Multi Shot and Life Steal

[Boaster]

I have found a way to make Multishot and Life Steal reflect the actual damage that the character does. I had to draw data from gs/combat.gs.

Melee Equation:

attacker_attack defender_armor sub dup 0 lt{pop 0}if
/damage exch

100 defender 0 unitdictxref /melee_attack_resistance get getuniteffectivedata sub 100 div mul attacker 0 getunitlevel defender 0 getunitlevel sub 2.5 mul 50 add 100 div mul .5 add cvi def

damage 0 lt{/damage 0 def}if

Missile Equation:

attacker_ranged_attack defender_armor sub dup 0 lt{pop 0}if
/damage exch

100 defender 0 unitdictxref /missile_attack_resistance get getuniteffectivedata sub 100 div mul attacker 0 getunitlevel defender 0 getunitlevel sub 75 add 100 div mul .5 add cvi def

damage 0 lt{/damage 0 def}if

You'll notice a difference that missiles naturally will do more damage. Also, these two are quite bit equations, so it may take awhile to figure out how much damage you can potentially do.

I'll do an example with Melee.

Attacker attack: 30
Defender armor: 20
Attacker level: 12
Defender level: 7
Defender melee resistance: 25

30 - 20 = 10 damage

100 - 25 = 75
75 / 100 = 0.75
10 * 75 = 7.5


12 - 07 = 5
5 * 2.5 = 12.5
12.5 + 50 = 62.5
62.5 / 100 = 0.625
7.5 * 0.625 = 4.6875
4.6875 + 0.5 = 5.1875

5.1875 end result damage

Anyways, In the future life stealing artifacts will steal damage reflected by the damage the wielder makes and Multi-shot will reflect actual damage values of the wearer, rather than random numbers. This means a lot of characters will benefit.

[l'Ancien]

This looks like a significant improvement. I see from your update notes that you have implemented these as well as other improvements in the most recent update.

I have a comment about life-stealing. It's really cool, but it's a Death magic feature. I don't think Crusader and Wave Blade should have it. Perhaps both of those artifacts should heal at the end of combat, and even could provide some regeneration during combat, but it really seems wrong to have them pull life from the targets and transfer them to the wielder. This is a philosophical problem, not game play. In fact, it makes me want to find Soul Stealer for my Paladin. But I don't think swords for Order and Water should incorporate that particular feature. Is there another feature that they could use instead? Perhaps make regeneration and attack/damage bonus for Crusader dependent on the number of units in the wielder's army? That way it's more powerful with more followers, and that's a more uniquely Order type feature. Wave blade should perhaps get a bonus to damage Fire creatures, and maybe a regeneration bonus based on the number of enemy units, except for Fire units. Those seem more characteristic of the weapons, and provides some interesting dynamics, instead of a me-too approach of mimicking death magic.

[l'Ancien]

I've been having a problem with multi-shot. Although I think it is a cool feature, and the improvement you are making will make it more balanced, I've been dealing with a bug with my thief.

My usual technique with a thief is to stealth frequently, and move to new positions, so that the enemy never catch up with him. In the original game, this worked well, as long as you never explicitly ordered the thief to attack. If you did that, her ability to cloak was sometimes interrupted, leading to her getting trapped and killed.

However, I have discovered that the multishot has the same effect. If I try to cloak after the multi-shot has triggered, the cloaking doesn't work, and she gets trapped. Now technique-wise, I know how to reactivate the cloaking, by moving small distances and attempting to cloak repeatedly, but it's annoying to have that happen even without my conscious decision. Is there some way you could figure out what causes that problem, and stop it from happening (it would be nice if you could fix it for regular targeted attacks as well).

If you are able to get that problem fixed, it might be interesting to see if you could make a single-shot seeker attack for thieves and level elven archers. In fact, I would enjoy a single-shot seeking attack more than the multi-shot, which sometimes looks a little funny, and is obviously a spell. However, a seeking ranged attack would simulate an archer who is so skilled that she rarely misses (the percentage chance of the seeking shot could also increase with level, so it's quite rare for low-level units, but occurs frequently 50% or more with high-level characters). I have occasionally been particularly frustrated with elven archers that can't seem to hit anything, because they're positioned wrong on the grid, when I'm mentally comparing them to the legendary skill of elven archers that never miss. Maybe "never" missing is too much for balance, but at least the ability to hit frequently even on difficult shots would be helpful. This should also work for targeted shots, perhaps even more often.

