Clan of Embers rebalancing

[Breez]

Ogre Mages are smart how? Think up a good background, and I'd honestly be fine with it. Generally speaking, Ogres in FfH are about as intelligent as a stump. Were these exposed to a blast of Mind or Chaos magic? That would be a decent explanation, rather than simply saying "These ones are intelligent, deal with it."

Seeing as FfH itself was based on D&D (just say no to WoW)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, ogres are a lesser race of giants, rather being simply large brutes with clubs. An aquatic subrace of ogres is known as "merrow." D&D ogres are also closely related to the race of ogre magi, a smarter race with blue skin and great magical abilities. It is unclear if ogres and ogre magi are actually the same race, or if ogre magi simply find lesser ogres easy to boss around. Typically Ogres stand between nine and ten feet tall and can weigh up to 650 lbs. Ogres are closely related to trolls, and are distantly related to the various races of giants.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060721a

This installment looks at the ogre mage, another classic monster with the game since its earliest days. Originally inspired by Japanese mythology, a connection that has faded with time, the ogre mage is a combination of brute strength, cunning, and magical abilities. If you have a Monster Manual handy, open up to page 200 for a look at the ogre mage's entry.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ogre_Mage

The ogre mage is a more intelligent and dangerous variety of its mundane cousin.

An ogre mage stands about 10 feet tall and weighs up to 700 pounds. Its skin varies in color from light green to light blue, and its hair is black or very dark brown. Ogre mages favor loose, comfortable clothing and lightweight armor.

...

Ogre mages rely on their spell-like abilities, resorting to physical combat only when necessary. When faced with obviously superior forces, they prefer to retreat using gaseous form rather than fight a losing battle.

http://rotd.rpgclassics.com/library/races/ogre_magi.shtml

Ogre magi mailny live in oriental lands, but it is possible to meet them in other habitats too. THey are stronger and smarter than common ogres and they have even the needed requisites to become powerful sorcerors. Ogre magi are mighty foes because they are weapon masters, martial arts experts and able wizards.

Ahh crap... now I want to play D&D

 

[Breez]

ooooooo will loyalty have any effect on the Warren effect?

 

[Valkrionn]

I would think Loyalty should have an effect.... Makes it more useful for the Clan, worth getting.

Also, Ogre Mages: It's not that I don't like the idea, I just want it to fit in FfH. Exposure to mana, or simply being old enough for the mind to mature, will work.

 

[WarKirby]

The tricky thing about ogre mages, is making them good and fun to use, but not too powerful. They definitely should not get Channelling III at least, don't need orcs showing up the amurites with a double helping of archmages.and they ought to be a national unit, so as not to wholesale replace the normal arcane line

Maybe just chanelling I ? would that be too little ?

 

[Valkrionn]

I'd say, Channeling 1, but allowed to use level two spells for the palace spheres.

 

[westamastaflash]

How about Channeling II + a special "magical bombard" that reduces the city's defenses, as well as "fast healing" - heals all damage every turn.

Have them require an upgrade from ogre after Level 6 and they must have the "mutation" promotion, and be available at Arcane Lore?

 

[Valkrionn]

Require at least age 100, as well, if you go with the 'Their intellect takes time to develop' idea. Or possibly instead of a level requirement at all, but age 150.

 

[westamastaflash]

I'd rather see a level req than an Age req. I included the "mutation" requirement because it seemed to make sense that the way they got their power and intelligence was through a magical mishap, rather than a "hey look they grew up"

 

[WarKirby]

a special "magical bombard" that reduces the city's defenses

I think we've established that all ogres will have city bombard capability by way of tossing rocks, anyway.So this point is moot.

, as well as "fast healing" - heals all damage every turn.

This doesn't seem fair. Other casters don't get this. Why do ogre magi deserve free healing ?

 

[WarKirby]

I'd say, Channeling 1, but allowed to use level two spells for the palace spheres.

How to implement this in a practical sense ?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

my mind started wandering.

"Ogres are creatures of extremes. For the most part, extremely stupid. This is simply because most ogres are mere children. Their bodies develop quickly, but their mind takes centuries. Orcs are not known for their patience.

From whence new Ogres come, is best not thought about. But the clan captures them at a young age, rears them with little more than food, sleep, and pain. Most ogres tend to die in battle, in the clan's unwilling service, long before they reach adulthood.

But some are lucky.."

That does not seem to fit particularly well with the Bestiary. Kael is clear that they come from humans corrupted by Bhall's fall. The rest doesn't exactly contradict the lore, but it seems odd that Ogres would have such qualities and other Goblinoid races wouldn't when they are descended from the Bannor humans just like Orcs and Goblins. Also, I get the impression that the Ogres are generally led to believe that they are in charge of the Clan, so they are not enslaved so much as manipulated by their weaker but smarter kin.

