Expanded Undead faction mod (Not For Mainline!!)

[Drakefriend]

Maybe use old Ghoul/Necrophage sprites?I am sure there are still people who have it.

[Molean]

Is this meant to be undead verses undead matches? If this is meant to be playable with other factions as well (and only undead verses undead would get pretty boring) Your going to need to make at least one other faction as well and balance it accordingly. Since glancing through what you have here, this would be too powerful for any fair battle against default. (though I suppose it could help level the playing field with certain hopelessly bad players)

Also if wolfpack alpha is meant to work regardless of level of that unit or the units it is meant to lead, perhaps it shouldn't kick in till level 3. Also, perhaps wolfpack could go to another faction? Like a nature one?(which would be good for against undead)

[peet]

If a unit has "semi-aware" then it should not have mindlessness.

I suppose I could add a feature to the semiaware trait that prevents a WC from leveling into a Brain Eater.

Having level 2 with no upkeep is a bit much as it is anyway, so all your level 2 WC should be pretty weak for their level ...

The Brain Eater/Xombe units are quite weak for their level. One of the complaints I have heard about soullesses is that they cost upkeep, which in some circumstances makes them less useful. So I added the weaker mindless line, so now you can choose.

Is this meant to be undead verses undead matches?

Actually, this is meant for an alternate version of the Descent into Darkness campaign. In campaigns one of the things people like to do is build up a big variety of units in their recall list.

If this is meant to be playable with other factions as well Your going to need to make at least one other faction as well and balance it accordingly. Since glancing through what you have here, this would be too powerful for any fair battle against default.

Well, without recalls the only extra units you get to recruit are the Feral Skeleton and the Wolf Spirit. Neither unit is exceptionally powerful. I find that both units are rather fragile and you have to be careful how you use them. The faction only shows its true colours when you level lots of units, which doesn't happen too often in MP.

Also if wolfpack alpha is meant to work regardless of level of that unit or the units it is meant to lead, perhaps it shouldn't kick in till level 3. Also, perhaps wolfpack could go to another faction? Like a nature one?(which would be good for against undead)

The Alpha Wolf power works on any non-alpha wolf spirit. It gives a bonus of 50% regardless of level difference. But this is an expansion of the basic Wolfpack power which gives a bonus of 25% to any wolf spirit regardless of level. So an alpha Wolf Spirit and a Dire Wolf spirit that are beside each other will give each other bonuses - the alpha will give the dire 50% while the dire will give the alpha 25%. They are non-cumulative.

I did want to have some kind of routine that would allow you to only have one Alpha Wolf spirit at a time, but I haven't figured out how to do that.

The wolf spirits are based on the Ghost line. If you compare the wolf spirits to the ghost/wraith line you will see that they are considerably weaker than the ghosts and only with the wolfpack bonuses are they roughly equal. The value of the wolfpack powers are factored into the value of the wolf spirits, and when designing the stats I assumed that people would always try to keep the packs together. Their base attacks are much lower in value, and their movetype is inferior to ghosts unless you are on a map with lots of trees.

I had originally intended the wolf spirits to only go to level 2, but I found that at level 2 they were just too weak to bother with, so I added a third level.

I see no reason why a nature-based faction could not have wolf spirits.

I did put a mini-faction in the campaign called "the Ancients." I used art from the the "Afflicted" faction from the War of Chaos era. Their green skin and hair (and the fact that some units have horns) suggested to me a race of beings that are the ancestors of elves. They are even more in tune with nature than the elves, but their barbaric practices made the elves shun them, and they are nearly extinct. I gave them a Timber Wolf unit along with an Alpha Wolf and Dire Wolf as leveling options. These wolves had the wolfpack abilities as well, but were flesh and blood wolves rather than spirits.

Peet

[Molean]

I suppose I could add a feature to the semiaware trait that prevents a WC from leveling into a Brain Eater.

How about instead you make semi-aware just not have the mindless trait? That would mean they would cost upkeep from soul-less on up.

I was thinking of a nature faction that would be just as strong as the undead faction that your making, and totally lacking in people. Things like ent spell casters and so forth. Theres already a number of units and sprites already developed in other eras to draw on. Maybe elementals of different kinds.

Well, without recalls the only extra units you get to recruit are the Feral Skeleton and the Wolf Spirit.

You boost existing units as well, and upgrades count too. They do happen in verses games, you know.

Also, make sure to label all your units in your faction differently then the default, or what ever you need to do. I hate having my help files for units cluttered by redundant unit profiles.

