Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Quitti]

A small conversation with few people on IRC led me to post my(/our) ideas here. We were talking about giving a new earth booster (perhaps to not make MA Ulm complitely useless again, and such), and what came up was that since Pebble Skin suit has it's own problems (giving regen and str boost in addition to earth magic), the ideal candidate would be to turn Tome of Gaia into non-unique item, perhaps with paths of e4n2/e3n2 or something along those lines. Nature already has moonvine bracer as a misc booster which isn't very hard to get. This change would of course translate into basically giving a new free misc booster for pangaea of pretty much any era in addition to giving an access for it to ma Ulm, which again would have to work towards it (Like the case with bloodstones were for those nations, with perhaps the exception of la pan).

[llamabeast]

I like the idea of using the pebbleskin suit. I think it's a nice one.

The trouble with the tome of gaia is that it creates a strong link between nature and earth, and is rather better for some nations (e.g. Pan) than others (e.g. Ulm).

[Burnsaber]

I find it rather odd why people just don't go behind Pebble Skin Suit. If you are seriously concerned that it would be the next best SC gear or something, just make cost it E4 (or E5 if you really want be concervative). That way you can climb up to the high level earth spells like in the blood stone years, but it will just cost you so much as to prevent spam. I mean seriuosly, how many Air Helmets have forged in a single game? How many would you have forged if it was cursed?

The str boost is neglible (+2! big difference!), regeneration is pretty useful I admit, but really not big of a deal since it's not really a SC item. The stoneskin will often just hinder you with the -50cr penalty associated with it and it will stay even if you cast invulnerability/iron skin. Getting turned into a troll might be awesome, if you are human mage, not much so if you are a tartarian.

[Fantomen]

I´m also behind the pebble skin suit rather than tome of gaia.

But honestly I don´t think Ulm or any other strong earth nation is weakened by the loss of a second earth booster.

I think of it this way: With no gem gens the only way to "generate gems" is to use dvarwen hammers. This favours earth nations, a lot. And without a second earth booster it will be even harder for non earth nations to forge enough hammers, increasing this advantage.

For Ulm this is even more significant with their innate forge bonus, Ulm is now the undisputed master of gem saving in a world where gems just became a lot more valuable.

It will be a little harder to cast the high end earth spells, but weren´t those a little too easy to cast before anyway?

[Squirrelloid]

Fantomen: No, they weren't too easy to cast before.

Weapons of sharpness and army of X needs to be able to be cast by national mages lategame to retain usefulness. Otherwise they are too deep in the research tree for any real return. (And not just one national mage somewhere - but capable of fielding one with each army)

Petrify is totally useless if you can't spam it. Earth attack also isn't very good without being able to put national mages on it.

So either a new earth booster is needed, or the path requirements of these spells need to come down 1 each (minimum). Arguably, petrify was too hard to cast even with blood stone.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

The str boost is neglible (+2! big difference!), regeneration is pretty useful I admit, but really not big of a deal since it's not really a SC item. The stoneskin will often just hinder you with the -50cr penalty associated with it and it will stay even if you cast invulnerability/iron skin. Getting turned into a troll might be awesome, if you are human mage, not much so if you are a tartarian.

Yep. The pebbleskin suit just seems to be the least disruptive of the available options. Its drawbacks are numerous enough that I don't think you'll see them exactly mass produced, but they will be used whenever people really need that extra Earth level. I mean, Armor of Twisted Thorns is pretty awesome too, but nobody spams those.

Really, the best part about the Pebble Skin Suit is that it gives just enough protection to justify a round-one Rain of Stones from a guy wearing it and no other equipment(especially if you have the 35 hp from turning into a troll).

But really, the Pebble Skin Suit is just fine as a replacement for an earth booster. Non-blood nations will really have to think hard about whether or not they feel justified getting blood on their pretender or spending the resources to use scouts to bootstrap into blood for the thing. Don't underestimate either of those costs. There's no need to make it artificially expensive. Even keeping it E1B3 will not make these things common as flies, except perhaps on MA Abysia.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Fantomen: No, they weren't too easy to cast before.

Weapons of sharpness and army of X needs to be able to be cast by national mages lategame to retain usefulness. Otherwise they are too deep in the research tree for any real return. (And not just one national mage somewhere - but capable of fielding one with each army)

Petrify is totally useless if you can't spam it. Earth attack also isn't very good without being able to put national mages on it.

So either a new earth booster is needed, or the path requirements of these spells need to come down 1 each (minimum). Arguably, petrify was too hard to cast even with blood stone.

Weapons of sharpness and army of gold is just E4. So any e2 mage gets there easily. I guess petrify, army of lead and earth attack could be lowered to e4 if there´s no new booster.

I still maintain that the removal of gemgens, including bloodstones, is a relative boost to strong earth nations.

[Psycho]

Why does nobody mention the boots of antaues? They seem like the least disruptive option to me. Just some regen and reinvigoration on top of +1 earth.

[Psycho]

I am convinced that Boots of Antaeus are the best option for replacing blood stones. Here are two possible solutions, but paths and gem costs should be discussed. I prefer the second, but think that gem costs should be higher due to reinvig and regen effects which make it a good SC/thug equipment item.

1) Same paths and cost as boots

#selectitem 201               -- Boots of Antaeus
#constlevel 6
#name "Stone of Antaeus"
#descr "Some flavor text"
#copyspr 255                  -- Blood stone sprite
#type 8                       -- Misc item
#end

2) With blood stone's paths and cost

#selectitem 201               -- Boots of Antaeus
#constlevel 6
#mainpath 7		      --
#mainlevel 3		      -- B3
#secondarypath 3	      --
#secondarylevel 2	      -- E2
#name "Blood Stone"
#descr "Some flavor text"
#copyspr 255                  -- Blood stone sprite
#type 8                       -- Misc item
#end

[kianduatha]

Nice, but I don't understand how making it a perfect caster/SC item would be inherently superior. People would put that Stone of Antaeus on commanders that didn't even have earth magic. And it basically means that nature is no longer necessary to get regen on your SCs.