LA - Ermor - Ashen Empire: Pretenders

[TirAsleen]

There should be more Pretenders to choose from. SC for Ermor is not really all that useful as for other nations.(or at all in dom3) The army is so big that a SC is pointless or lets at least say not as effective. So Lichqueen and sometimes masterlich/ghost king seems always be a no brainer choice. I also tried to take Lord of the Gates for a bit diversity and making him SC and spellcaster.

Example1 SC:
Scales: turmoil3, sloth3, cold3, death3, luck3, drain2
Dormant Lord of the Gates, starting with dominion3, 1death magic path
paths: 4 fire, 3 air, 10 death, 4 nature

design points left: zero

Example2 immortal Spellcaster:

Scales: turmoil3, sloth3, cold3, death3, luck3, drain2
Dormant Lichqueen, starting with dominion4, 3death magic paths
paths: 4 fire, 3 air, 10 death, 4 nature

design points left: 155! o_O

I really like Roleplaying, but this is too harsh. Making the Lichqueen and similar immortals so much a no brainer choice is not really about diversity. The other problem is while EA Ermor and partly MA Ermor have more pretender choices, LA Ermor has it kinda reduced to nothing, but different liches, where a normal Lich really serves no purpose.

I would like here some additonal pretenders added. Tartarian Titans could be added for example. And a good SC chassis with fire and death paths to start with, maybe some demon lords of the undead realm in hell.

Ermor gets so many design points late age and cannot use them well cause of almost no choices resulting in always having the same gods, others do simply not work well enough in comparission. You can take a prince of death/ghost king and scare some indies, but what for? You have more than enough undead legions to throw on them. And later summons that can fit into a SC role quite easily.

So a wider selection of pyhsical pretender appearances would be very appreciated for the RPG aspect of this game. I can't think of a balance reason that LE Ermor has just a few useful gods. In Ashen Empire history i read about a dark hungry god, i hope Lichqueen was not meaned by that.

A Tartarian Titan or Demonlord commanding the undead would fit here better, imho. Doom Horor as Gandalf once suggest for its AI too, but i can see that would be a mod thing then.

[mivayan]

155 points? That's a lot. For my own curiosity I'll make a list of what makes the lord of the gates that much more expensive.

Pretender cost makes it 60 points cheaper.
Starting dom 3 in stead of 4 adds 49 points to dom10
Higher new path cost adds 30 points.
Starting with D1 instead of D3 adds 136 points to get D10.
49+30+136-60 = 155.

imo the lord of the gates might be usefull if you want a really cheap god... NOT good for an expensive monster.

For a SC to crush indep armies, try a Prince of Death, it has 111 points left with those magic paths and dom10. The Awe+fear combo really rocks.

A ghost king casting air shield and iron skin can go through most indeps... just keep him away from F9W9 vans. Cant really get Death9 or 10 with it either, try 5-7.

[TirAsleen]

yes......cheap god, problem with that idea is, LE Ermor is not about cheap gods, you always can make expensive ones as you can afford negative scales a lot. So this potential of a cheap SC or just a cheap god seems wasted.

I had very good results with PoD and Ghostking as well. But they are not immortal and especially PoD does cost more. PoD has flying but is not stealthy and cannot go underwater without items like ghostking. And he just spawns very few useless longdead, of wich LE ermor has more than enough, while Ghost king spawns ghosts wich have life drain and ethereal and his magic paths are cheaper too + can go underwater.

Anyways, while these can be useful too, i think more choices would be nicer. Jortundheim alone has 2 unique UNDEAD pretenders. Dracolich and BogMummy....Ermor has the lichqueen, but the lichqueen is nothing but a normal lich with higher dominion, with slightly weaker stats, meaning she is not really that unique.

[mivayan]

TirAsleen said:
yes......cheap god, problem with that idea is, LE Ermor is not about cheap gods, you always can make expensive ones as you can afford negative scales a lot. So this potential of a cheap SC or just a cheap god seems wasted.

You mean no one in their right mind would choose him while trying to be competitive? True.

The best way to get new gods for LA ermor is to dream up something that's so awsome the devs cant resist adding it.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Regarding the paths on these choices... I'd add Earth 2 or 3 if affordable. Site searching uncovers those Gem Deposits and other gold producers, good for a gold-starved nation that Ermor generally turns into. (Real luck could turn up a hidden fortress, too... most helpful...)
Also, in one of the D2 mods (Battlemages, I believe it was called), there was one called the Reaper with a "Reap Souls" AoE death attack... the whole group in this mod was aligned for rainbow-types. D,S 4 and a bunch of 2s and 3s could turn this into a complete master caster in the mid-game. Anyone want to adjust that mod for use in D3?

[TirAsleen]

Well, the paths were just an expierement for the lord of the gates to be used as SC later. Air for mistform, air shield, mirror immage, nature for gift of health(with item) or fairy queen cast and regeneration. Fire for falling fires and phoenix pyre. High death for cause fear and soul vortex.

I stopped to use rainbow pretenders with ermor, you can make some dusk elders and some have air, earth, astral, fire, water and search with these. they usually find nature mages too in some forest provinces, enchantress or witch has nature and earth combined and is sacred so you can afford some even wih ermor.

I just would like to see some unique cool new gods for LE Ermor fitting in their theme and ashen empire description, even if they are not competetive. Any suggestions are welcome.

[normalphil]

LE Ermor is about there being a pretender god of death and ruin out there that is so out of the usual that the mere fact of its existence destroyed the greatest human civilization (after they completely re-invented themselves as a nation-state sized lock keeping him from getting out in the first place), and everybody in the world is going to die simply because he's somewhere on the same planet.

This is one of those 'not all wheels have to be round, but the ones that roll are' things, I think. Ghost kings it is.

[Sombre]

There are two mods, Nova Deus and Mytheology, which add many new pretenders to the vanilla factions. They are on the mod list in the mod subforum.

I know for a fact that there are new gods for LA Ermor in there, including the grim reaper himself.

[TirAsleen]

Might try those then.

[TirAsleen]

Tried them. Nova Deus had nothing new for LE Emor just different graphcis that are not exactly an improvement.

Mytheology is on the right way. But more needs to be done. Like an pretender without immortal or ethereal ablity. A tatarian Monstrum/Titan/Cyclops or Demon Lord would work well, i think here about a cool and fitting SC chassis for Ermor, they have enough powerful immortal spellcasters.

Maybe i have to do it myself.