Various questions

[Squirrelloid]

I dunno, i'm a fan of a d-bless for mages. You'd be surprised how often an inconvenient chest wound makes the difference between an SC or tough sacred kicking your *** or falling over dead. Limp, cripple, and blind can all be rather nice as well. And scoring feeblemind or mute against mages is generally enough to make them absolutely worthless.

That said, D4-6 is generally enough for these purposes. No need to go all the way to D9.

Edit:
The bonus affliction chance is separate from the D9 weapon effect and applies to any damage the blessed creature does. Mages casting spells? Check. Sacred hydra poison cloud's poison damage? Check.