Prayer is OP

[rgp151]

It seemed like Prayer was vastly overpowered both when I used it and when it was used against me. I didn't recall there being a de-buff in Classic. So I looked it up and sure enough, there was a de-buff in the original game, but it was removed in unofficial patches because it was a bug.

From the wiki: https://masterofmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Prayer
"While Prayer is in effect, each and every enemy unit on the battlefield receives a -10% To Hit malus to their Melee Attacks. That is, every time they perform such an attack against a unit affected by Prayer, including during Counter Attacks, the success chance of each die of their Attack Roll is reduced by 10%. While this does not affect their potential damage, it does decrease their average "raw" Melee Damage output by an amount proportionate to their Melee Strength. Other Attack Types are not affected.

It should be noted that this effect is removed from the game starting with the unofficial Insecticide patch. Examination of the game code has led multiple patch-makers to the conclusion that this is actually not an intentional benefit. It is most likely left over from an earlier stage of the game development, where Melee Attacks were handled differently from other Conventional Damage types (hence why the effect only triggers for Melee Damage)."

Having this included makes Prayer way, way OP, especially considering that it is only Uncommon and cheap to cast. I had a stack of Paladins defeated by stack of Regular Gnoll spearmen, except I had a single figure of a single unit left, because the AI had Prayer in effect. That was essentially the only thing they had going for them. So, Spearmen with Prayer can defeat Paladins. Come on. I've been playing 1.5 for years and Prayer is very good in that, but its not like this. This is crazy. The debuff should be removed. as it is, it is vastly more powerful than either Black Prayer or the more costly Warp Reality.

[redfuryau]

I agree there's no way it should both add 10% to your defense AND give enemies -10% on their attack. That's ridiculous.

BTW I love that you copy/pasted all your threads from the other forum over. :)

[Xeth Nyrrow]

Nice catch. What's funny is the amount of code they put in to make this work is substantial. I blame the other beta testers because I didn't test Life magic much since everyone and their grandma uses it, LOL.

Best thing I can recommend is to use the F8 function in game to report even balance changes because it goes in to the same database as bugs on their end. I'll be changing it my own mod but I'll ask in discord if they want to consider, "fixing" this too.

[easytarget]

Originally posted by rgp151:

there was a de-buff in the original game, but it was removed in unofficial patches because it was a bug.

Isn't the operative word unofficial then? Simtex never acknowledged it as a bug nor remove it.

[eddieballgame]

"Having this included makes Prayer way, way OP, especially considering that it is only Uncommon and cheap to cast."

That, at least, can be changed in the DB_SPELL xml file.

[msmesick]

I think you did something seriously wrong if you lost with properly buffed and leveled paladins on gnoll spears, prayer or not. With good use of first strike and your own buffs gnoll spears (basically swordsman for other races factoring gnoll racial +2) shouldn't be hard to handle.

That said, getting a free blur and the buffs also is a bit crazy. Can't say it was a bug since it was still official but it is a bit unbalanced. Then again, this game is filled with unbalanced super-powerful spells. I feel like it ought to be more expensive myself.

[rgp151]

The de-buff should be removed, as every moder of Classic MoM has done. Making it more expensive won't solve much, it will just make it more difficult for the human player to cast, but still leave the resource-boosted AIs able to cast it freely. And no, I didn't do anything wrong with the Paladins. I forget the exact levels of all the units involved, but I know mine had Alchemy. I don't recall if the opponent was an Alchemist or not. They may have had some Swordsmen mixed in, but I recall it was largely or all Spearmen. I was pretty shocked when I started engaging. I'd attack and like 1 or 2 figures of theirs would fall and then a figure of mine would fall and I was like WTF?

[Skree]

It's a mistake to change it. It's a call to classic D&D spells of the same name.

https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Prayer#:~:text=Debuted%20in%20the%20Player's%20Handbook%20as%20a%20spell%20for%20clerics.&text=Area%3A%206%22%20radius-,The%20caster's%20allies%20gain%20a%20%2B1%20bonus%20to%20attacks%2C%20damage,saving%20throws%20for%20the%20duration.

