Not a special ability, and maybe not the right place either, but i feel consumed by the intense "i want to name something cool that everyone will use ingame"-feeling.. 

I want a profession more suited towards using magic.. all that are now seems very focused on practical things, but there should at least be a Wizard class for bonus in essence. Maybe also include some special item for the profession, like a sword for warrior, scout cloak for ranger etc.. 

So.. A wizard.. or sorcerer, trickster, children entertainer. is all good 

I didn't miss any fun. I played the game to completion many times. More often than not, I played partway and abandoned the game. I just found the endgame boring and dull. All sense of discovery had gone out of it.

Just because I enjoy games differently than you do doesn't mean what I enjoy is less valid. Thank you.

Change the name to "Inception" and it's perfect

Undead creatures - a must (Empire powered)

Siphon life - Unit's attack drain health from enemy and restores lost health

Raise undeath - Units who die from a "siphon life" attack would rise up as undead under the command of the opposing side until the end of the battle

Freezing touch - slows enemy by 35% speed

Weakening touch - reduces enemy attack by x%

Plague strike - each delivered attack can infect enemy with death disease (only works on living creatures)

Holy smite - each attack adds a holy (life) damage (only works on undead creatures)

Paralyzing touch - attacked unit must resist or cannot move for x turns

Draining aura - all enemy units in melee range suffers x damage (unless resisted) each turn they remain in range

Wishlist

Abilities:

• Vampirism:

• Champions gain 1XP/turn
• Increases Strength, Agility, and Combat Speed by 2.
• Increases Max Health by 5.
• Increases Resistance to Death Magic by 10%
• Decreases Resistance to Life Magic AND Fire Magic by 50%.
• On attack: heal self for 10% of damage dealt.
• Can sacrifice City population to heal fully.
• Can be spread to friendly units.
• Decreases Kingdom prestige by 10% (This could either be a one-time 10%, or a stacking debuff to global kingdom prestige for each vampire, possibly up to a threshold of 50%)

• First Strike:
  • Unit always hits first in combat. Canceled out if both attacker and defender have First Strike.
• Swift Attack:
  • Unit can attack without fear of retaliation. Canceled out if both attacker and defender have Swift Attack.
• Cleave:
  • Unit attacks all enemies in a frontal cone (3 squares in front, range of 1)
• Whirlwind:
  • Unit attacks all adjacent enemies (range of 1)
• Heal:
  • Heals friendly unit by 20% (or 5 health)
• Charm:
  • Unit attempts to charm hostile unit (Charisma vs. Intelligence)
  • 1st turn success: hostile unit stunned
  • 2nd turn success (consecutive): hostile until becomes friendly (significantly harder to succeed)
• Bombard (for catapults, giants (throw boulder), etc. - should be limited amount):
  • Launch a massive boulder at your enemies.
  • Main target takes 75% damage and is stunned for 2 turns.
  • All adjacent targets are stunned for 1 turn.
  • Walls take 50% damage.
• Immortality:
  • Upon death, unit loses 10% XP and is resurrected in the capital (or closest city with a Graveyard)
• Conduit:
  • Unit can act as a magical conduit for the Channeler/Sovereign and cast 1 spell per combat turn. This ability requires 100% of the units action points.
  • Should only be available to Champions (optional different mechanic for essence)
• Life Drain:
  • On attack: heal self for 10% of damage dealt
  • Can sacrifice 100% of action points to sap the will of all adjacent living units, possibly stunning them (Intelligence vs. Intelligence) and healing self by 10%.
• Shred
  • Lacerate enemy, dealing 150% damage, and causing a bleeding effect (10% of damage dealt per turn, for 3 turns)
  • Costs 50% of units action points.

Units:

• Priests
  • Start with the 'Heal' ability
  • Start with the 'Charm' ability
  • Increased Resistance to Life Magic and Death Magic 50%
• Catapults
  • Start with the "Bombard' ability
  • Decreased Resistance to Fire Magic 50%
• Ghosts (require Graveyard):
  • Start with 'Life Drain' ability
  • Increased Resistance to Physical Damage 75%
  • Increased Resistance to Death Magic 75%
  • Decreased Resistance to Life Magic 75%
  • Decreased Physical Damage (dealt) by 50%
• Angels (require Cathedral)
  • Start with 'Immortality'
  • Start with 'Whirlwind' (the wings, like in the horrible movie Legion)
  • Start with 'Life Drain'
• Werewolf
  • Starts with 'Immortality'
  • Starts with 'Shred'
  • Starts with 'Cleave'

