Small Constitution buff

[Doctornull]

I was addressing what you said were boring skills.

You've got something backwards then.

I'm addressing the topic of Constitution, and suggesting that we use the opportunity of "how to improve Constitution" while getting rid of a few of the worst boring talents.

This is not a crusade against boring talents -- so I'm ignoring attempts to argue about that crusade, because there is no such thing.

It's a way to fix two things by folding them together into one thing, which behaves better than the two did separately.


Specifically:

- Some major stuff that you put on gear to put a point in at level-up will now happen "for free" and automatically, but you need to leave the gear on.

- This is a genuine opportunity cost, instead of being merely a gear-swapping annoyance.

- This is a mild disincentive to being a packrat.

So. Any thoughts on the actual subject?

[Red]

Yes. How does this discourage pack-ratting? Con+ gear might be useful for actual fights now instead of just level ups, but that's just one more ego it's worth holding on to, for fights where defense is more important than offense.

Giving all resist buffs to Constitution is a good train of thought for buffing Constitution, but considering how vital Thick Skin is considered, there's always the risk that it's now Constitution is considered that vital. It might also offer some other balance issues, such as what happens when you get massive Constitution. Brawlers, for instance, can rack up massive Constitution scores with just Unified Body and Dexterity pumping. What happens if you toss Dexterity, Unified Body, actually putting points in Constitution, all resist+ gear, and any Con+ gear that you happen to pick up?

I suppose the balance issue I see potentially arising is making it too easy to get high levels of all resist, since now there is a much more reliable way of getting it.

[Doctornull]

Yes. How does this discourage pack-ratting? Con+ gear might be useful for actual fights now instead of just level ups, but that's just one more ego it's worth holding on to, for fights where defense is more important than offense.

Because instead of getting dressed and undressed for levelup, you just leave the gear on all the time.

You pick one set of gear to wear, and you wear it, and you don't dress up in a whole different set of gear specifically to put one more point in one talent.

Therefore you don't need to tote around your +Con outfit. If you're building for Con, good for you. If you're not, that's fine too.

Giving all resist buffs to Constitution is a good train of thought for buffing Constitution, but considering how vital Thick Skin is considered, there's always the risk that it's now Constitution is considered that vital.

The difference is that 5 talent points is a smaller character choice than 50 stat points.

Any pack-rat can get up to 60 Con and spend the 5 points.

Not everyone can afford to wear +60 Con gear around all the time, nor can everyone afford to put the actual points in.

If you choose to go 60+ Con on your Archmage, you've sacrificed something else to do so. That's fine.

It might also offer some other balance issues, such as what happens when you get massive Constitution. Brawlers, for instance, can rack up massive Constitution scores with just Unified Body and Dexterity pumping. What happens if you toss Dexterity, Unified Body, actually putting points in Constitution, all resist+ gear, and any Con+ gear that you happen to pick up?

If it turns out Brawlers have too much Con, their one talent can grant less. That won't affect any other classes, so it's not a big balance problem if that needs tweaking.

[Red]

I will preface this by saying I'm honestly a pretty bad player. I've got a good grasp of what I need to do, I just tend to suck at actaully doing it, so keep in mind that while I am fully aware this is a good tactic, I've never properly used it myself so don't know how good it truly is. With that being said...

It's best to keep multiple sets of gear available, if not neccessarily on hand, at least stored in vaults or your fortress. While the best gear to keep is specific gear, fire and blight resist for something like Charred Scar, lightning for taking on Urkis, etc. etc., Con+ gear would now be the catch-all for any resists you have yet to find. If you want to kill Urkis early on for Fungus as an Antimagic character but haven't found sufficient lightning resist gear, it will have been best to have kept any Con+ gear to provide all resist since it's the next best thing against him.

The only way this will reduce pack ratting is when you get full sets of all the resist gear you want. Once (if) that's been achieved, you'll have no more use for your Con+ gear in the main game, since you know what elements you'll face, but if you plan on doing Farportal exploration, this still will only increase the amount of gear you want to have, since Farportals could be of any (or every) element, so all resist is the best choice unless you can carry massive amounts of different resist armor on your person. (I Can Carry The World suddenly sounds more interesting.)

Put in a few less words, making Con+ egos, or really any ego, more useful will not make pack ratting a worse idea, only better.

[SageAcrin]

If you choose to go 60+ Con on your Archmage, you've sacrificed something else to do so. That's fine.

Mmm, not really, actually. Mostly some crit rate from Cunning, and the effective life bonus-often upwards of 20% given Archmage's lovely -4 Life Modifier-already made Constitution worth it.

You're aware you'd be penalizing physical fighters more than mages with this, due to the fact that Constitution is already an effectively better stat for mages due to its flat rate nature, right?

That's part of why I wanted to have some way to have a %based life bonus in there-Thick Skin's a good place. So that high HP classes would get a different benefit that disproportionately benefits them as well.

Last I checked, I've seen lots of people argue for physical fighter buffs, but never nerfs.

[Red]

That's my "shitty playerness" showing right there. I was thinking thematically (strong warriors, elderly frail wizards with the ability to incierate you with a blink) and didn't really know it'd impact the crunch.

Though if you made Constitution give normal mastery levels at 10, it'd basically be a buff to warrior classes while leaving wizarding classes basically unchanged. (Barring, of course, Thick Skin, but that seems to be the dagger in the rose bouquet here.)

[brown recluse]

since combat veteran got pulled into the discussion, we could have fast metabolism do heal mod and life% (may have to rename it, though), have the stamina talent do something extra (maybe a bonus to saves with high stamina), do something interesting with the other two talents and make it a con scaling tree. Then you can add life regen and/or max stam (and maybe other resources as appropriate) to con.

