Hi all,

I'm currently the Overlord in a RTL campaign playing as the Sorceror King.

I was wondering what people think of the upgrade which can be purchased for Sorcerors upgrading them to have Blast 1. It's pretty expensive (20exp if I remember correctly).

My main question/concern is that I will often not wish to use the blast (I don't want to kill my own minions if they're staning too close to the Heroes), is the blast optional? ie: can I choose not to use it on some attacks?

Either way, do you people think this is worth the cost?

We've just hit silver campaign level and I have currently got my Eldritch and Humaniods at silver, so I'll be wanting to upgrade the beasts and then the eldritch again. I've bought 2 extra lieutenants (though 1 has been killed off) and have also bought a couple of the cheaper avatar upgrades.

I've also purchased the 1st scroll for my Eternal Night Mission, though I'm not sure that I will be able to complete it so may just forget the other scrolls/sunstone - I think that the game is progressing way to quick for me to get all these parts back to my keep even if the heroes don't interfere, plus they'll be taking up valuable upgrade opportunities. Your thoughts on this problem would also be appreciated..

(We're playing Vanilla + RTL only - no expansions)

Thanks,

Twak.

twak2 said:

FAQ pg1
These abilities are not mandatory. If not used, the attack is treated as a normal ranged or magical attack

As the Sorceror King is in fact a Diamond Master Sorceror, this upgrade also affect him personally.

Is it worth it? Hard to call. I haven't played it myself. I would suggest that good hero players are not going to be terribly bothered by this upgrade, but weak hero players will find it devastating.

I would certainly take it over non eldritch monster upgrades.

It's not bad. The simple fact that you may or may not be using Blast with the Sorcerers is a wonderful mental tool to use against the heroes. Sorcerers hurt low to mid characters, and this will force them to swing wildly between moving clustered until you hit them with a good Blast shot, to spreading way out giving you the chance to surround some characters... at least that's what the party did when I dropped this on them.

Just play it up as the best thing ever, and occasionally use them as suicide bombers... you'd be really surprised how much damage you can do to the heroes at a point-blank blast 1 to 2-4 players... MWAHAHAHAHAHA

i use this in our current campaign - and find it to be very good.

The heroes have a taunting, super armored frontman - and the blast ability is often the only way I am able to damage them

I'd recommend upgrading Eldritch to Gold first and then getting the blast upgrade. Ignore beasts and humanoids for now. Eldritch is the most powerful and most common class of monster in dungeons, and with added blast the damage output will be outstanding. Sure, you may end up killing one of your own monsters every now and then, but if it means you're also killing two heroes, its worth the loss of a melee brute now and then. It's only going to happen when you want it to, and even then it'll only happen when you can't order your activations to keep the melee monsters clear of the target area.

That is unless you're aiming for overland victory, in which case I'd still upgrade the Eldritch first (for the two Farrows that get them) but would probably ignore the sorcerer upgrade unless it looks like you'll be making it to the final fight (where you'll want it for your avatar and for bonus health via kills in the final dungeon).

James McMurray said:

Only one Farrow is Eldritch heavy - it's Lord Merric Farrow, the other two (including the starting one) are definitely Beast heavy, so counting only Farrows for overland pressure/victory Beasts are much better upgrade. And lots of Treachery...

D.

Ah, you're right. For some reason I was thinking that Alric got several skeletons. However, as Krieg gets 8 skeletons, Eldritch is still a great buy for a Sorceer King looking to apply overland pressure.

Then again, I'm in the camp that sees no reason why any avatar would want to focus on a monster type besides Eldritch at first, and very little reason to branch out later (for a dungeon-based game). They're so plentiful, powerful, and easily spawned that you just don't need anything else to wreak havoc underground. Sure, you're giving away some XP and treasure every now and then when you draw a dungeon level with beasts or humanoids, but since it would cost you 50 - 120xp to make those levels remain challenging throughout the campaign, it's generally not worth it. If you spend that conquest on treachery instead, your beast-heavy lieutenants can spawn eldritch monsters to fight for them, and you have more options underground (Legions of the Dead x 2, Shade Spooks x 1, and ___ x 1 is scary).

That changes somewhat depending on your avatar if you're wanting to win above ground, but even then you'll probably want upgraded eldritch because they're going to pay for themselves and other upgrades very quickly.

If I overlord another campaign I'll probably see what the group thinks about house ruling humanoids, eldritch, and beasts a little to make them all equally worthy of spending XP on, if only so we can havea campaign that isn't overrun with skeletons without me having to feel like I'm holding back by not going for the optimal choice.