Its a skill. A bit annoying but archers and ranged can help take down these melee gods.

it would be awesome to be able to recruit or capture them.

If that's the red-ish aura around them, then yeah, it's a skill (Taoist career). I think it does 10% of hp/s or something, which is crazy since it bypass armor.

High level Taoists are some of the most dangerous guys in the mod. There's a lord of the Wu, Demon something or other who's a top level Taoist and he can knock you out in seconds. I fought that guy and just riding past him on my horse trying to land a hit and he knocked half my health down in the half second I was in his range. Avoid those guys and kill them from a distance.

On the plus side, Taoist skill is the only one that turns off when the hero's on fire. So he should only be able to kill a few guys before he loses the death aura

I've attempted to kill using a bow from 50 yards away from one of these guys and as soon as I shoot, I am dead. Not sure how they can kill almost instantly from any distance.

I really like the challenge of fighting some of the OP generals. Having a dual last 3 minutes is pretty intense and it allows me to be creative and switch weapons and use the landscape during the fight. I once backed a guy into a tree and then pulled my assassin dagger on him and shredded him at close range. That said, any NPC general that doesn't give me a chance to maneuver or fight back is a black mark on the balance of the game. Also, those that can kill me instantly as well as 100+ of my best troops before going down is nuts. Having a "recover self on kill" trait makes them almost impossible to kill in the middle of a big battle or castle defense as they are then always full health and they often start with several hundred hit-points.

bug cant load save game miss file 2508

invalid number troops 2517

If you're trying to load an old save it won't work. You need to start a new game since the mod updated last week