For thieves, this will only be helpful if you can solve the problem of recloaking after it triggers. That bug is annoying enough that it would undo much of the value of having the improved targeting, or even the multi-shot itself.

One alternative would be to have the Elven Archers continue to have it, but not thieves. Or if you could check for non-thief units and only let the multi-shot trigger if your army includes non-thief units.

[Boaster]

lancien said:

This looks like a significant improvement. I see from your update notes that you have implemented these as well as other improvements in the most recent update.

I have a comment about life-stealing. It's really cool, but it's a Death magic feature. I don't think Crusader and Wave Blade should have it. Perhaps both of those artifacts should heal at the end of combat, and even could provide some regeneration during combat, but it really seems wrong to have them pull life from the targets and transfer them to the wielder. This is a philosophical problem, not game play. In fact, it makes me want to find Soul Stealer for my Paladin. But I don't think swords for Order and Water should incorporate that particular feature. Is there another feature that they could use instead? Perhaps make regeneration and attack/damage bonus for Crusader dependent on the number of units in the wielder's army? That way it's more powerful with more followers, and that's a more uniquely Order type feature. Wave blade should perhaps get a bonus to damage Fire creatures, and maybe a regeneration bonus based on the number of enemy units, except for Fire units. Those seem more characteristic of the weapons, and provides some interesting dynamics, instead of a me-too approach of mimicking death magic.

I hate the way you say "me-too" in all of the changes I've made.

Wave Blade and Crusader Blade consume life at a 50% chance, so there is a chance an attack with those weapons won't even do any life stealing.

Instead of considering it as "Life Stealing" consider it as "Life Absorbing." Instead of allowing the enemy life force to go to waste, the swords provide a transfer of life.

I don't like the idea of regeneration on weapons. Regeneration is powerful enough on its own. Regeneration is far better versus mages than Life Steal. Regeneration is more defensive than offensive. I would have to say any regeneration is better than life steal, because life steal requires a target whereas regeneration requires a unit with 1 life point.

And as my final statement, I would like you to observe Death, Order and Water Warriors. All three are mounted on top of animals. All three use shields and swords. With that being said, you should also know that I balanced these three units in respect to each other to a high degree.

[Boaster]

lancien said:

I've been having a problem with multi-shot. Although I think it is a cool feature, and the improvement you are making will make it more balanced, I've been dealing with a bug with my thief.

My usual technique with a thief is to stealth frequently, and move to new positions, so that the enemy never catch up with him. In the original game, this worked well, as long as you never explicitly ordered the thief to attack. If you did that, her ability to cloak was sometimes interrupted, leading to her getting trapped and killed.

However, I have discovered that the multishot has the same effect. If I try to cloak after the multi-shot has triggered, the cloaking doesn't work, and she gets trapped. Now technique-wise, I know how to reactivate the cloaking, by moving small distances and attempting to cloak repeatedly, but it's annoying to have that happen even without my conscious decision. Is there some way you could figure out what causes that problem, and stop it from happening (it would be nice if you could fix it for regular targeted attacks as well).

If you are able to get that problem fixed, it might be interesting to see if you could make a single-shot seeker attack for thieves and level elven archers. In fact, I would enjoy a single-shot seeking attack more than the multi-shot, which sometimes looks a little funny, and is obviously a spell. However, a seeking ranged attack would simulate an archer who is so skilled that she rarely misses (the percentage chance of the seeking shot could also increase with level, so it's quite rare for low-level units, but occurs frequently 50% or more with high-level characters). I have occasionally been particularly frustrated with elven archers that can't seem to hit anything, because they're positioned wrong on the grid, when I'm mentally comparing them to the legendary skill of elven archers that never miss. Maybe "never" missing is too much for balance, but at least the ability to hit frequently even on difficult shots would be helpful. This should also work for targeted shots, perhaps even more often.

