"I am playing in Yarnspinners2, where the main point of the game is writing yarns and not necessarily winning."
Hey Panther, I totally agree with the role-playing aspect and that writing yarns is fun. I agree that lifedrain is, at times, a no-brainer choice (not all the time, however), and that it should be nerfed.
"And I have a feeling Zen carefully considered the changes"
You can carefully consider something and still make a terrible mod. I love Zen's other mods, but the item mod is just awful. While I agree that Lifedrain should be nerfed, Zen nerfed it to an insane degree.
I also agree that variety of options in a strategy game is something positive. Without variety, there is no strategy, is there? But, I actually think that the item mod in some aspects has -removed- options, case in point Lifedrain weapons. Sure, you can say that "Oh, now people will start to use other weapons! That adds variety." But. if people weren't using other weapons in vanilla, I have serious doubts about their ability as a player. I use other weapons all the time, by no means are my SCs solely lifedrain-machines. If I use lifedrain more than other weapons, it's -not- because the lifedrain weapons are more powerful. I much prefer the artifact weapons, for example.
But, also I love fire brands, flambeaus (basically anything armor-piercing), herald lances, moon blades, etc. I think that flambeaus are a far superior weapon than a Wraithsword, even. But those wraith and hell swords are just so damn cheap! They need to be twice as expensive, but they sure don't need a damage nerf. They do rather weak damage already. The Blood Thorn, on the other hand, is a dagger, and shouldn't do a lot of damage. Turning it from +4 damage, +2 attack to +0 damage +0 attack sounds like a plan. Even -2 damage, +0 attack if you're feeling froggy.
I am playing a game with the item mod right now (Faerun), and I can tell you my weapon choices have changed very little (except for the obvious no more lifedrain thing). Basically, Fire Brands are the best weapon now and I try to eqiup most people with one of those, or an anti-demon weapon (Flambeau). Although there are admittedly other very good choices (that weakness-causing morning star comes to mind).
As far as Jeffr's concern about shiny-happy-tree huggers summoning demons, I agree that that's a problem. There's no way to solve it in Dom2, though...I'm looking forward to Dom3 for that. Dom2 is just geared for everyone to use the same weapons, troops, etc.