Enchanted Items & Granted Abilities

The devs appreciate Master of Magic, and item creation there was a big part of building up your champions.

My guess is that we'll have two 'levels' of enchanted gear, one for regular troops and one for champions. I'd be a bit disappointed if the game didn't include some basic choices about whether to 'mass' produce gear with basic enchantments or to forge singular items that effectively grant limited spell-casting power.

I'm not a fan of allowing non-caster (Hero) units to use magic items that cast spells.

If you lose a fight and your mage dies you are just out 1 mage.  If your unit with a wand of fireballs dies you get to be on the other end of that want next fight.

Sammual

I'm a bit more interested in what abilities individual units might have without fancy equipment. Could you cast a fireball without a sword? Are you blessed with good health and rapid healing? Is your skin as tough as steel? Can you jump, fly, or even teleport? Are you well trained in the use of two-weapon fighting? If I give a sword, any sword like a rusty one, could you shoot lightning from it?

Although I have nothing against magic items, I just don't want them to be the only source of magical power for my units, or super units. I would like it if my units could be a bit more than the sum of their equipment and basic training. I want there to be a good reason why my champions are my champions. I would be disapointing if my champions where selected because they drew lucky in the lottery, or someone thought they had a pretty face.

I consider this a badass plus that would add a lot to the game.  If you turn a mortal into a god, you'd better be damned careful about getting him killed.

You have a point there, but I'm not quite sure how having other magic would work... Arn't only channellers supposed to have independant magical powers? If so, then how exactly would you convince an enemy channeller to join you?

lol... I hadn't even thought of that... having your own weapons turned on you would suck hugely...

That would be pretty interesting..... might put some emphasis back on training the unit itself..... especially if effectiveness w/ item is tied to training profficiency........

I think the developers would like that sort of an emphasis on keeping your soldiers alive.  I mean, they said in one of the journals that there would be a tradeoff, 'cause every soldier could be a worker back at your cities helping your economy.  So, there's definately going to be an emphasis on NOT wasting lives.  At least the way I read it.  So, giving your soldiers powerful weapons would only increase that, and risking the enemy getting them even more so.

me, because my ring is evil and will totally mess you up.  I'll be finally free of its weight.

One thing that would really increase the playability and interest of this game for me would be this:

That any army unit, not matter how small (think hobbit?) had the POSSIBILITY (no matter how small) of defeating the most powerful unit through a combination of gaining experience and maybe skills, collecting rare magical artifacts, magical enhanments cast by other units, and luck.  I don't want to happen all the time but just rare enough so that when it does happen, it makes a great story.

I think this should be the underlying goal for a system of enchanted items and granted abilities.

I really agree with this, and I have no doubt Stardock will be able to pull it off if its in their objectives

Ooo, because the little mortal peasant couldn't handle the ring of a god .. or is it halfgod? .. demigod?? (reference totally intended) exactly what are we as channelers here? Extraordinarily powerful folk capable of bending the forces of the world around us... sure sounds like a god to me!

Depends on your definition of "god". Channelers are powerful, but they have limitations. I see a god as being totally omnipotent.

:p

Bears are not god. Bears are large, fairly stuipd animals that live in forests and tundras. And I can't bow. I'm sitting down right now.

I'm the Bear Lord! The lord of bears! Not a bear!

That really only applies in monothesitic models. Most pantheons tend to have an alpha deity, but they are not omnipotent. Take Zeus as an example--he's king of Olympus, but he can't do something like dry up the River Styx. Heck, he couldn't even count on keeping his lovers safe from his wife's anger.

Well, I suppose god vs. god is a bit of an exception, sort of an infinity minus infinity type situation. As I said, it depends on where you draw the line between god and demigod.

Well, I still think you're not getting the fact that omnipotence is a monotheism thing. And in mythological discussions, a demi-god has a pretty stable definition: the offspring of a god and a mortal, e.g. Heracles.

But to try staggering back to being on-topic, I really hope that if starting essence is not all the essence you'll ever have, some channelers might be able to raise up a late-game champion who would have put up a good fight with a channeler on Turn 1.

And I'd like to be able to choose between imbuing that power directly in champions as inherent abilities or in artifact-level items that grant serious abilities. Also, I hope for some way (e.g. a Champion Thief) that a magic item can be lost without losing the champion who held it--some sort of analog to the Ovious, Accessible Focus limitation in the Hero System. Basically getting more bang-for-the-buck out of a Hammer of Doom because it can be lost to an enemy.

Makes sense. Another reason for SOME sort of essence-recouping system.

I got pushed back on pretty hard about any "essence-recouping" in my half-rant essence thread.

I'm still interested in the notion of at least *some* ways to 'divest' from an existing essence investment, probably because I'm still hung up on the idea of a meaningful connection between a channeler and imbued lands and champions. However, I think the more common opionion around here is that essence spent is essence gone, but starting essence should not be all the essence you can ever have.

I think it might add a little something to diplo trades if a channeler can take a potion of his essence back from a unit or city or whatever attached to another player: cozying up to the other guy before war is all well and good, but if he can pull the rug out from under you, you might want to think twice.

:p

right, like the titans or whatever used the essence to destroy the world essentially, but the essence is still there.  I see it like energy in a physics equation-- it just changes form.

That was what I was referring to in my "conservation of essence" idea in the essence thread.... which opens the idea of an essence vistory in which you control a certain % of the game's total essence.