the mages are way overpowered as long you know what you are doing. techies suck in comparison. force shield and stasis are the most ridiculously overpowered spells in all 16 colleges. you only need to develop melee skill since Harm speel provides a cheap ranged attack that always hits the target regardless of skill or PE(magical resistance is the only thing that can hamper it but you cast it really fast). making a near invincible mage/fight is piss easy. many magical armors are also too good and too easy to get (just keep advancing time and check the gypsy shop-i got my arcane platemail, leather armor, dagger, great sword, shield, plus the gauntlets in there). i doubt you'll see machined plates or pyro axes spawn in the blacksmith's inventory. the techs just don't stack up against a decent mage. i think that techies should get some innate magic resistance based on their aptitude to counter mages.
all this is true. i played as a mage and just used the agility spell on my self and cast harm on everything i came by and quickly killed everything before my companions even get a chance to hit them. the only thing techies get that i miss out on is the ability to make molatove cocktails and grenades. with good PE and throwing you can kill ANYTHING with those bad boys!!
well, fireflash uses action points unlike those molotovs...I dont know if they have them fixed this with the latest patch though... Also gutrippa, if you browse thru the forum youll find a thread with good arguments regarding the balance between a mage and a tech.
The balance is though, if a tech's equipment breaks, he can just make it again, or repair it. It's also much less expensive. Oh, it's also easier to obtain. You also don't have to spend every other character point increasing your magick ability to get the most out of your items. By the way, I would pit my pyrotechnic axe against your arcane axe any day. 30-50 fire damage can't be beaten. Even if your axe has +20 bonus, that's only physical. That fire damage will rip your armour up quicker than you can kill me... Tech characters are also more versatile. You can't make money off your magick spells, but spend about 150 on pocket watch parts, 30 on eye glasses or so, and sell them for about 900...not a bad deal :smile:. Last time I checked, you can't enchant your own weapons with magick... That being said, I do love my Shield of Protection :smile:.
There is no balance. I have a 34th level Half-Ogre Mage that can dish out close to 600 points damage per round on average, and I'm not even at the wheel clan yet. Oh, and that damage yield is with the Sword of Air, which is a weapon you can get very early in the game. The spells you listed are nothing compared to Hasten, which doubles your APs. That's how I get that obscene damage yield, I double what I can do every turn. Since it's a maintained spell, I can run around with it on for a good, long time. My character doesn't have many drawbacks either. I chose the Ladies Man background, so I'm loved where ever I go. Not bad for an Ogre, is it? Sure, I had to dump points in the strength and dexterity, but that was only a short term weakness. Consider this, for a magick character, you have to devote points in to Willpower to gain levels in your college of choice. Willpower is really an uber-attribute. Not only does it allow access to more spells for a mage, but it boosts your fatigue and hit points. Techies have to boost intelligence, which really doesn't do that much for them other than giving them access to additions technologies. That's a huge balance issue there. As for techies being able to make stuff if it breaks, that's no big deal for my Ogre. I'm using an extremely common weapon. I have several of them in my back pack. Considering how much money I have, I can break them right and left, it's no big deal to me. About the only advantage techies have is that direct magick attacks don't work on them. That would mean something if there were things in the game that actually used attack magick.
Bonus of having 20 Intelligence - +10% to the success rate of skills. Bonus of having 20 Willpower - immune to spells resisted by willpower. Like you said, there aren't that many things that do direct spell damage. Draw your own conclusions :smile:. There is a balance - magick character have to constantly maintain their fatigue - tech characters do not. A tech character can use the necromizer to raise hordes of undead, (I think this then applies) and can then go to sleep, without his creations disappearing. This doesn't work with magick, you have to constantly recast these spells. Technology is also more reliable :smile:. (I haven't personally tried out the necromizer by the way. I think that's how it works though. Can someone correct me on that?).
i don't play turn based and i never found any need for the hasten spell. i prefer stasis for some tougher enemies like stillwater giant or kree barbs. i do not know how each type would fare in PvP (dsiarm spell would be cool if it works though cuz it causes you to drop your current weapon) but it becomes rather obvious that mages have great advantages in the game. For example, i killed stringy pete and several other TOUGH skeletons (we are talking all resists around 60-80 percent and some serious damage) by casting disarm on each one, causing them to drop their weapons and deal 0 damage with their hand attack. i had around 12 or so scars by the end though :sad:. few chars pull off anything like that. money is hardly an issue with a mage since they only spend on item ID, maintenance, and battle items. When i played a techie with an elephant gun, i burned through over 50 grands worth of bullets alone (i bought them from merchants in tarant and SH). Saint_Proverbius:what do u mean direct magic attacks won't work on techies? does that mean attacks like stasis won't work as well. was that a patch addition? when i played the unpatched version, i was able to kill the guy outside of tulla (with a machined plate-i presume he was a tech) using the stasis spell.
Why did you not buy the bullets schematic? Saves a lot of money. All you require is saltpeter (about $35 each) and charcoal (can be found in rubbish bins, or buy for $3. The schematic should cost about $300 or less (should be less...), and you only need about 5 explosives expertise. Maybe 8. That's it :smile:.
no man you're wrong. you can find the characoal but saltpeter is only found in shops. you can find both components for a molotov coctail though.
Yes, that's true. However, if you reach 20 willpower, you're going to have hitpoints and fatigue to spare compared to the guy with the 20 intelligence. Yes, the bonus for intelligence beats the bonus for willpower. However, like I said, you're going to have a big health and fatigue advantage over the person with the high intelligence. Indirect magick, like Hasten, is always reliable. Just putting in the based Willpower points needed to get that spell will allow you to maintain it for quite a while. I can maintain my Hasten for much, much longer than a Haste Potion lasts. As for the necrolizer, I've never seen it sold. The tech person will be forced to hunt down the components for that whereas the magick character can just make them any time they want. I'm pretty sure necrolizer requires a corpse as well. Also, the magick character can easily compensate for the fatigue loss by using potions, which are cheap and readily available.
What I think about all this is that, Playing as a tech is alot harder, but alot more interesting aswell, but for meele/magic characters, the game is just a cakewalk, its no challange whatever way you look at it. So there is no balance. Balance only exists if you manage to have a follower of each orientation in your group. Then you have a well balanced group, and that's where the balance ends :sad:
Actually, putting one point in willpower only increases your hit points and fatigue by one each. So increasing it from 8 to 20 only gives you 12 extra hit points and fatigue. Not that much :smile:. The necromizer is a special schematic, found at the Stonecutter Clan. Anyway, it's fun making your own equipment. My two automatons had a cost of 40 gold each. Why? I found/stole the steam engines, looted the leather armour, found the large gears, found the dwarven steel and bought the spools of heave wire. Now I have 2 level 30 followers (at level 17 by the way) who can kick major arse :smile:. I think that magick and technology both have their strong points. I just prefer making my own weapons :smile:.