User Interface:

• Character Screen
  • Character Doll (dressable - if thats a word)
  • Stats Screen
  • Derived Stats Screen
  • Bag window (holds all the loot)
  • Detail window (gives detail information on selected item or unit, see below)
  • Army window (displays units in Champions Army, determines position of units in Tactical Combat)
  • Drag'n'Drop interface for items and units between armies
• A possible Character screen (minus the drag'n'drop interface) is below:

Magic System

• Essence
  • Should be a global stat (like food) instead of a unit stat.
  • Increases based on:
    • Total land under Sovereigns Influence,
    • Controlled Shrines
    • Special buildings (Wizard Towers, Cathedrals, Graveyards, etc.)
    • World Wonders (Tower of Making, Horden's Library, etc.)
    • Special magical units (Archangel Gabriel, Count Dracula, what have you - really really strong champions give some)
  • Decreases based on:
    • Tiles turned into Fertile Land, Old Forests, etc.
    • Number of cities under Sovereigns control (to make land habitable)
    • Champions turned into 'Conduits' (see Abilities)
    • Number of magical creatures summoned
    • Number and strength of magical equipment created
  • Essence that is used will be regained once the tile, city, champion, magical creature, and/or magical equipment is lost or destroyed (Think Huts and Food).
• Mana
  • Depends on Wisdom stat (not essence stat)
    • Wisdom in all units affects magical resistance, and resistance to special effects (such as 'Charm', se above)
    • Wisdom in basic caster units (such as 'Priests', see above) affects # of spells per turn/per Tactical Combat. E.g. a priest with Wisdom of 10 can cast 'Heal twice per Tactical Combat, a Priest with Wisdom if 15 could cast it three times.
    • Wisdom in Sovereign affects total Mana (and Sovereigns/Channelers are the only units that use mana)
      • Mana can be used to cast any spell that is researched (as opposed to basic units, which can only use spells they have as special abilities)
      • Mana is used when 'Conduits' use their ability to let the Sovereign cast a spell during Tactical Combat or on the Strategic map.
      • Mana is based on Wisdom and increases with each level. E.g.: Sovereign has 15 Wisdom - at level 1 his Mana is 15. At level 2 his mana increases by his Wisdom -> his max mana is now 30. At each level thereafter his max mana once again increases by his wisdom (max mana could be retroactively affected by increasing the wisdom stat)
      • Mana regeneration should be 10% of max mana per turn. This could be further increased by special buildings or World Wonders.

Cities:

• Should either be more like in GC2 and have a screen, with a certain amount of available tiles to build on shown on the inside. This would let us display a nice, organized town on the strategic map, that could grow in size based on level.
• Alternatively, you could remove the tile limit, and add an improvement with a 0 turn build time, that lets us customize the looks of our cities, like in this picture:

• Those dirt patches used as spacer would turn into cobblestone upon the city hitting level 3 btw.

but ya have to admit a good one ... only thing I don't like is 2 ring limit.. I more like one ring of type limit with 10 ring max.. but i can deal what ever way it goes.. none the less great idea's and nice presentation Malloreon ...

I note the Mallorean and Belgarion references...

The main problem with dirt patches etc is that you could make super large cities for strategic purposes.

I didn't scrutinize the whole thread, but I like the idea of armor sets you quest for.

I would also add that there should be a bonus, either to defense or a special ability, for getting the complete set.

I, too, am not sure that removing goodie huts is a great idea because of the need for initial cash influx.

Stacking auras are bad. Buffs should (almost) never stack, it leads to critical mass issues. The only buffs that should stack without limit are ones that are based off of time (eg, each successful attack you make increases your attack by 1)

However, auras are great. 

these rings are magical. I imagine that putting on ten thousand rings would overload your body with magic  

2 rings is the industry standard for the amount of rings any character can have and I think it's best kept that way. We don't want commanders wearing 20 +.25 combat speed rings. This falls under buffs stacking like the aura guy. 

There are lots of good ideas I'm seeing people put up so I won't list a bunch (ok I changed my mind, see end of post).  What'd I'd like to know though is there a way to limit what abilities are available?  There isn't any class ability tied to units that I can see so what is to stop me from making a unit that can backstab, do a crushing blow, spit acid and bring down a rain of stones?  Having all abilities available to everyone dimishes the uniqueness of each one and in turn makes them less interesting.  Not to mention you will inevitably end up with some super-combos that everyone will start taking.  I'd like to see the abilities limited in some fashion.  You can do this through tech, race, stats, classes or whatever just don't let them get out of control.

