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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 07, 2020 07:30 AM |
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Edited by Dj at 07:44, 07 Jul 2020.
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Lore: Undeads
Hello guys,
One of the things that has been problematic for me with a race representation (besides too many humans) is the undead representation.
But not because they are too many, but that they are too little or too non-diverse.
As some of you said the the Lore: Ideal Universe thread, the games are, to some extent, about humans VS undeads (VS kreegans, i might add) and while it seems normal to us to have numerous factions of living creatures and 1 faction of undeads, it is actually under balanced.
In my opinion, there are and there should be undeads of any living race and creatures: orcs, minotaurs, griffins, hydras, harpies, medusa etc. because they can all be animated into undeath.
And not to mention about the types of undeads: skeletons/zombies (different stages of rot) ghosts (are there any other?)
Liches and vampires fall in the CLASS category, not type of undead, IMO.
Poltergeists, spectres are types of ghosts, so maybe class too?
Anyway,
How would you address this matter? Would you make another 1 or 2 Necropolis factions?
Would you keep 1 faction but with many alternative creatures, i.e. undead versions of each living creature (infering a lot of work)?
Anything else? or nothing because you dont care?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 10:56 AM |
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Edited by MattII at 10:57, 07 Jul 2020.
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The problem with making undead versions of every single living race is that there are dozens of individual races, far more than you could fit in one faction.
As to lichs/vampires, Lichs are indeed a class, but vampires are clearly a type. No other corporeal undead can fly, and no other undead can drink blood.
But honestly, I think one of the biggest things hampering necropolis has always been their theme. Dark and evil is fine for necromancers, sure, but I say it's also possible for necromancy to be seen as a good thing. Imagine a small medieval kingdom. If a neighbouring kingdom attacks, the king has to call up men from the fields to fight, men who might be injured or even killed in doing so. Wouldn't it be better for said king to employ a necromancer to raise an army of undead to fight? That way, far fewer of his own people (only actual volunteers) are going to be killed and injured, and his own economy is likely much less disrupted too, so the kingdom is overall happier and more prosperous.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted July 07, 2020 10:58 AM |
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King's Bounty had something like that, when the king called the necromancers to aid him.
Well, the ghost itself can pretty much represent any living creature, as well as the skeleton itself, but you could add some alternate flying undead birds and such.
____________
Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 07, 2020 11:01 AM |
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Edited by Dj at 11:10, 07 Jul 2020.
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i see the vampire's ability to shapeshift into a bat as a druid's ability to shapesshift into a forest animal (bear, bird etc) - ofc, not strongly represented in HoMM (yet).
And the fact that in HoMM 4 you have the vampirism spell, you basically make any creature a vampire.
I see liches that steal life from a living creatures with spells...that's still vampirism but on the magic side. Vampires suck blood with fangs - might side.
EDIT:
yes, there is a problem with making each living creature as an undead so maybe make golems, mechs and elementals more friendly to the undead line-up?
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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 07, 2020 11:54 AM |
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OhforfSake said:
My thought is that anything put into the skeleton transformer that transforms into something you think doesn't fit should have an alternative form.
yeah, let's take bird like creatures: griffin, roc, harpy (excluding wyvern, dragon fly cuz we would have a migrane).
You cant make the skeleton transformer turn them into let's say wights because it would be unbalanced: roc lv5 to wights lv 2 with ratio 1-1 which would have to be changed to a ratio 1-4 for example and the number of wights would be skyrocketing with this ratio.
And making an undead version for griffin, roc, harpy would take a lot of work, not to mention about expansions that each new creature would need an undead version.
Quote:
In MM7 there are also ghasts. I never quite understood these creatures, but I remember I thought them to be very scary when I encountered them as a child, so I guess they serve the purpose that the look of the undead, under the right circumstances, fills you with terror.
there are many names that depict undeads: ghouls, spectre, reaper (what would it be class or undead type? id go with class as well), revenant, poltergeist, phantom, putrid, strigs, banshee, deadlock etc.
But i observe that there are two types of undead:
1. the ghost type - incorporeal
2. the corpse type - corporeal
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 12:09 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 12:14, 07 Jul 2020.
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Actually, H4 just has a life-drain spell, and power is only fed to the casting hero. It's H5 that gets an actual vampire spell. And the lichs got life drain (not for itself BTW) in Heroes 6, so it's not really something you'd want to base an argument on.