As for thick skin, maybe it can have flat damage reduction that scales with con, not enough to make you invincible, but to help with small hits and DOTs. Or, at that point, you could just move thick skin to the combat veteran tree as the capstone talent.

[Doctornull]

If you choose to go 60+ Con on your Archmage, you've sacrificed something else to do so. That's fine.

Mmm, not really, actually. Mostly some crit rate from Cunning, and the effective life bonus-often upwards of 20% given Archmage's lovely -4 Life Modifier-already made Constitution worth it.

You're aware you'd be penalizing physical fighters more than mages with this, due to the fact that Constitution is already an effectively better stat for mages due to its flat rate nature, right?

You ought to take that up with Madness Archmage winners who say to ignore Constitution: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=42019

Please do make everyone "aware" of your "reality".

Last I checked, I've seen lots of people argue for physical fighter buffs, but never nerfs.

Now you're trying to argue that giving Fighters more interesting uses for their talent points is a nerf?

You're really not making headway here.

[Doctornull]

It's best to keep multiple sets of gear available, if not neccessarily on hand, at least stored in vaults or your fortress. While the best gear to keep is specific gear, fire and blight resist for something like Charred Scar, lightning for taking on Urkis, etc. etc., Con+ gear would now be the catch-all for any resists you have yet to find. If you want to kill Urkis early on for Fungus as an Antimagic character but haven't found sufficient lightning resist gear, it will have been best to have kept any Con+ gear to provide all resist since it's the next best thing against him.

If you're going against Urkis, then +2% res all is not really a replacement for +20% res lightning.

Swapping gear for Urkis or other specific challenges is a thing that won't change much. If you swap gear for EXTERNAL reasons, that's still valid.

What I'm aiming to reduce is gear swapping for an INTERNAL reason, one of the more pernicious ones.

[Red]

Of course it isn't. But which is better-2% all resist or nothing? Like I said, making some egoes better isn't going to make anyone hoard less. In addition, Farportals are obviously a place where all resist is good, since you could go up against any kind of damage.

I believe, as you've pointed out before, we've strayed off topic. This is about Constitution and its related abilities (or abilities that could/should be related), not a talk about the wonky way ToME handles stat requirements. (30 Dexterity to pick up the bow, but you can shoot it with 1 Dexterity.)

[Doctornull]

This is about Constitution and its related abilities (or abilities that could/should be related), not a talk about the wonky way ToME handles stat requirements.

Swapping gear at level-up ONLY to qualify for Con talents is on-topic.

Swapping gear to prepare to fight Urkis is off-topic, because that has nothing to do with Constitution.

Glad we're back on-topic.

[Red]

It's far from Constitution exclusive, though. While Thick Skin is the most common skill gotten like that, I've personally played a Temporal Warden build where Dexteruty or Strength buffing through gear to float skill points in melee or ranged skills was very important, since it was a pure caster build once you actually get the good spells. It might be related to Constitution, but it's still a different topic.

To really try to get back on topic, the main suggestion I've heard for Constitution itself seems to be granting some combination of Heal Modifier, All Resist, or possibly giving a percentage HP increase instead of a flat rate.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Or are there any suggestions on this thread I missed for this post?

[Lyoncet]

To really try to get back on topic, the main suggestion I've heard for Constitution itself seems to be granting some combination of Heal Modifier, All Resist, or possibly giving a percentage HP increase instead of a flat rate.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Or are there any suggestions on this thread I missed for this post?

There's also the idea of linking Con with more talents/classes/builds rather than attaching more bonuses to the stat itself. I don't know if Con needs to/should be like all the other stats in that it's central to X number of classes/skills/builds, but having it factor more actively into play in some cases would be nice.

[SageAcrin]

Having it grant physical power is my other suggestion, so it's not pure defensive.

Though that's interesting; Is there a possible damage boost that it can grant that's not mirrored somewhere else, that makes sense at all?

Another possibility is that you could make it lower status durations innately, which would be super interesting but a little hard to hit a point where it was more than novelty, less than overpowered.

Could just also make it the Saves stat. +1 to each save instead of just physical. Would be reasonable, fairly powerful, and thematic, I suppose..

[Delmuir]

Could just also make it the Saves stat. +1 to each save instead of just physical. Would be reasonable, fairly powerful, and thematic, I suppose..

I rather like this idea… In fact, I'm an advocate of doing this for every stat, in a sense.

I don't see why each stat couldn't offer some solution to status effects, just in a different way. Strength could let you shake off a magic spells effect, just maybe not as effectively as investing in magic. Thus, each stat would increase all saves, just in different amounts.

As a result, there's no power-creep from just buffing constitution alone. The power is just redistributed amongst all of the other stats.

Another suggestion is what I'm going to term a "Max Bonus." For every stat point above 60, each stat provides a fractional additional bonus.

My cursory, and probably terrible suggestion are:

Strength could offer a bonus to movement speed (1/5 of 1% per point)

Dexterity could offer a bonus to stealth/invisibility (1/5 per point)

Constitution could offer a bonus to max resistances (1/10 of 1% per point)

Willpower could offer a bonus to combat speed (1/10 of 1% per point)

Magic could offer a bonus to actual resistances (1/5 of 1 % per point)

Cunning could offer a bonus to resistance penetration (1/10 of 1% for all damage types per point)

Even more so, each stat could provide a benefit that is useful to the classes that are primary to it but also a bonus that isn't useful to said class but I'm not sure what those would be.