It's a bit late, but here it is! The Big God Damn Hero update to the mod, which is now, let's say version Stragath. In case you were crazy enough to download this mod, you will need to regen if you want to update this mod. List of stuff done:
- Removed the harpy caste from Adventurers, will be added in the far future when flying civvers work without getting stuck on roofs they should be perfectly able to fly down from.
- Dracomancers no longer arrive to trade. Turns out that a civ that uses wagons and trade animals, and also is able to breath fire AND dragonfire, makes for a poor trading partner when the merchant sees a particulary threatening buzzard, uses their fire breath and the whole god damn caravan is burning.
- Trading civvers previously able to use fireballs had that skill removed, due to similar reasons as above, as well as the fact that the new fire-behavior makes the situation as "guard throws fireball, fireball hits the ground near caravan and grass is set on fire, wagons halt because they are surrounded by fire and are promptly lit on fire, merchants get their panties in a twist and leave in a huff". When an enemy throws a fireball and the entire caravan is torched, that's normal. When the merchants themselves destroy the entire caravan and leave in a huff, that's stupid.
- Status spells removed from mages and wizards. Reason: They were being cast all the time, spamming the Combat Report log like crazy. Apparently "line of sight" with interaction spells works through everything in Fortress mode, no matter what. Also, Knockout spell was overpowered. Seriously so. Like, "knock out the entire siege just because I can". They got some spells to throw though, so it's not like they're again useless! Seriously!
- Vrictus Spectre also lost the knock out spell. I haven't seen it in action, but if one mage was able to knock out an entire siege with one casting, I don't see why a Vrictus couldn't do the same to an entire fort. Theoretically, at least.
- Seed spitters of all sorts, goragogs and creech are now properly made from plant/wood matter and will no longer drop bones or leather. Which makes sense, right?
- Some hostile civs got spell-slinging castes added.
- The Captain of the Guard position of Adventurers is now known as Guardian Commander. Finally, you can be a part of the elite, for just 19.95$!
- Rewrote some of the fluff in Adventurer caste members. Added some info on castes about what their area of expertise is.
- When Berserkers use their Adventurer-mode powerup, they get NOPAIN, NOSTUN, NOEXERT and NOFEAR until the effect wears out as well as the buff to stats.
- Added the heavy alloys for nightbane, dragonbane and zardbane. Just add lead together with one of those metals and you get some nice and heavy weapons-grade metal out of it! Good for blunt weapons, also works for other weapons since it'll make hilt hits and slaps and so on stronger due to the added weight.
- Added the class-specific special attacks to Adventurers. They work nice, cut off limbs and so on. Due to the fact that all adventurers are trained to fight with both their arms and feet, the special skills are usable with those as well. Especially if you have lost both your arms OR feet.
- Made quite a few creatures of the mod trainable for war. Because!
- Avatars are in, so get to Adventuring and find those slabs! And uhh, kill the entire world, I guess. I know you will do that anyway.
- Demons no longer are hot enough to set things on fire. Mainly because the update to fire behavior causes stupidity on both sides.
And now time for ranting again! This is the stuff that is NOT on the mod.
- Stat-buffing in fort mode just won't work. It's Adventurer-mode only, for the MOST part. Your fort dwellers will use the skill but that's AFTER they've been spooked by something and they run away like wussies.
- My glorious idea of giving Beastmasters a skill to give the ability to talk and learn to creatures, in order to tame and get 'em to Join you in wacky adventures failed. They do get the ability to talk, but the most they want to tell you is "PREPARE TO DIE!"
- Trying to give the Adventurers oneliners to throw with SOUND:ALERT failed, I think civilized creatures just won't do that? I don't know.
- Draconic avatars are NOT in. Those need more work and so on.
- Moglins didn't get a heal skill after all. Due to the LINE_OF_SIGHT fuckery in fort mode, they were healing EVERYONE no matter how "wounded" they were.
That's it for tonight, folks! Let's hope the next update to Dwarf Fortress gives me an excuse to update this again. That, or AQ devs get their act together and add some actually decent monsters to add to the mod.