Magic Duel?

[Nerfix]

Has Magic Duel changed from Dominions I?

If not, i would have a suggestion for scalable Magic Duel, if you are intrested.

[johan osterman]

no

[ October 05, 2003, 14:58: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Nerfix]

Ok, can i post my suggestion?

[johan osterman]

You may, but I think it works fine and doesnt need any changes.

[Nerfix]

Ok, here it goes:
Caster and target level equal: Nothing.
Caster has 1 more Astral than target:50 points of stun damage to target
Caster has 2 more Astral than target:100 points of stun damage
Caster has 3 more Astral than targeteath

Even stun damage can be pretty bad, mages getting knocked out prematurely can be a bad. Besides, if the target has already fatigue, he migth take damage, possibly end up dead.

[Saber Cherry]

Maybe losing an astral duel could permanently rip a level of astral out of the loser, and massively fatigue him (+50 fatigue). Then losing astral battles would still be hugely and permanently detrimental, but taking astral on a pretender would no longer be suicidal.

-Cherry

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Maybe losing an astral duel could permanently rip a level of astral out of the loser, and massively fatigue him (+50 fatigue). Then losing astral battles would still be hugely and permanently detrimental, but taking astral on a pretender would no longer be suicidal.

This could be worse than it currently is. Now, if your pretender dies from Mind Duel, you bring him back losing a skill point or two.

Following your suggestion, the same Pretender could easily lose enough Mind Duels in one battle to drop him to 0 Astral.

[Saber Cherry]

Good point. I was only thinking from the perspective of a pretender with one or two points of astral (enough for searching, etherealness, and forging a few things). For a rainbow mage, death is far worse than getting astral powers sucked out of his body... but for a high-astral god, my suggestion would be worse than the present state.

[Jasper]

I suspect it's exceptionally rare for a pretender to have 1 or 2 points of Astral. When making a Rainbow Mage, it makes sense to get ~2 in all fields, except Astral due to the threat of Mind Duel (which is particularily dangerous to a Rainbow Mage).

Then again Mages were weak enough in Dom 1 I don't recall _ever_ seeing anyone play one in multiplayer. Actually, I don't recall even hearing of an instance.

I've also never heard of anyone taking less than 3 Astral in multiplayer. Even then it was a Wyrm with 3 Astral used on a specialized and highly competitive map (HexBlitz). The Wyrm was used for swift early expansion (especially underwater) and later considered expendable, so the risk was deemed worthwhile.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Jasper:
I suspect it's exceptionally rare for a pretender to have 1 or 2 points of Astral. When making a Rainbow Mage, it makes sense to get ~2 in all fields, except Astral due to the threat of Mind Duel (which is particularily dangerous to a Rainbow Mage).

Then again Mages were weak enough in Dom 1 I don't recall _ever_ seeing anyone play one in multiplayer. Actually, I don't recall even hearing of an instance.

I've also never heard of anyone taking less than 3 Astral in multiplayer. Even then it was a Wyrm with 3 Astral used on a specialized and highly competitive map (HexBlitz). The Wyrm was used for swift early expansion (especially underwater) and later considered expendable, so the risk was deemed worthwhile.

Thats funny, because I played in pbem a rainbow mage with astral 2, and was quite happy with him.
Whats the problem in having astral 2 on a rainbow mage? He is not supposed to see any battle (and he never saw any battle), unless besieged in his castle, an occurence which anyway is the sure thing you are doomed in a matter of turns.

More generally, I often saw rainbow mages pretenders in my pbem, perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of players.