Item powers, updated

[Seravy]

Copied directly from the manual, now including the new powers added yesterday, the book costs, which item type is allowed, and which tier of spell is required (enchant item or create artifact). (Not yet available in the test version, this will be the first update after the initial beta Slitherine posts so...I don't know when. I need to test the new abilities anyway, they are fresh and I haven't even launched the game since I finished adding them.)

Code:

Chaos Powers
Flaming
Books required : 2
Create Artifact required : No
Weapons only.
Add +3 attack strength.

Lightning
Books required : 3
Create Artifact required : Yes
Weapons only.
Grant Armor Piercing.

Doom (Chaos)
Books required : 4
Create Artifact required : Yes
Weapons only.
Grant Doom : Always deal attack power/2 damage.

Destruction
Books required : 4
Create Artifact required : Yes
Weapons only.
Gain Destruction : If the enemy unit fails to resist when attacked, it is irrecoverably dead.

Immolation
Books required : 2
Create Artifact required : No
Gain Colt Immunity and Immolation.

Insulation
Books required : 3
Create Artifact required : No
Staves, Wands, Armor, Accessories only.
Gain Fire Immunity and Lightning Resistance.

Pandora's Box
Required Books :  5 Chaos
Create Artifact required : No
At the start of each combat turn, summon a random fantastic creature from a budget pool that depends on the level of the hero wearing the item.

Recharge
Required Books :  2
Create Artifact required : No
Bows, Wands and Staves only.
Increases max ammo for the unit by 4.

Amplifier
Required Books :  5
Create Artifact required : Yes
All friendly spells deal or heal 1 more damage if they successfully deal any damage. Multiple copies of the ability are not cumulative. The spell doesn't need to be cast by the unit wielding this item but the unit has to be present in the battle where the spell takes effect.


Death Powers

Vampiric
Books required : 3
Create Artifact required : No
Melee Weapons only.
Grant Life Steal -2.

Death
Books required : 3
Create Artifact required : No
Weapons only.
Grant Death Touch -3.

Wraith Form
Required Books : 2 Death
Armor and Accessories only.
Create Artifact required : Yes

Cloak of Fear
Required Books : 1 Death
Armor only.
Create Artifact required : No

Shadow
Required Books : 4 Death
Create Artifact required : Yes
Swords and Maces only.
Grant Thrown equal to half the base melee attack strength.

Necromancy
Required Books : 5 Death
Create Artifact required : Yes
Wands, Staves, Armor and Accessories only
At end of battle, units who died on your side and weren't undead yet, return as undead units. Limited to a budget per combat, that scales with hero level.

Egoism
Required Books : 5 Death
Create Artifact required : No
Equipped hero gains double experience.

Dark Force
Required Books : 6 Death
Create Artifact required : No
Armor and Accessories only.
At the beginning of combat, the unit recovers to full health and gains +10% chance to hit and to defend.
At the end of each of their combat turns, they take 1 irrecoverable damage.

Stealth
Required Books : 3 Death
Create Artifact required : No
Armor and Accessories only.
Equipped hero gains Stealth, making them impossible to see, hear, or otherwise detect outside combat.
-The hero does not trigger Wizard's Pact violations.
-The hero can accurately scout the contents of Lairs, Nodes, or other encounter zones, including the type and exact quantity of all defenders.
-The hero is not shown on the overland map, as if it was invisible. (Note : this does not affect the AI)

Nature Powers

Resist Elements
Required Books : 1 Nature
Create Artifact required : No

Elemental Armor
Required Books : 3 Nature
Create Artifact required : Yes

Stoning
Required Books : 2 Nature
Create Artifact required : No
Weapons only.
Grants Stoning : The attacked unit has to resist at -1 or one figure in it irrecoverably dies.

Water Walking
Required Books : 1 Nature
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : No

Regeneration
Required Books : 5 Nature
Create Artifact required : Yes
Armor and Accessories only
Grants Regeneration 1.

Path Finding
Required Books : 1 Nature
Create Artifact required : No
Accessories only
Grants Pathfinding

Merging
Required Books : 4 Nature
Create Artifact required : Yes
Staves, Wands, Armor and Accessories only
Grants Merging movement.

Life Powers

Exorcist
Required Books : 2 Life
Create Artifact required : No
Weapons only.
Grants Bless and Exorcise : Attack target must save at -3 or lose 1 figure irrecoverably if it's fantastic.

True Sight
Required Books : 3 Life
Create Artifact required : No
Staves, Armor and Accessories only
Grants Illusion Immunity.

Bless
Required Books : 1 Life
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : No

Invulnerability
Required Books : 4 Life
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : Yes

Lion Heart
Required Books : 3 Life
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : Yes

Divine Protection
Required Books : 4 Life
Create Artifact required : Yes
Staves, Wands, Armor and Accessories only
Grants Lucky and Death Immunity.

Sorcery

Phantasmal
Required Books : 4 Sorcery
Create Artifact required : Yes
Weapons only
Grants Illusion

Guardian Wind
Required Books : 1 Sorcery
Create Artifact required : No
Armor and Accessories only.
Grants Missile Immunity.

