Paralysis is overpowered.

[Meglobob]

Got to agree with Amhazair here. I just cast about 200 x paralysis at a SC attacking my castle. It had 28 MR, not one effected the SC. I hate the constant casting of any 1 spell after scripting has run. If I had cast a few frozen hearts which my mages were capable of, then that would be 1 dead SC and a lot sooner than 50 rounds. The battle ended very unsatisfactory for everyone concerned with the attacker auto-routing, then my forces auto-routing. The SC had only 3 AP so took a age leaving the battlefield.

My mages also spammed rage, which was obviously useless against a single attacker! I would have prefered, frozen heart, water strike and/or geyser.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Meglobob

Got to agree with Amhazair here. I just cast about 200 x paralysis at a SC attacking my castle. It had 28 MR, not one effected the SC. I hate the constant casting of any 1 spell after scripting has run. If I had cast a few frozen hearts which my mages were capable of, then that would be 1 dead SC and a lot sooner than 50 rounds. The battle ended very unsatisfactory for everyone concerned with the attacker auto-routing, then my forces auto-routing. The SC had only 3 AP so took a age leaving the battlefield.

My mages also spammed rage, which was obviously useless against a single attacker! I would have prefered, frozen heart, water strike and/or geyser.

My tests came to pretty much the same conclusion about the success rate, so why are all these other people getting so unlucky on their resistance rolls and losing their high MR SCs?

[Agema]

It's chance, and the errors in human perception relating to chance.

What happens is that people very keenly remember when their expensive super-SC fails that one time, especially when the fail is catastrophic and results in autodeath, and more so if it happens early in a battle.

People forget that that same SC might have already been subject to many MR rolls over time and passed them all; or they forget they have many SCs over the course of playing Dom3 who have passed hundreds of such rolls between them and it's only that one that has failed catastrophically. They may forget the times that SCs fail a MR check but it was for something trivial like taking damage from an astral geyser, and so lose perspective of how easy it can be to fail an MR roll.

Alternatively, you can view it this way. If you've got a community of hundreds, each of whom is running a few games, each game with a few SCs, if all those SCs have a 1/1000 chance of failing an MR roll, it's actually very likely at least one SC walks into a battle and fails an MR roll with a disasterous result, because you've got over 1000 SCs facing MR rolls.

[WraithLord]

I know I'm jumping late into this and no, I haven't read the entire thread, just scanned it at random and read the end, so I apologize if I repeat or something.

Regarding paralyze and SCs I've got to agree with Agema. Yes, its nice to role play with SCs, but no, they shouldn't be impregnable. As strong as they are some thing some time, when they are out of luck maybe, should be able to hit and/or kill them.

Originally Posted by Meglobob

Got to agree with Amhazair here. I just cast about 200 x paralysis at a SC attacking my castle. It had 28 MR, not one effected the SC. I hate the constant casting of any 1 spell after scripting has run. If I had cast a few frozen hearts which my mages were capable of, then that would be 1 dead SC and a lot sooner than 50 rounds. The battle ended very unsatisfactory for everyone concerned with the attacker auto-routing, then my forces auto-routing. The SC had only 3 AP so took a age leaving the battlefield.

My mages also spammed rage, which was obviously useless against a single attacker! I would have prefered, frozen heart, water strike and/or geyser.

Yes, I agree with both. From bitter past experience there is little I hate as much as the AI spamming useless spells (and paralyze is a great example) while it could have cast much better spells (like soul slay, frozen heart, dust to dust etc).

This relates to a suggestion on a different current thread (forgot name) to allow scripting categories. Meaning order your mage to concentrate on evocation only (so S2W2 mage will spam frozen heart and not paralyze).
Another option is to change the weights the AI gives to spells. Lower paralyze some, increase soul slay and frozen heart some.
A third, unlikely option is to allow players to actually set the spell weights per game. So players will usually stick with defaults but on occasions make changes as they see fit.

I like the first option most since its simple and it gives a measure of control to the player.

[Adept]

Funnily enough this thread wasn't about super combatants, but about the paralysis spell in general.

I listed those MR's to remind people of the scale of the game. MR 15 is quite decent for a thug (like a sleeper).

[konming]

Originally Posted by Adept

Funnily enough this thread wasn't about super combatants, but about the paralysis spell in general.

I listed those MR's to remind people of the scale of the game. MR 15 is quite decent for a thug (like a sleeper).

How many decent players spam paralyze on sleeper grade thugs? Even in your sleeper example, you can bring a single elephant and laugh at all the puny paralyzing efforts. Now tell me, if this spell is not about SCs, then what is it about in the many MP games you played? At least I hear no complains about "my elephants are paralyzed for too long" argument. Care to read your original post again?

[Adept]

[quote=konming;635846]

Originally Posted by Adept

How many decent players spam paralyze on sleeper grade thugs? Even in your sleeper example, you can bring a single elephant and laugh at all the puny paralyzing efforts. Now tell me, if this spell is not about SCs, then what is it about in the many MP games you played? At least I hear no complains about "my elephants are paralyzed for too long" argument. Care to read your original post again?

Huh?

You are probably insinuating something, but being too cute about it. I can't make you out.

Why should I care about elephants getting paralysed? I don't much like trampling units, as I think they are handled badly (it's the automatic 1 point of damage regardless of defense, and the fact that one can trample the same unit several times in a round).

I'm a painfully honest person, and do not brag about things that aren't true. I can try to find out when I wrote to Kristoffer originally to get a copy of Dominions. Money in an envelope type of thing

Anyway, if you have something to say be an adult and say it without playing coy. Our play styles may differ, but I have been playing this game passionately for a long time. I don't solo play, because we practically always have a MP going.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Adept

Funnily enough this thread wasn't about super combatants, but about the paralysis spell in general.

I listed those MR's to remind people of the scale of the game. MR 15 is quite decent for a thug (like a sleeper).

MR 15 is pretty bad, actually. I would consider 20 a bare minimum against astral heavy nations.

Jazzepi

[konming]

If it is a SC, I would get him 25+ MR. Rainbow armor+AMA shall do the trick. If facing heavy astral, I would also do iron will/resist magic if possible and against R'lyeh, you better go 27+.

[Adept]

Originally Posted by konming

If it is a SC, I would get him 25+ MR. Rainbow armor+AMA shall do the trick. If facing heavy astral, I would also do iron will/resist magic if possible and against R'lyeh, you better go 27+.

The game was late era. I was playing Ulm and the opponent in question was playing Bogarus.

Bogarus is not an "astral heavy nation" in my book.

It's not just about pretenders getting stopped in their tracks. It's an easily accessible low level spell, which is very, very effective at stopping tartarian gate monsters and the like.

I like it being effective, but not the extremely long durations. As to what the duration should be, it seems very hard to have a civilised conversation about it.

Maybe the open ended d6 + power is too little. Possibly the formula should take MR into account. All I can say is that I find the current ones to be too long and the penetration to be too good & easy to ramp up.