But honestly, I would split the Necropolis into two or maybe even three factions:
1) Vampires, who beyond their own ranks don't do a lot of raising of undead, but rather, enslave other living races.
2) Lichs, who deal in dead bodies, from skeletons, up through zombies, to revenants, who retain their full memories.
3) Necromancers, who mostly deal in ghosts and spirits, either directly, or by gifting them golem-like 'bodies'.
To note though, none of the three lineups would feature undead exclusively, they'd all have at least one or two living creatures in the mix as well.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted July 07, 2020 12:09 PM |
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True. And the Bone Dragons always turn incorporeal with the upgrade, in any HoMM game.
@Ohforfsake
That is true as well. I know many games in which incorporeal creatures have a high resistance to most damage types.
I would personally like Bone Dragons to have 2 alternate upgrades, each with their own advantages:
1. Zombie Dragon
2. Ghost Dragon
____________
Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 12:17 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 12:17, 07 Jul 2020.
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Ah, my bad, I missed that one. Thanks.
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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 07, 2020 01:08 PM |
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Edited by Dj at 13:11, 07 Jul 2020.
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OhforfSake said:
In a way zombies are the closest things to the original, so it makes sense they are more powerful than skeletons.
However to turn incorporeal sounds to me like something very powerful, and in principle an incorporeal creature should be immune to most types of melee/contact damage.
Are they tho'?
The 'life' of an undead
As an undead, no matter what the cause of death, you get to be reanimated (by your own magics or by another's) into a corporeal form or an incorporeal form.
If you start out in a corporeal form, then you might still have some flesh on you. The sooner the death, the more flesh you have, provided you have not died in flames, got cursed with rot etc, but you are closer to life, that is, the more time you spend in undeath, the more you get away from life and come closer to death (magic). Therefore, you get more powerful towards the abilities that the undeath offers (immortality, vampirism, necromancy etc.) and your flesh starts to rot more and more, hence becoming a skeleton, provided you dont sustain your flesh with vampiric manners, that is sucking blood for nutrients.
If time passes (decades, centuries), for X reasons (being hunted, prey dies out, you become weaker from fights and strong curses), vampirism may become useless to you. So you become a skeleton and, ultimately, even your skeleton will crash at some point.
So you become incorporeal, a form which i find more powerful that the previous one. You dont have a physical body anymore, so physical obstacles have no meaning to you. So wights, wraiths, poltergeists and any other ghost type (spectre, you get it) should be more powerful than a lv 3 and the incorporeal form looks superior to the corporeal form (to me).
They might be more susceptible to a few sorts of magic (Light, Psychic, Telekinesis etc.) so they should take more care of their souls and here comes the (soul) leeching ability that keeps your soul more young and powerful.
Of course, an undead can be risen by extremly powerful own magic or by an extremly powerful necromancer directly into the incorporeal form.
Or, if risen into coporeal form, an undead may directly seek to take care of its soul by soul leeching and let its body rot and wither out faster.
...or both, an undead may be a vampire to keep its body fresh and a lich to keep its sould young.
So there sound more logical to be might and magic classes for the undead.
Necromancy, the ability that makes necromancer a necromancer is an ability to raise and control undead. Any type of undead can do it with enough power.
Death knight sounds to me like a status in a society, just like the mummy, though the mummy is Egyptian. So some faction can be made more undead friendly.
For example, an undead hero in WOG Bastion is a mummy and can mix some bastion creatures with some undead creatures with the ability to negate any negative morale that the undead might cause in the battlefield.
Quote:
One problem I can see it presents however is that the limited amount of undead kind of fits with the limited amount of creature slots.
The multitude of undead types would work as alternative creatures so you get to choose your own line up depending on the strategy you need and your hero race.
Quote:
If most things requires a unique undead type, then you lose one of the main attractions of the undeads, the ability to combine whole armies into a few creature types.
So I think a compromise is best, one where there exist a new type of undead that fits with the non-humanoid creatures, something more powerful than a skeleton, but much much weaker than a bone dragon, that can be harvested en mass. It is still difficult to imagine something that fits with both a dragon fly and a roc, and you are likely correct that it only leads to a headache.