Goblinoid Races- Each of these races were once the Bannor, men devoted to Bhall and transformed into raging beasts by her fall. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes but they tend toward green skin, strong bodies and bones.

Goblin- Goblins are the smallest members of the goblinoid races. They can be clever and manipulative, though they are relatively weak. They lack the jutting bone spikes of orcs, but are known for their large hard heads. Their heads are so hard that goblins use them to block attacks.

Ogre- Ogres are huge, averaging about nine feet and occasionally as large as twelve feet tall. They are unusual in that their coloration varies dramatically between individual ogres covering every end of the spectrum. Some are hairless and some are completely covered in a thick coat of fur.

Orc- Orcs are roughly man-sized though usually stronger than men. They have sharp bones that jut out of their skin. These bones can be as small as horns or ridges, or large enough to be used by the orc as weapons.

Personally I don't care much for them all being Bannor, at least not Bannor proper. I'd rather the differences be traced to differences that existed before the fall. I'd rather think of Goblins as the Bannor's Elven Vassals, the barbarian Orcs as their human vassals, and only the Clan of Embers as direct descendants of the men of the city of Braduk. I'm not sure who Ogres would be though. I considered suggesting that the more profound physical changes are caused by the Ogres being the closest to Bhall, i.e, her priests, but for what we've seen her Bhall-Orcs are actually the most sophisticated of the goblinoids who alone can still speak the beautiful, passionate, poetic Old Orcish/Old Bannor tongue. I might lean more towards Ogres not being the bastard children of Orks and non-human monsters like Trolls, or being mutants made by body mages of the Age of Magic and only recently associated with the Orcs.




From what I've gleaned from Wikipedia, D&D Ogres are the corrupted descendants of the powerful and sophisticated blue-skinned Irda. The Irda are the children of the evil gods (although those who escaped their brethren's fall turned away from evil), while Men are the children of Neutral Gods and Elves of good ones. When first created, the Irda surpassed the children of good and neutral in every way, including stature, physical strength, physical beauty, intelligence, longevity, and magical ability. I don't think that there was ever an Irda-like race in Erebus though, even though the Avatar of Wrath's summon Ira spell once contained a typo that could make you think there were.

 

[UNIT 666]

*cough*

Well, I was going to suggest randomizing the spawning of the Warrens units as follows: 1 1 2 2 3 4
So, there's a 33% chance to get 1 unit, a 33% chance to get two units, a ~17% chance to get 3 units, etc.

I was going to justify it by the massive cost of the Warrens plus the Undisciplined promotion given, but then I realized that the Warrens was having its cost drastically reduced... so, yeah. Nevermind.

--

The changes seem good, I look forward to them.

 

[odalrick]

Spoiler :

Here's a little info about cumulative odds. http://rangersheck.com/2008/3/8/statistics-what-are-the-real-odds


About halfway down the page, is the relevant info here.

Now, assuming 2% barbarian per turn. Let's caulculate the odds of the event after x turns.

For x = 10
The chance of NOT turning barbarian is 0.98, or 98%. To find the cumulative odds, we subtract the inverse odds to the power of the frequency, from 1. In this case, 0.98 to the power of 10

1 - (0.98)^10
1 - 0.81707280688754689024
= 0.18292719311245310976

in short, 18%

some other values of x, rounded off:
20: 0.33
25: 0.40
30: 0.45
40: 0.55
100: 0.87

It takes about 25 turns to reach the scenario you describe. Does this seem too soon ?

it does eventually become a quite likely outcome. The wear off chance is similar, but since it has a higher percentage, the odds go:

20: 0.46
25: 0.53
30: 0.60
40: 0.70
100: 0.95

it may not be a good choice if you're the kind of player who builds up excessively in peaceful isolation for 4 centuries, but the clan aren't that kind of race.

In any case, I'll change the values to 1% barbarian, 2% wear off. Both options will be even less likely. Those two outcomes are ultimately only small, flavourful parts of it. The primary purpose of the undisciplined mechanic, is a strength penalty to offset mass numbers.

There is a subtle flaw in these calculations. They apply to singular units.

They are correct for that one orc you built and have high hopes for and intend to groom into a powerful hero, not the unwashed hordes you send against the walls of enemy cities in the hope that the archers will slip in blood and break their necks. The difference is roughly that hordes can go partially barbarian.

A more intuitive measure is halflife.

At 1% barbarian, 2% wear off the Undisciplined promotion has a halflife of 23 turns. One third of the lost promotions will be because the units went barbarian, two thirds actually lost the promotion.

