Fixing up Tartarians ?

[Mondaiji]

An alternative to GoH chalice? I dont know anything about item moding so maybe its not possible but would it hurt the game a lot if there was a expensive but not unique chalice in game?

[thejeff]

The Chalice could be made non-unique (Constr 6) and it's price and path requirements raised.

That would be an interesting change.

[Squirrelloid]

thejeff: i'm in support of work like the endgame Diversity mod - more endgame options is a good thing.

And I don't think its a matter of limiting options to cost tarts appropriately. Rather, making tarts too cheap means whomever gets GoH or the Chalice has a major advantage over other players rather than just an additional useful tool.

Honestly, 30d tarts strikes me as possibly a little cheap, but much better than the 12d ones we have now. Yeah, you could get nothing but monstrum (ugg), but chances are you get something else in there, and everything else is worth significantly more than 12d.

(Honestly, monstrum aren't that bad, its just they really are a troop not a commander. I'd totally summon them at 12d each if I knew I was getting them, but they need quantity to overcome their lack of quality. Maybe they should be moved to a separate summons? With current modding tools you'd need to copystats them to a new number, then replace the old number with something else - Undead ivy kings? Zombie faerie queens? I dunno, should be easy to come up with *something*)

[Verjigorm]

I would love to see some viable alternative end game units to Tartarians. It sort of ruins the aesthetic flavor of some nations to have to resort to releasing twisted insane undead titans from their eternal prison...

The present (CBM) costs are 15 for Tarrasque, 12 for Tartarian, and 25 for Abomination/Iron Dragon, 15 for Juggernaut which seems quite balanced for their basic stats.

The problem, essentially, with Tartarians isn't their basic stats, but the fact that, once healed, they have a lovely undead body which means 0 encumbrance and have a full contingent of items.

Therefore, I would propose that affording alternative creatures more item slots would make them more interesting end game since if you can't hold items... You can't do anything.

Abominations and Dragons could then, therefore, be upgraded to allow them to wield weapons, have helmets, and then 3-4 misc. slots which would bring them to 7 slots. Obviously, no boots or armor since that's rather ludicrous from a thematic perspective, but dragons do have claws and abominations have tentacles with which they could grasp something. In fact, an abomination could have more than 2 weapon slots...

Providing them with some funky random magic paths and Feeblemind by default (since they were just weird animals after all) would be appropriate so you couldn't just GoR them. The fact that they could be healed without unusual magic is a bonus above a tart.

The idea here would be to add equipment slots and random paths to make all of the creatures relatively well balanced without resorting to gem cost to balance them--if, per se, all the monsters cost the same amount.. What would we have to set the item slots/paths at to make them of similar value end game even though their stats are a bit different? I would say that you wouldn't want a gem cost differential to be more than 10-15 gems difference between the cheapest and the most expensive.

The other alternative to adding equipment is to add on multiple useful abilities that one usually gets from equipment onto the creatures and factor that cost into their basic cost:

Ethereal, Lucky, Damage Shield, various immunities, more attacks, re-invigoration, etc.

Diversifying the end game summon market while respecting the above might also yield promising results... Summon Gamera anyone? (It's a flying Japanese turtle with rockets in its butt). Having both cheap, no frills rank-and-file units and expensive, multi-ability commander end game units for other magic paths would be interesting. Just go grab your Magic the Gathering Cards for ideas... Avoiding unique summons is best.

[Lingchih]

Umm... where's a dragon going to stick a sword? Maybe hold it in it's mouth? It doesn't have hands, you know. And where's an Abom going to put a helmet? Maybe tape it on top of it's amorphous form, where it will fall off?

The slot limits are there because of the limitations of the creature's physiques.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Umm... where's a dragon going to stick a sword? Maybe hold it in it's mouth? It doesn't have hands, you know. And where's an Abom going to put a helmet? Maybe tape it on top of it's amorphous form, where it will fall off?

The slot limits are there because of the limitations of the creature's physiques.

lol. That's why I put forth the idea that, if you don't like the aesthetic quality of a dragon wielding a sword (keep in mind that if you look at D&D dragons, they have little hand-like claws like a Tyrannosaurus, but the Tarrasque doesn't). You can give them powers of certain commonly selected items. Let's see what people like on their SCs....

Brand swords: Check! Tarrasque has an AoE breath attack. Give it more ammo!

Luck: Traditionally Astral, but the Four-leaf clover is still kinda naturey... We could do that...

Retribution Shield... Hmmm.. we can't enrobe it in fire... How about a poison cloud or poison armor? It wouldn't be too far fetched to state that a tarrasque might have poisonous fluids inside...

The biggest thing, however, is the enc-0 of the Tartarian which is quite unique to undead, and should remain so, but in order to mitigate it's effect, higher-level monsters should need a little bump of re-invigoration to offset that somewhat.

The magic paths and corresponding Feeblemind affliction and possibly even Insanity of some level if you like since creatures that big might fancy themselves gods in their own right and might not like your ideas all the time...

Now, when looking into magic paths, they should be lower-order paths in the 10% - 25% range to make certain that they have a similar variety to those of Tartarians.