The thing that blew my mind the most when I replayed Might and Magic VI recently was was the bonus from Rings of Magic, but more importantly, the ludicrous stacking bonus you would get if you combined the Rings of Magic with the Artifacts of Magic (Morgan, Guinevere and Igraine).

-The Explanation (skip if you know what I'm talking about)-
Power gamers among you will know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who aren't familiar with this awesome feature in Might and Magic VI, Rings of Magic (AKA Rings with the "Of Fire Magic" or "Of Light Magic" or "Of Dark Magic") buff your spellcaster's Magic skill by 50%, so if you have 40 in Fire Magic, equipping a Ring of Fire Magic will buff your Fire Magic to 60, making your spells1.5 times more powerful. There is also three artifacts in the game that improves your Magic skills by 50%, Morgan buffs your Fire, Air, Water and Earth skills, Igraine buffs your Body, Mind and Spirit skills, and Guinevere buffs your Light and Dark skills. Where things gets interesting is, although equipping more than one such ring of the same type will not improve your skill further (having two Rings of Fire Magic will only improve your Fire Magic skill by 50%), if you equip both a Ring of Fire Magic and Morgan the bonuses to your Fire Magic skill will stack, so, if you have 40 In Fire Magic, the Ring of Fire Magic will buff that by 50%, giving you 60 in Fire Magic, and then Morgan will buff that 60 by another 50%, giving you 90 in Fire Magic, effectively making your spells 2.25 times more powerful. Now, if you have 40 in Light and Dark magic, those Day of the Gods, Day of Protection and Hour of Power spells will turn your party into walking gods.

-My First Question-
Is this awesome feature still presents in Might and Magic VII?

I read somewhere that equipping two items with the "Of The Fist" suffix will not improve your Unarmed skill any further, you will only get the benefit of whichever items happens to have the highest bonus (so, if you have two Rings of the Fist, one that gives +15 and one that gives +25, one of the ring will only give you +25 and the other will give you nothing), but if you equip a +25 Ring of the Fist with the Hands of the Master artifact (+10 to Unarmed Skill, +10 to Dodging) the bonus will indeed stack, giving you +35 to your Unarmed skill.

I have however read wildly conflicting report regarding the Rings of Magic and the various Artifacts and Relics that grant you the "Of X Magic" suffixes:

Some people said the bonuses did not stack.
Some people said the bonuses did stack.
Some people even said, not only do the bonuses from the Rings of Magic and the Artifacts of Magic stacked, but the game also feature a new class of items called Special Items, which reportedly aren't normal items (they confer extremely powerful bonuses and are acquired in specific locations, like the Obelisk chest, the Arcomage chest, or from the corpse of special enemies), but aren't considered artifacts or relics either.

So, my first question, who tells the truth here? Do the "Of X Magic" bonuses stack? If a character has a Ring of Dark Magic (normal Item), the Ethric's Staff (Relic), the Ruler's Ring (Artifact) and the Moon Cloak (Special Item), how many "Of Dark Magic" bonuses will be applied to his Dark Magic skill? Or has New World Computing, in their desire to create a balanced game, nerfed the joy out of having godly spell casters by removing this awesome feature from Might and Magic VII?

-My second question-
How do the artifact limit works in Might and Magic VII? I ask because I got severely screwed in Might and Magic VI. Although I was extremely lucky to acquire spare copies of Igraine and Guinevere for my Cleric and Paladin, I wasted tons of artifact drops on weapons that didn't fit my character builds (I think I finished the game with twelve weapons, I mean, c'mon, my party only has eight hands) and by the time read about the artifact drop limit it was already too late to roll new ones.

So, how many artifacts/relics am I allowed to get in Might and Magic VII before they cannot drop anymore?

Can you drop multiple copies of the same artifact?

A website seems to indicate there are some restrictions regarding what dragons can and cannot drop, and that some artifacts can only be acquired in two chests, one in Clanker's Laboratory and one in Colony Zod which, seem to use a different set of artifacts that cannot be dropped from dragons, is this true?

No need to warn me about Clanker's Laboratory and Colony Zod: I am aware the artifacts in these two chests are generated when you enter the dungeon, not when you open the chest, I am aware that I need to open these two chests after I hit the artifact limit as those will allow me to acquire two more artifacts beyond the normal limit, and I have read about a possible exploit where it may be possible to cast a Lloyd's Beacon in these two locations to return to the chest after the locations have become unreachable to possibly loot extra artifacts out of them, I may try that one, just to see.

Also, the special items, how do they work? Due to their massive bonuses and uniqueness, most walkthroughs and FAQs out there lists the special items along with the artifacts and relics. But do acquiring special items count toward your artifact limit?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

PS - Just in case it might be relevant, I am using GrayFace v2.0 Patch.