[peet]

I suppose I could add a feature to the semiaware trait that prevents a WC from leveling into a Brain Eater.

How about instead you make semi-aware just not have the mindless trait? That would mean they would cost upkeep from soul-less on up.

Soullesses and Wights don't get mindless. Only Brain Eaters and Xombes.

Mindless is not a trait, it's an ability, and it is a dummy ability to reflect that the unit type has upkeep=0. Removing the ability won't work since the upkeep=0 is a part of the base unit type file.

Besides, the only reason you would ever level into a Brain Eater instead of a Soulless is to gain the mindless ability. Otherwise it is an all-round inferior unit. If you take away Mindless from the Brain Eater you just have a weaker version of the Soulless with no counter advantage.

I was thinking of a nature faction that would be just as strong as the undead faction that your making, and totally lacking in people. Things like ent spell casters and so forth. Theres already a number of units and sprites already developed in other eras to draw on. Maybe elementals of different kinds.

Knock yourself out.

Well, without recalls the only extra units you get to recruit are the Feral Skeleton and the Wolf Spirit.

You boost existing units as well, and upgrades count too. They do happen in verses games, you know.

I don't "boost" existing units so much as provide for more level variation, and most of the variety occurs at level 3, which is pretty rare for most MP games. Any unit that has the same name as one already in default has exactly the same stats, except for the Shadow/Nightgaunt, which lose some HP but gain a limited regeneration ability (which only works at night).

Also, make sure to label all your units in your faction differently then the default, or what ever you need to do. I hate having my help files for units cluttered by redundant unit profiles.

That's why I don't use the race "undead" - instead I have the three races above: Corpses, Spirits, and Skeletons.

Peet

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I highly applaud this effort, as it provides more units for campaign designers to use I would love to see something similar for the other mainline factions.

I know thinking about an idea for an undead campaign I've been kicking around (but will likely never do) several of these units would be quite useful.

[peet]

OK, here's the bats. What can I say? I like bats.
I used the name "Chiropteran" as their race to avoid cluttering up the help files.

The vampire bat develops into five different lines.

• The Doom Bat line is the one that already exists, but I added a third level.
• The Venom Bat line has a poison bite (and later can spit poison too) but as they progress they get slower as their venom sacs cause bloating.
• The Fire Bat line represents what happens when you feed drake blood to a vampire bat. They gain the ability to breathe fire and some fire immunity, though their melee attacks are weaker than the Doom Bat line. At level 3 they also get a fire "aura" which is defensive only.
• The shadow bat line is a weak line but it has nightstalk and darkmove (skirmisher at night only). It also gets the "simple" ability which means upkeep is only 1 regardless of level. They are pretty weak though.
• The Vampyre line represents a necromancer's ability to transform a vampire bat into a humanoid creature after it has consumed human blood. They lose their ability to fly but are stronger and gain a non-drain melee attack. They also are good in caves and can regenerate in darkness. (A big reason for putting this one in is that I saw the sprites for this and decided I had to use them!) Also, the level 3 Vampyre has the plague ability which creates a Vampyre Childe (I should probably make a separate name for that plague ability).

Also, you'll notice I dropped the XP needed for the Blood Bat to level up; at 70 XP the blood bat needed more XP to level up than any other Level 1, more even that a mage. I thought that was kind of absurd and I lowered it to 37.

Peet

[Zerovirus]

Maybe the Vampyre Childe coulde have some flapse undere hise armse, like some sorte ofe bate-humane.

(Sorry, just though that Childe thing was a bit cheesy. But seriously, I'm sure that you could do it. It's not that hard of an edit.)

[Darker_Dreams]

Runescape is my jam. I play it non stop, specifically the classic version. http://www.gaminghorror.net/runescape-c ... -playable/ is my go-to guide.

[wesfreak]

your deathbringer is overpowered, doing 11-5 damage, 10 more than most lvl 3 units. Also, i don't recommend giving lvl ups to the deathblade: it already does as much damage as most lvl 3's.

Also, i recommend a skeletal mage to replace the dark adept as the magic guy

[peet]

I like the idea of doing an expanded undead faction mod in general. Looking over what you've posted thus far, I've got a couple thoughts;

You don't need to fill out every advancement to 3rd level.