Im thinking about blizzard's abomination, but not humanoid because we already have all undeads as humanoids, besides dragon and dread knights horse. Something like a chimera, but skeleton/zombie.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted July 07, 2020 01:10 PM |
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MattII said:
But honestly, I would split the Necropolis into two or maybe even three factions:
1) Vampires, who beyond their own ranks don't do a lot of raising of undead, but rather, enslave other living races.
2) Lichs, who deal in dead bodies, from skeletons, up through zombies, to revenants, who retain their full memories.
3) Necromancers, who mostly deal in ghosts and spirits, either directly, or by gifting them golem-like 'bodies'.
The way I see it, the powers within the faction could be divided onto each class type. The vampires are the noble aristocrats. Other type of noble could be the dark knights, who are more combat oriented. Both are similar to lords or barons to their followers, but neither expand their population through their own powers, though vampires can create other vampires.
The necromancers are the equivalent to the Tower faction's wizards, the scientists, and are those who expand upon the ranks of undead, and can even create new types of undead. The liches are basically necromancers who have used their knowledge to gain the powers of the undead and with this also more power within their own faction.
So ancient necromancers = liches who creates the most obscure and powerful undead and are basically the rulers of their students, the necromancers, who get to fill up the population of undead and the brightest even create new types of undead.
Then there are the free willed undeads that aren't liches, these are the vampires and dark knights who themselves have a claim for power.
The motivation of the necromancer could be that of power and control, but it could also be benign, creating ever lasting life for every living creature, and ultimately themselves as well. Most likely a blend of both worlds. Especially considering the necromancer typically won't mind to create e.g. skeletons of others, but will make a lich of themselves.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted July 07, 2020 01:42 PM |
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Dj said:
The 'life' of an undead
[...]
So there sound more logical to be might and magic classes for the undead.
I really enjoyed reading this, and I think it is brilliant. One idea for a reason to not go zombie -> skeleton -> ghost as fast as possible, is e.g. the might oriented powers are more sustained as a zombie.
So if you reanimate say a behemoth into a zombie like behemoth, this creature will retain much of its melee powers, perhaps even boosting some aspects, while losing at others. Then when it turns into a skeleton it might still strike strongly, but its health will be greatly diminished, but other undead effects can have emerged now. Finally when it turns into a ghost, its melee abilities diminishes further, but the advantages of being undead are greater, such as the ability to go through walls, fear effects, soul ripping attack (target cannot be resurrected), etc.
In other words it is a trade off between each of the 3 stages and it is not always obvious what is best, in stead it is balanced.
It doesn't have to be balanced though, e.g. in Might and Magic if you have a knight that goes insane it is a nice boost without negative side effects, while a caster would be ruined by this.
So for cases with no trade off, a weaker necromancer might not be able to turn himself into a ghost form lich, and in stead at first becomes a zombie and even retains as much power as possible through vampirism, and then as the centuries pass the necromancer becomes more and more attuned to his new form, becomes a lich skeleton, and finally there is only his consciousness left in some kind of spirit/ghost form.
Which would be kind of ironic if say an afterlife exists in HoMM where everyone is in their soul form similar to this stage, because then the necromancer have "cheated" death by basically becoming what he would have become anyway.
Then again, I think the point of being a lich is to retain some kind of corporeal existence. I mean there is the whole deal with lich jars, etc. though I am not certain.
Dj said:
Death knight sounds to me like a status in a society, just like the mummy, though the mummy is Egyptian. So some faction can be made more undead friendly.
If we look in-universe, then:
In HoMM the might class is the Dark Knight, and the magic calls is the Necromancer. Then these consist of Vampires, Liches and Humans.
In Might and Magic VII, both the Knight (and its promotion of Dark Knight) is a class, while in Might and Magic VIII, both the Knight and the Vampire are classes.
I guess if one wants to keep with the game design of one caster and one might class, one can't both have necromancers & liches on one side and vampires & dark knights on the other. Personally I have no preferences.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 08, 2020 01:38 AM |
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Thinking on the idea of making undead versions of everything (at least, everything alive), I don't see that working, but perhaps a few types of undead animals might work (the Egyptians were known to mummify multiple types of animals).
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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 10, 2020 04:52 PM |
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@Ohforsake, thank you.
I ll put some thought into it. So far, im considering making creature tiers like this example:
Geist -> Poltergeist
Corporeal form -> Uncorporeal
With a 'in between' form if 3rd upgrades would be a thing.
So all undeads start out as corporeal and their upgrades go towards uncoporeal.
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