Quote:
Originally posted by Minti@Mar 23 2005, 06:35 PM
I read that MoM walktrough/FAQ someone posted a link to earlier on this thread, and there was some talk about life stealer. What the heck is that? Kills settlers? I have never came across any of those.
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Life steal is an ability possessed by some summoned death creatures (and one hero) and is also a "common" (level 1) death spell.
Chaos, Death, Nature, and Sorcery. All have at least one "direct" damage type of attack spell where increased mana into the spell (generally) yields more damage.
Death's is "life drain" although adding more mana supposedly affects how well a target can "resist" each point of life drain.
Chaos has "fire bolt", "lightning bolt", and "fireball" (doom bolt, and warp lightning cannot be "increased" in effect by adding more mana)
Nature has "ice bolt"
Sorcery has "psionic blast" (darn you Jafar, that's the 5th hero you've killed today)
Life drain unlike the others has the interesting property of bringing "Normal units" (not summoned units, like hell hounds, or sky drakes. And not heroes) killed "mostly" through life drain back from the dead to serve in your army. This spell is very useful, especially at the lower difficulty settings. And especially when used against weak normal units in enemy/neutral towns. Undead troops don't heal, but don't have any maintenence costs. They DO however reduce unrest in towns (just like all normal units) by 1 unrest for every 2 normal units.
If you end combat with 9 units (the maximum you can have at any one "tile") then any undead units won't show up. Just like you won't get any "prisoner" heroes from lairs to join you if you have 9 overland units at the end of combat.
The hero I mentioned earlier is actually a "champion" that you can either summon with the summon champion spell or might come around and ask to be hired if you have high enough fame. Although he won't do either if you don't have at least 1 death spell book. His normal name is Ravashack and is a "necromancer". He is similar to the hero Malleus in that he ALWAYS has the arcane power skill (a nice feature for caster types). As already stated, he also has the life drain ability at a range and in melee (although his melee attack is normally pretty pathetic). If you somehow manage to get Ravashack early in the game he can create large armies instantly out of the dying enemies in the neutral and enemy towns. While by no means the most powerful hero in the game, he is certainly entertaining and fun.
The "monsters" or summoned units with the life drain ability are Demon Lords, Death Knights, and Wraiths. Demon Lords and Death Knights are both "very rare" (level 4) death spells. So they normally aren't summoned until later in the game. But wraiths are a "rare" death spell (level 3). So if you begin the game with 11 death spell books you could select them as a starting spell.
Wraiths are basically ideal for conquering neutral towns. (and converting some of the enemy troops there into loyal death units).
BTW spells are grouped into 4 levels for each type. Level 1 or "common" spells are the most common, least expensive to research and cast, and in general the least powerful. Next is "uncommon", "rare", and "very rare". Their are 10 spells of each type at each level. So... their are 10 common death spells, 10 uncommon death spells, etc. etc. Just as their are 10 very rare nature spells... or chaos
Depending on what you select for your wizard during game setup, you can start with vastly different numbers and strengths of spells.
Ten spell books of any one type of spell book will guarantee that you will have research access to ALL SPELLS of that type. So why take 11 books in any one type? Two reason mainly... With more than 7 books in any type, spells of that type cost less to research and cast. But also you can begin the game with ALL of the common spells for that type, two uncommon spells, and one rare spell. This is an excellent way to get an idea of what spells are like for each of the spell books.
If you take less than 10 spell books for a particular type, you are not guranteed to be able to research all of the spells of that type. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can also trade for and find spells (of any level) if you have even 1 book of a particular type.
Some fun starting selections:
Take 11 life spell books. Choose "true sight" and "prayer" as your uncommon spells, and choose "Torin" as your rare spell. (this is particularly nasty if Torin has both "agility" and "lucky" skills).
Take 11 sorcery spell books. Choose "flight" and "phantom beast" for your uncommon spells, and choose "invisibility" as your rare spell. Flying invisible heroes are very difficult for most enemies to attack. This works well for ranged magic type heroes. "Spell lock" is also nice for those pesky "dispel" and "disenchant" spells cast by opponents.
Take 3 chaos, 2 nature, 3 sorcery, artificer, runemaster, node master. You start the game with create artifact spell. And more importantly can create artifacts for a profit. (actually any combination that uses the "runemaster" and "artificer" picks will allow you to do this). If you make a sword that costs 100 mana to create, you can break it on the anvil for 200 mana. Once you get a hero (any will do really) you can boost them up with some crazy artifacts.