For thieves, this will only be helpful if you can solve the problem of recloaking after it triggers. That bug is annoying enough that it would undo much of the value of having the improved targeting, or even the multi-shot itself.

One alternative would be to have the Elven Archers continue to have it, but not thieves. Or if you could check for non-thief units and only let the multi-shot trigger if your army includes non-thief units.

I am aware of the multi-shot/stealth problems. This requires a player to have more skill and choose when to stealth. I've been looking for any kind of stealth code that I could come across and I have found none.

What I have always wanted to do was have stealth units armor reduced to zero while in stealth mode so if they were attacked during stealth mode they would relatively defensless.

I have thought of a single shot ability active through Legendary artifacts as a spell, but I have decided against it for the time being.

I'll try to find anything I can to resolve the problem.

[Boaster]

admin said:

lancien said:

I've been having a problem with multi-shot. Although I think it is a cool feature, and the improvement you are making will make it more balanced, I've been dealing with a bug with my thief.

My usual technique with a thief is to stealth frequently, and move to new positions, so that the enemy never catch up with him. In the original game, this worked well, as long as you never explicitly ordered the thief to attack. If you did that, her ability to cloak was sometimes interrupted, leading to her getting trapped and killed.

However, I have discovered that the multishot has the same effect. If I try to cloak after the multi-shot has triggered, the cloaking doesn't work, and she gets trapped. Now technique-wise, I know how to reactivate the cloaking, by moving small distances and attempting to cloak repeatedly, but it's annoying to have that happen even without my conscious decision. Is there some way you could figure out what causes that problem, and stop it from happening (it would be nice if you could fix it for regular targeted attacks as well).

If you are able to get that problem fixed, it might be interesting to see if you could make a single-shot seeker attack for thieves and level elven archers. In fact, I would enjoy a single-shot seeking attack more than the multi-shot, which sometimes looks a little funny, and is obviously a spell. However, a seeking ranged attack would simulate an archer who is so skilled that she rarely misses (the percentage chance of the seeking shot could also increase with level, so it's quite rare for low-level units, but occurs frequently 50% or more with high-level characters). I have occasionally been particularly frustrated with elven archers that can't seem to hit anything, because they're positioned wrong on the grid, when I'm mentally comparing them to the legendary skill of elven archers that never miss. Maybe "never" missing is too much for balance, but at least the ability to hit frequently even on difficult shots would be helpful. This should also work for targeted shots, perhaps even more often.

For thieves, this will only be helpful if you can solve the problem of recloaking after it triggers. That bug is annoying enough that it would undo much of the value of having the improved targeting, or even the multi-shot itself.

One alternative would be to have the Elven Archers continue to have it, but not thieves. Or if you could check for non-thief units and only let the multi-shot trigger if your army includes non-thief units.

I am aware of the multi-shot/stealth problems. This requires a player to have more skill and choose when to stealth. I've been looking for any kind of stealth code that I could come across and I have found none.

What I have always wanted to do was have stealth units armor reduced to zero while in stealth mode so if they were attacked during stealth mode they would relatively defensless.

I have thought of a single shot ability active through Legendary artifacts as a spell, but I have decided against it for the time being.

I'll try to find anything I can to resolve the problem.

Sure enough after just a few tests, I found something that works!

I opened the LOMSE.exe file a long time ago in a hex editor. With that in mind, I am able to see ALL of the variables listed that are used within the game. I found a good one that will work.

"ismovingstealthily?"

First I tried using this comment in an artifact:

attacker 0 ismovingstealthily? not


I realized I had forgot to add the "and" comment at the end. So I fixed that and tried:

attacker 0 ismovingstealthily? not and


Nothing. I was a little discouraged. But then I removed the 0 to see if it would work that way. Because with some things, removing the 0 does the trick.

Sure enough, that was it!

attacker ismovingstealthily? not and



I was able to test this with the multi-shot spells being set to 100% chance. I attacked, stealthed, waited for a hit. Sure enough, he didn't try to fire!

This is definitely a landmark discovery ;D

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

lancien said:

This looks like a significant improvement. I see from your update notes that you have implemented these as well as other improvements in the most recent update.

