Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Well, the affliction rate Does work with normal ranged weapons. Considering the Death bless is considered inferior to the Fire Bless, I'd think that the affliction rate would be acceptable to work with spells.

In reality (for this game, and other fantasy things as well) "Blessing" is the pretender god lending his/her/its power to the sacred unit, so there's no reason why it wouldn't or couldn't buff the units spells also.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

I'm not sure about flaming hooves. I answered the same question sometime before and said cavalry would have flaming hooves, and I seem to remember I was told I was wrong. I think "bonus" weapons may not get the flaming effect. One way of telling if a weapon is "bonus" is that it doesn't count towards two-weapon penalties.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

> From what I hear, the death bless (affliction rate) will affect spells as well. Is this an exploit or an acceptable thing to take advantage of in MP?

It was quite recently brought to our attention, and we had a good laugh. I think it is quite fun. For the moment the effect stays. I hope the death weapon effect also affects spell, although I suspect it doesn't. It would be beneficient in my current MP game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

@Chris: Archer decoys work mainly on archers, who doesn't reevaluate targets each turn. Thus an archer decoys are useful for making archers fire at them in the beginning of the battle, and then continue to do so when other armies close in. Spellcasters are more flexible and might fire at archer decoys, but will not if there are jucier targets elsewhere. Bladewind can target most units on the battle field and if any of those have little protection and stand in tight formation they will probably be targeted.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

In principle that's a good suggestion, since Helheim has zero access to astral. But aren't moon priests S2? Mind Hunt requires S4, and I don't think MA can forge astral boosters unless your pretender is specifically made for it.

'Course you can maybe trade.

-Max

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

appearently its a tough question, as no one has decisively answered it yet. i would assume though, that it only affects a hand held weapon, much like the protection bonus from earth magic, and therefor kick, fist, hoof, claw and such would not be affected. but i have no way to know.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

About the primary weapon stuff: the only way to know for sure is to turn on debugging flags when you start Dom3. dom3 -dddd (for however many debug levels you want). I've never gotten debugging output to work for me on Windows or I'd check this.

-Max

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

> appearently its a tough question, as no one has decisively answered it yet. i would assume though, that it only affects a hand held weapon, much like the protection bonus from earth magic, and therefor kick, fist, hoof, claw and such would not be affected. but i have no way to know.

Endo's answer was correct (unless I'm mistaken):

> Everything that isn't a ranged weapon (i.e. doesn't have "range" and "ammo" values) is a melee weapon. Hoofs of the sacred knights' horses will be aflame. A Stone Bird of a sacred thug will be aflame. Ice Blades of Temple Guards will be aflame. The bite of the sacred serpent will also deal fire damage.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

oops sorry. i read through through the whole thing, but must have missed that one.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

For blade wind, Air Shield, or the Air bless helps as would Arrow Fend.

Storm, or the other battlefield spells that lower precision, help, but not much since there are so many missiles and it generally targets large groups. Lower precision doesn't usually matter much.

Re: A few bless and other questions
 

Isnt there also some benefit in braking up large groups?
I know its a pain in the micro-management but for important fights I will look for commanders that have some of their 5 squad-slots free, then break up front-line troops and archer groups into smaller groups then space them out. It SEEMS to help as far as avoiding area affect attacks but Im not much of a tester so Im not positive when it does or doesnt help.