As to the ability to protect against aura blast, I agree with the perspective
that some item should be available to protect against the spell. Perhaps a
new skill under Artifact Creation, called "Create Spell Store". One could
store certain spells in an artifact -- for example, create an amulet of
protection from aura blast, or an amulet of appearing common, or an amulet of
Heal. The artifact could be a charged item - use a separate Artifact Creation
spell called "Store Spell", which would charge the artifact. Of course, there
would have to be certain limitations -- maximum number of charges, types of
spell to be stored, etc. Quite a useful addition to the world, I'd think.
As to the matter of NPS being a scarce resource, I totally agree. There's
_no_ way to acquire more NPs -- the best one can do is acquire NPCs (which
count for 1/2 NP, in my opinion). The loss of NPs equates to loss of ability,
permanently (unless the GM eventually compensates for it). Skills can be
relearned, gold and men can be acquired, etc. -- but NPs, if gone through a
bug, are gone. If a faction were to lose, say, 2 NPs around turn 35, just
think of the cumulative loss from that point to now -- skills which could have
been acquired, actions performed, etc. There's no possible way to determine
the loss, of course, as it's all "could have been" -- the only true loss is
those NPs.
Larry Stanbery
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-g2-list@rt.com [mailto:owner-g2-list@rt.com]On Behalf Of
> Seehawk42@aol.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 3:09 PM
> To: g2-list@pbm.com
> Subject: Re: Aura Blast protection
>
>
> In a message dated 4/22/99 1:38:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> lindahl@pbm.com
> writes:
>
> > It doesn't affect game play that much; you just have to keep your
> > garrisons small and your armies in the hands of necromancers. Which
> > makes it harder to exploit the "beats in garrisons don't die" bug. And
> > that's good.
>
> See, I really disagree with the idea that having to keep your armies in the
> hands of necromancers not affecting game play that much.
> I think that affects the game drastically.
>
> NPs are the only commodity in the game that matters. Gold, men,
> tradegoods,
> iron, etc can all be gotten quickly and cheaply within the game,
> but NPs are
> extremely limited (and in some cases because of bugs, once lost, never
> return).
>
> The fact that the only protection from an aurablast is being a necromancer
> means that all armies now cost 2 NP more then they should. And if you want
> to utilize a mixture of frontline troops and missle troops, you would
> actually need 2 necromancers (4 NP) to guard against aurablasts -
> one leading
> the front troops, and one with the missle troops.
>
> Without the threat of aurablasts, an army stack could be effectively lead
> with 2-4 NPs, depending on whether you wanted to oath the nobles.
> Aurablast
> protection effectively doubles the amount of NPs needed to lead the same
> stack, and taken to the logical conclusion, means you will have
> half as many
> stacks in your army.
>
> Just my 2 cents, but I've often thought that there should be some sort of
> aurablast protection available other than becoming a necromancer. The
> ability to create a magic item, or a spell similar to immunity to vision,
> both sound like great ideas to me.
>
> Eric the Seehawk
>