Monster Scales Matter
Ever been annoyed that your 30 ton dinosaur gets pincushioned by dirty peasants flinging sharp sticks before it can get close enough for a mouthful? Tired of your giant made of literal stone not standing up to a bunch of rats throwing ninja stars? This mod adds 360-degree "shields" to monsters and other large single-entity units that look like they should be able to ignore some small arms fire.
Right now your big expensive titan gets turned into swiss cheese like so:
With missile block chance, it actually would have time to get to the battle lines…
While still being vulnerable to artillery!
The basic idea is that flabby skin, thick hides, scales, being made of metal or stone, or being so huge that a 12 inch arrow wouldn’t even register in your lizard brain should protect these big creatures from weaker projectiles. Balance-wise, I also just don’t think small arms fire from cheap units should be a natural counter to big endgame monsters. Instead, artillery, magic, elite anti-large, and some elite small arms fire should be how these units are countered, because the investment in countering them more closely matches the investment in bringing one.* Things that sunder missile block chance also get a powerful niche in setting up giants to fall.
This is not intended to make any units immune to small arms fire, only to add enough mitigation that doesn’t impact artillery damage to help these units get into a fight without being overwhelmed by a few units of basic archers.
In general, after some testing I made a judgment call and applied the following stats to certain single-entity units only:
Thick/Flabby/Tough = 20% missile block (e.g., giants, some daemons)
Hides = 30% missile block + 15% missile resist (e.g., mammoths)
Scales = 55% missile block (e.g., dragons and most dinos)
Thick Scales/Mounted Lords = 55% missile block + 15% missile resist (e.g., bastiladons and dragons with lords)
Gargantuan/Stone/Metal = 65% missile block + 20% missile resist (e.g., dread saurian, rogue idol, Tomb King constructs)
Where a monster or character had a unique amount of baseline missile resistance I tried to meet the default stats in the middle to avoid circumstances where the table above resulted in some units having too much missile resist. Some inconsistencies may be present. A specific mount or unit may have been missed. I avoided anything that looked "squishy", and I didn’t touch any chariots. At some point I may get around to getting everything under a more unified theory rather than just a gut check. Balance is of course impacted, and some monsters may end up too tough.
I am curious how others find the balance, so I’ll take all of that commentary under advisement, but don’t expect me to be too responsive.
I will not make a submod or take any action to support compatibility with other mods.
* The math is pretty simple, but has a significant impact. If you took equivalent missile resistance and missile block (i.e., "shields"), you get sorta roughly the same amount of damage mitigation. Ignoring 30% of arrows vs. taking 30% less damage from arrows is pretty close, though ignoring something entirely is probably in theory better.
However, missile resistance also applies to artillery, while missile block only deflects small arms projectiles. I think a giant monster being relatively safe against arrows but still able to take hefty damage from a cannon makes sense, but high missile resistance has an unfortunate knock-on effect of helping big monsters against a unit type they shouldn’t be as good against. It also thematically seems more interesting (bullets bouncing off Godzilla, arrows clattering off Smaug’s scales, oliphaunts ignoring all but the most precise arrows, etc. etc.)