I have a comment about life-stealing. It's really cool, but it's a Death magic feature. I don't think Crusader and Wave Blade should have it. Perhaps both of those artifacts should heal at the end of combat, and even could provide some regeneration during combat, but it really seems wrong to have them pull life from the targets and transfer them to the wielder. This is a philosophical problem, not game play. In fact, it makes me want to find Soul Stealer for my Paladin. But I don't think swords for Order and Water should incorporate that particular feature. Is there another feature that they could use instead? Perhaps make regeneration and attack/damage bonus for Crusader dependent on the number of units in the wielder's army? That way it's more powerful with more followers, and that's a more uniquely Order type feature. Wave blade should perhaps get a bonus to damage Fire creatures, and maybe a regeneration bonus based on the number of enemy units, except for Fire units. Those seem more characteristic of the weapons, and provides some interesting dynamics, instead of a me-too approach of mimicking death magic.

I hate the way you say "me-too" in all of the changes I've made.

Wave Blade and Crusader Blade consume life at a 50% chance, so there is a chance an attack with those weapons won't even do any life stealing.

Instead of considering it as "Life Stealing" consider it as "Life Absorbing." Instead of allowing the enemy life force to go to waste, the swords provide a transfer of life.

I don't like the idea of regeneration on weapons. Regeneration is powerful enough on its own. Regeneration is far better versus mages than Life Steal. Regeneration is more defensive than offensive. I would have to say any regeneration is better than life steal, because life steal requires a target whereas regeneration requires a unit with 1 life point.

And as my final statement, I would like you to observe Death, Order and Water Warriors. All three are mounted on top of animals. All three use shields and swords. With that being said, you should also know that I balanced these three units in respect to each other to a high degree.

Sorry about the me-too comment. I wasn't trying to imply that all of your changes are imitations, because I know that you come up with a lot of original material.

One of the differences that may come up between us frequently is the question of balance vs. uniqueness. I know you've done a lot of work to balance various units, spells, and abilities, to make sure that it's more evenly balanced for multiplayer competition. Intellectually, I understand why you try to do that, because it's frustrating when one team has the "best" at something, and everyone looks for the "best." So by makinig sure they're balanced, you make sure that players can compete against each other on their own merits, rather than just competing on who chose to play as the Order Crusader or the Fire Sorceress Queen first.

Unfortunately, my viewpoint frequently will rebel against that goal. I view the game as less of a competition and more of artistry. In real life, I hate conformitism. One of the things I liked about Lords of Magic (as compared with Warcraft II), was that each team had truly unique units (except for cavalry), with great variety. In Warcraft II, everything was perfectly balanced, but after a while I got the sense that except for the handful of spells on each team, everything was really the same, with different graphics and sounds. As a result, I got very attached to Lords of Magic, and rather than trying to find the best combination of units, I began trying to study each team's individual strengths, and the best way to use them.

I also felt that there were some things missing, but the game was finished and so I accepted it for what it had, and only dreamed of what it could have been. Many teams had unique strengths and weaknesses, that worked together to give a real challenge. But in other ways the game was flawed, and outdated, or lacking in some details that would improve it. Some of the units were distinctly weaker than they conceptually should have been (Air Warriors and Fire Warriors come to mind, because their slow response made them helpless against groups, where you'd think they would do particularly well.

So when you make a change, I'm not predictable in favor or against. I have different preferences, but I'd rather have most of your improvements than not. But whenever I see something that balances two faiths in something that I perceived as an inherent difference, it bothers me, and I criticize, because it feels like conformity raising its head. This will especially be true whenever it is a technique that seems to me to be unique to a particular faith, like life-stealing which comes from necromancy.

I agree that regeneration is very powerful, and may be overpowered in that respect. I didn't really see that Order or Water swords needed to provide healing of any kind anyway, except as a balancing factor against Death's life-stealing power. So my other ideas were merely attempts to draw something in that would give the same net effect, but would be unique to each faith, and would shape different strategies, while leaving certain abilities essentially unique.

