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lowlevelstatic
Sneak
134 Posts
    
 | | 09/03/2005 11:05 PM |
| | recovered topic 8279 | | | |
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lowlevelstatic
Sneak
134 Posts
| | 09/03/2005 11:05 PM |
| Another issue that was raised when I was chatting with Veliq is the limited restriction on who qualifies to become a Lieutenant. According to the rules, the only restrictions are:
- Intelligence 8 or higher
- No commander rating or commander rating no higher than Warlord
- Not difficult
- Not incited
- Cost 35 points or less
Veliq pointed out that, in a discussion, he had learned that a Chrall Lieutenant that gains a commander rating through Lieutenant levels could meet its own "Requires Commander" limitation, negating the drawback. While I don't see this as a big deal, and agree that anyone who goes through the trouble of leveling such a Lieutenant within the rules deserves the payoff, I think it points out that the Lieutenant requirements are a little sparse.
First, for the sake of consistency, if Difficult creatures are excluded, Wild creatures should be as well. By the same reasoning, if Incited is an exclusion, Inhibited should be as well.
Taking this one step farther, I propose these other common-sense exclusions for Lieutenants:
Requires Commander (dies if designated commander dies)
Command Dependant (speed 0 while not under command)
Requires Instruction (confused while not under command)
As new abilities appear in new sets, it may be necessary to consider each one as it relates to Lieutenants and consider whether additional exclusions should be added. And example of this would be the new Disruptive ability, which seems thematically incompatible with providing command.
Anyway, I certainly understand that player decisions may have already been made based on the current rule sets, so any changes would have to compensate those who have already invested experience points into creatures that would be invalidated by the change. One way to handle that might be to allow the affected experience to transfer into surviving, eligible creatures at the end of the warband's next battle.
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galneweinhaw
Commander
2646 Posts
| | 09/04/2005 1:58 AM |
| Thanks for the feedback! my comments:
quote:
Originally posted by lowlevelstatic
First, for the sake of consistency, if Difficult creatures are excluded, Wild creatures should be as well. By the same reasoning, if Incited is an exclusion, Inhibited should be as well.
The only reason this isn't in the rules is because Wild and Inhibited abilities were introduced AFTER the rules were written and no-one has mentioned it =)....so, thanks for pointing this out! I'll add it to the rules. EDIT: although, All of these may be redundant, as I don't believe there are any Wild/Difficult 20/Incited/Inhibited Creatures with Int >= 8 anyway!
quote:
Taking this one step farther, I propose these other common-sense exclusions for Lieutenants:
Requires Commander (dies if designated commander dies)
Command Dependant (speed 0 while not under command)
Requires Instruction (confused while not under command)
Restricting Requires Instruction and Command Dependant are redundant, because all the creatures with these abilities are constructs with no Int (already restricted)
The same true for Command Dependant, all the elementals, the Astral Construct, and the Dread Guard are are eliminated due to the Int restriction.. so that Leaves the Chraal. From a RPG perspective, it makes sense that a Chraal could become a commander. The reason he is command dependant is because he is considered a summoned elemental in DDM, he is intelligent enough (>8) that if he wanted to he could lead his own warband.
So for all those new restrictions, only the Chraal would be eliminated =) Which I don't see as necessary, cus the Int 8 restriction eliminates most creatures, and makes sense in RPG terms too.
quote:
As new abilities appear in new sets, it may be necessary to consider each one as it relates to Lieutenants and consider whether additional exclusions should be added. And example of this would be the new Disruptive ability, which seems thematically incompatible with providing command.
I completely agree =D and this is one thing I have failed miserably in doing. I hope you'll be around when the next set comes out to remind us so we can add any new restrictions which should be obvious =) So that we won't end up with the situation you mention were an obvious non-Lt creatures sneak through to become an Lt =)
As for Disruptive ability, the two creatures are Feral Minotaur and Blackscale Lizard Folk.... don't have my cards or MMIII handy, so will have to look them up. Probably the Int restriction takes care of them too, but will check to make sure.
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galneweinhaw
Commander
2646 Posts
| | 09/04/2005 2:08 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by lowlevelstatic
... when a non-commander Lieutenant gains level 2, he get gains Commander 0. This is great, but it comes with all the drawbacks of being a commander. First, if you want to build a theme warband with iconics, your heros can no longer benefit from Regdar's commander effect once they gain level 2. More importantly, if you're using a Warlord with a warbanding ability, he can't bring in a cross-faction hero once that hero gains level 2. While these are minor issues, they can detract from the idea of promoting elite units when you're not aiming to have them as subcommanders...
These are good points, and we discussed this extensively in the run up the Rules Version 2. What it comes down to, is that the point of Lieutenants is to create leaders who will become warlords, not to create powerhouses for you existing warlord...and this is the way it was designed to be. The strategy, if you don't want to promote your Lt's, is to up them 1 level only, and gain a few bonuses.... but after gaining a commander rating those Lt's are going to be itching to command their own warbands.
Please keep the suggestions and feedback coming =) | |
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lowlevelstatic
Sneak
134 Posts
| | 09/04/2005 2:59 PM |
| Thanks for the explanation. In light of the intent of the Lieutenant rules with respect to warband building and commander effects, I can certainly understand and support that implementation as opposed to something with "Willing to follow" or Independant.
On the subject of ineligibility from being a Lieutenant, I wasn't thinking so much about the logic of thematic compatibility (which seems subjective enough to be an unending debate) as I was with the balance in a competitive game with respect to creature costing. I was thinking about how the cost of creatures factors in limitation, and certain limitation are completely negated by making that creature a commander. The extreme example is the Chrall, but lesser examples would be creatures with Bold (which become fearless), Brittle Morale (which lose that), and those lesser command-dependencies that only mindless constructs have currently. In light of how wide-spread such abilities are, I can see how it would be really impractical to start excluding so many creatures, including some really cool subcommanders like the Justice Archon. It might be workable if there were some way to accurately cost the removal of a penalty (like making the archon with a commander rating cost X points more), but that just complicates things even more.
So, in light of your explanation and consideration of the impact and complexity of such a change, I do agree with the current implementation. I suppose my only suggestion would be to consider whether drawnbacks that are not directly affected by making a creature a commander should even be exclusions. The only example there is Incited. Is any creature affected by this exclusion other than the Large Air Elemental (I didn't check it's int, so maybe it's not even affected)? I don't really see why anyone would want to make an incited commander, but since Incited doesn't really interact with command, why exlcude it?
Just my thoughts. Thanks for the clarification. | | | |
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Aravis
Underboss
1155 Posts
| | 09/04/2005 3:02 PM |
| | Well what if you just want to make a powerhouse for your warlord to have with him. Such as wanting to get a Diregaurd more spells but you dont want or dont have any intention to make him his own warlord by promotion. Can we atleast be able to CHOOSE if they wanna take a commander 0 or not? Maybe gain something small if they dont..but to me it really doesnt make much of a differance. | |
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