Since this is mentioned, I have a question to ask: Which gender does the game favor in terms of these sort of restrictions, and how strongly does it favor that gender?

@dtgreene

Personally, I prefer a male knight/thief over a female knight/thief. Here's why:

Hero's Belt: +5 Armsmaster skill, +15 might, HP Regen, of Protection [Male Only]
Lady's Escort: of Water Walking, of Feather Falling, of Protection [Female Only]

If I recall correctly, the "of Feather Falling" property on Lady's Escort (A ring) is bugged and doesn't work. So, with that said, I'd personally say the Hero's Belt is superior.

If my party consists of a Knight or Thief, (With Knight having access to GM Armsmaster and Thief having access to Master Armsmaster), then I almost always make one of them a male character (Usually the knight) to take advantage of the belt's Armsmaster bonus.

Side note: You may have noticed I omitted the Monk, even though it has Master Armsmaster as well. Currently, the monk is bugged with Unarmed+Staff+Armsmaster. More info about the monk's bug can be found in this thread if you're interested:

celestialheavens.com/forum/10/7156

How is the situation for other classes? In particular, how about Clerics and Sorcerers?

Thanks for the reply, Uthkiel, Awwww, that is a major bummer then. :( Yeah, I believe it is because of the wording on the artifacts. Like, the Rings give you the "Of Fire Magic" bonus, while Morgan gives you the "Of Elemental Magic" bonus, and I suspect the game thinks "This is not the same bonus as the "Of Fire Magic" bonus so I'm going to apply this bonus to this character too." And you can get some pretty high Magic skills thanks to that stacking.

It's worth noting that, having a Ring and an Artifact will not exactly multiply your magic skills by 2.25, what the game does first is multiply your magic skill by 1.5, round down to the nearest integer, and then multiply your newly improved skill a second time by 1.5 and round down to the nearest integer. If afterward you have the hirelings that buffs your spell skill by +3 and +4 respectively, those two bonuses are added to your skill after your skill has been multiplied by the rings/artifacts.

This brings up another question (well, two, anyway):

What is the maximum magic skill possible by this method?

Is it necessary to worry about integer overflow? (In other words, if your magic skill is too high, can it end up being low (or possibly negative) after being boosted in this manner?) Alternatively, are there any negative side effects to having a magic skill that's too high (like integer overflows in the effect's calculation that cause the effect to be much weaker than it should be?)

(Also, if negative magic skills are possible, how does the game behave? Are there any underflows?)

Part of the reason I ask is that the earlier MM games (at least 2-5) *did* have integer overflows that could come up when using spells (Protection from Elements/Magic at high (236+) levels in MM2, certain spells in MM3-5 if your level is 256 or higher), and I am wondering whether that can still happen, or whether the programmers were more careful.

MM 6-8 don't have integer overflows which are achievable by normal gameplay. The most "achievable" overflow is getting over 2 billions gold.

Also it is no possible to achieve negative overflow of magic (and other) skills. It is capped at 3F (63) and repeated 4 times for Normal, Expert, Master, Grandmatser, so 1 byte per skill. There are no negative values there.

In v1.0 the game forbids you to level up your magic skills beyond 28, meaning you can get 63 with a ring and an artifact. In v1.1 and above, the game forbids you to level up beyond 63, making it possible to get 141 with a ring and artifact. Add +7 if you pick up the hirelings too.

Chris67132 on Youtube made a Let's Play of Might and Magic VI where he cheesed the whole game with a solo sorceror, it's been a while since the last time I watched it but if I recall correctly, he does get a couple of magic skills up to 63, like Dark and Fire and what not. In fact, the reason if I am replaying Might and Magic VII right now is because he's doing a Let's Play of it, with the intention of cheesing the game (I really wonder how, considering how the game has been designed) and since I don't want the plot to be spoiled for me, I decided to replay the game before watching the LP.

@ dtgreene

Sorry, I meant to say race/gender restriction. There are no specialty items that have class restrictions.

Check this link out - It lists all specialty items and the restriction that comes with it, if any.

zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/mm7/items7/specialitems.html

I was actually asking how gender restrictions impact those particular classes, since the example you gave only applies to knights and thieves.

Edit: In particular, do gender restrictions on items that spellcasters would want favor one gender over the other?

The only gender-restricted items in MM7 are the Hero's Belt (male) and the Lady's Escort (female), both gotten from the obelisk treasure.

The Hero's Belt is particularly good for Knights, Paladins, or (arguably) Monks, while the Lady's Escort does not favor any particular class.

In short, there are no gender restrictions on items that spellcasters in particular would want. The Lady's Escort is no more useful to spellcasters than to any other class.