In other words, build 10 units with warrens and 23 turns later you will have 10 Undisiplined units and 6 regular units. You enemies will have gotten the experience from three barbarians. If you wait 47 turns you will have the 10 regular units you built originally, but also two and a half undisciplined units for "free".

These values seem appropriate to me, but since I calculated the original values as well, I'll post them :

At 2% barbarian, 3% wear off the Undisciplined promotion has a halflife of 14 turns. Two fifths of the lost promotions will be because the units went barbarian, three fifths actually lost the promotion.

In other words, build 10 units with warrens and 14 turns later you will have 10 Undisiplined units and 6 regular units. You enemies will have gotten the experience from four barbarians. If you wait 37 turns you will have the 10 regular units you built originally, but also one and a half undisciplined units for "free".

 

[odalrick]

*cough*

Well, I was going to suggest randomizing the spawning of the Warrens units as follows: 1 1 2 2 3 4
So, there's a 33% chance to get 1 unit, a 33% chance to get two units, a ~17% chance to get 3 units, etc.

I was going to justify it by the massive cost of the Warrens plus the Undisciplined promotion given, but then I realized that the Warrens was having its cost drastically reduced... so, yeah. Nevermind.

It's only 8% more units than double, so you really only need 8% of a justification.

I personally would absolutely hate getting only one unit when I expected two, though. Much, much more than I would like getting three or four units occationally.

 

[jimmythes]

With a 25% decrease to melee and losing the 25% increase vs melee normal champions get, the only answer to a stack of opposing champions is chariots... better hope you have horses. Unless you can still build champions, alternative =? replacement UU?


It also seems that to facilitate the whole 'quantity over quality' the warren promotion should also include some sot of maintenance decrease.

 

[CurseUppl]

Yes, a 10-20% reduction in maintenance would be nice. Lore wise, it would make sense that the warrens are a good way to get rid of criminals and other unwanted denizens in a Clan city, since they'd be press ganged into Clan armies to serve as cannon fodder.

 

[Iceciro]

Another classic fantasy unit that might make a good UU/National Unit for the Clan are Hobgoblins. Could even go with something like "large, but cowardly and devious, the Hobgoblins have a high attack and a low defense, but a high withdrawl rate - making them great for softening up particularly strong or well promoted enemies for the Horde." I dunno, just brainstorming at this point.

 

[Brokenbone]

The changes proposed in the first post sound interesting, I think playtesting will be in order to see if they "work" for the community, all the pros and cons from the prior few pages aside.

As to that "undisciplined" promotion from Warrens, I wonder if some kind of bonus for the risks of that promotion (other than the huge bonus of "hey, twice the units") might make sense, something like the "Free Unit" thing that I think Gretchins currently enjoy. Yes, the units can flake out on you, but at least they aren't chipping away at your economy... assume they're doing their own hunting, foraging, whatever, which all contributes to the theme that they might just "go native" as someone put it earlier. Once they are committed to your army/horde (losing the undisciplined promo), consider them as getting a steady paycheque, their "free" status is gone.

Again though, probably have to see it in play, the economic hurt from giant armies is offset in normal Clan play by (a) suiciding decent parts of your quantity over quality horde in conquests and (b) raiding, raiding, raiding (get your Wolf Riders something to do!)

 

[Valkrionn]

I'd rather see a level req than an Age req. I included the "mutation" requirement because it seemed to make sense that the way they got their power and intelligence was through a magical mishap, rather than a "hey look they grew up"

That's actually the method I prefer... Think Magister dislikes the age method as well from his post.

How to implement this in a practical sense ?

PromotionAllows. Very easy field to use, just list the three palace mana tier 2 spells. So something along these lines for unitinfos...

<AllowPromotions>
	<PromotionType>PROMOTION_FIRE2</PromotionType>
	<PromotionType>PROMOTION_CHAOS2</PromotionType>
	<PromotionType>PROMOTION_BODY2</PromotionType>
</AllowPromotions>

Or this for promotioninfos...

<PromotionAllowss>
	<Promotion>PROMOTION_FIRE2</Promotion>
	<Promotion>PROMOTION_CHAOS2</Promotion>
	<Promotion>PROMOTION_BODY2</Promotion>
</PromotionAllowss>

Another classic fantasy unit that might make a good UU/National Unit for the Clan are Hobgoblins. Could even go with something like "large, but cowardly and devious, the Hobgoblins have a high attack and a low defense, but a high withdrawl rate - making them great for softening up particularly strong or well promoted enemies for the Horde." I dunno, just brainstorming at this point.

No new goblin units.

 

[Iceciro]

No new goblin units.

Hoborclins then.