pillage and Patrol are both abilities that (along with Preaching/Inquisitor) are things the Pretender will rarely do. Which is why I made the bonuses to those considerable, so that someone would at least consider doing it at times - but in the end, it's mostly added for fluff, which is why I really don't consider it overpowered.

The reasons behind the at-times "wierd" stats for a "human" is because he was originally modeled around the Lich Queen and then somewhat "nerfed" from there. He's not as much a human anymore as the anathema of the liches, directly influenced and controlled by the "actual" pretender (much as the Oracle or Fountain of Blood are possessed by a powerful spirit) - as opposed to, say, the Great Sage or Master Druid, who are still fully human. Just very powerful humans.

For example, he also can't equip helmets or chestpieces, like most (all?) base humans can. Instead he's got 4 Misc. spots, which I attribute to his retinue.

Instead of a prophet, I suppose one should rather consider him a Jesus-figure (who was not a Prophet, but an embodiment of God) or a Pope (who is the human stand-in for God, on earth).

With, of course, the exception that THIS Pope can actually throw lightning bolts and heal wounds. All present base humans also have a lower point cost.

The question isn't really wheter he's fully human or not anymore, but wheter or not he's somewhat balanced, should have a lower point cost or higher.