Does the reinvirgoration from hearts of life stick?

[Poopsi]

Namely, when you have someone have two. (My impression, at least concerning soul contracts, was that two eçual items didnt stick)

because if they do, I think I found a way to make very effective and relatively cheap communion slaves...

[Endoperez]

Identical items don't stack. I haven't tested hearts, so they could be bugged, but that's quite unlikely.

Note that this only applies to special powers: a unit may wield two Fire Brands and gets to use two Fire Brands, but resistances are only counted once.

[K]

Nope.

But, you can stack various hearts and only get the Chest Wound wound once. So, if you were putting a Black Heart into a guy, a Heart of Life can offset the +5 Encumberance with the +10 Reinvig.

Undead that aren't Lifeless can also take Hearts of Life and still not get any melee encumberance (though the +5 spellcasting encumberance still applies from the Chest Wound). It allows for SCs that buff x 5 then attack since the attacking is not creating fatigue but 10 is coming off each turn.

Also, the best Communion Slave is a Revenant (or other cheap undead mage) with a Slave Matrix. They have base 0 encumbrance, so each time a Master casts a spell the Slave won't take his own encumberance on top of his share of the Master's fatigue (which he can do several times a round if you have several Masters).

[Poopsi]

Hmm... revenants... come again about the effect of fatigue on them?

[K]

Originally Posted by Poopsi

Hmm... revenants... come again about the effect of fatigue on them?

Communions work like this: Take the Communion Master's fatigue from the spell and his spellcasting fatigue and then divide it between himself and the slaves. Each slave also receives his own spellcasting fatigue plus his share of the Master's.

So, if you have three Masters casting spells, you'll also be giving the Slave their own spellcasting fatigue three times each round of combat (and since spellcasting fatigue is around 4-5, this adds up pretty fast when multiplied each turn).

Revenants are one of the few units who have spellcasting fatgiue of 0. This means you can tap them several times a turn and they won't be taking any additional spellcasting fatiigue.

Here's an example: you have a three person communion and three masters, Each master cast a spell that when combined with his spellcasting fatigue is 120 fatigue. The slaves have a spellcasting fatigue of 5, and for our example we'll assume everyone has a matrix.

Now, on turn 1 Master 1 casts his spell and he takes 30 fatigue. Each of the slaves takes 35 (total 35 each). Master 2 casts his spell and takes 30 and the slaves take another 35 (total 70 each). Master 3 casts and he takes 30 and the slaves take 35 (total 105 each).

Now, if those slaves had been Revenants with a spellcasting fatigue of 0, by the end of round 1 their total fatigue would be 90 and not 105 since they would not have taken spellcasting fatigue three times that round. In some ways this is like they had Reinvig 15 for this battle and army.

Since most spells cast by masters won't be high fatigue spells, the bulk of the fatigue a slave will take will be spellcasting fatigue (so if in the same example the spell cast by the masters had been 24 fatigue after spellcasting encumbrance, each normal slave would get 6 + Spellcasting fatigue for a total of 11 per master and 33 per turn, while a Revenant would only take 6 per master and thus 18 per turn).

Note that these are very rough numbers. Slaves take less fatigue if they have the paths of the spells the master is casting.

Also note that Revenants are just the cheapest and most available option. Wight mages from Twiceborn also work, as do a number of other undead mages.