Mod: Immortal Pretenders (Finished! First Beta v0.9 06/08/2010)

[Verjigorm]

Added 3 additional sprites and one more pretender, rearranged directory structure, modified some statistics, performed play-testing. Major overhaul for design point cost is needed.

[Verjigorm]

Updated:

Added more sprites. Updated abilities and adjusted costs. Some flavor text/naming updated.

[Verjigorm]

All of the pretender sprites are now completed. I have finished tweaking their abilities and have play tested them a bit. I think the costs are appropriate relative to each other. However, design point costs relative to existing pretenders remains to be tweaked.

Therefore, I shall proclaim the mod a "beta" mod at this time and any further adjustments will be based on feedback (or my arbitrary decision).

Slight Tweak: Forgot to change the version number, it should now indicate version 0.9 to prevent confusion.

[Verjigorm]

I just noticed that you can't put random paths on a pretender chassis because the game charges the pretender for each pick. I'll have to make some adjustments.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I just noticed that you can't put random paths on a pretender chassis because the game charges the pretender for each pick. I'll have to make some adjustments.

This should really be in the "Modding tips and tricks" topic. I'll steal your remark .

[Squirrelloid]

Those sprites are beautiful. But they don't really mesh with the existing dom3 sprites very well. Notably, many of them are face-on, whereas all the dom3 sprites are profiles.

Do remind me to beg you to do sprite work if I ever engage in a modding project that needs it though. Ooh, pretty.

Balance Concerns:
Nazgul is very similar to the lich pretender in execution. He's also far worse statwise, and I'm really not convinced his few bonus abilities make up for it. Give him a decent attack score at the very least - 8 is just sad. That's militia quality.

I'm not convinced Lady of the Lake is that good either, mostly because water isn't a very good path for a pretender. I might drop her cost to 80 or 90.

Arcane Construct is kind of weird, I don't even know how to think about it for balance. I mean, it could be a great lategame astral pretender, except there are plenty of cheaper options that can do that. As an awake pretender its really expensive, and never heals makes it a poor choice for an SC expander. Then its got weird slots which don't really help it in SCing (no place to stick an item of quickness, for example).

Maia - I think you meant Maiar. Anyway, give him some paths like the other rainbows, not having a path to start with makes him stupidly expensive to do anything with.

Heirophant - better than the lady of the lake and less points. That can't be right. (Drop the lady of the lake, he looks well-costed).

Dream Weaver - I'm thinking more like 100, possibly 110.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Those sprites are beautiful. But they don't really mesh with the existing dom3 sprites very well. Notably, many of them are face-on, whereas all the dom3 sprites are profiles.

Do remind me to beg you to do sprite work if I ever engage in a modding project that needs it though. Ooh, pretty.

Balance Concerns:
Nazgul is very similar to the lich pretender in execution. He's also far worse statwise, and I'm really not convinced his few bonus abilities make up for it. Give him a decent attack score at the very least - 8 is just sad. That's militia quality.

I'm not convinced Lady of the Lake is that good either, mostly because water isn't a very good path for a pretender. I might drop her cost to 80 or 90.

Arcane Construct is kind of weird, I don't even know how to think about it for balance. I mean, it could be a great lategame astral pretender, except there are plenty of cheaper options that can do that. As an awake pretender its really expensive, and never heals makes it a poor choice for an SC expander. Then its got weird slots which don't really help it in SCing (no place to stick an item of quickness, for example).

Maia - I think you meant Maiar. Anyway, give him some paths like the other rainbows, not having a path to start with makes him stupidly expensive to do anything with.

Heirophant - better than the lady of the lake and less points. That can't be right. (Drop the lady of the lake, he looks well-costed).

Dream Weaver - I'm thinking more like 100, possibly 110.

All of the sprites are stolen and modified in image editing (GIMP) from pictures I found on the Internet. The most original ones are Schrodinger's Cat which is actually a pencil drawing that I colored and shrinky dinked, and the Blood Angel which has it's origin in a completely different and cool picture (see link) but is my hacked attempt at recreation. I used a photo of an actual person for the body and the wings are an overpaint of a fractal "wing". Aside from the Blood Angel, Arcane Construct was the roughest--It's a picture of an Iron Golem from DND that I sliced up and edited.

Blood Angel Inspiration: http://media.photobucket.com/image/a...ngel-demon.jpg

I thought he was too strong at 30 Protection and 4 Dominion even for his high cost of 175, but that was because I stomped all over a nation with him in early game with Arcoscephale--250 gold labs make for nice healing bases and he's very hard to kill once he casts Body Ethereal, Personal Luck, and Astral Shield if you take Dominion-10 for Awe-2 provided you give him a Reinvigoration item and a pair of AoE weapons (I used Frost/Firebrand combo). That's why I set his cost so high.

I like Lady of the Lake for her sprite, basically. The Hierophant is much less powerful outside of forest provinces. The version shown on the pretender selection screen is the forest version.

The Nazgul was an afterthought after I did the Maia (Maiar is the plural of Maia), I wanted him to have random default paths, 3 unlinked, but I couldn't get it (see above), then I couldn't decide what basic path(s) to give him, so I just set him at very low cost with paths of 20 so that he ends up being an expensive rainbow immortal. I don't think I'd give him more than 2 unlinked at his current cost, but I still don't know which ones... Maybe fire and earth.

I was thinking Dream Weaver might be a bit expensive. It's hard to position her as an assassin. I was using her with Ermor, but her other duties far outweighed the need for a seducing assassin--even one with a significant bonus to seduction.