As far as actual abilities for heroes I also hope they make sense.  I see you have an ability called Deadly Bite.  I think it would be rather odd to see my human hero have this skill for instance.  Also you have another called Poison Shot.  This sounds like an arrow so it should require that the hero owns a bow to use it.  Personally I would like to see most supernatural like abilities come from items and not skills.  Skills should be things like backstab, crushing blow, sprint, etc and maybe a few special spell-like ones for heroes that are from a magical race or have essence.  Maybe you could make spell-like skills require that the sovereign invest essence to give it to the hero.

Here are a few abilities also.  Some of these are not combat related as I'm not sure if you are referring to abilities you get when you level up or just combat abilities in general that are used in tactical combat.  I haven't read through all the posts so forgive any repeats.

Mana Drain - only through items or for supernatural units

Life Drain - only through items or for supernatural units

Mana Duel (you and target caster have a mental duel that lasts a number of turns, loser is severly damaged and loses all mana.  Winner loses 1/2 mana.  How long it lasts depends on difference in skill level)

Mana Focusing (spells cost less to cast or you get a mana bonus)

Ability bonuses (like +5 strength for instance, just give them nice names like mighty or tough as nails)

Shard mastery (you pick one element that you get bonuses with, could even give a small penalty to other elements but then the bonus would need to be more significant)

Camoflage (unit is harder to see on the campaign map, only shows up if another group is adjacent or has some counter ability)

Various resource improvement abilities (hunting: gives +1 food, etc)

Duel wield - hero can now wield another weapon in his offhand

Critical strike - each blow has a chance (or increased chance) of dealing double damage

Pathfinder - unit reduces movement costs for every one with him in rough terrain.  Allows movement through mountains (1 square per turn regardless of movement rate)

Forestwalker - unit moves through forest like they were plains (can have similar abilities for other terrain)

Some ability that gives a morale bonus to the army the hero is with

Rapid fire - hero can fire a bow twice as fast

Dirty fighting - blinds the target for one turn causing them to have greatly reduced attack for 1 turn

Terror - unit causes great fear in units.  All units with out terror get a small penalty to morale at the start of combat.  Any unit attacked directly by this unit loses twice as much morale as it normally would

Disciplined - unit is more resistant to morale loss

Quick strike - unit gets 1 extra attack per turn if using a weapon that does not give a combat speed penalty

Dodge - unit gets +2 defense in melee

Damage resistance - unit picks one type of damage that they become more resistant to (maybe 10% resistance)

Weapon expertise - pick a type of weapon, get medium +attack and small combat speed bonus with that weapon

Stench - only through items or for supernatural units.  Unit smells so bad that anyone attacking them gets -3 attack and -2 defense

Ok, think that's enough for now.  Need to do some other stuff.

I look at it this way. I am the guy founding the kingdom. I have 4 rings on my finger that do spiffy things already. I find another ring that gives me some uber cool ability. Am I going to take off one of my four rings to put that on? Keep dreaming. I'm just going to use one of my other available fingers. I would easily put 10 rings on and not even think twice. If the rings were tiny, skinny little things (like a single piece of wire), I would just put them on a finger where another ring is already. This is one case where I think making it realistic to what people would normally do is a bonus. You just have to make sure that the rings that offer +0.25 combat speed are rare enough, expensive enough, and big enough, that you cannot put that many on. Make them large rings. Then you can fit a whopping 10 of them on your hands. So, you get +2.5 combat speed. That's not huge. Is it better than one of the other rings you might want to wear? That's probably a tough decision.

My point is, don't limit what's possible through gimmicky hard limits. Limit them by what's realistic. If you want to put a limit on something, do it by actual physical processes instead of some arbitrary, off-the-top-of-your-head cap. Using ring slots and rings of different sizes adds variety and another interesting aspect to the items and the game play while providing meaningful and believable limits. The same thing goes for arm bands, amulets, bracelets, and anklets. They come in different sizes and you can only fit so many on your body. How many depends on the size, and the bigger ones would tend to offer the more powerful enchantments. 

I also agree that limiting enchantment stacking is a good thing. Magical items with the same enchantments should not stack (you apply the highest one only), but different enchantments that buff the same trait in different ways should stack.