So, what kind of advantages will the sin specialization have? Outside of the OBVIOUS weakness to Theocrats.

That is still in flux for technical reasons. The planned route had to be changed somewhat because of limitations with what can be realistically done with the tools. Sometimes the game code includes little surprises and detours, and one of them is a limitation on apply particular status effects in particular situations. But basically:
- The existing Pride spell ONLY works on Heretics and is quite powerful (+400 Happy +1 Res and Support Slayer, this might be changed slightly if it is not powerful enough yet)
- There is another thing coming for the Adept level connected to the Heretic status

At the Master level, there are (at least as of my internal testing phase) 2 more spells that grant Heretic status and 1 more that bounces off it like Invoke Pride does. I will leak the information that at present, Lust and Gluttony are "converters" like Sloth and Wrath are, and that Envy is the "invoker" that requires you to have some Heretics around. I won't share details just yet though because these spells have required a lot of testing and rewrites as issues became apparent.

That said--Heretic status is still mostly only +3 damage from Theocrats, around the same as the various "Slayer" abilities. It's a negative, sure, but not a huge one, especially since all it really does is save them from actually having to cast Mark of the Heretic on you to get the bonus.

Originally posted by Squid Pro Quo:

That is still in flux for technical reasons. The planned route had to be changed somewhat because of limitations with what can be realistically done with the tools. Sometimes the game code includes little surprises and detours, and one of them is a limitation on apply particular status effects in particular situations. But basically:
- The existing Pride spell ONLY works on Heretics and is quite powerful (+400 Happy +1 Res and Support Slayer, this might be changed slightly if it is not powerful enough yet)
- There is another thing coming for the Adept level connected to the Heretic status

At the Master level, there are (at least as of my internal testing phase) 2 more spells that grant Heretic status and 1 more that bounces off it like Invoke Pride does. I will leak the information that at present, Lust and Gluttony are "converters" like Sloth and Wrath are, and that Envy is the "invoker" that requires you to have some Heretics around. I won't share details just yet though because these spells have required a lot of testing and rewrites as issues became apparent.

That said--Heretic status is still mostly only +3 damage from Theocrats, around the same as the various "Slayer" abilities. It's a negative, sure, but not a huge one, especially since all it really does is save them from actually having to cast Mark of the Heretic on you to get the bonus.

Can't wait to see the finished product of the Sin specialization. good job so far.

Since this is an 'evil' spec, are you planning on eventually having these sin skills give evil alignment points like destruction skills do, or make your version of heretics all dedicated to evil?

btw, nice previews (if they are still what you plan on doing) you left in your files for Glutton and Envy.. giving swallow whole for glutton makes perfect sense.

Reverse mighty meek for Envy is interesting, though I'm not sure why a t4 would be envious of a T1.

And is Lycan mastery the one you were previously planning on releasing before sin?

Originally posted by PsychoticSoul:

Since this is an 'evil' spec, are you planning on eventually having these sin skills give evil alignment points like destruction skills do, or make your version of heretics all dedicated to evil?

btw, nice previews (if they are still what you plan on doing) you left in your files for Glutton and Envy.. giving swallow whole for glutton makes perfect sense.

Reverse mighty meek for Envy is interesting, though I'm not sure why a t4 would be envious of a T1.

And is Lycan mastery the one you were previously planning on releasing before sin?

The info in that file should be taken with a massive grain of salt. :) That is actually just a place for me to jot down ideas. I forgot it was included in the folder.

Gluttony does in fact grant Swallow Whole. It is still in testing at the moment. Part of the delay in releasing the Master phase is the Gluttony spell was crashing the game when stuff got swallowed. I think I finally fixed that, but I'm being cautious.

The Envy spell is very different than what I originally jotted down. The closest thing I could compare it to might be one of the battle-wide AoE spells in Wild Magic, which a twist that I will reveal if it works out.

Also, as a bit of a teaser: at the moment, what the Lust spell does is let one of your units get Absorb Pain from an enemy (sort of like a Theocrat Martyr does, but in this case your enemy is taking the damage instead of one of your units). This is very very powerful as you can imagine. However, there is a downside: if the enemy who is Absorbing Pain for your unit manages to hit your unit in melee combat, your unit is automatically Seduced and joins the enemy army (at least until you kill the "lover" unit who is absorbing pain).

