Some ideas regarding Constitution and Escorts

[Derael]

I was thinking about making viable CON based character but found that there is simply no room for such characters in the game, because nearly nothing scales with CON outside of Conditioning tree and it has heavy diminshing return penalties making it unviable choise.

Then I decided to look into just achieving max CON stat possible and stumbled upon Brawler Unified Body. Then I looked up database and found nearly forgotten Blacksmithing tree.

So here are my ideas:

1. First of all, regarding Blacksmithing. It's not a bad tree by itself, but it is only avialble for Tinkers who don't benefit much from it. I suggest making it avialbe from Tinker escort and make it upgradeable like Mindstar/Staff mastery tree from Blacksmith NPC (maybe not learnable for free, just being able to upgrade it from 0.8 to 1.0 to 1.1 to 1.3 and from 1.2 to 1.4 using rare materials like Lump of Voratun would be good enough). This way this tree would become much more viable for sawbutcher and lots of other classes. Maybe tone down skill effects a bit, but let us achieve level 5 with less skillpoints. Right now it's a huge talent point sink and none of the classes who has access to it has excessive Generic Talents. While lots of Ogre classes would gladly pay a category point just to unlock those sweet +1 size and armor penetration/crit damage buffs.

2. Secondly, change Escort mechanics. Instead of random escorts on random levels just make a fixed amount of escorts per zone. For example 1 escrot in first two tier 1 zones, 2 escorts in forest, 1 in Daikara, 3 in Dreadfell and 1 in Reknor. And let us choose them before entering the level from the world map. For example when you are trying to enter the level dialogue pops up: "There are some travellers looking for assistance to reach the portal, will you help them?" And from the list of let's say 6-8-10 escort+dungeon_level pairs (there can be similar escorts at different levels) you can choose X (e.g. 1 for tier 1 zone, 3 for Dreadfell). This way there will still be some randomness, but at least it will let player have some control over skills he will get.

Or simply let us choose 9 escorts when the game starts. For example player will get a "dream" at the very beginning of the game where he can choose 9 people he is "destined" to meet.

According to the amount of randomness developers want to preserve it can be (1 out of 3-4) x 9 times with then choosing one among them the one who you'll meet first.

Or simply 9 escorts of your choice for encouraging powergaming and fine tuning (basically imitates Choose your Escorts addon). With 1 out of 3 or 4 model, chances to get the exact escort you desperately need are quite high and there will be no need to save scum just to get that tinker escort appear. It can be toggleable option for those who prefer more randomness in their game.

3. Increase the amount of Escort options. Some escort categories are almost never used, but it's fine, because skills themselves are good (Like Chronomancy, Feedback, Dreaming, Survival, Conditioning). Might be a good idea to let us learn only one skill instead of getting +1 level with it and let us upgrade it with talent points without granting access to the whole category. Or simply add a few extra skills/categories per escort.

Examples: Add Psychometry and Mind Link to possible betrayal skills for Anorithil and make Mentalism category unlockable (but before that fix all projection bugs and cheeses). And probably Hymns tree +1/2 Hymns for normal escorting.

Extra skills for Loremaster: Telecinetic Blast (mind damage + knockback), Steady Mind (+def and mental save based on dex and cun), Momentum (+9-33% attacck speed at the cost of 6 stamina per turn) - maybe add new escort for this like wandering swordsman or whatever. Maybe some other Class talents like Mind Sear.

Seer is a hard one, but maybe Curses/Hexes would fit into his style. Cursing/hexing his enemies from distance, etc. But to be honest it's good enough for most classes already.

Sun Paladin is good as it is, but his betrayal options need some tuning. Maybe add ability to increase mobility mastery to 1.0-1.2 from 0.8 is some conditions are met. This will make Disengage/Evasion at least slightly more viable. Or even better make it +2 levels first time you get them. Won't be too strong and will make it viable choice. Overall I feel like giving +2 instead of +1 talent level to first skill in 0.8 mastery hidden category could greatly improve some unused escort options while at the same time won't disrupt balance.

For TW just let him teach Paradox Tuning for free (in addition to 2 levels instead of 1 in first talent learned), never got his talents so not sure how paradox issue is resolved, but if it stacks indefinitely even less point to get it. If it can be replenished might be a good alternative for Track if you didn't encounter thief. Betraying is good enough, Dreamwalk is never bad.

Thief is good as it is, never bad for any class.

Tinker should be able to teach Engineering/Blacksmithing (Only if Tinkers already learned) and let us improve them with certain materials/gold like I explained above. And let up to 3 tinker escorts spawn instead of just 1. For example first is Old Man tinkerer who can either tell you the location where he learned or give +1 to all stats, and if you learned Tinkers from him, his pupils will spawn who can teach you Blacksmithing/Engineering or give +2 levels in your desired skill (not upgradeable mastery).

And finally,
4. Add some more CON based skills in the game/improve CON based prodigies. There are several ways to achieve very high CON but absolutely no reason to do it. The only good prodigy I can think of is Subcutaneous Metallisation but it takes up the whole slot and is purely defensive. The main problem is, it won't protect you from huge hits, only from lots of weak ones. And huge hits are usually much more dangerous. Also, uptime is quite low.

Although Armor of Shadows and Corrupted Shell can reach quite impressive armor values due to linear scaling, they are still only effective vs physical damage and characters with high constitution usually have no problems with their armor anyway.

EDIT: Well, Armor of Shadows can result in 100+ bonus armor with 200 CON, which will most likely grant immunity to physical damage. But still, it's hell lot of effort and you will still die to magic like usual.

As for Bloodspring and Fungal Blood, they are seldomly useful due to high CD/charging time.

[HousePet]

Minor note: Armour blocks weapon damage, not physical. You might know this, but your wording suggests not and many new players miss this distinction.

[astreoth]

constitutions problem is it doesn't have any classes based on it and its benefits aren't much on their own. I think only dex and cun have good enough boosts to be worth picking for those alone everything else is mainly picked to power weapons or talents.

what we really need to do to make con useful is make talents or weapons that scale with it. not every stat needs to be useful for every class con's problem is theirs nothing you can do with it that couldn't be accomplished by kitting your con up just to get the talents.

con is like resistance to an element that was never implemented you don't need to make it better you just need to implement that element.
ask your self would you pick magic on a class with no magic talents and no escorts or whatever to give them, would you pick willpower on a celestial class with no escorts?