Homeless mod ideas (wishful thinking)

[Dunhere]

Generally:
Removal of the spellbook library caps.
Removal of the 13 spellbook cap.
Removal of the terrain influence on node color to allow an equal split of node types.
+1 wizard pick at creation for each difficulty level over Normal.
Magic Immunity prevent beneficial magic, but not breath weapons.
Weapon Immunity = 50 shields (also other immunities that are not giving 50 currently).
No ranged attacks on adjacent targets (or none at all if any enemy adjacent).
City enchantments to increase food, research.
Crosses used to defend against direct damage spells, instead of shields.
Ice Breath.
Removal of fame loss for razing a city.
Removal of diplomatic modifiers for Life/Death books.
Hero maintenance = base maintenance/2 x level.
Limit spellcasting heroes to only spells they themselves know.
[Color] Mastery gives +1 atk/def to summoned units of matching color.
Units with abilities normally granted by spells (e.g. Righteousness, Resist Elements).
Spells to give abilities or hero traits (e.g. First Strike, Noble).
Units that gain abilities with level increase (e.g. Halberdiers gain First Strike at Veteran)


Specifically:
Artificer starts with only Enchant Item. Destroying an item for mana returns half as much for Artificers. Also, magic items for all units seems more like Artificer than Alchemist, but would require a replacement bonus for Alchemy.
Halve Prayermaster.
New hero ability: reduce all enemy units' resistance.
Plane Shift moves whole stack.
Differentiate Teleport and Merging somehow. Can Teleport be made once per combat, or usable on target unit?
Summon Warbear, as ability.
Noble = 5 x level gold per turn.
Creature Binding/Possession takes control of unit permanently instead of killing it at end of combat.
Call Chaos: Make effects unresistable, add new effects, and/or make it effect all non-chaos units in combat.
Doom Bolt deals 50% of target's current health in damage.
Holy Arms: enchanted unit Dispels Evil on attack.
Immolation/Wall of Flame deals 1 damage regardless of defense other than Fire Immunity.
Web can only target units that are currently flying.
Drain Power/Power Drain gives the mana to the caster (also Mana Leak?).
Damage wakes units under Black Sleep.
Sorcery needs some form of resist debuff. Preferably one that affects all enemy units.
Iron Skin gives Missile Immunity.
Warp Wood affects all units in combat (enemy and friendly).

Items:
Items with + To Defend
Items with traits (lucky, noble)
Items with stats not normally available to that type (armor with +spell skill)
Embedding spell charges in non-wands
New item enchantments (berserk, immolation, darkness)
Negative stats added to items to reduce cost
Misc items cost twice as much; remove or reduce penalty
Altering enchantment cost of effects (make chaos cheaper, etc)
Reduce cost of creating items in general.

[b0rsuk]

Dunhere:
90% stuff you wrote is opinions. How about an explanation why such change would be better - or fun ? Why ?

[Asfex]

"Crosses used to defend against direct damage spells, instead of shields."-
May be applyed to the psionic blast only.
"Creature binding bind creature permanent" - is too strong.
@ Dunhere - some your propositions are realised already.
like -"drain power" realy stole mana. I afraid its overpowered, but not- the casting skill cost more than mana stolen this way.
It seems you do not like this own propositions. Try to set desirability of each proposition in the scale (1-10)

[b0rsuk]

I have an idea for Shatter: it could remove the effects of Mithril, Adamantium and Magic equipment (armour and weapons). Since mithril and adamantium are such a huge part of the game, this spell could have a big impact. It might need to be bumped to Uncommon (or is the resistance roll enough ?). This would fit with spells like Raise Volcano and Corruption which destroy or disable resources.

Does Call Chaos cast Shatter ? If so, this would boost Call Chaos too.

Ghouls from Arabian folklore

Ghouls take the form of their last victim.
Whenever a Ghoul unit kills something, it becomes that unit and keeps this ability. It still costs mana upkeep (only), but is not undead.

In ancient Arabian folklore, the ghūl (Arabic: غول , literally demon)[5] dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The ghul is a devilish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.[6]

The Arabian ghoul is a desert-dwelling, shape shifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the desert wastes to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, drinks blood, steals coins and eats the dead,[5] taking on the form of the one they previously ate.

[kyrub]

This thread has gone from "fresh new ideas" into "reworking what does not work" or "what I find dry". It's a pity. The latter belongs more in Catnip section.
Also, I strongly suggest: a change in basic fonctionnality => new name for the spell.



Shatter: A good one in my book, needs new name / new flair. Although: How often does AI use adamantium weapons?
Ghul... sounds khul... but how do you mean that in game?


@Dunhere
I really like a few of your ideas. Would you mind if I put them into a "random ideas" thread in Catnip (where they fit better)?

[Dunhere]

It's more of a feasibility study than a list of priorities, but if y'all are willing to sit through all the text I tried to spare you, I can cover some of my twisted reasoning, at least for some of the less obvious items. If I skip any that you have questions on, see me after the lecture.

One of my primary goals was to reduce the number of situations in which the player was offered a choice (unit/tactic/strategy) that was clearly more effective than the alternatives to create more (viably playable) options.