As it stands, Life, Death, Water and Fire are the only faiths that have in-combat healing magic. Adding Fireheal, although I could have called it a me-too, didn't strike me that way because it was not only necessary for balance (and to offset the self-destructive nature of so much fire magic), but because it was so limited. It's not just a weak version of regeneration, it's actually a spell that only works on Fire units, because heat is good for them, but not for others. Conversely, gift of life heals anyone, except Fire, but at a health cost. Those are very different implementations of the simple concept of healing. Similarly, Life and Death combat healing magic is completely different in implementation.

Now, I guess I'll change my mind. Artifacts that give a healing bonus of some kind could occur in any faith. In fact, Fireheal started out as an artifact spell. And I guess that the concept of a sword healing the wielder by damaging the enemy is one with a long history, and doesn't always imply necromancy. As you say, it could just be absorbing the otherwise wasted life. It's a stretch, but not an unreasonable one.

No more complaints on the conceptual design of those two weapons.

(I'll still provide my gut reactions to changes. But I'll try to do it without saying me-too.)

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

admin said:

I am aware of the multi-shot/stealth problems. This requires a player to have more skill and choose when to stealth. I've been looking for any kind of stealth code that I could come across and I have found none.

What I have always wanted to do was have stealth units armor reduced to zero while in stealth mode so if they were attacked during stealth mode they would relatively defensless.

I have thought of a single shot ability active through Legendary artifacts as a spell, but I have decided against it for the time being.

I'll try to find anything I can to resolve the problem.

Sure enough after just a few tests, I found something that works!

I opened the LOMSE.exe file a long time ago in a hex editor. With that in mind, I am able to see ALL of the variables listed that are used within the game. I found a good one that will work.

"ismovingstealthily?"

First I tried using this comment in an artifact:

attacker 0 ismovingstealthily? not


I realized I had forgot to add the "and" comment at the end. So I fixed that and tried:

attacker 0 ismovingstealthily? not and


Nothing. I was a little discouraged. But then I removed the 0 to see if it would work that way. Because with some things, removing the 0 does the trick.

Sure enough, that was it!

attacker ismovingstealthily? not and



I was able to test this with the multi-shot spells being set to 100% chance. I attacked, stealthed, waited for a hit. Sure enough, he didn't try to fire!

This is definitely a landmark discovery ;D

Cool! That is a HUGE discovery. Yes, I have discovered that it takes more skill to control the bug, and I've gotten pretty good at stealthing after the bug hits. But it's a huge pain, and very distracting, and definitely limits some options.

That definitely is worth some checking out. Does that fix the problem with clicking to attack and then stealthing, or is that still an issue? Even if you can't fix that, I'm already used to it, but it would be cool if you could control that too. I see spells that look like missile attacks, but I don't know if those are special effects for spells like reflection shield, or if those are real missile attacks.

Are you planning on attempting your idea of reducing defense? I'm a little nervous about using this technique to reduce defense on cloaked thieves, because it could get me killed, but it seems very appropriate, and would make it much more exciting to enter combat as a solo thief. It might even counterbalance the cheese/bug of all the enemy units stopping dead when you cloak, meaning that sneaking out from under their noses isn't really as good an idea as it was before, even if they do stop. However, if you do try that, you might want to make an exception for the Huntress and the Assassin, and let them retain their defense even while cloaked. I know it isn't balanced, but with their shorter attack range, they are much more at risk.

[Boaster]

Cool! That is a HUGE discovery. Yes, I have discovered that it takes more skill to control the bug, and I've gotten pretty good at stealthing after the bug hits. But it's a huge pain, and very distracting, and definitely limits some options.

That definitely is worth some checking out. Does that fix the problem with clicking to attack and then stealthing, or is that still an issue? Even if you can't fix that, I'm already used to it, but it would be cool if you could control that too. I see spells that look like missile attacks, but I don't know if those are special effects for spells like reflection shield, or if those are real missile attacks.

Are you planning on attempting your idea of reducing defense? I'm a little nervous about using this technique to reduce defense on cloaked thieves, because it could get me killed, but it seems very appropriate, and would make it much more exciting to enter combat as a solo thief. It might even counterbalance the cheese/bug of all the enemy units stopping dead when you cloak, meaning that sneaking out from under their noses isn't really as good an idea as it was before, even if they do stop. However, if you do try that, you might want to make an exception for the Huntress and the Assassin, and let them retain their defense even while cloaked. I know it isn't balanced, but with their shorter attack range, they are much more at risk.

