Abilities (Warlords III)

Abilities (or Bonuses) provide additional benefits to Armies and Heroes in combat beyond their standard Statistics. Every army has at most one innate ability, although the presence of heroes and Spells can grant them additional ones. Heroes will themselves gain a wide variety of abilities as they level-up, cast spells, and acquire Items.

For more information on the interactions of abilities with army stacks, fight orders, and actual combat, refer to the section on Combat.

Stack Bonuses
Stack Bonuses either increase the Strength of every army in its stack ('strength-increasers'), or decrease the strength of every army in the opposing stack ('strength-decreasers'). There are three tightly-coupled Stack Bonus Pairs, each with one strength-increaser and one thematically opposed strength-decreaser:
 * Only the single most powerful stack bonus of each type is used; they are not cumulative, and inferior bonuses are ignored
 * When heroes are present in a stack, the best item bonus and the best spell bonus from amongst them are each added to the above
 * For each stack bonus pair, the effect is capped to between Strength -1 and Strength +5
 * The total bonus from all three stack bonuses pairs is capped to between Strength -3 and Strength +5

Combat Abilities
All Combat Abilities provide a benefit to the army when it is engaged in combat. Precisely when the benefit comes into play depends on the ability. The unofficial sub-categories used below are intended to help players understand at which points within combat these abilities become relevant.

Pre-Combat Abilities
These abilities are always in effect.

Start-of-Combat Abilities
These abilities are checked across the entire stack, before the combat screen is seen, and before individual armies square-off against each other.

Front-of-Stack Abilities
These abilities come into play only when the army is at the front (or 'top') of the stack, squaring-off against the opposing top stack, but before any normal combat rolls are made.

On-Hit Abilities
These abilities come into play only when the army makes a successful combat roll.

Non-Combat Abilities
These abilities are exclusively attached to heroes and provide an array of benefits outside of combat.