The one change Dom2 really needs.....

[Boron]

Hm perhaps you could make all hoarding items like clams horror marked and aditionally to this diseasing the wearer .
Then you can't be total sure that they pay off at least in the long run and need black servants or similiar to carry them .

Otherwise it is i think too hard to balance them because they become either totally cost ineffective or are still a good choice .

I am sure you have this in mind but i would like to see which costs you think of for hellswords and soul contracts to compare them with the other lifedrain / hoard weapons .

[Graeme Dice]

Frosted Flake said:
Once in a blue moon a poorly protected SC can lose to a host of indies but its rare.

Not that rare. As indicated, barbarians do it all the time if they aren't ethereal.

Bane lords are only a level 5 summons and cost only 10 gems and are very very effective.

They can only be considered to be "very very effective" if you spend another 20 or 30 gems on them. Otherwise they will die very easily to a prepared opponent. Their MR of only 15 is the most obvious weakness.

I'm talking game fun, people would still summon every SC they could they'd just maybe want some troops along and we'd see them decked with different toys.

If you don't send troops along with your SCs, then they will be killed rather easily by an opponent who has magical power.

I love Jotun neifelheim and a properly equipped jarl can take out a stack of heavy cav solo..its kinda sick

What's the problem with this? It's a frost giant wielding numerous very powerful magical items against a bunch of mundane humans on horseback. Wouldn't you always put your money on the giant?

[The Panther]

ALL life drain should be summarily eliminated from the game. I mean, the bane lord comes with a powerful bane blade that you need to sack for a wraith sword? How utterly stupid is that?

Life drain is busted and severly unbalanced. Inherent life drain is perhaps the primary reason the VQ is, by far, the best SC Pretender out of the box.

Without life drain, you just might see an Ice Devil die to 50 troops surrounding it, just like it ought to be.

In fact, I am very disappointed with the game after watching battle after battle where a single commander with life drain eliminates unlimited size armies. I have been on both sides of that equation and it leaves an extremely poor taste in my mouth. In fact, I have already decided to not enter anymore MP games until the SC problem is fixed, which I believe is caused by life drain more than any other single thing. Having life drain reduce fatigue is even so idiotic that I can hardly believe it actually happens that way!

If this is not fixed until Dom3, then so be it. If that is not fixed in Dom3 either, then I will cross that bridge when I reach it.

[Zen]

The Panther said:If this is not fixed until Dom3, then so be it. If that is not fixed in Dom3 either, then I will cross that bridge when I reach it.

Well you might want to pick up another hobby then I doubt you are going to be able to convince the Dev's that Life Drain is 'idiotic' as you put it. And that you feel that there should not be any powerful beings able to destroy hordes of normal men by virtue of either Godliness or Uniqueness. You might try playing R;TW, which has nothing akin to magic or gods or such things and relies totally on historical units and formations and other such things (I enjoy RTW, btw for exactly that).

A post stating a tantrum of "If they don't do this, I'm not playing! I'm taking my ball and going home" type of attitude isn't exactly indicitive of reasoned feedback why or how you feel that way other than if you can't play it the way you want, you won't play (which is fine, many a game of solitaire has gotten started that way).

If you really feel that way, you might want to present your case and reasoning for it and maybe you can initiate a change that there shouldn't be Life Draining at all.

[Graeme Dice]

The Panther said:
ALL life drain should be summarily eliminated from the game. I mean, the bane lord comes with a powerful bane blade that you need to sack for a wraith sword? How utterly stupid is that?

This is little more than whining.

Life drain is busted and severly unbalanced. Inherent life drain is perhaps the primary reason the VQ is, by far, the best SC Pretender out of the box.

She isn't actually. The ghost king is easily better, so is the PoD. The daughter of the land is another one who does better. In fact, just about any of the titan types will work better than the VQ.

Without life drain, you just might see an Ice Devil die to 50 troops surrounding it, just like it ought to be.

Why should a demon lord die to 50 measly humans?

In fact, I have already decided to not enter anymore MP games until the SC problem is fixed, which I believe is caused by life drain more than any other single thing.

What SC problem?

[PvK]

As for the original subject, life drain weapons, it would be nice to have a "no life drain" mod that changes at least the life drain magic items to something else, or gives them very high costs, even if only as a game option for people who would like to play some games without them.

Personally I tend to think the effect is simply modelled too strong. It's too often that the life-drainer gets all his damage and fatigue healed every turn. If the effect were a lot weaker, that could balance it, though that's not currently mod-able.

Zen's approach of increasing the cost seems very appropriate to me, too. My personal choices would probably be around:

Wraith Sword: Con 6, Death 4, 40 death gems.
Hell Sword: Con 6, Blood 4-5, 40-80 blood slaves.

PvK