I cannot find anything about stealth any of the gs files, I only found the ismovinglystealthily? from inside the LOMSE executable.

If you unstealth, manually attack, then stealth, you will still break stealth to attack unless you order someting new after the stealth. I don't think I'll be able to change that.

[Boaster]

Sorry about the me-too comment. I wasn't trying to imply that all of your changes are imitations, because I know that you come up with a lot of original material.

One of the differences that may come up between us frequently is the question of balance vs. uniqueness. I know you've done a lot of work to balance various units, spells, and abilities, to make sure that it's more evenly balanced for multiplayer competition. Intellectually, I understand why you try to do that, because it's frustrating when one team has the "best" at something, and everyone looks for the "best." So by makinig sure they're balanced, you make sure that players can compete against each other on their own merits, rather than just competing on who chose to play as the Order Crusader or the Fire Sorceress Queen first.

Unfortunately, my viewpoint frequently will rebel against that goal. I view the game as less of a competition and more of artistry. In real life, I hate conformitism. One of the things I liked about Lords of Magic (as compared with Warcraft II), was that each team had truly unique units (except for cavalry), with great variety. In Warcraft II, everything was perfectly balanced, but after a while I got the sense that except for the handful of spells on each team, everything was really the same, with different graphics and sounds. As a result, I got very attached to Lords of Magic, and rather than trying to find the best combination of units, I began trying to study each team's individual strengths, and the best way to use them.

I also felt that there were some things missing, but the game was finished and so I accepted it for what it had, and only dreamed of what it could have been. Many teams had unique strengths and weaknesses, that worked together to give a real challenge. But in other ways the game was flawed, and outdated, or lacking in some details that would improve it. Some of the units were distinctly weaker than they conceptually should have been (Air Warriors and Fire Warriors come to mind, because their slow response made them helpless against groups, where you'd think they would do particularly well.

So when you make a change, I'm not predictable in favor or against. I have different preferences, but I'd rather have most of your improvements than not. But whenever I see something that balances two faiths in something that I perceived as an inherent difference, it bothers me, and I criticize, because it feels like conformity raising its head. This will especially be true whenever it is a technique that seems to me to be unique to a particular faith, like life-stealing which comes from necromancy.

I agree that regeneration is very powerful, and may be overpowered in that respect. I didn't really see that Order or Water swords needed to provide healing of any kind anyway, except as a balancing factor against Death's life-stealing power. So my other ideas were merely attempts to draw something in that would give the same net effect, but would be unique to each faith, and would shape different strategies, while leaving certain abilities essentially unique.

As it stands, Life, Death, Water and Fire are the only faiths that have in-combat healing magic. Adding Fireheal, although I could have called it a me-too, didn't strike me that way because it was not only necessary for balance (and to offset the self-destructive nature of so much fire magic), but because it was so limited. It's not just a weak version of regeneration, it's actually a spell that only works on Fire units, because heat is good for them, but not for others. Conversely, gift of life heals anyone, except Fire, but at a health cost. Those are very different implementations of the simple concept of healing. Similarly, Life and Death combat healing magic is completely different in implementation.

Now, I guess I'll change my mind. Artifacts that give a healing bonus of some kind could occur in any faith. In fact, Fireheal started out as an artifact spell. And I guess that the concept of a sword healing the wielder by damaging the enemy is one with a long history, and doesn't always imply necromancy. As you say, it could just be absorbing the otherwise wasted life. It's a stretch, but not an unreasonable one.

No more complaints on the conceptual design of those two weapons.

(I'll still provide my gut reactions to changes. But I'll try to do it without saying me-too.)

It's fine to disagree. All faiths do have healing spells, but they're over turns and not over seconds.

And I guess that the concept of a sword healing the wielder by damaging the enemy is one with a long history, and doesn't always imply necromancy. As you say, it could just be absorbing the otherwise wasted life.

This is Lords of Magic. What is magic really limited to? One's imagination. There are more common artifacts, and then there are the legendary ones.

