New spells / items ?

[johan osterman]

There is no harm in a few nearly useless items either, they can always show up in random events or on independent commanders, it adds the nethacky flavour.

An item like shirt of the battle saint will now have a very variable usefulness depending on what bless effects the pretender bestows.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Sunray_be:
Did someone found some real interest in the uncommon Slave Collar, Shroud of the battle saint, Stone Sword (how could you protect yourself vs petrification ?), Sandals of the crane. Blink ? Holy Avenger & Smite ?

I think if you're fortunate enough to find one, the Slave Collar is very useful to train yourself using the "throw it away" command in the lab.

The Shroud - see Pythie's reply. It's cheap and may be useful on beefy commanders who need AR to take on special foes. I've seen it used by/used it with: Cyclops, Troll Kings, Great Mothers, Father Illearths.

The Stone Sword is not so bad on a pretender or demon with lots of MR bonuses. Guardians don't like it - at all!

Sandals of the Crane - a great way to deal with ungroundable (Flying boots + Winged Helmet) unescorted Ice Devils. Typically I use a decent astral mage with Wraith Crown + Spell Focus + Lifelong Protection + Sandals. Rune Smasher also, if available. I guess the Sandals may be useful in a few other circumstances as well - typically when you can't prevent the enemy (eg, Spring Hawks) to close on your unescorted beefy battlemage, and need to regain some distance to use your spells unhindered. A free blink comes in handy here.

[Psitticine]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I used the shroud of the saint with success in pbem. It gives blessing, even to units which are not holy. With blessing you get +3 attacks.

In Dom 2, the bonuses blessed troops get depend on the magic skills your Pretender God starts with. Some of those bonuses are nice!

[Pocus]

yes, it cames from my attention that you can even get a small regenerating power (10% at level 9 nature if I recall?). What is interesting is that now we have new subparts of the games (race choice, theme choice, pretender magic choice) which multiply each time the combinations we can do. I bet we will spend far more time than in doms I in dissecting the mechanisms of the game.