New Spells

[HeadHoncho]

Well, regional effect spells and Domes of Invulnerability will happen from patrols all day long.

It would be good to remove Summon Death capability from patrols, in conjunction with this change.

I am still concerned that Wraiths and Liches can make themselves nigh-invulnerable in a patrol, unless the number of covert weapons that can kill them are increased. Or you ban those spells (or limit or weaken them).

[Jumpingfist]

Excellent point HH. A lich in a patrol would become a town killing machine that has no worry other than the highest level of the summon demon spells only available to pure mages

[HeadHoncho]

Yes, destroy village/town spells from patrols as well, good catch, JF.

[Ry Vor]

I think I will eliminate the Destroy Village, Town, and Damage City spells that were generally patrol-based. Players can use, say Earthquake to target PC's, using the existing Density concept, so a Power 6 Earthquake against a city does about 10,000 damage.

[unclemike]

Please don't remove the destroy pc spells from the game. They are favorites and allow the wizard kingdoms to strike back without a major military on their side. I truly feel that if you strip out these spells, they won't be able to survive in the latter stages of the game.

[HeadHoncho]

What if you just tweaked Wraithform and Lichform so that the spells make you immune to the percentage chance of death via ordinary damage in battles, still vulnerable to Kill spells in battles, and halves your chances of dying via assassination, or something?

That would mean wizards in patrols are still capable of being killed, even if they run around casting spells like Dome and regional effect and Destroy.

[Ry Vor]

Please don't remove the destroy pc spells from the game. They are favorites and allow the wizard kingdoms to strike back without a major military on their side. I truly feel that if you strip out these spells, they won't be able to survive in the latter stages of the game.

My issue is the impunity with which patrols operate - unable to be attacked and easily invisible.  As you know, I have entertained the notion of companies, where a company sized group could engage a patrol, and also patrol vs. patrol.  We will probably see both of those in Kingdoms of Arcania but it was too comprehensive a sweep with everything else going on in 3rd Cycle.

In 2nd Cycle, wizard kingdoms, along with many others had no "565's", so they recruited Recruits, or to the extent they had summoning ability, were limited to say, 3 total Wight brigades.

Now there are at least four different recruitable brigade types, 20 some companion brigades, of which at least 3 (I believe) are available to any given kingdom (maybe not dragons).  Several new combat spells, of course the density concept for combat spells that I think many players still haven't experimented with, the increased importance of magic in encounters, etc.   Now you can have 5 Wight or Ghoul brigades, 10 skeleton brigades, or up to 15 of the new Zombie brigades.  Also several other summonings like Minatour, Rock Golem, Phantoms, Specters.

So some of what I am saying is that while wizard kingdom, kingdom brigades are not a match for military kingdom brigades, there are many new options for wizard kingdoms to be competitive militarily if that's the way they want to go.

I'm honestly not worried about the wizard kingdoms.  I'm more interested now in having the Dwarves be selected hopefully 50% of the time over the Warlock, not that the Warlock won't be picked because they can't destroy towns as a patrol.

[Jumpingfist]

What if you just tweaked Wraithform and Lichform so that the spells make you immune to the percentage chance of death via ordinary damage in battles, still vulnerable to Kill spells in battles, and halves your chances of dying via assassination, or something?

That would mean wizards in patrols are still capable of being killed, even if they run around casting spells like Dome and regional effect and Destroy.

They already are vulnerable to kill spells.  The actual problem starts because of lichform allows for an invulnerable Mage that can destroy villages and towns.   Also allows for summon death.   This why you see almost no wraiths but a ton of lichs.   I think rather than remove the destroy spells maybe move wraith to Being a P4 and lich to being a P6 with the spells also being one level lower.  They could still cast earthquakes and some can cast summon death but only pure mages would be able to cast destroy village.  

I agree do not remove the destroy spells.  They can be defended already by defense but they become a high level wizards big gun.   To me they have always been a staple of pure Mage and would really not feel right not being able to use them.   

Personally I would much rather have patrols hurting groups with magic than removal of any spells.

[HeadHoncho]

The issue I see is that the vulnerabilities are being removed. A lich or wraith in a patrol is basically going to be immune to Kill spells (only functioning in a battle) and assassinations (barring lots of covert artifacts that penetrate the lich- or wraith- form).

So yes, it makes sense in that environment to prevent Summon Death being cast from a patrol.

As for the Destroy spells, regional effects, and Dome, I think I would be OK with them being cast from patrols, especially since each spell has its own counter.

It's the complete invulnerability that is begging for a counter, in my opinion. Which is why I think the better answer is to limit lich- and wraith- form by halving rather than immunizing from assassination attempts, rather than adding covert artifacts which will still be hit-or-miss.

[Jumpingfist]

If a spell needs to be removed it should be lich form not the destroy series. Then yes you can protect your wizard with wraith but he is not likely to do much more than ward or maybe a regional effect. Not the end of the world both easy to work around. A p6+ wizard would be able to be killed by a high level agent I guess unless they go invisible. But really they can already do that in a group as well.

Another option make it required to be on the PC square you are casting the destroy spell and you need to be in a non patrol I guess