Alive and Well and Living in

... and everything ... about life

You can't completely avoid taking damage (and if you could it'd be boring). On the other hand you have some opportunities to gain life back during a battle.
There's life, and there's vitality. You may push vitality by investing status points, and those will be converted into life (also called hitpoints) depending on your character's class. Via equipment you may gain boni to life as well as boni to vitality. Vitality granted by items is subject to same life conversion mechanism.
Vendors sell red potions, which will restore lost life over some duration, you'll see in transparent red color how much life will be gained when potion's effect ends. It is no common knowledge that a surplus of life gained in potentia compared to maximum life will calculate into life loss during drinking. However, if a hit deletes actual life (solid red color of your bubble) you'll die.
Player character's life won't regenerate automatically, to achieve this you need some special skills and/or items.
Purple ruvenation potions will heal life (and mana) immediately when drunk, little ones 35% of maximum value, big ones completely.

If a character is poisoned, the red bubble's and lightradius' colors change to green.

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total life

Total life is composed of a starting value, a bonus given per each level-up, invested points in vitality, and boni to life and/or vitality granted by equipment.

Life_tot = ∑Life * (1 + (L_% / 100%) + L_vitEquip + L_/cLvlEquip ∑Life = L_base + L_/lvlup + L_equip + L_vitP + L_quest

Life_tot: total life L_base: base life (starting value) L_/lvlup: life gained per level-up L_equip: life gained per boni from equip L_%: percentage life boost gained per items and/or skills L_vitP: life gained per spent points in vitality L_vitEquip: life gained per item boni to vitality L_/cLvlEquip: life gained per item boni based on character's level L_quest: life bonus from Alkor's Quest Reward

class-specific values

Class	base life	life per level-up	life per vitality point
complete Status Point Table
Amazon	50	2	3
Assassin	50	2	3
Barbarian	55	2	4
Druid	55	1,5	2
Necromancer	45	1,5	2
Paladin	55	2	3
Sorceress	40	1	2

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life regeneration of non-player units

Non-player units may automatically regenerate life.
Used formula for regeneration rate is

regL_/s = L_max * v_reg / 4096 * 25

regL_/s: regenerated life per second L_max: maximalum life v_reg: unit-specific constant

v_reg, also called DamageRegenerationSpeed, is a constant defined individually for each unit in MonStats.txt.

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life replenish

This item property will recover life. As a rule of thumb it recovers its nominal value over ten second's duration.
The exact formula is

L_/s = (25 * L_rep) / 256

L_/s: Life per Second L_rep: life replenish value

Paladin's Prayer grants some life points to every allied unit in range, pulsing every two seconds.
A Pal also may heal his allies (but not himself) with his Holy Bolt skill.
Holy Bolts triggered by Fist of Heavens do no healing anymore since 1.10.
Paladin's Redemption aura destroys monster corpses and 'converts' them into life (and mana) points the Paladin (but not his allies) gains.

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life drain

Only a few items may drain life when worn. Formula is the same like life replenish uses, just figure life drain in L_rep as negativum.
In official game only weapon runeword Malice / IthElEth will spawn with this property.

The famous Constricting Ring was never officially implemented. If you see one, it's cheated.

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Life after each Kill - LaeK

This item property grants an amount of life as reward for killing an enemy. It also exists with restriction to either demon or undead kills. The character only gains life when enemy is directly killed, and not killed by character's minion(s). It doesn't work with Sorceress' Hydra or Assassin's stationary Trap skills

LaeK is best used if delivering attacks or spells with area of effect. Attacks and spells only dealing with one enemy at a time don't give much profit here.

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Life Leech - LL

If you deliver physical damage the physical way, you'll gain life calculated by enemy's life loss due to physical damage. While dual-wielding two weapons (Assassin and Barbarian only) LL on a weapon will only count if this weapon did damage.
When entering Nightmare difficulty nominal leech is cut in half, when entering Hell it's cut to a third. This penalty is applied to the incoming figure, you still may leech with only one percent LL, but of course this is not very effective.
Leech is also subject to enemy's physical resistance, since this one reduces suffered damage.
Further to each unit a leech drain figure is assigned in MonStats.txt, which reduces leech effectiveness similar to a resistance.

specials

• You can't leech with spells, even those delivering physical damage, a blow, throw or shoot is necessary.
• Amazon's Lightning Bolt won't leech, since physical damage is completely converted into lightning damage.
• Barbarian's Berserk won't leech, since physical damage is completely converted into magical damage.
• Paladin's Smite won't leech.
• Necromancer's Life Tap works similar to 50% Leech, but is no subject to difficulty or individual leech drain mali; further it works in combination with Smite.

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Stun

Any unit loosing a certain amount of its total life at once will suffer Hit Recovery.
Some skills will force an enemy into Hit Recovery regardless of delivered damage. Barbarian's Stun and War Cry, Paladin's Smite, Druid's Shock Wave, also his Grizzly's BearSmite attack and some monster skills, to name a few.
Stun doesn't work versus Act Bosses.
A character suffering a stunning attack is forced into Hit Recovery, but not stunned. During the stun duration any further attack will cause Hit Recovery again, regardless of damage. Stun duration is indicated by a little white cycling arrow over unit's head.

see also:

• Hit Recovery
• Knockback

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Chance of Double Heal via potions

Red potions are labelled with life values they grant to recover. There's only a few people around knowing about the 'double heal' effect, which grants twice the labelled amount of life gained.
This effect depends on character's vitality.

up to 200 vitality:

Chance = (vitality / 4 )%

beyond 200 vitality:

Chance = (100 - (10000 / vitality)%

The effect happens irregardless of potion size.

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Shrines

Up to five different shrines may spawn on a given map. Some of them affect life.

• Well
  restores life (plus mana plus stamina) with 50% of maximum value; will cure poison and curses; also heals character's minions as well
• Health Shrine
  complete life recovery
• Refilling Shrine
  complete life (plus mana) recovery
• Fire Shrine
  life loss of half of actual life to any unit in range

see also:

• Shrines

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