The spirit is not necessarily useless without elves, it could be allied independently, for instance. Elves would be good, though, but not a lot of them.
>> I don't think there is a Spirit of the Forest anywhere in Dragon Pass
>> except the Stinking Forest, but there would probably be several in the
>> Great Forests (i.e., Arstola Forest would actually have several of these,
>> but only one would appear in MoLaD). There MIGHT be one in the Elder
>> Wilds, but I don't think so -- their forest was decimated by Arkat/Gbaji
>> in the First Age, their great tree consumed in magical fire that still
>> burns today, but other places would. Hell, Dorastor would have two, one
>> of them chaotic!
>
> I think I agree. Of course the other forests have spirits but not on the
> size that would appear in the DP game. Although perhaps, if one player
> used the pillar of fire or otherwise allies trolls, the other player (or
> players - whichever bids highest) could get some alliance of all the
> elf-related units in the game (currently none :-) Unfortunately I don't
> think Elf units band together outside the confines of their particular
> forest to it may not be very useful. How about if you had to go and get
> something from them a la the dwarf - something that would protect
> *another* three units (above and beyond a Superhero) from the pillar of
> fire if stacked with them? Make it slightly useful as well (maybe like
> -4*--3 and it also doubles the MgF against trolls?)
In the Balazar games I was working on, each forest had its own elves that could be allied, unless you were playing the Inhuman wars where the elves were all together, elves stick trolls stick dwarves.
Was the Elder Wilds Great Tree burned down? I thought it was the Great Tree for the Stinking Forest as well.
> Oh, I should have added a note that this is for my Shadows Dance
> battalia, which already includes Stinking Forest, Vale of Flowers, and
> Redwood Elves. Sorry about that. (I guess the Black Elves would get a
> Fungus Spirit for the Fungus Forest, too. Not sure how to do the Dead
> Woods Ghost, which should have a similar, but negative, type of
> relationship with elves.)
> Not sure I understand what you're talking about here. If the Stinking
> Forest or Vale of Flowers elves are available, you could assign them DP
> values and ally them normally. Each has a special unit -- one has a High
> King Elf, one an Elder Sister dryad, and one a Gardener-type. Can't
> recall off-hand which has which, though.
>> Hey, just had another thought. How about a nice a juicy mini-dragon
>> spirit if you do the right things (e.g. magician unit emmissary) at
>> Dragon Pass itself (ie. the skull)? Since it's part of/inherent to
>> Dragon Pass, perhaps it's part of an arsenal of 3-4 objects/spirits you
>> could acquire before you went to Kerofin or the temple - say if you did
>> all that then you get another 15 diplomacy per turn, or something else
>> cool :-)
>
> An interesting idea -- I do like the idea of some mini-quests, but had
> never considered what you could actually get for them, besides spirits.
> Diplomacy point bonuses is a good possibility.
Well, resurrecting Tada! is sort-of a HeroQuest, you have to get the Grisley Portions together at Tada's High Tumulus and then do a little dance. There should be more of these things around. You could even get more than one player trying to do the quest and get the same benefit, with the other players trying to stop them.
In the combined Prax/Shadows Dance game, you could send someone to Giantland and come back with the Cradle, for instance. You could go to the Paps and do some things, perhaps liberating a spirit. Argrath White Bull could release the White Bull Spirit and get DPs for the Sable Riders and Bison Riders.
Steve:
> Someone had mentioned Flyers should be able to avoid combat. How about
> letting flyers "fly high" to avoid the effects of most units? They would
> burn up X of their MF to attain altitude. Once they were flying high,
> they would ignore all ZOCs and earthly units -- they could neither attack
> nor be attacked. To return to normal altitude, they would have to burn up
> the same number of MF again.
Certainly they would be able to fly over ZOCs, but they wouldn't be able to avoid combat, I think. They get tired and have to come down to rest, in which case they could be attacked. In DP, it is not much of a problem, as you don't have many flying units (although imagine the Stormwalkers, Wasps and Pterodactyls stacked with the Travelling Stone for a kick-arse combination, add in a dragon for extra effect). But, in NG you have units such as Gargarth and Thunderbird. I wouldn't like them to be able to avoid combat whenever they liked, only to swoop down and take out stacks arbitrarily. It makes them too powerful.
> While flying high, a flyer would "ignore" all terrain types (as they
> generally do anyway) EXCEPT what I call Impassible Mountains, which they
> would have to traverse as if they were normal mountains. (Impassible
> Mountains are the high ranges of peaks like the Rockwoods; they can't be
> crossed by normal units, and even units like dwarves and flyers that can
> cross them must spend 3 MF to do so.) Flying high should not allow flyers
> to enter true Sea hexes, but it should let them fly over Lakes and stuff.
They should be able to cross Sea Hexes, but not to stop on one. Once again, they have to stop for a little rest and they'd drown in the sea, or lake. Yes, I agree with the Impassable Mountains, but they only really apply when using the big board with DP and EW combined.
> I think there should be an exception to the No Attack rule, and that is
> that Spirit Magic and Exotic Magic should be able to affect them, but the
> RF of the magician ought to be halved to take into account the extra
> distance their height gives them. I can't decide whether any magician
> ought to be able to attack them, or if they should be vulnerable only to
> magicians stacked in a temple or something like that.
Rather then halving range, the flyer should use a certain MF to climb, then the same MF to drop. This MF is subtracted from the RF of attacking units. But then you have the problem that they have to rest, so they have to use the MF each turn. Hmmm, tricky.
> Which reminded me of the issue over heroes and superheroes being hard to
> kill permanently.
You've obviously not seen my incredibly bad luck when rolling Heroic Escapes. I treat them as something than happen in theory but rarely in practice.
> Instead of Heroic Escapes, the player can choose to
> cheat death. The hero or superhero is returned to the board in the exact
> same way as normal. The player then rolls the die (the first time this
> occurs, 1 time for superheroes, 3 times for heroes; after that, 3 times
> for each). Each number rolled is lost to the player -- if he rolls that
> number any time for the rest of the game, it is ignored -- causing either
> a No Result (i.e., no alliance, no spirit draw, etc.) OR he must reroll
> to get a number that works (for combat, frex).
Presumably this is dead to that counter only, not to the entire batallia. I can't see how it would work, can you give some examples?
See Ya
Simon
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