Additional Hero Abilities

[Moonknight]

As we head towards a hero skill tree in the future, let's discuss new abilities that we could add in...

I'll kick it off with Charisma - Ability to convince a neutral army unit(s) to join your noble cause. Something along the lines of your Hero has a Charisma of 15, which would mean if your stack has a 85% or greater chance of winning then the neutral army surrenders automatically and joins your ranks.

Paladins would have the highest Charisma learning capabilities and Barbs would have the lowest.

[magian]

Charisma reminds me of the diplomacy skill from HoMM. It was a pretty swingy power in HOMM, although I doubt it would be as crazy on most warbarons maps... assuming it was limited to troops in terrain, and wouldn't work on city defenders. Paladins charming demons, devils, orcs, ghosts (and other evil types) seems a bit out of character to me though. This power might be a better fit for another hero, like a sorceress with a charm spell.

What about 'Necromancy' for the dread knight? Raising some of the units he kills as undead minions might be fun.

[tabanli]

Age of Empires Priest's has a similar power like Charisma. Nice idea but I don't know how it will work against multiple defenders. Maybe just like ambush roll, there should be a charisma roll before each unit battling. So if you win the battle, you win the city and the converts. However what if you loose the battle, what will happen to converted units?

[Moonknight]

Magian, a new Sorcerer hero-type would work well for this, along with naming it Charm.

Necromancer would be sweet, it could piggy back onto the XP score from a battle to decide how many units could be created by the Necro, and maybe have 3 different levels of units (Unit availability would be based on the Necro leveling up that skill). Could have a 10/2/8, 20/2/10, and 30/2/12 (STR/HP/SPD), they should be slow since they are the undead (although the undead in WWZ were pretty fast).

At the end of the battle, if you had the highest Necro level, you could have 3 choices, x number of unit1, y number of unit2, or z number of unit3 where z<y<x (reason for doing this is that some battles may not be hard enough to deserve creating a level 3 unit).


tabanli, i was thinking it would be based on the odds of the hero stack winning against the neutral stack and either the whole stack is converted or no one is. It's hard to get above 90% against multiple decent neutral armies (or very good 1-units)...

We'd have to balance it out to make sure it's not too powerful.

[magian]

Keying charisma to win percentage is an interesting idea. It would help to make the skill a bit more predictable.

New undead units for necromancy would be very nice indeed, but would require additional graphics:( .. I'd be okay with the current unit pictures recolored to a sickly grey-green.

What about a resurrection skill for the paladin? Like a % chance to regain the last unit/hero lost in a battle the paladin wins? I remember discussing a healing skill a while ago too.

Vampirism could allow the dreadknight to gain temporary wounds (just for the battle) for each unit he kills. Maybe a % chance to drain?

Blood pact might be a % chance to gain a demon for each city the dreadknight razes.

Stealth for the assassin and ranger, allowing them to reduce the range at which their stack is visible to enemies.

Vengeance could work for the Barbarian (or perhaps paladin). It would grant a strength bonus for each of your units killed during the battle.

[Negern]

Magics would be nice, not only for a magician type hero, but for all heroes. Maybe 0-2 spells come from the start, and then new ones can be added either by unlocking or finding them. Low level spells could be not so very useful non combat spells, like gain "3+ stack move for next turn" and "summon boat" or perhaps poor combat spells, like a low +stack attack or defend until next turn.
Other spells could be "scout" (to lift the fow from a part of the map), "change terrain" (to change a squares terrain), "fire bolt" (x% to deal 1 dmg to units in enemy stack, wounds heal after clicking end turn), summoning, lower cost for moving in terrain.
Perhaps spells could be leveled up, so that a level 1 scout lifts fow from a small area and level 2 from a bigger. Different heroes have different levels. A HL wants to get the square underneath the enemy stack into open/desert/snow, so transforming it into those terrains would require a higher spell level for him than the other heroes?
Spell points could regenerate at start of turn, how many depends on hero type, terrain, stats etc.

Maybe a specific city-skill, that's good when attacking and defending cities, and maybe also makes it cheaper to upgrade walls and buy productions?

[magian]

There has been a fair bit of discussion about adding some form of magic to warbarons. But, programming and balancing a whole magic system sounds like a big undertaking to me. I would be happy enough if we had a few wizardly heroes with some magic-themed skills. These "mage" heroes could be further differentiated by taking some of the magical abilities away from the "warrior" hero types. Why can a barbarian walk on water? How does he fly exactly? Does he wiggle his enormous pecs with such force that he is propelled into the air? Those abilities make perfect sense for a mage, not so much for a warrior.

Here are some magic themed skills I have thought about....

Summoning/Gate: Vector troops directly to this hero's stack.
Lightning: Ala Warlords III, % chance to deal 1 damage to a unit during combat (a bit like ambush, but less damaging and re-usable).
Necromancy: (discussed in a previous post on this thread, and also inspired by warlords III)

[Negern]

There has been a fair bit of discussion about adding some form of magic to warbarons. But, programming and balancing a whole magic system sounds like a big undertaking to me. I would be happy enough if we had a few wizardly heroes with some magic-themed skills. These "mage" heroes could be further differentiated by taking some of the magical abilities away from the "warrior" hero types. Why can a barbarian walk on water? How does he fly exactly? Does he wiggle his enormous pecs with such force that he is propelled into the air? Those abilities make perfect sense for a mage, not so much for a warrior.

Here are some magic themed skills I have thought about....

Summoning/Gate: Vector troops directly to this hero's stack.
Lightning: Ala Warlords III, % chance to deal 1 damage to a unit during combat (a bit like ambush, but less damaging and re-usable).
Necromancy: (discussed in a previous post on this thread, and also inspired by warlords III)

Very good points. Less is much more than more in this case. One more thing that could be done would be to cap all heroes max UL, except the palas, to below 33. No hero except pala could get over the cap, even with artifacts, ghosts, blessings or (hopefully ) bugs! I think this would be a major lift for the pala, the borne ruin searcher, nowadays outrun by babas stacked with ghosts...
How high cap would depend on the hero type and needs some discussion before any decision would be taken. Though I doubt any decision about this will be taken. But a suggestion is always a suggestion!

But I do however think that magics should be available to all heroes, if they are added. Not all of the spells or if a low number of spells is available, but if there are many, most heroes could should be able to have a taste or two. Also think that magics should have bonuses that artifacts, heroes and units never or rarely gives. A negate terrain would be OK (the bonus comes only from unicorn and 1 artifact?), but +stack is found in so many heroes, units and artifacts already that there is no need of a spell for it.

[magian]

Negern, I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by magics. Are you talking about 1-use spells?

[magian]

KGB suggested a 'scouting' skill on another thread. Scouting would allow a player to see inside enemy stacks, if they were within range of a unit with scouting. I like this idea, but I would make a slight adjustment. Why not just make scouting and upgraded version of view. So, most units (and heroes) would have view range, while a select few would have scouting range. Clearly scouts and rangers should have a scouting range, elves, eagles, wizards, archons and assassins are some other possible applicants for scout school.