Beowulf Mod-MA Man-(obsolete version).

[Xietor]

This mod does 2 things to MA Man. The biggest thing, it gives Man a national hero to start the game. He is as tough as many of the worthy heroes, but not tougher than all of them. So when you judge Beowulf, do it by Worthy Hero Mod standards.

Beowulf cannot take provinces solo at the start of a game. That keeps him from being unbalanced in the crucial early expansion phase of the game. By mid game, with good items, he can become very tough.

The second thing the mod does is moderately increase the protection of the Tower Guard, by giving him slightly better armor. This had the effect of lowering his defense and increasing his resource cost. His gold cost was increased to 14 and his morale was bumped from 11 to 12.

Man had no decent infantry except for the sacred wardens which are capital only. And with their high resource cost, it is not efficient to use knights all the time. So now you have a decent shield for those longbows at castles other than your capital.

This mod is compatible with Llamabeast's Reduced Old Age Mod and the Worthy Hero Mod, both of which I personally like, and highly recommend.

If you like to rp with a strong hero, this mod is for you. Soon, you will find Beowulf in the Epic Hero mod that will give a unique starting hero to every MA race.

My thanks to the many people that helped make this mod possible, Foodstamp, Llamabeast, Endperez, and Johan K to name a few. They are recognized in the credits, at the start of the mod.

[Xietor]

Here is the description of Beowulf:

A warrior of unequaled physical stature and renown, Beowulf slew the dreaded monster Grendal in a fierce single combat. Near death, poisoned, and without hope for himself, Beowulf cut out the creature's heart and ate it to insure it remained dead. Beowulf immediately began to recover from his wounds, and no longer felt the creature's poison burning his blood. He later swore allegiance to the Knights of Avalon and joined their cause. In return, he was gifted with Avalon's greatest artifact, The Sword of No Tomorrow, the origin of which no living man can tell.


If anyone is a good fantasy writer, make a description for a national hero for any MA race, and I will try and make a national starting hero for it. Especially pythium(:

One of my friends said he will only allow me to use this mod if pythium(his favorite race)gets a hero, a male angel, that is a caster.

Having never really played pythium, I am sort of stumped as to a good storyline for an angel. Though i think I know the sprite for HIS starting hero, a wingless. lol.

[Endoperez]

#secondaryeffectalways is currently bugged and won't work. It will be fixed for the next version.

The sprite is huge. What about using the sprite 375? It's a prophetized Jotun Jarl, who gets to wear golden mail. He has shield and a sword, which is Greatsword and not a Jotun Sword (pretty much identical, but the giants were cahned to use the latter for DomII). There's also Jotun Jarl 436, who seems to have been redrawn for Dom3. His beard can be clearly seen, though. They are still sprites of Size 4 creatures, so you could change Beowulf's size to 3.
As for size 2 sprites:
There's Sidhe Champion of DomII, unit nr 850. Green and red, armed with a golden sword and a shield. Myrmidon champion, 1076, could work. Marverni or Ambibate Chieftains, 1215 and 1218, could work.

The sword might be too powerful. Base damage 16, plus his strength 17, AND it has #armorpiercing... #dt_demon or #dt_holy might work better. Also, one-handed swords are usually length 2, not 3. Giants' swords would be 3, as Greatswords.

[Xietor]

Thanks for the comment.

I think Beowulf needs to be toned down a bit, as he can make early expansion too easy.

And he does not look right as a giant, so I will work with the sprites you suggested. And I agree the AP on the sword is overpowered.

Your suggestions are appreciated!

[Xietor]

Beowulf 1.1 is attached at the top.

New features:

Beowulf has been toned down. His protection was lowered substantially, which will make it risky to try and take a province solo at the start. The sword of no tomorrow had its attack reduced, damage reduced, and its ap ability removed. The graphic for the sword attack was changed also.

The sprite for Beowulf was changed to reflect that he is a human, not a giant. The complaints I heard early concerened Beowulf's ability to easily take a province solo with his very high protection. Beowulf's natural protection was nerfed from 14 to 3. His starting armor was nerfed a bit too.

Beowulf did gain a few features.

1. He now has a battle standard. This reflects that he will be leading men, rather than solo fighting.

2. his defense was raised by 2, which will not help him much if he is fighting solo against a bunch of indies.

3. He was given an additional misc. slot. This also will not help him in the early expansion game, but will make him better towards the mid game with the extra misc.item.

[Endoperez]

You also gave him a better shield. Gold Shield is one of the best ones in the game, as far as pure stats go.

At the moment, I'd say Beowulf is a bit too powerful for a human (Standard +25! 3 misc slots! def 17! and of course hp of 27...), which means that it's probably balanced with heroes of Worthy Heroes. I never tried to become familiar with its power level.

As Johan said earlier, there is a typo (actually several) in the modding manual for itemslots, the precalculated values at the end are wrong. If you examine his protection more closely, you'll notice that his head protection is just 12, as if his protection was halved. To fix this, you should use #itemslots 31878 instead of 32006. In general, to fix this problem you have to decrease #itemslots value of all units that are affected by the halved head protection bug by 128.

[Xietor]

The Gold Shield was to match his picture! And it replaced a Shield of Valor, not a crappy shield.

My primary concern was that he should not be able to take provinces solo, and thereby unbalance early expansion.

While he can take a province solo, it is risky. He died to light infantry trying to take one province during my test, and died to a vine arrow in another.

The extra misc. slot will make him more powerful in midgame, but will not effect him early in the game at all. He is not unbalancing mid game, as he is underpowered compared to many of the Worthy heroes. The main concern for balance is how powerful he is at the start, when early expansion is crucial. Many of the worthy heroes have very beefed up stats and extra slots. And this Hero is intended to be on par with a strong Worthy Hero.

As always though, I appreciate your thoughtful insight. And I will test him a bit more. I did not catch his prot of 12 at the head slot. Maybe that is why he died to a vine arrow.

[Xietor]

The final version of Beowulf, 1.2 is attached.

Beowulf's slot bug was fixed(thank you Endoperez), and his chain mail of displacement was replaced with a common bronze cuirass found on some infantry.

The net sum of the nerfs to Beowulf have reduced his starting protection from 28 to a modest 16 for his body. His defense has been lowered significantly by the change from chain mail of displacement to the bronze cuirass.

The great thing is the bronze cuirass and gold shield match his graphic!

Beowulf with better items is capable of being a thug that can take a province solo, but it would be a great risk to the hero to try it with his starting equipment. In fact, in all the tests I did with starting pd 6 that i typically use,
he did not come close to taking a province solo.

Look for Beowulf, and other epic heroes in the upcoming Epic Hero Mod, the aim of which is to provide a unique epic hero at the start for each MA race.

[BandarLover]

Xietor asked me to post this so I guess I will. Here is my background story for an angel hero for Pythium:


While the Pantokrator ruled, contact between mortals and angels was prohibited. However, during Pythium's violent split with Ermor, one angel forsook his place and came to Pythium's aid in their darkest time of need. Despite Pythium's reverance of angels - or because of it - the angel was struck mute by the Pantokrator and his name taken away from him. Even after the Pantokrator's sudden disappearance, Nameless wanders the mortal realm still. Legend holds that he will always come to Pythium's aid, regardless of the cost to himself.