Haste
Required Books : 6 Sorcery
Create Artifact required : Yes

Resist Magic
Required Books : 3 Sorcery
Create Artifact required : No

Teleporting
Required Books : 5 Sorcery
Create Artifact required : Yes
Wands, Staves, Armor and Accessories only
Grants Teleporting movement and +1 movement.

Flight
Required Books : 3 Sorcery
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : Yes

Invisibility
Required Books : 4 Sorcery
Armor and Accessories only
Create Artifact required : Yes

Let me know if you think one of them should have different restrictions (book cost, create artifact spell, item type) and why, if there is a good enough reason, I'll change it.

[Suppanut]

I think double exp of egoism is not very useful when you considered that death wizard would unlikely to push their heroes into harm way until they strong enough. I think it would be more useful if it is just +X exp per turns or +X exp for each figure kills (on both side) in battle if you prefer something more death-like.

Perhaps nature could use some ability like entangling shots (range attack have web spell effect), or home ground (+3 defend, +2 resist, +1 movement if inside wizard's territory, or overland forest for forester, or overland mountain for mountaineer, or overland ocean/river for swimmer/sail)

[Slingers]

Maybe it's supposed to be like this for a gameplay reason, but I would think gaining experience is a life thing. Especially when you observe young life, you quickly get the impression that Egoism plays a central role. Recharge could also be in another realm. It looks like the mass production of The One Ring could start soon, with 6D4S.

[JustOneMoreTurn]

I doubt that I'd ever use the Dark Force power; it seems too situational. It would be something to keep in the treasury until an injured hero was needed to hold off an attack.

How about a power based on Lycanthropy or bloodlust? The hero has a chance per turn for going berserk/moonmad. It boosts attack power, but puts the hero under AI control. It should probably prevent the hero from using spells, even from other items; the hero just runs into melee combat. It could include regeneration, or alter magic resistance, while berserk.

[Seravy]

Life already has the best hero support and has spells to gain experience (Heroism and Enlightenment) and can gain experience without problems because it's good at keeping heroes alive in battle, so yes, you could say it's for gameplay reasons.

Tha main advantage on Dark Force is supposed to be the +1 To Defend which is not available to the realm normally and massively boosts the hero's ability to survive being attacked or even targeted by spells. Life gets this same ability at Create Artifact with Divine Protection for a very high price, but death can have the same buff plus healing, at basically common spell tier. The main issue I see with it is early game heroes often not having enough hitpoints to utilize it. Even if you win the battle quickly, like in 6 turns, for a hero that has a max hp of 12, that's too dangerous. Later, for 20-25 hp heroes though, it'll be trivial. There are of course ways around it - you can use Egoism to level up faster (4 levels is +4 hp), wear an item that grants hp (up to +3 in two slots if I remember that correctly), or add Life Drain charges to your weapon. Even if you only manage to drain 5 hp from enemy units by using it, you still negated the damage. Whether it's realistic to create these items or not is something we'll have to find out by playtesting.
If necessary, we can also adjust the power and make the damage start on turn 3 of combat or something like that.

[muxecoid2]

I wonder what is the math for Pandora's box. What creatures can be summoned and with what probability?

In my minimal test the power is pretty good. As artificer you can put in on weapon for just 100 casting and it can summon a few friends over the course of battle. Whatever it summons is random so no guarantee that it is useful against specific enemy. All things considere it is better than summoning spell charges also because it does not take turn to use. And can not be countered by node aura.

Looks like the total budget is capped. In one fight a champion level here managed to summon chimeras and guardian spirit. In other fight he got cockatrices and catapult. It is not capped at 2 units, when he had less experience he got zombies+phantom warriors+guardian spirit. And if I remember correctly units were summoned on 1st, 2nd and 4th turns.

I wonder if someone can manage to make a build capable of beating phantasm difficulty from this.

[Seravy]

The total budget should be shown in the game (right click the description, I think it might be 140* hero level but better read it to be sure).
The cost of the randomly chosen unit is the value in the units.ini file as the production cost.

[muxecoid2]

I see. It is 70 per level. Which I assume is the cap for total summoned over entire combat. It says 50% chance, I guess always getting a summon on first turn is just me being lucky.

70 per level is not bad. Behemoth, for example costs 450, fire giant is 210.

Now I have an idea for build for a playthrough to put on YouTube.

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Modding.ini for the Warlords mod has a set of (moddable) values for Pandora's Box. IIRC it's per hero level. I did try raising then, but it really broke the game, with behemoths and demon lords popping up.

A major advantage of Pbox is that the summoned monster often becomes the prime target for the AI, protecting your own units.

[muxecoid2]

So it is not linear going 100-130-170-210-280-360-440-550-660.

Also worth noting that multiple heroes with boxes in the same army can summon pandora units in parallel.

Demon is a very rare creature that costs only 210. If you get him it is so nice. You can not count on it, but raising some undead for free never hurts.