Library/spellbook caps: Taking large numbers of books in a single color gets more starting spells, more discounts, more rare/very rare spells. More power early game, more power late game. Taking few or varied books is not as strong. Conquering lairs/towers/enemy fortresses when at the cap is not rewarded.

Terrain influence on nodes: Causes the creation of more sorcery nodes than other types. Sorcery Mastery gains advantage over the other masteries.

Weapon Immunity: It's supposed to be Immunity, not Slight Better Defense. It's also incredibly simple to bypass it for any wizard, so it wouldn't be all that much better than it is now.

Preventing ranged attacks at close range/Warp Wood: Ranged units are considered stronger than melee units. This offers a melee army possible counters.

Damage spells rolling against magic resistance: Shields currently prevent attack damage and spell damage. Resistance to magic becomes unimportant; just pile as many shields onto a unit/hero as possible. This would give two avenues of dealing damage to a target. Note that I was thinking of rolling blocks vs the spell's hits, as opposed to a standard resistance role.

Fame loss for razing: Capturing the city = more fame (with all the side benefits this brings), a new city already developed, more score at end of game. Razing = less fame, less score. One playstyle is rewarded over the other.

Which reminds me: Diplomatic effects of Life/Death books fall into the same category. Choosing Life books is rewarded, choosing Death is punished.

Hero Maintenance/Noble trait: Noble is not valued as a hero trait late game (doesn't scale). The effect of Noble removing the normal maintenance cost is not valued (maintenance not high enough).

Spellcasting heroes: Being able to cast multiple spells in combat is a huge advantage. Heroes without spellcasting become less desirable.

Artificer: A niche retort best known for the ways it can be abused (creating mana and creating powerful artifacts in the very early game). Fixing these would create an opportunity to make it a little better in some way.

Prayermaster: Gives so much resistance that any unit automatically resists every spell possible.

Plane Shift: Currently requires an entire stack of units to have the ability/enchantment to be effective.

Teleport/Merging: Are currently indistinguishable. The OSG even includes Great Wyrms in its list of teleporting units, with no mention of merging.

Doom Bolt: Not effective vs spells of similar rarity (Summon Great Wyrm). Too good vs heroes. Giving it a percentage damage fixes both.

Call Chaos/Holy Arms/Drain Power/Power Drain: All underused because better alternatives exist (and they are hardly alone, just that they were the ones I had potential solutions for off the top of my head). My suggested solutions might not be the best, but they all need something.

Web/Black Sleep: Just the opposite, currently much stronger than spells of similar rarity/cost. Again, they are not the only offenders.

Item changes: In general intended to make more varied items possible. Kyrub posted on dragonsword that itemmake is complicated, so this is mostly a wishful thinking section.

[Dunhere]

Would you mind if I put them into a "random ideas" thread in Catnip?

They're homeless waifs, put them anyplace you like ;p

[b0rsuk]

Healing creatures of Death

I have an idea: what if razing a city healed Death creatures present in the razing army ? This would introduce (sometimes) an interesting tradeoff. It wouldn't have big strategic importance, but it would be an option, and players having Death creatures would feel a bit better.

Basically the idea is that the undead is able to feed uninhibited, or bask in death energy, or something.

New Chaos spells

Polymorph:
Uncommon. Usable on enemy Normal units. Not heroes or sailing units. The unit is transformed into a random unit of a similar gold cost. (Could be a fun way to get rid of problematic units, griffins, pikemen, shaman, rangers (pathfinding))

Morph Artifact
Rare
Cost: ??? (should be significantly lower than creating a new one)
An artifact you own is randomly reshuffled, based on its mana value.

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Conjunction events - modified
All combat happens under the effect of corresponding node aura. Cumulative with the effect near nodes.
For example, Sorcery Conjunction would cause fantastic creatures outside to get +2 to stats. Creatures covered by real Sorcery aura would get +4.

[momfan]

I wrote about Infernal Power in the Catnip (Death: Balancing) thread, but maybe it fits here better.

Infernal Power costs 2 picks, which is pretty expensive for mana/unrest. How about letting the wizard raise Skeletons from dead enemy normal units after combat? Basically, like Zombie Mastery. Skeletons are weaker (except versus archers) so it shouldn't impact the value of ZM too much.

For Divine Power, how about letting the wizard heal friendly units after battle? Basically it's like always having a shaman in the stack.

This would fit the themes of Life (protection) and Death (power).

With these modifications I think they would both be worth their 2 pick cost, and they will not be simple mirror images of each other. The only thing is that skeletons get less important later in the game, while healing is useful throughout the whole game. But then that's part of the fun of asymmetry.

[kyrub]

Conjunction events - modified
All combat happens under the effect of corresponding node aura. Cumulative with the effect near nodes.
For example, Sorcery Conjunction would cause fantastic creatures outside to get +2 to stats. Creatures covered by real Sorcery aura would get +4.

Great! I simply love the idea. Let's conserve other nodes still giving their aura and no sorcery, okay?


"Healing" undead with razing - very interesting! The idea of dark healing forces needs more context in the game, though. Maybe, to have some other dark way to heal, like a spell that sacrifices one of your own units to "heal" a few HPs in a battle. It's somewhat hard to prevent exploiting such a spell, sacrificing spearmen etc.