Quote:
Tifone said:
...It wouldn't be logic to give him Fear or Awe or Petrify, but if he was already E4W3 and costing just 70 points...
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You have to be very careful with the paths though. While I think there should be more pretender chassis that start with paths at 3, you must bear in mind that starting at 3
drastically reduces the cost to get a major bless, and starting at 4 would make it nearly a foregone conclusion that you would go to 9 if you used that pretender, because of cost efficiency. Starting with 2 paths at 3+4, would make a very cheap dual bless available.
Look at it this way, should cost 288 points to go from 1 to 9, so the Olm as it stands costs you 626 points total, to get W9/E9 bless. Going from 3-9 only costs 152 points, or just over half, and 4-9 should only be 120 - for a total cost of 344 for a good dual bless. I'd say with W3/E4 you'd want to at least push him to 150 base cost, though dropping the E to 4 as well would also be a good idea.
Of course, pushing the paths high and increasing base cost to compensate sort of pigeon-holes him somewhat to blesses, in some people's eyes - even if the base cost of 150 would give you strong buffing paths anyway, making him a little more capable as a potential SC.
Looking at Agartha's mages, I'd be willing to say the Olm would have some really interesting options if he were E3 + either F2/W2, or maybe just F1/W1/D1. This gives him some built in versatility as to which paths you exploit, and gives him the option to be a "semi-rainbow", though at the expense of giving you nothing that Agartha doesn't already have.
I think it can be easy to get a bit carried away. Remember that thematic and flavorful is the primary goal, yes, but without paying some attention to the actual balance, you'll only be making SP content, because no one will allow the mod in MP (though if a mod had really strong national pretenders for everyone, you could start the game yourself

), and if it's not vaguely in line with (though of course slightly more versatile or efficient) what is already available, then it'll never get imported to the base game.
Call me naive but I can't help but think that if enough good input comes from the pretender chassis and late game summons threads, that some of it will be patched in for us. <3