Also, Necromancy deals with the power of Life, not Life and Death. Necromancy can give life, and it can take it. So would it be so hard to accept that Life had a spell which extracted the unit's life away completely? You had the problem with the Slay Living spell I used to have. I didn't really like it all that much myself. But Necromancy is the art of life, giving or taking.

In addition the "Absorbing otherwise wasted life" concept, you could also consider with the Crusader Blade the spirits of Order empowering the wielder of the Legendary Sword with an increase of life. Or the same going for the Wave Blade, with water spirits empowering the wielder. Each hit revitalizing the wearer.

As mentioned before, Soul Stealer always steals life (unless vs Undead) but the other two swords have a 50/50 chance of either absorbing life or not absorbing life. Crusader and Wave Blade have the ability, but penalized. Soul Stealer converts 25% damage to life, while the other two weapons convert 20% damage to life.

In perspective Crusader and Wave Blade convert 20% damage to life, or 0%. Soul Stealer will always convert 25% damage to life.

Anyways, I balanced those three warriors in respect to each other and I balanced their artifacts the same way. But I have tried to manage some differences.

[l'Ancien]

…

And I guess that the concept of a sword healing the wielder by damaging the enemy is one with a long history, and doesn't always imply necromancy. As you say, it could just be absorbing the otherwise wasted life.

This is Lords of Magic. What is magic really limited to? One's imagination. There are more common artifacts, and then there are the legendary ones.

Also, Necromancy deals with the power of Life, not Life and Death. Necromancy can give life, and it can take it. So would it be so hard to accept that Life had a spell which extracted the unit's life away completely? You had the problem with the Slay Living spell I used to have. I didn't really like it all that much myself. But Necromancy is the art of life, giving or taking.

In addition the "Absorbing otherwise wasted life" concept, you could also consider with the Crusader Blade the spirits of Order empowering the wielder of the Legendary Sword with an increase of life. Or the same going for the Wave Blade, with water spirits empowering the wielder. Each hit revitalizing the wearer.

As mentioned before, Soul Stealer always steals life (unless vs Undead) but the other two swords have a 50/50 chance of either absorbing life or not absorbing life. Crusader and Wave Blade have the ability, but penalized. Soul Stealer converts 25% damage to life, while the other two weapons convert 20% damage to life.

In perspective Crusader and Wave Blade convert 20% damage to life, or 0%. Soul Stealer will always convert 25% damage to life.

Anyways, I balanced those three warriors in respect to each other and I balanced their artifacts the same way. But I have tried to manage some differences.[/quote]

No, technically Necromancy is the magic of Death only. Necro means death, and mancy means magic. But it's not just death itself, it's what happens after death, and includes disposition of the materials, soul and energy that had previously been the living thing.

Now, by extension and custom, partial death (i.e., damage or life-drains) are assumed to be the province of Necromancy as well, and many undead creatures are assumed to consume (I would not say "live on") the life force of living creatures, whether or not the living creature dies immediately. Therefore a life-stealing blade seems to be consistent with the literary treatment of necromancy. So far, so good.

Then comes the question of Order and Water blades with a feature that resembles that ability, but may come from a completely different magical basis.

I don't have a concept of what kind of magic would cause life to flow from the target to the wielder, except necromancy. But as soon as I mention flow, water comes to mind. And I'm sure some justification for Order can be found, so I'm not worried about it that much.

All I ask is that you think through the philosophy and come up with a well-thought-out explanation or justification for any effect you introduce, even if the original reason for the effect is game balance. For example, look at the spell-book legends for the teleport artifact spells. Those spells have identical effects. But the story for each one explains and justifies the magic differently, even though there are common themes. But really, that was just a feature that everyone needed, even though air and chaos were the two that made the most sense for it.

Limitations on magic? NONE. Just choose who it makes the most sense to give it too. And if it's rare or legendary, that doesn't mean everyone. For example, Inferno is a spectacularly powerful and neat spell. But it only makes sense for Fire, not for anyone else. Lost Soul is very powerful, and very precise. But it only makes sense for Death. There shouldn't be one for anyone else.

[Boaster]

You can look at it anyway you like. If it doesn't make sense, they convert damage into life. How they do it is insignificant.