Re-evaluating the Death Realm and the undead

[Anthony]

I'd prefer an irresistible (and possibly moddable) 'reduce resistance' spell rather than a flat 'reduce to 0' effect, but the way the game tracks stats might make that difficult (you could probably just remove points from resistance in the unit data structure, but it would likely revert to its full value the next round).

There's an existing unused and partially messed up status effect 'mind twist', as well as an apparently unused bit in the possible status effects (see when I was doing research here). I've considered making the 'weaken' spell irresistible and cost 10, though that would mess up high end critters that use gaze attacks (chaos spawn wouldn't attack because no melee strength, other gaze attackers wouldn't use gaze because gaze strength 0). Perhaps it could be made to never reduce below 1?

[Asfex]

@Antony : i use bit [80] in byte (combat enchantments) for special stoning touch effect in my mod. (it temporary lands flying unit). All bits on this byte have animation.
I plan use bit 0x100 in "attack flags" for temporary resistance lost. (by terror spell or others....)

@ all
The 'weaken' spell was automatic in v 1.2. My mod have ability to low resistance till next battle, so weakens have this -1 resistance effect per unsuccessfull cast (i.e. this effect is unresistible). The problem is : its too slow. And -1 resist per 5 mana is dear for death.
May be make weaken the spell which cause loss 1 cross per 1 round of combat? but with this 10 mana it is too cheap.
I think the only thing the zero resistance is need its a spell Life drain only. May be, implement resistance loss to this spell?
The last idea is: implement constant resistance lost with the spell "mana leak", as long as no mana paid.
And: We have the ability "drain power".


I think about study undead effect: each undead gets 2 exp per slain enemy in battle multilyed by units with death channel. Its thematicaly even, and easy to implement.
P.S. just implement this, anyone want to test?

[robinh3123]

How about give a side-effect of life-steal attacks, to add points toward wizard's skill poll, similar to the life-drain spell? I mean, including attacks of Ghoul.

[Asfex]

@ robinh3123
The side-effect of lifedrain to wizards skill point appears as a conversion drained life into mana.
Because the casting wizard can not heal themself , whereas the casting unit - can.
Life-stealing attack always can heal the owner, so, no side effect to wizard.

[Asfex]

Thinking more about death, an its specific- i think the idea of constant loss resistance is bad. the chaos channel gives expirience for undeads after battle is still good. (in my mod especially, the death channelled units recevie create undead ability) .
i think about spell like "mana leak" that gives units a 1/10 chance to gets "uncharmed" ability for one turn. And the "uncharmed" unit always fall the resistance roll. (treat like zero resistance unit if its resistance-spellsafe <10 , or have any spell triple effective penetrate resistance).

[robinh3123]

@ robinh3123
The side-effect of lifedrain to wizards skill point appears as a conversion drained life into mana.
Because the casting wizard can not heal themself , whereas the casting unit - can.
Life-stealing attack always can heal the owner, so, no side effect to wizard.

Perhaps a new unit-buf spell, called "chill touch" or something, which make a received unit to drain life into 3x Wizard's mana, very much like life drain spell, but through the chill touch attack of a unit.

Of course this "chill touch" effect should count toward the undead creation hit points. (i.e. the rule that if half hit points of a unit are damaged by "undead creation attack", the unit will raise as an undead unit.)
If it is cast onto a ghoul, both ghoul's attack and chill touch's effects count toward the undead creation hit points.

This spell is interesting:
1. If it is cast onto a strongly defensed and weakly attacking unit, this unit does raise undead more efficiently than ghoul, since ghoul is an easy kill for some strong units.
2. A cast once, attack multiple times: A good way to gaining mana to the wizard!

Strength of this spell should be properly designed, so that it won't break the balance:
Possible ways to limit/design the spell:
* casting on regular units only?
* can not cast on a hero?
* overland only, combat only, or both? (even it's combat only, it still get the "cast once, attack multiple times, gain mana multiple times" benefit.)
* the life steal effectiveness: should it be bound to the regular spell-save vs. resistance rule, or an independent rule?
* chill touch strength: Is it a fixed strength (for example strength of 5), or is the strength bound to the attack power of the unit?
=> The later one is more interesting, I think (see the "interesting" point mentioned above).
If the spell is designed well, I believe it can be a very interesting black spell!

[Asfex]

This spell is interesting:
1. If it is cast onto a strongly defensed and weakly attacking unit, this unit does raise undead more efficiently than ghoul, since ghoul is an easy kill for some strong units.
2. A cast once, attack multiple times: A good way to gaining mana to the wizard!

In my mod death channel gives create undead property. And i must limit this property to melee attack only, else it become game breaker.
At the impossible lvl, the AI wizards have 4x army more. If you can make receive enough mana for this at impossible, then you will receive the huge amount at easy. - its game-breaker spell. Especialy with conjunction with black sleep. It can not be designed properly.

[robinh3123]

This spell is interesting:
1. If it is cast onto a strongly defensed and weakly attacking unit, this unit does raise undead more efficiently than ghoul, since ghoul is an easy kill for some strong units.
2. A cast once, attack multiple times: A good way to gaining mana to the wizard!

In my mod death channel gives create undead property. And i must limit this property to melee attack only, else it become game breaker.
At the impossible lvl, the AI wizards have 4x army more. If you can make receive enough mana for this at impossible, then you will receive the huge amount at easy. - its game-breaker spell. Especialy with conjunction with black sleep. It can not be designed properly.

As I said there are ways to limit the usage, to some balance point:
For example: high casting cost, combat only spell, cast on regular units only: There should be some balance point. And it's possible the an enemy wizards sees it, a dispel magic will throw on it.

If this spell is limited to combat only, (dispelled after combat, like berserker spell), the black sleep combo will not be that strong: how many black sleep can you throw? Iron skin, perhaps, is a better combo with this spell.

Well, you can say that you have many black sleeps with hero and items. How many heros can you equip them with those items?
(If you can equip many heros with those items, I believe you already have other ways faster to win) If only one hero, the extra points gains will not be that high: Thinking that a hero with a Iron skinned regular unit, constantly attack some lair to gain some extra mana: It's like getting an extra node. Not to bad, not too good.

The figure, as how many points converts to Wizard's skill points per life (hit) point, can be designed! It could be 3x like life drain, or can be 1x or 0.5x, so that it won't be as unbalanced.

That's what I said "proper design".

[Asfex]

Lets imagine: the unit war troll with under this spell vs hell houd (red). How many mana will it get? if it 1 (average) - it will 9 mana per combat - like a node income. if it less than 1 - shall anybody worry about this in real combat? with chances to kill unit about 1:3 this 1 average mana is much less than a spell cost. Hence , any design will down to unbalance... Its a bad style : to make combat just to gain some additional mana and lose.

[Asfex]

I have a question: whats about give ghouls the ability cast 20 Mp? anybody play with this?