Spider Stomper
Posts: 224
Joined: Monday, 19th November 2012, 04:56
Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 04:55
Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list
This proposal neither stems from nor (directly) concerns the power of Yredelemnul, rather the concept that most of his ally gifts are boring. This is, in my opinion, an unfortunate result of the progression in which he grants he grants undead allies. There are several interesting midrange gifts that are fairly useful during the midgame, such as freezing wraiths, phantasmal warriors and flaming corpses, but tend to peter out quite quickly as the game progresses and their defenses become inadequate. The gifts that actually have potential to take a hit and last, specifically ghouls, bone dragons and profane servitors, all are fairly similar in concept to both each other and to the legions of zombies at a Death Knight's command in that their usual usage is to bump attack enemies. Among these top three there is some variation, ghouls being able to use humanoid equipment and servitors being complete badasses (er, having angelic speed and whatnot), but the point remains that their usage is basically the same.
Note that the recent changes to crypt monsters has helped, but as I noted above most affected monsters suffer from a terrible fragility that prevents their extended use. Furthermore, I think that Yred would benefit from other aspects of the Crypt update, such as using the new monsters. More on that later. I also acknowledge that you can essentially pick a useful undead servant with Enslave Soul, but I feel there is unused potential here to make Yred more fun to play without having to find Rupert/Nessos/Lamia/an annihilator/Tiamat first.
The proposal proper
[*] The following monsters would make excellent candidates for inclusion as Yred gifts:
Revenants - These guys seem practically designed for the position of supporting undead armies. Their ghostly flame abilities are unique in all the game, and certainly would breathe life into a dead army (Or perhaps the other way around?) Yred would have to give players either immunity to or healing from the ghostly fireballs (leaning toward immunity), but this is trivial. Their summoning of spectral things would be a nice addition as well, and probably not overly game breaking. Regardless, an allied revenant would be a powerful ally indeed, and it would belong with the other late game gifts.
Ancient Champions - A progression from the humanoid undead above ghouls. Again, these would be lategame gifts for their excellent equipment and spells.
Shadows - These undead would be fairly appropriate for an early game gift, slipping into the darkness and "stabbing" dangerous foes.
[*] The following monsters are certainly worth consideration, though for one reason or another may not make as much sense as the above category;
Death-flavoured demons - While Yred doesn't explicitly have any connection to demons, both the god and the demons have an affinity for death so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see them working together. He does, after all, send them to punish you under pennance (due to necromancy miscasts). This group includes soul eaters, reapers, and maybe rotting demons. Soul eaters are interesting because of their drain life ability. Reapers can be dangerous because of their potentially branded scythes and reaching, but are not necessarily exciting for reasons outlined in this thread. Rotting devils are boring mostly because of how little rotting does to monsters, furthermore they are not generated by necromancy miscasts and therefore have the least attachment to this group anyway.
Liches - The flavour on these guys makes them seem too individualistic to be pawns of Yredelemnul, but perhaps the God of the (Un)Dead has lured several of these masters of magic? These guys would obviously be lategame gifts, and their obscene power would be nice to experience shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face. They might fall victim to the fragility argument presented above, but you could also speculate that a lich would generally be able to hold its own in a fight.
Vampires - From a flavour standpoint they are similar to liches, though perhaps even more separate from Yred because they like to hang out together. Regardless, This class would have the benefit of being spread throughout the game, however. Vanillas in later early game, magi and knights in later midgame. Vanilla vampires are in as of this edit, replacing freezing wraiths.
Bigger mummies - See above for the flavour, mummies seem to be doing their own thing even more than the above two. Mummy, though, is the only class out of these that Yred currently grants you a member of, hrm. Guardian mummies would be okay, probably in the later midgame. It would be nice to see a functional death curse work on an enemy monster
Mummy priests and greater mummies, on the other hand, are absurdly powerful and might not make the best Yred gifts.
*The above three sets clearly have their own ambitions and seem too intelligent (or individualistic) to be granted as slaves, but keep in mind Yred's persuasive influence reaches even angels (servitors) and that Crypt vaults are generally flavoured with Yred altars (i.e. the dudes within are worshiping Yred or whatever)
Jiangshi - I originally had these in mind when going to propose this, but besides their sixirfraigangjlaxy-like movement and vampiric attacks they aren't particularly interesting. Sixirffakbndxy-like movement probably wouldn't be so great for allies anyway.
Eidolons - Would probably be nice to have except they would spam Cause Fear and make everyone sad.
---
Overall, I think that an update to ally gifts would make Yredelemnul overall more attractive and more importantly more fun to play with. I think revenants would be the best choice to add, but it is certainly not the only option to consider. Feel free to leave any appropriate feedback.
