[MOD] Gnilbert Mod 0.6: Elemental Disciples, Magic Attack staves, Elemental Spellbooks, Mana Talents

This.

What if the staves scaled with shards as well?  It'd be another way to make shards, allegedly the source of real power, even more valuable, as well as make an actually useful but not overpowered range weapon.

What are those barriers?

Currently, each staff does +25% extra damage per shard you control (of the correct element, though the death one counts total shards).

If it's not working, just let me know!

Gnilbert

I've been obsessing over trying to get a sovereign talent that will let you have a specific Shard at your starting location. Unfortunately, at this point I'd pretty much just be guessing function names, since I haven't been able to find anything in the existing XML that does it - you can add pretty much any other type of starting resource, but the shards aren't really the same "type."

I've also been spending some time playing with the particle cauldron, though I'm really not great with it. Don't expect to see any effects from me for a while - unless they're added as a joke!

Gnilbert

Yeah, it's kinda weird that shards are a special Resource type, as they really don't do anything different.

However... you CAN just make a new, normal Resource and Improvements to build on it that function exactly like a normal Shard... that's probably the way to go about that.

Great mod Gnilbert! The support mage units work great in tactical battles.

Any future plans to make all tactical magic ignore defense (If SD doesn't do something similar)?

I can't express in words how disappointing it is when my Sovereign fails to hit a giant troll with a fireball four times. Then he casually walks up to her and clubs her to death...

Just wanted to say here real quick that I do have your mod downloaded and installed, and got the vestments to unlock... but I still couldn't wear them with my female sovereign.

<Attribute>SetUnitStat didn't work when I tried it, you sure that works?

Also, isn't the death staff a little overpowered? I mean, how it stacks with any shard.

Ps. If you want a special ability or spell to only be castable once in combat, you can add <Cooldown>x</Cooldown> just make sure it's a large number, because if it runs out in tactical combat it will crash the client.

Do the traits that act like shards count for staves or just for spells?

I've been wondering about mods such as this that add extra items. Will the AI understand how to use them? If so, that's great, but if the AI doesn't use them then it ends up being rather unbalancing.

I also agree with Arkenor--if the AI doesn't use them, it is unbalancing. As it is, just using the lightning rod, it's pretty unbalanced. Two free stuns a turn? Sign me up! If you made it castable once or twice during combat, then it would be fine (with a small price hike), or maybe 1 + number of air shards controlled. As it is, that staff should be worth thousands! And it unlocked right away, which means I could run around blasting stuff with an autohit stun... even creatures much higher than my level! I should be powerful, yes, but that's... a little much.

You could always set some sort of requirement on it.  Require a specific tech such as one of the magic techs.

I will say though, after playing with it some more, the damage for the staves scale nicely with intelligence and shard gains. Not too much nor too little.

Not sure if it was changed in the current version and/or if it was ment to be this way but training units that require shards cost a number of shards equal to the group size, so, while you can make 1-3 most games you can't make 12 man groups, meaning those units can't stand up to late game armies. 

 

Luckily the robe spells work fine with 1 unit

Having played with the staves now, I do feel they're too powerful, considering the ease with which they can be gotten. They render quite a few actual spells obsolete. The 60% chance for the target to miss the next turn on the air staff is particularly powerful, especially when you can use the staff multiple times in a round.

 

I would suggest moving the current staves deeper into the tech tree and raising prices, while also creating some weaker ones more suitable for low level wizards.

 

 

I posted in the other thread as well.  Not sure which is the 'active' one.

 

Gnilbert, this mod is great.  But the staves are too good!  They really need to be restricted to heroes (why should commoners be able to tame the raw power of the elemental shards anyhow?) because being able to recruit true damage troops is a bit sketchy.  Also, in my version, I changed curhealth to defendabledamage for all of them, and they are still insanely powerful in the beginning, and quite potent through the midgame!  Scaling true damage multiple times a round is just plain a bad idea.

 

Perhaps an endgame staff that does true damage would be in order.  But these really almost make spellcasting obsolete as is... hmm I can do 2-10 points of damage mitigated for 3 mana, or 9 true damage for free...

 

TLDR: Make hero only, and curhealth to defendabledamage... this results in quite a nice balance.

I think staves are a bit too strong(not by a lot), but not to the point of making magic pointless.  For example, I can do 25ish to 1 target with my fire staff, or i can spend 5 mana to deal 0-120 to up to nine units.  Sure, it makes single target spells less helpful, but even those are usable with his shard fix.  I think the main issue is that people are shocked to see magic actually do something.  I do agree that letting normal units have them is kinda silly.

Well the problem comes with starting with one.  The true damage at the beginning is just too strong.  You can kill anything you find (literally anything, try it) in the first round of combat, especially when you get a horse and can fire three times.  It just exacerbates the effectiveness of early game rushes... When I removed the true damage component, they still did heavy damage, scaled well to late game, and were almost still overwhelmingly powerful in the beginning if your sov starts with a burning heart or somesuch.  Anyhow, this is what works for me, I'll let Gnilbert mess around and balance as he sees fit.

 

Ok, I think I see one of the major problems with the Lightning Rod--it's 100% stun for me, not the 60% it's supposed to be.