[Thewizardlord]

Sadly this game is based on the official 1.3 MoM. Not unofficial patches not from the og team

[rgp151]

They have made plenty of changes. Keeping something broken because it was broken before doesn't seem like a good approach.

[drake178]

You guys are missing two points here.

First, the -10% melee To Hit effect in the original game is not an effect of the Prayer spell specifically. It is a side effect of gaining +10% chance To Block, and also happens for the other effect that grants this in v1.31: the Lucky ability. In other words, any melee attacks performed against a unit with + To Block get penalised by the same amount in - To Hit. In addition to the actual benefit, as described.

Second, this penalty uniquely affects melee attacks only. All three types of ranged attacks, short-range attacks, as well as spells, completely ignore it, even though the increased + To Block does work against all of these.

If it was a two-sided D&D nod, Prayer would negatively impact the same stats on the enemy as it does positively on the allied forces. It doesn't. In the Strategy Guide, the To Hit malus is mentioned as a note below in the table that lists melee attack modifiers - but it is actually omitted from the table itself.

[rgp151]

Compare the comparable spells:
Blur - Uncommon, Casting Cost 25, Inflicts a 10% "chance to miss", which if it works like Classic, then is weaker than reducing the chance to hit by 10%. Of the damage that hits, there is a 10% chance that that damage won't be applied.

Black Prayer - Uncommon, Casting Cost 35, Reduces enemy attack strength by 1, shields by 1, and Resistance by 2. The effects of this are typically pretty minor in terms of attack and defense. The most useful effect for Death is the -2 to resistance.

Warp Reality - Rare, Casting Cost 50, -20% chance to hit for all non-Chaos units. This can be somewhat difficult to really take advantage of. Works best when using all Chaos units on your side, and the opponent has no Chaos units. So this doesn't really work in all fights. Also not entirely effective against units with inherently high chance to hit. 60% - 20% still yields a respectable 40%, etc.

Prayer - Uncommon, Casting Cost 30, +10% chance to block, +10% chance to hit, +1 Resistance, Opponent has -10% chance to hit. So this it the second cheapest of all the spells to cast, yet of all the spells, including Warp Reality, it is far and away the most effective. It is usable in 100% of battles. It's effects always apply to all enemy and friendly units. By both increasing chance to block and decreasing chance to hit the effect is actually stronger than the -20% penalty of Warp Reality. Even against units with a high chance to hit, the increased chance to block means that less damage will get through. And this applies an attack buff to your units.

Prayer in this form is overwhelmingly superior to all other combat spells in the game, with the exception of High Prayer, which at the point is beyond absurdly overpowered since it does everything Prayer does plus add more to damage, defense and resistance.

Prayer without the debuff is still an extremely good spell. It would still be the go-to spell to cast in every battle once you get it. Every moded version of Classic does away with the debuff and Prayer still remains one of the best combat spells in all of those versions of the game, which I would argue became the standard long ago. I guarantee that over the past 20 years, more people have played 1.4 & 1.5 than 1.3.

[Gorbash]

+1 bump
I found Prayer to become boringly OP,
Launch a Prayer and almost every combat becomes a cakewalk.

[[*~MAJA~*] Mandragoron]

How about you just dispell prayer? Magic should be strong in this game, so use magic to counter it not paladins ^^

[Gorbash]

I modded it out:
App: Notepad
Filelocation...\steamapps\common\Master-Of-Magic\ExternalAssets\Scripts
File: EnchantmentScripts.cs
Line: 3544 insert two // at the start of the line so it looks like:
// ret.AddFinal((Tag)TAG.MELEE_ATTACK_CHANCE, new FInt(-0.1f));
Line: 3572 insert two // at the start of the line so it looks like:
// ret.AddFinal((Tag)TAG.MELEE_ATTACK_CHANCE, new FInt(-0.1f));

The mobs will still have a sign in combat, that a debuff is on them, but it is only superficial, the actual numbers of the enemy units are unchanged.
Please remember to make a backup in a different location, before making any changes.

Cheers Leo