Beginner's Guide to Shinuyama MA

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'd forgotten all about Awe- pricy as it is, it is a persistent, fatigueless effect. Thanks for the (on-topic) tip VFB. Jeff, thanks for the tip about Lammashtas. Thanks for the feedback on flight. On an attempt to bring the Ktonian deviation on topic somewhat,can a crystal matrix and slave matrix work even if none of the slaves have paths in magic, and none of the masters paths in astral?

With an immortal pretender, theres' little drawback (aside from points) in taking astral. So, with the right paths and research, you should be able to forge several matrixes. A lot of effort to get higher in the paths, but maybe you can spam elementals? Whatever. The Sorceror does have a lot of '2's, and a lot of interesting things become available at 3. Plus spells and artifacts like earthpower and earth boots... Even 2 communion slaves might be interesting.

Skull Talismans on Mujina? Interesting. I hadn't ever tried that artifact. And Mujina expansions? Also interesting. I'l have to try that. It may give me additional material to discourage incursions, if I can just find a way around the bodyguards.

For an interesting idea I have yet to try...
Dark Skies. Unfortunately a defensive spell, it reduces enemy morale by one for each point of friendly dominion. Won't affect many undead or magical bodyguards, but will render Mujina a lot more effective in friendly territory.

[Xietor]

I took an imprisoned one in a recent mp game(very risky),
but I envision using him with items, and the advantage of immortality is that if he dies, i do lose items but not my pretender, and he does heal wounds.

I will not equip him with great items, but with a few constr 4 items he can be quite potent. While awe is great, with dom 1, I think the price is too high.

Especially since mine will not awaken until year 3 and there are many units with morale 50 in play by that time.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Let us know how it turns out, Xietor. I'm interested in hearing all about it

How many weeks would you estimate you are from him escaping?

[Xietor]

well in it summer of year 3 now. So he should be popping out soon.

Since that game is ongoing, I cannot reveal the magic paths or strategy for him quite yet. But as shin is not the greatest MP race, my participation in the game may come to an end at any time.

But I will give a full report once it becomes common knowledge what my paths are to my fellow players.

[MaxWilson]

A crystal matrix does not rely on the master having astral paths, but a slave matrix will not function if the slaves do not have magic. Let me qualify that--the slaves do not share spell fatigue if they have no magic. I don't know if they are still affected by single-target spells on the master, although I expect not.

-Max

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, I guess shamans can still work as slaves, as well as shifted Ubas. That could grant some significant stealth firepower.

[Shovah32]

What about those 50 gold pythian communicants that have no magic(i assumed they worked as a regular commander with a slave matrix)? Dont they share the masters fatigue?

[MaxWilson]

Communicants do not work like normal communion slaves. For one thing, they take much less fatigue damage from spells than normal slaves. I'm not sure exactly how everything works, but I think Pythium communicants divide up the spell fatigue without adjusting for path levels, because they have no paths, whereas normal communicants do the normal adjustment, e.g. x2 fatigue for being 1 path level short, or x0.5 for being 1 path level over. This means that you can do a Master Enslave with 8 communicants without all of them immediately maxing out on fatigue and dying with the next spell cast. There's some other weirdness that goes on, too, but communicants are much better than normal communion slaves in all the ways I'm aware of.

-Max

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I tried the Skull Talisman, and it was wonderfully effective, only adding five fatigue each use.

...

Any suggestions in dealing with unexpected priests?

Once they pick up your skull talisman, they're very, very tough to take down.

[MaxWilson]

You'd expect that another skull talisman-wearing assassin could take down an indy priest with a skull talisman, because the priest would do something like <animate skeleton, banish, banish, animate skeleton, banish, banish> while the assassin is doing straight-up <animate skeleton, animate skeleton, animate skeleton>...

-Max