Actually, filling out advancements to level 3 is a part of the point of this mod. In campaigns, if you have two branches, one that goes to level 2 and one that goes to level 3, it is pretty much always better to choose the branch that goes to level 3. Late in the campaign the units that only go to level 2 will be too fragile to bother with. Since the existing factions are balanced for MP play rather than for campaigns, this is not considered a problem for the existing factions. But I personally find it extremely frustrating in a campaign to put XP into a unit only to discover that the unit cannot level past level 2.

While you've got a number of strong concepts that do so, it feels like some concepts, like the bats, got stretched in the process. It's a pretty common practice to have lines that truncate and are slightly more powerful than they might otherwise be. For example the Venom Bat line (which is a rather flat name, which is generally an indicator you're stretching the concept) would probably be well served as a single unit under the Cursed or Plague Bat name.

I think "Venom Bat" is overall the best name because it is perfectly clear what it does; it's a poisonous bat. Plague and Curséd Bats are riffing on the idea but in a more oblique form. As to the higher levels, once again, the issue is to create units that are worth recalling late in the campaign. A level 1 poisonous bat would be a waste of time.

Similarly, while I like the Shadow/Moon Bat concept, I'm not sure branching it off the blood bat rather than giving it a lower branch (off the basic vampire bat) wouldn't be better-

Actually I had considered this idea and like it... I just need even more sprite art to do it. But I agree that the theme of the Shadow Bats contrasts with the Blood Bats.

I'm also not sure about the Fire Bat line, which just seems random- especially since it violates the whole undead=arcane/cold paradigm thoroughly.

The Fire Bat line is the one I like best out of them all. And I don't see the arcane/cold thing as carved in stone, especially when it comes to bats, who are living creatures. The Fire Bat's fire attacks aren't particularly strong, but they do provide a certain variety that I like.

if you're looking for places to expand the "race" you might consider having a more inclusive "vermin" race instead.

I like the idea, but after all that I've already got do you really think I need more?

on another note, the art you're using for the ghast is old and bad.

Yet that art is still in the mainline DiD. Thanks for the link to the thread, though- it gives me some ideas.

You may or may not want to keep that description, but based on it, I figured adding the Drains ability to their melee attack would fit.

Interesting idea, although I'm a little uncomfortable with a unit that has both feeding and drain. Hmmm... And yes, I had left the description as-is.

I was surprised that your necrophage got a ranged attack, as it seems like a random tangent to it's general development- a branch, rather than the primary advancement.

If you read the post a part of it was that I found a really good free sound effect for the attack. But the idea that the Ghast could throw up on people and poison them that way seemed to make sense to me. Besides, I'd rather have a unit get more interesting when it levels than just getting more powerful.

your deathbringer is overpowered, doing 11-5 damage, 10 more than most lvl 3 units. Also, i don't recommend giving lvl ups to the deathblade: it already does as much damage as most lvl 3's.

The Draug does 48 damage and the Deathbringer does 55, not a huge difference, and when you consider that the Deathbringer has 55 HP compared to the Draug's 68 you will see that it trades greater attack for weaker HP. Also, the Deathbringer's weapon special makes it unable to use terrain as cover while attacking, meaning that it will take damage even faster than the Draug.

Making the Deathblade level to 3 is a big part of the point. Yes, a Deathblade does 40 damage, which is excellent for a level 2 and would be OK for a level 3 unit (but not great). But with that big an attack it is going to be killing off enemy units often, and sucking up the XP that would be better spent on other units that can level up. That always drives me crazy. And with only 39 HP the Deathblade has an HP level that is decent for a level 1 but sucks for a level 2. Late in the campaign the Deathblades will get killed off pretty easily and you'll regret not leveling them into Revenants, unless you can level them up to 3.

Also, i recommend a skeletal mage to replace the dark adept as the magic guy

Point me to some good sprite art and I'll be happy to oblige.

Peet

[wesfreak]

the resurection of wesnoth has a skeletal mage, but not many animations for it (only one for the lvl 1.) the one on the bottom is the lvl 1, the top is lvl 3.

[peet]

the resurection of wesnoth has a skeletal mage, but not many animations for it (only one for the lvl 1.) the one on the bottom is the lvl 1, the top is lvl 3.

I like them!

Of course, level 2 and 3 are pretty clearly based on the Vampire faction's mages, but that's OK.

Peet

[Astoria]

And, one change, it is child, not childe.

[ZombieArchivist]

i just registered and i am working on a zombie faction, so if you need some resources, just ask!

Zombie-Attack1.png (1.74 KiB) Viewed 3475 times

Zombie-Attack2.png (1.34 KiB) Viewed 3475 times