Since the discussion of monster candidacy in some respect involves Yred's flavour his '^' screen is here for your convenience:
A survey of current Yred gifts may help give background to the proposal:
Note that the recent changes to crypt monsters has helped, but as I noted above most affected monsters suffer from a terrible fragility that prevents their extended use. Furthermore, I think that Yred would benefit from other aspects of the Crypt update, such as using the new monsters. More on that later. I also acknowledge that you can essentially pick a useful undead servant with Enslave Soul, but I feel there is unused potential here to make Yred more fun to play without having to find Rupert/Nessos/Lamia/an annihilator/Tiamat first.
The proposal proper
[*] The following monsters would make excellent candidates for inclusion as Yred gifts:
Revenants - These guys seem practically designed for the position of supporting undead armies. Their ghostly flame abilities are unique in all the game, and certainly would breathe life into a dead army (Or perhaps the other way around?) Yred would have to give players either immunity to or healing from the ghostly fireballs (leaning toward immunity), but this is trivial. Their summoning of spectral things would be a nice addition as well, and probably not overly game breaking. Regardless, an allied revenant would be a powerful ally indeed, and it would belong with the other late game gifts.
Ancient Champions - A progression from the humanoid undead above ghouls. Again, these would be lategame gifts for their excellent equipment and spells.
Shadows - These undead would be fairly appropriate for an early game gift, slipping into the darkness and "stabbing" dangerous foes.
[*] The following monsters are certainly worth consideration, though for one reason or another may not make as much sense as the above category;
Death-flavoured demons - While Yred doesn't explicitly have any connection to demons, both the god and the demons have an affinity for death so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see them working together. He does, after all, send them to punish you under pennance (due to necromancy miscasts). This group includes soul eaters, reapers, and maybe rotting demons. Soul eaters are interesting because of their drain life ability. Reapers can be dangerous because of their potentially branded scythes and reaching, but are not necessarily exciting for reasons outlined in this thread. Rotting devils are boring mostly because of how little rotting does to monsters, furthermore they are not generated by necromancy miscasts and therefore have the least attachment to this group anyway.
Liches - The flavour on these guys makes them seem too individualistic to be pawns of Yredelemnul, but perhaps the God of the (Un)Dead has lured several of these masters of magic? These guys would obviously be lategame gifts, and their obscene power would be nice to experience shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face. They might fall victim to the fragility argument presented above, but you could also speculate that a lich would generally be able to hold its own in a fight.
Vampires - From a flavour standpoint they are similar to liches, though perhaps even more separate from Yred because they like to hang out together. Regardless, This class would have the benefit of being spread throughout the game, however. Vanillas in later early game, magi and knights in later midgame. Vanilla vampires are in as of this edit, replacing freezing wraiths.
Bigger mummies - See above for the flavour, mummies seem to be doing their own thing even more than the above two. Mummy, though, is the only class out of these that Yred currently grants you a member of, hrm. Guardian mummies would be okay, probably in the later midgame. It would be nice to see a functional death curse work on an enemy monster
Mummy priests and greater mummies, on the other hand, are absurdly powerful and might not make the best Yred gifts.*The above three sets clearly have their own ambitions and seem too intelligent (or individualistic) to be granted as slaves, but keep in mind Yred's persuasive influence reaches even angels (servitors) and that Crypt vaults are generally flavoured with Yred altars (i.e. the dudes within are worshiping Yred or whatever)
Jiangshi - I originally had these in mind when going to propose this, but besides their sixirfraigangjlaxy-like movement and vampiric attacks they aren't particularly interesting. Sixirffakbndxy-like movement probably wouldn't be so great for allies anyway.
Eidolons - Would probably be nice to have except they would spam Cause Fear and make everyone sad.
---
Overall, I think that an update to ally gifts would make Yredelemnul overall more attractive and more importantly more fun to play with. I think revenants would be the best choice to add, but it is certainly not the only option to consider. Feel free to leave any appropriate feedback.
Since the discussion of monster candidacy in some respect involves Yred's flavour his '^' screen is here for your convenience:
- Code:
Yredelemnul the Dark is an evil God worshipped by those who seek powers over
death and the undead. Followers, who must oppose all things holy, can raise
legions of servile undead, and gain a number of other useful (if unpleasant)
powers. Yredelemnul appreciates killing, but prefers corpses to be put to use
rather than sacrificed. Destroying artificial beings is also favoured, as they
are neither truly alive nor subject to death or undeath.
A survey of current Yred gifts may help give background to the proposal:
Spoiler: show
Last edited by RBrandon on Saturday, 18th January 2014, 18:25, edited 4 times in total.
