>1. How badly are the sleep spell (and others) nerfed for dumb
>races? Or conversely how greatly are they juiced for smart
>races? If I go fire giant will my sleep spell totally suck?
>

It will still be worth using, because most people don't take steps to handle getting slept, but I do find it works better for drow than fire giant.

>2. Vessel of the Pit Fiends. What does this do? Bloodlust
>just gets "better" (how?) the more unholy controls you have?
>
>3. Demonskin. The helpfile for this says that you become
>resistant to blessed weapons if you're not already resistant
>to that weapon's attack type. If I took both Demonskin and
>Unrepentant Sinner would the limited resistance from
>Unrepentant Sinner nerf Demonskin for positive damage from a
>blessed weapon?
>

I seem to recall I benefitted from both, when I had both.

>4. What are the pros/cons to each physical method of starting
>combat on a slept person? Vault, cleave, faceslash...etc.

Vault does damaging bleeding guaranteed. Generally if you've got someone poisoned, plagued (especially if you gave them plague malison), then a vault's bleeding as well will finish them even if they escape, unless they have some way to heal themselves or get to a healer.

Vault lags like trip in my experience, on a drow. I'm not convinced it guarantees the next active command. In my experience, it's like trip. Vault also does a maladict to strength, so sometimes it'll make the victim drop his weapon even if you ran out of mana before that happened. You do need, if I remember correctly, maybe 20 mana for vault? I might be confusing this aspect with charge of the morosa which needs 20 - 80, depending on how long you charge up prior to charging.

Vault has an advantage in that you can't be struck when you are in the air. So if someone runs in who can't wake your victim, you might well want to vault. Sometimes they get confused by being unable to attack you when you're in the air and don't try again after you've landed on your victim.

>I've heard vault has a chance to guarantee next command for
>the attacker. Is that true? But faceslash has a chance to
>lag too, right?

Faceslash tends to lag when it opens combat. The bleeding is less damaging than vault, but lasts longer. It also does -dex, which is nice against bards, for example. An advantage over vault is that it allows dual wielding even if you are not a felar. Personally I prefer vault.

Plus they both cause bleeding? Is vault
>bleeding just way better than faceslash bleeding?
>
>5. How heavily influenced are the physical skills by str/dex?
>Would lashes be more or less useless on a fire giant?
>

High dex helps lashes. I have a sneaking suspicion that the edge for lashes of the slave might require a certain amount of dex too, but I've not tested that.

>6. At what point does iron grip become undispellable? Or does
>that come from an edge? I didn't see any in the AP edges list
>that gave that effect.

15 is what you're thinking of, but the watcher can still dispel it. So be careful.