Eek! A bogey!

Disto · Post by **Disto** » October 5th, 2005, 4:27 pm

turin wrote:Well, I have EI, SE, SOF, the Imperial Era (represented by the fire), and then the one I'm working on at the moment... 5 isn't too many...

My suggestion would be for a spirit of some sort.

Shall we both have a campfire to show we both made it.

Post by **Quensul** » October 5th, 2005, 4:39 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:It's not. However, how about a unit that has 0% defense, 1 HP, and something in the order of a 10-1 melee attack? It would be like a spirit summoned under contract to attack once. And cost about 3 gold.

Hmm, that could work - not quite the same must-use-it-soon flavor, and may end up being overpowered (since it exacerbates the "man, I wish that opponent had survived to block his fellows" problem), but definitely unique. I like it, for what that's worth.

An alternative approach to my original idea would be to make the unit have better-than-average for Level 1 stats and relatively low cost, but bump it up to level 4 or 5 to make upkeep painful: bleed gold, rather than HP. Insert usual caveat about experience to opponents here. It would be nifty if you could manipulate upkeep independent of unit level, but I realize that's unlikely to happen, and could confuse the player.

Fortify · Post by **Fortify** » October 5th, 2005, 5:25 pm

Quensul wrote:An alternative approach to my original idea would be to make the unit have better-than-average for Level 1 stats and relatively low cost, but bump it up to level 4 or 5 to make upkeep painful: bleed gold, rather than HP. Insert usual caveat about experience to opponents here. It would be nifty if you could manipulate upkeep independent of unit level, but I realize that's unlikely to happen, and could confuse the player.

This is a great idea for summoned units. The L4 or L5 upkeep represents the strain on the summoner in bringing them into the world. We have to make sure that if gold drops below 0 'zero' they either disband or at least they can't summon more of them so they don't become a spam unit you could get into a situation where you no longer care about gold.

Dan

Post by **Quensul** » October 5th, 2005, 5:31 pm

Fortify wrote:The L4 or L5 upkeep represents the strain on the summoner in bringing them into the world.

Exactly.

Fortify wrote:We have to make sure that if gold drops below 0 'zero' they either disband or at least they can't summon more of them so they don't become a spam unit you could get into a situation where you no longer care about gold.

I'm certain we can't force their death through unit stats (although I'm sure this could be done on a scenario level in a campaign), but regardless if your gold falls below 0 you won't be recruiting any more troops - the concept here is for additional units to recruit in the normal way when the leader is a summoner-type unit, *not* for an entirely new way to get units. (Correct me if I'm wrong there, EP.)

Loki · Post by **Loki** » October 5th, 2005, 6:38 pm

Fortify wrote:
Quensul wrote:An alternative approach to my original idea would be to make the unit have better-than-average for Level 1 stats and relatively low cost, but bump it up to level 4 or 5 to make upkeep painful: bleed gold, rather than HP. Insert usual caveat about experience to opponents here. It would be nifty if you could manipulate upkeep independent of unit level, but I realize that's unlikely to happen, and could confuse the player.
This is a great idea for summoned units. The L4 or L5 upkeep represents the strain on the summoner in bringing them into the world. We have to make sure that if gold drops below 0 'zero' they either disband or at least they can't summon more of them so they don't become a spam unit you could get into a situation where you no longer care about gold.

Dan

There's a similar ability in Magic: The Gathering, known as (I believe) Echo. In that, you pay a small cost for a really good creature, but have to pay the cost again on your next turn or it dies. It was a really popular addition over there, as I recall.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » October 5th, 2005, 8:24 pm

I just can't come up with a justification for the experience.

Post by **Quensul** » October 5th, 2005, 9:17 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:I just can't come up with a justification for the experience.

Well, from a purely background perspective, you could state that the Whatsit (for lack of a better name

) is just a small portion of a much greater spirit: the summoner wasn't strong enough to summon the spirit in toto, but was able to force it to partially enter this realm. In other words, you're fighting a real baddie, but he has both hands and a foot tied behind his back. (Incidentally, this gives you a nice levelling-up story, too: as the Whatsit defeats puny enemies, it becomes interested in the goings-on in this realm, and becomes more willing to more fully enter the realm.)

That's a bit thin, tho. From a strictly gameplay perspective, there seem to be three options:

1. Actually make the sucker a Level 4-5. This would be a nasty, nasty dude, but would suck down the summoner's gold like crazy (could be interesting to move any of these that occur in scenarios onto their own teams, but that's not a unit-level concern, and would completely eliminate any upkeep mali). However, that's a big break from the basic idea.

2. Meat wall: give it slightly better-than-Level 1 stats, but beef up its HP or resistances to the point where it's very difficult to kill. The extended whacking process could justify the experience (but, ironically, makes it worse, since you'll be able to milk more experience during the battle)

3. A variant on your one-shot idea: average HP and resistances, but a truly nasty one-shot attack. It's not too hard to kill (but neither is it a throwaway unit like your other proposal), but there's a great risk in making the attempt; this could justify the experience.

Personally, I like the original idea + the above backstory; failing that, option 3. Not that I'm in a position to do anything about it.