Red Mage Advancement Path

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Dave
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Post by Dave »

Dacyn wrote:
Dave wrote:IMO one of the rules for creating advancements is that there should always be at least one possible advancement choice which dominates [1] the advancing unit type.
Dave wrote:[1] 'dominates' means 'equal or better in every possible respect'
I can think of some exceptions to this rule:
red mage- gets slower
spearman- loses ranged attack
necromancer- becomes undead
druid- gets worse defense
Are these units supposed to be exceptions? (And how many are like this?)
I'd personally like the spearman to have an advancement choice that has a ranged attack -- perhaps even a 'javeliner' -- one that has concentrated more on their ranged attack than melee.

Red Mage I would prefer to have a choice of advancement -- Arch Mage who is just a more powerful mage, but doesn't have teleport, and some other kind of mage, who has 5 movement, teleportation, and is about as powerful otherwise as the Red Mage.

Teleportation is a cool ability, but just too unbalancing when given to a unit as powerful as an Arch/Great Mage. If someone wants to provide graphics for this new kind of mage, that'd be great -- but I proposed it before, and no graphics were forthcoming :(

The Arch/Great Mage might also be given a new spell to compensate for not having teleportation. Perhaps some damage reflection, or the previously proposed 'freeze'.

I have no comment on necromancers...

Afaik the only thing worse on defense that Shydes have vs Druids is 10% worse resistance to impact attacks. However this is more than offset by the 10 extra hp Shydes get.

David
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quartex
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Post by quartex »

There are other mage graphgics floating around, such as the illusionist pictures and the floating force mage. Perhaps a force mage could have teleportation as it's main ability.

It would be cool if someone could make an alternate "Blink mage" icon so we could slipt the 3rd level mages into two.
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Post by Boucman »

I agree with quartex, one of the great strength of the red mage branch is teleport. actually, I think it's more usefull htan there extremely powerfull attack. I would remove teleport from the red mage to give it to a "movement mage" with fast movement, flying and teleport, but weak attack/defense
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Post by Darth Fool »

Hmm, I think fly is more appropriate for the force mage then teleport (hence why i drew him floating). I agree teleport is a very handy ability, but I don't think it is overpowering, especially since the arch-mage is pretty slow. If people feel that it is too over powering then save the teleport for the great mage and leave the great mages damage the same as the arch-mage...
Dave
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Post by Dave »

Darth Fool wrote:I agree teleport is a very handy ability, but I don't think it is overpowering, especially since the arch-mage is pretty slow. If people feel that it is too over powering then save the teleport for the great mage and leave the great mages damage the same as the arch-mage...
It was over-powering, so we reduced the Arch/Great Mage's movement to 4. That makes them a little frustrating, since they are slower than Red Mages.

If we split the advancement into two, then we can have mages that can move at a decent speed and teleport, but don't have the 'killer' attack to go with it, and the Arch/Great Mages who are just plain powerful and also have a decent speed, but no teleport.

David
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Sangel
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Post by Sangel »

I like the idea of the third Mage advancement line suggested. The Red Mage -> Arch Mage -> Great Mage line can acquire Fire Shield and lose Teleport, and we can establish a Green Mage -> Blink Mage line which gains Teleport and Flying instead, along with the suggested "Impact" based range attack.

In fact, I think the graphics are already available for us to do this - the discussion bogged down at the naming stage (as nobody liked Force Mage, but nobody could think of a better name).
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Dacyn
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Post by Dacyn »

Sangel wrote:The Red Mage -> Arch Mage -> Great Mage line can acquire Fire Shield and lose Teleport
What is Fire Shield? In HoMM it reflects 10% of the enemy's damage back to the enemy. But I don't think we should do this.
Since it is a "shield", it should probably only trigger when the mage is attacked. And it should only work in melee combats. Maybe it should do 6 fire damage each time an enemy's attacking melee strike hits.
(or maybe we shouldn't use a fire shield, as it is copying).
Sangel wrote:(as nobody liked Force Mage, but nobody could think of a better name).
I actually thought "Force Mage" is a good name, but this is probably because I don't relate it to Star Wars...
of course it does not describe a mage whose specialty is speed. It was originally intended to be a unit that gave other units better defense.
I don't think a speed mage should be green.
Blue Mage->Motion Mage?
of course then we would have to change the color of the lvl 1 mage...
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When reading the above quote from TWP, keep in mind the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "Language is the source of misunderstandings."
telex4
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Post by telex4 »

I'm going to miss teleporting in 2 arch mages to zap the final enemy leader in single player scenarios :roll:
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Post by Dave »

Dacyn wrote:or maybe we shouldn't use a fire shield, as it is copying
I don't see how it's copying any more than most of the ideas in Wesnoth -- Afaik the idea of a fire shield is used in many other games and stories, and can't be associated with any particular franchise.

David
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Post by Kamahawk »

telex4 wrote:I'm going to miss teleporting in 2 arch mages to zap the final enemy leader in single player scenarios :roll:
I allready miss it. The ruduced move and no teleport to filled vilages has allready prevents my under 8 round instant vicotries.

Swoop in with grifin take the closes town to enemy base warp in a mage of 2 and toast them.
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Post by Insinuator »

Ah, yes, sweet memories. Alas, they are no more.
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Post by Christophe33 »

Another talent you could give to a powerfull mage is plain invisibility (all terrain all the time) till it attacks or units bump on it. Combined with teleportation or fly wwould make it a real danger. Etheral mage could be a good name. An alternate name for force mage could be energy mage.
Any interest in witches?
I hhad an idea to make and use witche, specially with thiefs but no time to do the graphic. It will start with young witch (fly?, HP20, melee 2-3, range swarm of spiders 2-8), going to either of three:
-black witch, chaotic, fly, poison melee, drain (ray of weakness)
invisible at night at lvl3 crone.
- grey witch neutral,fly,heal,slow in melee, cold ray then freeze at lvl3
-white witch, loyal, fly, cure, holy melee (3-3), swarm of bee as range (3-10), swarm of hornet at level 3 (4-12)
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Dacyn
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Post by Dacyn »

Dave wrote:
Dacyn wrote:or maybe we shouldn't use a fire shield, as it is copying
I don't see how it's copying any more than most of the ideas in Wesnoth -- Afaik the idea of a fire shield is used in many other games and stories, and can't be associated with any particular franchise.

David
oh... I haven't seen fire shields anywhere except HoMM... but apparently there are many versions of this idea?
Do all fire shields reflect damage back to the enemy?
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When reading the above quote from TWP, keep in mind the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "Language is the source of misunderstandings."
Sangel
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Post by Sangel »

All fire shields do some kind of damage to attacker, yes. It's a pretty generic fantasy "spell".
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Post by turin »

Sangel wrote:All fire shields do some kind of damage to attacker, yes. It's a pretty generic fantasy "spell".
well then maybe we shouldn't go along with it...i never understood why it would do that. it makes no real sense.
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