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Post by Roque Saber on Feb 27, 2010 17:01:34 GMT -5
Please do your homework before making a comment on those levels (and I'm not trying to rag on you in particular). Although yes he was an unstable clone, his force abilities were very strong. Nowhere is it said that his powers were diminished because of his clone nature.
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Post by surfrider56 on Feb 27, 2010 17:11:46 GMT -5
Please do your homework before making a comment on those levels (and I'm not trying to rag on you in particular). Although yes he was an unstable clone, his force abilities were very strong. Nowhere is it said that his powers were diminished because of his clone nature. Merely implying bthat as being mentally unstable, he may not have quite the grasp of the Force Jorus did. He's strong, but would he necessarily be stronger than Jorus?
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Post by Roque Saber on Feb 27, 2010 18:44:37 GMT -5
Maybe not stronger, but we have no info saying he was weaker. And we don't have a Jorus mini, so even if he was stronger or weaker, we have nothing to base it off of.
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Post by gwek on Feb 27, 2010 19:12:22 GMT -5
As RS notes, any discussion of Jorus vs Joruus is rather academic.
With respect to the Wookieepedia entry for battle meditation... As always, I caution against relying too heavily on Wookieepedia. That may be a fine generic definition of battle meditation, but I don't think that's exactly how Joruus's worked. He wasn't exactly about the morale-boosting. If I recall correctly, Thrawn had to handle him carefully and talk to him about sacrificing too many of their soldiers as a means to an end... (I was trying to get at some of that tone with some of my recent suggestions.)
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Post by surfrider56 on Feb 27, 2010 19:36:35 GMT -5
Apparently if I play devil's advocate, I should wear asbestos shorts ... my bad for thinking cold weather while watching the Winter Olympics ... Eventually, what do we want Joruus to be able to do? Lead his own squad? Share power with a Thrawn fig ... Somehow, a Vader and Joruus together may not be a good idea ...... But I digress; but speaking of which has Vader or Palp been brought into the discussion on how either would work with Joruus? Too dangerous a combo? Or is that going Too deep into it?
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Post by gwek on Feb 27, 2010 19:57:17 GMT -5
Apparently if I play devil's advocate, I should wear asbestos shorts ... my bad for thinking cold weather while watching the Winter Olympics ... No offense intended, man, but your supposition that a mad clone would be weaker than the original might seem like a reasonable supposition in a void (although I would argue that the mad clone, not saddled with moral limitations might be STRONGER in certain aspects), it is not a theory that is borne out in the Thrawn trilogy. Further, as RS points out, even if we DID agree on a relative power level between Jorus and Joruus, there's no SWM version of Jorus to use as a starting point! So, ultimately, perhaps an interesting philosophical conversation, but not too relevant to this particular thread. My personal feeling is that Joruus should be flexible enough that he could be in a squad with Thrawn (or other Imperial commanders), or could be the sole commander in a squad on his own. Obviously, the way he's statted, he needs to be teamed with shooters to maximize his effectiveness. Since he has no attack capability (and can damage solely through Force powers), he would need to be paired with at least one other attack... just in case he runs afoul of the Vong! I don't think there would be any real abuse with those combos... well, more than any other Imperial squads, anyway. Vader and Palps would not benefit from his Battle Meditation, so the biggest issue would be Dominate. Both existing pieces with Dominate are Fringe, so as long as he's priced appropriately, I don't see a serious problem.
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Post by bountyhunter9 on Mar 1, 2010 22:39:41 GMT -5
I think we are severely overestimating the effectiveness of combining fire. Sure, it can be effective in certain situations, but how often have you actually seen it used? In today's mobile game, a comined fire squad will be annihilated by many Rebel, Republic, and IG Lancer/Yobuck squads. Using some relatively cheap commanders, a +10 boost to attack might seem exceptional, but keep in mind that you're sacrificing the turn of at least a 4 point piece to get that boost for ONE attack. Because that min. 4 point piece has to get within LoS of an enemy on the previous turn (or have an enemy move within LoS, in which case it is unlikely to survive), you then have to win init or hope that your opponent happens to miss what's about to happen (unlikely in competitive games, and even if it did happen, there are far more devastating things that could occur because of an oversight). And then, after that character combines fire and grants a big attack boost, he's left out in the open to enemy fire. Really the only way to do it would be to slap the min. 4 point piece behind a Diplomat, in which case your maneuverability is severely reduced (not to mention you need to acts to set it up and Accurate shooters and Snipers will ruin this strategy). Another possibility with the Empire would be to go the super Stealth route, but that costs significantly more. Yet another possibility is the swarm squad with lots of Stormies/Raxus troopers, but this squad with incur heavy losses, especially to Strafe/Galloping Attack. If this all comes together, one of your good shooters gets a massive +10 bonus to attack...but if it's a good shooter benefitting from the combined fire, they will most likely have a high attack rating anyway, or have access to more efficient ways to boost their attack (which they do in the Imperial faction).
In conclusion, I think one of three things is necessary with the combined fire CE:
1) A damage boost 2) "Breaking the rules" and allowing allies to combine fire more often in a round 3) Some other boost (such as movement or defense) to allies who combine fire
In addition, I also like Gwek's idea of a double-edged commander effect. However, instead of killing the character off if they fail their save, why not just deal 10 damage to them? This would limit the amount of times a swarm squad could combine fire.
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Post by gwek on Mar 1, 2010 23:05:45 GMT -5
I see what you're saying about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of combined fire; however, personally, I'm pretty opposed to the "break the rules" idea. If it were another faction, perhaps, but with the Imps, I think it'd be potentially too big a power swing.
