Move crit shrug off from Dexterity to Constitution

[minmay]

Currently, Constitution is bad. Like, really bad. The max hp bonus being inconsequentially small is bad enough, but what's really insulting is that dexterity is now a better defensive stat for a lot of characters, despite coming with offensive bonuses that Con never does.

I still think it would be best to just remove Con and scale Conditioning with something else (strength or willpower?), but for now, I have a simple suggestion for making Con less terrible without causing power creep: remove the crit shrug off bonus from Dexterity, and give the same crit shrug off bonus for Constitution.

Obviously, this is also a nerf to Dex, but at least Dex does something good for many classes (weapon damage, etc.) even without the crit shrug off. This is not the case for Con.

[HousePet]

Dex could give more than 0.35 defence per point. Oddly Luck gives more defence.
Not overly keen on crit shrug off on Con. It kinda seems like a double dip to give more life and protect against crit damage.
Logically, I'd say that Strength is the stat that crit shrug off should be under. And that totally needs a buff. :/
Meh, give Dex a full point of defence per point and Con can have increased max stamina and a heal mod bonus.

[Atarlost]

Strength double dips to damage with most weapons through physical power and weapon stat modifiers. Double dipping is not forbidden.

I'm pretty sure you don't want dex giving much more defense, though. If you did, High dex monsters will suddenly wind up with unreasonable defense and even if PCs are also more durable as a result combat would drag out and be boring. There's too much symmetry in the PvE mechanics to have symmetry in "natural" attack and defense progressions and high HP monsters. That means nothing can be safely removed from dex.

Ideally we'd have fewer stats. Lots of stats are just useless to a lot of classes. That served a purpose when you rolled your stats in order and then picked a class. Now all it does is make more vendor trash. Thematically it's an issue that the stat that needs to go for being completely conditional is magic while the stat that most needs to be buffed is constitution so stat consolidation is not likely to happen and even less likely to be balanced without lots of iteration.

What if HP bar length went to will like all the other bar lengths and con got resource regen rate? Will is frequently an otherwise useless stat to classes that should be good thematic fits for antimagic and the ability to keep fighting through severe injuries is willpower related. 0.1x resource regen per point (after skill and equipment regen like heal mod that also effects psi, endurance, and mana; but only applying to permanent regen not anything from timed or instant effects) wouldn't be too powerful for a stat, but would make it very attractive for most conventional stat using classes.

[HousePet]

I'm not convinced that accuracy and defence have symmetric progression when 1 point of dex gives 1 accuracy but only 0.35 defence.

I don't think 6 stats is really too many. But I do think it is quite late to be considering removing a stat.

[Atarlost]

I'm not convinced that accuracy and defence have symmetric progression when 1 point of dex gives 1 accuracy but only 0.35 defence.

I don't think 6 stats is really too many. But I do think it is quite late to be considering removing a stat.

Accuracy and defense don't have a symmetric progression. They need to continue to not have a symmetric progression as long as monsters and PCs have a symmetric progression to avoid long drawn out whiff-fest combat.

As to how many stats are needed, if you ignore names and number the stats each class uses you'll never find one (other than adventurer) that uses all six. If con were removed nobody that didn't use the conditioning tree would notice. If magic were removed nobody that didn't cast arcane spells of some sort would notice. If strength were removed none of the pure casters would notice. I don't think anyone uses conditioning and casts arcane spells. If it weren't for fluff, everything magic does could be moved to constitution and while there'd be a HP buff to arcane casters it could be counteracted by reducing their life ratings and pretty much nothing would change.

[HousePet]

Fluff is quite important. (I do like my mages tanky though...)

Con is useful for Yeeks as well, since for them 200 life is a significant bonus.
If you were to consider whether merging of stats can be done without affecting game balance, then we don't 'need' any stats, they can all be merged into character level and it can be balanced. So I don't think that really addresses whether we 'need' 6 stats.

I'd also say that there is 0.0000% chance of DarkGod agreeing to remove at stat from the game at this point, so we may as well make it work.

[Atarlost]

I'd also say that there is 0.0000% chance of DarkGod agreeing to remove at stat from the game at this point, so we may as well make it work.

That's why that paragraph started with "Ideally" and included the phrase "not likely to happen" and wasn't the only thing I suggested.

[HousePet]

That's what I meant, back to the other suggestions.

Scaling max life with Willpower instead of Con seems off thematically. Maybe if Con gave heal factor/life regen instead? Having all the maximums stuff on Willpower and all the regen stuffs on Constitution might be too much symmetry.

Bleh, try to buff Willpower to be an interesting stat for fighters and it ends up being super for casters.

[Atarlost]

It seems like will should be as useful to warriors as to non-archmage arcane casters: it dictates the length of the stamina bar already and warriors consume stamina quite quickly because of the high fatigue associated with heavy armor.

If will gave health the mindcasters could easily lose six health rating. Perhaps just four for the wyrmic and cursed since they actually care about other stats and wouldn't necessarily monotonically raise will in the early game. Archmages would get double durability benefits from will through disruption shield, but disruption shield is something that probably shouldn't be ubiquitous. It could stand to move into the locked aether tree I think.

[HousePet]

Perhaps fatigue reduction in Con?

[Atarlost]

Perhaps fatigue reduction in Con?

That still leaves it useless for casters and casters don't care about enough stats. Making con boost regen rates has similar effect, but applies even for people who don't have fatigue to reduce.

[HousePet]

I was dropping a random idea. It wasn't supposed to solve the all the stat issues, cure cancer and create world peace.

[Atarlost]

I was dropping a random idea. It wasn't supposed to solve the all the stat issues, cure cancer and create world peace.

Hasn't it been in every con thread in the last couple years? If negative encumbrance meant something it would be a great idea. And Feather Wind would be a worthwhile spell.

[HousePet]

I did say fatigue, not encumbrance.
And since reduced fatigue means cheaper resources costs, it is similar to increased resource max, which is apparently worth something.

[Atarlost]

I did say fatigue, not encumbrance.
And since reduced fatigue means cheaper resources costs, it is similar to increased resource max, which is apparently worth something.

ToME is really annoying on terminology for these. Fatigue means what the game uses stamina for (except counting from the other end). Stamina means the total amount of strenuous activity you can engage in before reaching exhaustion. Encumbrance is the closest to meaning what the game uses fatigue for. The usual term for what the game calls encumbrance is weight.

I meant the same thing you meant, I just can't ever keep the bloody terminology straight.