Also, the original plan was for your alignment to tip more Evil every time you create a new Heretic. However, there's a complication in this I didn't see coming ahead of time that means it doesn't work as planned. Turns out the place I created the Sin spells (in the Sorceror rpk files) doesn't have a link to the mechanics that can alter your alignment. Soooo... it would involve having to port the spells over to a different area, which has its own fairly high margin of error. So I am thinking about it and deciding what to do. It is a little silly right now that the Sin spec doesn't push you more evil than it does (then again, the Destruction spec doesn't too much either, oly a couple of spells).

Finally: no, I can confirm I am not at this time working on a "Lycan" spec. The other spec is actually partially coded, and was planned to be released after Lunar, but then I hit some snags (that happens a lot with coding :) ) and delayed it. I don't want to confirm that spec at this time mainly because I don't want to end up not delivering it later for whatever reason and disappointing people. So I will officially announce it when it's mature enough that release is likely.

If you're DYING to know what it is, you can explore the mod text files and probably get a good idea from the text labels. I'd just prefer you didn't post about it here until I announce it. (I won't scream or anything but some people might enjoy it being kept a secret).

haha i was reading the wrong files looking for this stuff...

Could be fun to see what you've got cookin' on the back burners, squid. you have a WONDERFUL mod so far.

Hi all,

A preview of Sin Master launched this morning. In my followup post I am going to explain what it contains, and what is still not working. The reason for launching prior to completion is to ensure any crashing issues are worked out ahead of time. Please report any issues you encounter.

Sin Mastery.

Overall this new spec has 4 new spells. Also, a new ability for the Adept level has been introduced that interacts with Heretic status (more about that later tho).


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INVOKE ENVY. This spell gives about half of units in battle a random ability. Typical stuff is Fire Breath, Shadow Step, etc. The 1/2 of units who DO NOT receive a buff instead receive a debuff called Sour Grapes that debuffs their Happiness (i.e. out of envy). Here's where it gets interesting.

Units who are Heretics who receive Sour Grapes receive a special ability similar to Steal Enchantment. They can snatch the powerful buff granted by this spell and steal it for themselves, leaving the enemy unit with Sour Grapes instead. The idea is, with enough Heretics in your army, even if you roll terribly on this spell you could come out ahead, because your Sour Heretics can subsequently steal the best abilities from enemies before they can use them.

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SADISTIC LUST. This spell makes a target enemy mad with Lust for your nearby units. On its next turn it will lash out at one of them, and on contact will begin to Absorb Pain. This is a good thing for you and very powerful indeed if you use it carefully.

HOWEVER-- the SECOND time a unit strikes you in combat while it is Absorbing Pain, your unit falls for them and is instantly Seduced. So make this as much of a one night stand as possible, or else plan to kill the enemy unit quickly, lest you lose your own units to this spell.


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GLUTTON'S BELLY
This one is comparitvely straight forward. Target unit gets Swallow Whole and Nourishing Meal, but also loses Move Points. Units on Mounts cannot be affected.


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SUMMON SIN SPAWN
This spell summons a Sin Spawn, a mid level demonic creature with decent-ish attack strength. However, on reaching Gold medal it receives an ability called Maturation of Sin. If the Sin Spawn is hit by certain Sin spells, it will instantly evolve into a full grown demon of that type.

Here is where we run into current limiations:
- The spawned demons do not currently have icons
- The powers and abilities of the demons are very much in initial stages
- Only the Wrath spell works at this time for this purpose. I want to observe this spell very closely before implementing it further. Please report any weird issues with the Wrath spell related to ordinary units or with the Wrath Demon it summons

Also, the Sin Adept spec has a new inherent ability. Once per battle, leaders can use the Bless Heretic ability to give a Heretic 80% protection to fire/shock/frost for 1 turn. However, the unit begins bleeding, at a rate of 4 HP per turn for 3 turns. Use this ability carefully.

At the Mastery level, whenever your hero/leader use the ability on another unit, the user *also* gets the buff. The user does not bleed, only the target. I may revise this in the future if this ability proves to be too powerful.

As of the new release this morning, the main change is to the Invoke Envy spell. It now gives Green with Envy to ALL Heretics, whether they rolled Sour Grapes or not. I also slightly reduced CP cost to 20, down from 25.

Oh yeah--using Green with Envy to steal effects from an enemy is also a free action now, as opposed to a full turn action. That makes it much more powerful. Shame on me for losing my change log so I could report that change. :)