I think the claim was that the affliction chance (not the 2 an,mr attack) does work with arrows, and possibly spells. In fact, we can check this.
[1 hour later]
It turns out that death blessings do affect both regular combat spells (Falling Fires) AND battlefield spells (Fire Storm).
I set up a battle between myself as Abysia (good battlefield spells) and Niefelheim (high hp, high chance of surviving wounds so we can see if afflictions hit).
#1. Personal battle spells. 2 Anointed of Rhuax, 30 PD, vs. 1 Niefel Jarl and 40 Jotun Huskarls. Abysia had a D9 blessing and nothing else. Both Anointed of Rhuax are scripted to <Falling Fires x2, Flame Eruption x3>. We compare the baseline scenario vs. a blessed scenario where there's an extra Anointed of Rhuax who does <Divine Blessing, Retreat>. I ran this five times for each scenario. I report the outcome from Niefelheim's perspective (victory/defeat, casualties, # of afflicted survivors).
Baseline:
1. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
2. Victory, 24 killed, 4 afflicted
3. Victory, 10 killed, 8 afflicted
4. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
5. Defeat, 19 killed, 4 afflicted
Abysia Blessed:
1. Defeat, 27 killed, 4 afflicted
2. Defeat, 20 killed, 7 afflicted
3. Defeat, 23 killed, 7 afflicted
4. Defeat, 24 killed, 7 afflicted
5. Victory, 24 killed, 7 afflicted
Clearly the death blessing is working. Many but not all of the casualties were dealt by the flame spells of the Anointed, so it makes sense that the number of afflicted isn't simply 450% in the blessed case (especially because the chance of an afflicted unit dying goes up). In the unblessed case, the only time 8 afflictions happen is when there are 30 survivors, a roughly 25% affliction rate. Compare this to 7 out of 16 survivors afflicted in a typical blessed case. This is a 43% affliction rate, clearly greater. The death blessing affects spells.
#2 Battlefield enchantments. I was really surprised to find that death blessings still worked on battlefield spells. I upped the number of Niefel Huskarls to 70, and used a single Anointed of Rhuax casting <Phoenix Power, Fire Storm, hold x3, Retreat>. As before, in the blessed scenario a second Anointed does <Divine Blessing, retreat>. The results were so clear that I only ran each scenario twice. Niefelheim always won, but got its army wrecked if death blessing was in effect.
Baseline:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 18 afflicted.
2. Victory, 18 killed, 13 afflicted.
Abysia Blessed:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 36 afflicted.
2. Victory, 8 killed, 42 afflicted.
Observe that if Abysia is blessed, fully 2/3 of the Niefel survivors are afflicted. I didn't count how many afflictions each one had, but my impression is that multiple afflictions were common. Even in the unblessed case, Niefelheim took many afflictions, but the blessing doubled or even tripled the affliction rate.
Does this make anyone re-evaluate the "best blessing" for magic-heavy nations?
-Max Wilson
Re: Balancing the blesses
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