I asked in the game's subforum, but couldn't get an answer, maybe someone can help me here.
https://www.gog.com/forum/kings_bounty_series/item_morale_jackboots

Basically, I read the guide on what changes the morale of each item, but my question is, does having an item with a bad morale affect it in any way?

I got the jackboots which lose 5 morale in every battle. They're at 0 morale now, and I can suppress them to get it higher, but even with 0 morale I can still wear them and by looking at Robbers' speed, they still give the bonuses. So what's the point of supressing them?

Maybe this?
From the manual - "When Morale is low, stats are decreased and the troop cannot make Critical Attacks."

That's units morale.

Ok, found this https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/959265-kings-bounty-armored-princess/53063844

edit: and this - Living items

Living items are artifacts that have unique properties and are able to change their characteristics, reacting to your hero’s deeds. Living items have Morale that reflects their attitude to you.

Each living item has its own story and destiny it is trying to follow, and requires the same from the owner. You can see the preferences of the item in its description. If your hero’s deeds run counter to the You can talk to your wife by clicking on her portrait. Part of this conversation might item’s, its Morale decreases. When your hero performs deeds that the item likes, its Morale increases. If the living item is able to improve its properties, then it achieves maximum Morale automatically. If its Morale reaches zero, you lose control of it and it stops providing bonuses. To regain control over the item, you must raise its Morale or suppress it by using force.

Suppressing and upgrading an item requires defeating its Keepers. To summon a living item’s Keepers to combat, right-click the item and select Suppress (or Upgrade, if the item can be upgraded) in the item’s menu.

After confirming your wish to fight, you will move to a special arena inside the item.

Your main opponents in this combat are Gremlins. These are malicious creatures who will try to destroy your army by magic. Common troops also fight on the Gremlins’ side, and Keepers always support their defenders using spells. You have to kill all the Gremlins and their servants to suppress the item.

Yes, I know all this, I read the manual.

My question is: the item morale is 0 and yet it seems to give all the benefits (speed boost to robbers; can't tell about gold). How come? And if that's intentional what's the purpose of supressing it to bring it up?

Never seen this problem and maybe,just maybe a bloomin' bug.

So what what did you see when you used Jackboots and its morale reached 0?

I'm pretty sure when I've encountered morale at 0 then the bonuses have stopped, maybe it only applies to some bonuses. In fact I'm certain of it because it completely caught me out when the item dropped to zero, I went to suppress it, only to find that because I no longer had the leadership boost it was providing I couldn't control any of my troops.

Until zero morale it appears to give full benefits. However the real benefit of the morale for me is that it gives additional experience. I tended to buy out any upgradeable or morale driven item simply so that I could fight it as many times as possible.

Thank you! That's the answer. The bonuses do stop working in battle, even if they still show up on the units when not in battle.

My Robbers showed Speed 3 with the boots equipped and 2 without them, so I assumed they were getting the bonus. I weren't using Robbers in battle howerver, and when I actually tried it in battle, they only had 2.

By the way, does Gold ever become an issue? I have way more than I can spend now. If it remains that way throughout the game I think I'll leave my jackboots at 0 and use them as portable rage-fillers before important battles.

It largely depends on which class you are playing.
Still, during the latter parts of the game, having a huge amount of gold is vital; enemies become really strong, and your expensive elite troops will take huge losses for sure. I had plenty of gold thoughout the game, but the last few fights syphoned my finances. I almost got my army destroyed three times.

I recommend having a bit of skill in healing magic and getting resurrect and heal, plus transforming priests in inquisitors. They will save you millions (as inquisitors can use resurrect as well, which can be replenished by another spell I forgot the name of).

Stock those up as much as you can; you'd need those to shop for runes later — and those were very expensive.
I can't recall the exact price, but it'll drain even millions.

OK... jackboots stay on then.

(Playing Paladin by the way).

EDIT: Sorry for the necro. I found this thread via a google search when I was trying to solve a problem I had in the game. I had assumed this thread was posted on the game specific forum without having looked at which forum it was in before I posted this post.

Although my added post here is still useful for other players who will find this thread in the future when they have the same problem I did which brought me to this thread, as I believe this post corrects what appears to be incorrect information posted earlier (which could otherwise, without it being corrected, mislead other players who also find this thread via google in the future). I don't think that's correct.

I just had a battle where two of my units, canoneers and giants, randomly stopped fighting for no reason, and I got the message that said something like, "you don't have enough leadership to control this unit."

So after the battle where I took heavy losses due to my two units not fighting at all, I searched google trying to find out WTF is going on.

I found a site that said "maybe one of your items is rebelling." And I also found this thread which I'm now posting in.

So then I looked at my items and it says "King's Hammer" with a "Morale: Terrible (1)." And that item has a stat of "-10% to the leadership of dwarves."

Thus, as far as I can tell, what happened was:

- my King's Hammer lost morale

- as a consequence of my King's hammer losing morale, it's "-10% to the leadership of dwarves" stopped working

- as a consequence of that stat not working, the units in army suddenly exceeded my leadership cap whilst I was on the battle screen, and thus they stopped working.

That seems to disprove the assertion that the stats on living items still work while their morale is low. It appears that no, they do not.

Were you fighting other dwarves at the time? IIRC, the hammer's morale drops whenever dwarves die. Doesn't matter if friendly or enemy. Could be that the hammer had morale 1, you killed a dwarf, hammer reached morale 0 and the hammer's bonuses stopped working mid-battle?

Or were the units out of control since the battle started when you entered it with the hammer having 1 morale? Because I've played all the games and the bonuses always worked for me until the item reached 0 morale.