You raise an interesting point by saying that Imps have "more efficient" ways to boost damage. I don't know that Joruus needs to be an "efficient" character. Again, this is a faction thing. If we were dealing with an under-represented faction, sure, but this is the Empire. Is it so wrong if Joruus is a good Force wizard who can dish out a solid amount of damage himself while also boosting shooters? Yes, there are more effective Imps for either aspect, but (theoretically) he's a unique pairing of "sides" (which does, indeed, make him the "most effecient" if you want that particular blend).
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Post by surfrider56 on Mar 2, 2010 0:16:45 GMT -5
If you want to make the CE with a "double-edged effect" perhaps have him lose a FP every time Combined Fire is used, to reflect the mental strain he was supposed to suffer? That would limit when a player might choose to use Combined Fire.
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Post by bountyhunter9 on Mar 2, 2010 15:57:28 GMT -5
Again, we are overestimating the effectiveness of combined fire. Creating a double-edged CE where Joruus loses a FP every time would only make combined fire less attractive than it already is. gwek: I never stated that the Imperials have more efficient ways to boost damage, but rather that they have a far easier way to boost attack than combining fire. It's (IMO) much more efficient to include one of the two Thrawns (who also have powerful added benefits) in the squad than spending at least that amount of points to set up a couple of combined fires. I think a damage boost is needed for the CE. As for a damage boost outdating Spotter...well, Spotter is a very old and outdated ability. It should (IMO) never have had the range limit on it, and it is almost never used in today's game. However, I think we are missing the point that a damage boosting CE would actually HELP Spotter pieces, because the damage boost would stack with the CE. So Spotters would be equally as viable as they are without the CE. I'm having second thoughts on a double-edged commander effect too. Indirectly, his commander effect is double-edged because the piece that combines fire still has to sit out in the open where they can be killed. Maybe have it so that allies who combine fire take 10 damage, save 6, or something, but that is so minor that it's probably unnecessary.
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Post by gwek on Mar 2, 2010 16:33:23 GMT -5
Again, we are overestimating the effectiveness of combined fire. Creating a double-edged CE where Joruus loses a FP every time would only make combined fire less attractive than it already is. I almost replied to surf with something like "BH will say that combined fire is already lousy enough..." Yeah, sorry for the mis-read... I was tired pretty early last night. Personally, I'm not sure that a damage boost is needed. The Empire is powerful enough. Despite having two commanders who can help with combined fire, the Imps don't actually have a piece with Spotter. Not that they commander effect wouldn't help those Fringe spotters, but perhaps there's a reason the Imps have never gotten Spotter/damage boost when combining fire? I still like the idea of something along the lines of Dark Temptation/Dispassionate Killer, but not enough to lobby hard for it, especially if we can come up with something else that works well.
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Post by surfrider56 on Mar 2, 2010 23:50:08 GMT -5
Dark Temptation doesn't sound right to me for him ... but I could go with DKiller ... I can see him not caring who's in his way ...
Are we settled on his Force abilities then? If so, how much of a CE fdo we really want? The discussion seems to bounce ... last I "heard" we were at ...
Joruus C'Baoth Cost: Faction: Imperial Hit Points: 110 Defense: 20 Attack: 0 Damage: 0
Unique Dominate (Replaces turn: Target living character takes an immediate turn under your control, which does not count as one of your 2 activations this phase, even if it has already been activated this round; save 11. The target character cannot move this turn.) Self-Destruct 40 (When this character is defeated, each adjacent character takes 40 damage)
Force 2; Force Renewal 2 Battle Meditation 1 (Force 2, replaces attacks: For the rest of the skirmish, this character gains the following commander effect: Allies who combine fire grant an additional +2 Attack, and enemy characters cannot combine fire) Force Corruption 1 (Force 1, replaces attacks: range 6, non-Droids only: 10 damage, and target is corrupted. Each time the corrupted character activates, it must attempt a save of 11. On a failure, that character takes 10 damage. On a success, that character is no longer corrupted.) Force Lightning 4 (Force 4, replaces attacks: range 6; 50 damage to target. Huge or smaller characters are considered activated this round; save 16)
What CE are we now discussing? Gwek said he'd be willing to lose the CE; with the above abilities, I'm inclined to also say lose the CE.
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Post by gwek on Mar 3, 2010 1:18:49 GMT -5
I didn't mean literally Dark Temptation or Dispassionate Killer (since he doesn't really attack directly), but a commander effect that perhaps boosted combined fire damage, but at the risk of doing damage to or defeating one of his allies.
Honestly, I'd be okay with what you've outlined. I think it's a solid representation of Joruus, with a pretty large bag of tricks.
However, folk will likely argue (not unreasonably) that it doesn't really cover the depth of Joruus's battle meditation.... which leads us back to a commander effect or "Battle Meditation 2" (both of which are currently undefined.
If other people like him as-is, though, I'm all for it.
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Post by Roque Saber on Mar 3, 2010 15:12:59 GMT -5
I agree. Leaving him as is might be the wisest route. BM is represented (not very well, but that's partly WotC's fault) as are his other characteristics. The only problem I see is Force Lightning 4. With Palps, Joruus can use Lightning every single round with Force to spare. FL 4 is a nasty ability, and I'm not sure Renewal 2 is such a good idea if he keeps it.
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Post by gwek on Mar 3, 2010 16:16:56 GMT -5
Maybe start with a higher Force rating (3-4) and drop to FR1, then?
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