Leadership? Illuminate? Lame!!

[CuddleFish]

Here are some ideas for UNIQUE special abilities:
(mainly stolen from other games)

Vampiric Aura
(leadership type ability)
-adjacent undead units drain a quarter of their attack damage

Curse
(side effect of an attack, like poison and slow)
-when a cursed unit dies it becomes a WC
-curse can be "healed" or removed in villages

Portal
-when the unit skips a turn, it creates a two-way portal leading to all friendly villages, allowing ONE friendly unit to teleport, the portal closes after 1 unit uses it

Bless
-the unit with this ability can "attack" one friendly unit, thus blessing it
-the blessed unit is INVULNERABLE for 1 turn, unless it attacks an enemy unit

Enchant
-the unit with this ability can "attack" on friendly unit, thus enchanting its weapons to either FIRE or COLD
-the enchantment lasts one turn and then expires

Blind
(side effect of an attack, like poison and slow)
-blinded units cannot attack the next turn

Train
-gives adjacent units of lower level 1 exp per turn
-a unit can only fill its exp bar to half full with training, after that training has no effect

Purge
-this unit has the ability to attack empty hexes, and "burn" certain terrain types for 1 turn
-a unit passing through a burning tile loses 2 hp, a unit that is standing on a burning tile loses 4 hp per turn

[toms]

Curse is the only one that values me.

[Dave]

Here are some ideas for UNIQUE special abilities:
(mainly stolen from other games)

Huh?

[Elvish_Pillager]

Curse: How is it usefully different from Plague? I don't see a compelling reason to make two seperate abilties.

Portal: teleport-other type abilities have been discussed... the consensus is usually "Silver Magi are powerful enough, don't make even more useful units!"

Bless, Enchant, Purge: "attacking" anything but actual enemy units is frowned upon; IIRC it's in the FPI list, in fact...

Blind: nice simple idea. But what kind of a unit would have it? it also seems rather powerful; a unit with a blinding attack with enough swings could, in some cases, attack with impunity.

Train: Abilities which give XP have been thoroughly discussed. On the other hand, none have ever been created, and it probably isn't a good idea to bring the subject up without a really new idea. Basically, you only get XP from combat...

[JW]

What EP said.

[Dragon Master]

Curse is the only one with potential. to answer EP's question is that you can curse a strong unit with your curser, then slaughter it with a high level unit instead of wearing it down with corpses. All the other abilities are too complicated/confusing

[Darth Fool]

Here are some ideas for UNIQUE special abilities:
(mainly stolen from other games)

Huh?

What dave said!

[Elvish_Pillager]

All the other abilities are too complicated/confusing

Blind is simple...

[CuddleFish]

curse is useful cus you don't have to give the final blow to a WC.. which is a bloody waste of exp

[Elvish_Pillager]

curse is useful cus you don't have to give the final blow to a WC.. which is a bloody waste of exp

But, you could also give your non-WC unit Plague instead of Curse, and you still wouldn't have to give the final blow with a WC.

[CuddleFish]

curse is useful cus you don't have to give the final blow to a WC.. which is a bloody waste of exp

But, you could also give your non-WC unit Plague instead of Curse, and you still wouldn't have to give the final blow with a WC.

the difference with curse you can give the exp to ANY unit you want... and still get the free unit...

WC have only 2 attacks... unlike gobbos.. so they sometimes miss when "wesnoth luck" happens.... with curse you can give the final blow to a adept or other units with better chance of hitting

[DimWit]

Curse
(side effect of an attack, like poison and slow)
-when a cursed unit dies it becomes a WC
-curse can be "healed" or removed in villages

I like this idea...

Curse - should be a spell givin to necromancer... would be better ability than the plague staff... more useful any ways for a lvl 3 unit that has okayish range damage and a melee attack that is nearly pointless.

Lets consider a comparsition of Undead's mage path and Human's...
The reason I choose these two is because for the most part when you take a look at thier units/res/abilitys they are opposites of themselfs (life/death - Hvy Inf weak to cold, Undead weak to fire)...

The first thing ya notice with these two is damage. (Ignoring damage type since as stated they are evened out ....) A lvl 2 red mages damage is 8-4. while a level 3 Lich does 12-3 doing some simple math we see a red mages damage is equivant to 32 damge while a lich's is 36. A level 2 unit with significally less xp (not considering intellegence trait) can nearly do the same damage has a level 3 unit.

Human mages have several utility branchs for mages. One branch of mage gives illuminatation and curing... With a decent damage of 10-4 holy damage (32 damage considering 20% res for living.) at level 3. The undead's utility type mage is the necromancer. Which does 17-2 cold damage with a weak melee attack 6-3 (mage of lights melee attack 7-3)
What is suppose to make up for this horrible damage? The necromancer has below average... res compared to other races... below average damage.. below average ability for a expensive level 3 unit. Instead of wasting alot of xp on a necromancer why not just get a nearly free lvl 0 walking corpse. Which is just as good if not better than a level 3 necromancer... What?? With a level 3 necromancer your unlikey to go charge up against melee attacker bashing with your staff.. If your using a sensible strat you would attack and push a unit forward to block using zoc

So what is the purpose of the level 3 necromancer? The idea behind it is to to show what necromancers do... Raise the dead... Necromancers are not suppose to be a supreme range or melee unit or even balanced bettween them.. Its a utility mage. The curse ability would allow for the Necromancer to be a ultility like a healer or units that use slow... A weak Necromancer would be able to curse a unit and do what it does best sit back and let his minons do the dirty work. Are necromancers really met to be equilvalnt of the worthless undead unit .. Draug's?


Unless something is near death I just don't see plague staff being used..... Personally I would see curse as a range attack... Since Undeads are supposly reanimated by necromancers... and necromancers are not Melee type creatures... (fragile weak and decaying necromancers...)

Plauge staff should be givin to level 2+ all Undead mages... since they lack the damage and paths that other races have....

[irrevenant]

curse is useful cus you don't have to give the final blow to a WC.. which is a bloody waste of exp

But, you could also give your non-WC unit Plague instead of Curse, and you still wouldn't have to give the final blow with a WC.

True. The big difference is that, as a lasting effect, it would affect longer-term tactics. You'd either have to withdraw that unit from battle to be healed, or keep an eye on him, ever-concerned that he might turn on you.

It may or may not be a good idea, but it has a quite different impact on the game than plague.

[JW]

Plauge staff should be givin to level 2+ all Undead mages... since they lack the damage and paths that other races have....

You mean like the dwarves? Also, you would strip the Lich of drain to add Plague?

[DimWit]

You mean like the dwarves? Also, you would strip the Lich of drain to add Plague?

Makes more sense to me than drain for the lich... The lich is suppose to be the range damage dealer branch of Undead mages... The thing to note is that the Lich does less damage than Human's damage dealing mage path but with (12-3 vs 12-4 range) and (6-3(plauge) - 7-2 melee) would make up for the lack of damage in range... when comparing level 3 units...