Bless effect when casting spells?
 

I think I saw a post somewhere saying that bless effects apply when my mages cast spells (to my surprise) --- is that correct? If I plonk Shroud of Bless on my mages, does that mean the bless effect is added to the spell effect? What does the spell have to "do" to get the added bless --- does it have to "get through" on its own, then the bless is added?

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

I think it depends on the bless effect. If you have a death bless, the additional afflictions chance applies to battlefield spells.

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

I believe only the death bless affliction chance (not death weapons) is added to spells. Things like flame weapons are not. Passive effects on units are, from reinvig to twist fate.

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

FWIW, I do indeed have Death (+ Nature) bless in current game :).

I guess if I cast a friendly Nature spell like Protection, I don't then get the Bless morale bonus too on my troop.

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

No, you do not bless troops by casting other spells. Only blessing spells can bless your troops. And only sacred troops get the blessed morale bonus.

Note:
While it is possible to mod spells that also bless your troops, in vanilla these spells are not there as far as I know.

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

Thank you.

What about what has to happen exactly for my Death bless bonus thingie to affect the target? Whether it's an attack (including arrows?) from a blessed troop, or from a spell from a blessed mage, does it have to cause damage, or get past defense or protection or what for it to affect?

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

Well as you get afflictions from damage, the increased chance requires that you do damage for it to affect it.

(we are talking about the additional chance of afflictions from at least d4 on your pretender here. I do not think that the additional damage does something on spells).

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

The good thing about the death bless is that even if you dont kill his army, most of the units that are hit by battle magic(say blade wind) will get afflicions(that is given a high death bless), and thus reducing the quality of the enemy's troops.(imagine half of them having never healing wound -20% hp.).
Or another option hit and run with your mages, casting rain of stones or some other massive battlefiled magic and diseasing 20-30% of your opponents army and then just waithing for them to die.
Another good use is against SC and or thugs since having them get a chest woulnd or become blind is almost equal to destroying them.

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

For non-sacred mages, shroud is the way to add your D bless onto them, after which all their battle damage spells has a +xxx% chance to cause affliction.

Note that overland direct damage ritual from such a mage (must have shroud) also gets the affliction bonus IIRC, so fires from afar, murdering winter, flames from the sky...etc

Re: Bless effect when casting spells?
 

This part is a bit wonky though, or rather inconsistent. IIRC, Calahan proved through testing that the D bless isn't applied to Seeking Arrows for example. Maybe it's only applied to area spells ? Who knows.