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If there is one hero in Master of Magic© who is truly evil,
Ravashack The Necromancer is it.
To begin with, Ravashack is one of the most powerful magic
users in the game. His Arcane Power and incredibly high
casting ability grant him devastating ranged attacks which
he can shoot all day. But what makes him so damned evil are
his life-stealing attacks. For those of you not
familiar with Death magic, life-stealing attacks
literally suck the hit points out of the defending unit and
transfer them to the attacker! Not only is this a bonus
for wizards with death magic - since they have no healing
spells - but it is one of the most effective means of
restoring a unit's health. However, its not as simple as it
sounds. Allow me to explain...
A life-stealing attack is a special attack which takes
place simultaneously with the units normal attack. When the
attack takes place, the attacking unit rolls a 10d dice.
For each point the dice roll is above the defending unit's
resistance, the defender loses a hit point, and the attacker
gains one hit point! Lets look at an example:
Ravashack finds himself facing a unit which has 3 shields
and 4 resistance. Since Ravashack has magical ranged
life-stealing attacks, he attacks from a distance and
gets to draw first blood. When the damage is calculated from
his magical ranged attacks, he also rolls an 7 (from a 10d dice).
The opposing unit's resistance of 4 brings Ravashack's
die roll down to 3 (7-4=3). The remaining 3 die rolls are
used to suck 3 hit points out of the opposing unit and
are given to Ravashack as hit points! If Ravashack
does this enough, he can completely heal himself in
combat!
Not only do life-stealing attacks allow Ravashack to
heal himself, but if the opposing unit has more than
50% of its hit points stolen from a life-stealing attack
and is then killed, it will rise from the dead and
serve you as an undead unit! And i'm not talking about
a wimpy zombie unit. Whatever the opposing unit was
(Hammerhand, Minatour, Griffin, ...) it comes back
as that unit in undead form. Just imagine an
undead Minatour guarding the city that Ravashack
just conquered. Burrrrr... I get chills just
thinking about it.
As with any spell which depends upon the
opposing unit's resistance, giving Ravashack
magical items with -(n) Spell Saves will help
his life-stealing capabilities. By lowering
their resistance through Spell Saves and spells
like Black Prayer or Mind Storm, Ravashack's
die roll will have a much greater effect on
tougher units. For example, any tough
unit with a resistance of 10 would
be almost immune to Ravashack's life-stealing
attacks because he can only roll a 10 or less.
But if Ravashack had a -4 Spell Save amulet,
the unit's resistance would be lowered to 6 thus
greatly improving Ravashack's chance of
life-stealing!
This life-stealing stuff sounds great, huh?
But wait, its not that simple.
It seems that Ravashack only gets to use his
life-stealing attacks if he needs the hit
points. If Ravashack is at full health, his
life-stealing attacks have absolutely no effect!
What a pisser! But if you are smart, or at
least of average intelligence, you can find a way
to get around this. When entering into combat,
find a low-level unit which can inflict some
slight damage to Ravashack, but not enought to
actually kill him. Each turn, allow the enemy
unit to hurt Ravashack before he executes his
attack. That way he will be able to execute
his life-stealing attacks on the bigger & nastier
units.
Don't get too hung up on Ravashack's life-stealing
capabilities becuase he's just as dangerous without
them. Take a look at his stats and you'll notice he
has a magical ranged attack of 24 at Demi-God! This
is due to his inherent Arcane Power. Give him a
+6 attack staff and other enchantments, and he is
easily capable of reaching an attack strength of 40!
Ouch! What if you also gave his staff armor-piercing
Lightning attacks (Chaos pick)? Mega Ouch! And with
his incredibly high spell casting ability he
can shoot these magical attacks all day.
Regarding Ravashack's inherent spells, there is some
confusion. The Official Strategy Guide claims that
he comes with Weakness, Black Sleep, Animate Dead,
and the greatly feared Wrack. However, after some
players brough it to my attention, we learned that
he does not have Animate Dead or Wrack (what
a shame). However, we believe he still does have
Weakness and Black Sleep which are fairly good
spells. Black Sleep is especially good if
Ravashack has -(n) Spell Saves. With enough
Spell Saves, he can put damn near anything to
sleep and easily kill it.
Now let's get down to the really important question.
What do you want Ravashack to get for his random
picks? To begin with, Ravashack is defensively weak
and vulnerable to enemy spells. To begin with, I
would suggest:
 Charmed
This will protect Ravashack from any enemy spells
which depend upon his resistance.
 Prayer Master
Since Ravashack is so vulnerable, he should NEVER be
allowed to travel alone. And since you want to make
sure his army is protected, Prayer Master will help
to raise their resistance as well. This will ensure
everybody is protected from negative enemy spells like
Confusion, Black Sleep, or Wrack.
To be honest, I take Ravashack regardless of what his
random picks are. I'm just damned glad to have him.
Remeber, you can only get Ravashack with Death Spell
books as well as Mortu The
Black Knight. And since you need to keep Ravashack
well protected, doesn't it make sense to pair him
up with Mortu? When together, they are unstoppable!
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