Small Constitution buff

[Razakai]

Getting rid of Combat Veteran entirely would be better, though.

Just roll Combat Veteran and Thick Skin into the base effect of Constitution.

That way you won't stack +Con gear to buy talents, you'll stack +Con gear to walk around wearing.

I support this. Combat Veteran is a really boring tree, and Thick Skin feels like a generic point tax that every class must max (and often gearswap to get the reqs). Something like 0.25% resist all per Con, so 60 con = equiv to 5/5 Thick Skin? And then a small boost to healing mod/stamina regen/max hp/a combination of these.

[supermini]

It's easy to get to 60+ con from miscellaneous bonuses on gear. What you're effectively doing is giving everyone free 5 generic points. It's a significant power creep and I don't think it's a good idea.

Maybe rolling part of combat veteran into con is the best solution, that tree is garbage anyway.

[Doctornull]

It's easy to get to 60+ con from miscellaneous bonuses on gear. What you're effectively doing is giving everyone free 5 generic points. It's a significant power creep and I don't think it's a good idea.

Well the idea is you have to keep that gear on, so it imposes an opportunity cost, instead of just needing the gear on when you level up.

Right now packrats are rewarded. I want proper gear choices to be rewarded instead, so you care less about what you have during level-up, and care more about what you wear to the party proper.

[Lyoncet]

If I may insert my not-very-well-founded opinion, I'd rather see some classes/talents gain extra benefits from Con than see the stat itself given a buff. I think it would do a lot more to make Con attractive, since the two issues I see with putting points into Con are 1) diminishing returns as the game progresses and 2) lack of interactivity. You could solve the first problem just by, say, making each point give a small heal modifier, but that does nothing about the second. Also, that way inherently introduces significant power creep. So I like the proposals about scaling e.g. Thick Skin with Con would be a much better way of boosting constitution without breaking game balance or requiring a huge balance overhaul.

Even more than on the generic talent side, though, I'd love to see constitution being linked to more class talents. It would be more work to balance it, but that balance work could make it a more valuable stat and still keep out the power creep. And I like the idea of some classes getting particular benefits from Constitution while for others it's more of just a durability buff.

[bpat]

If I may insert my not-very-well-founded opinion, I'd rather see some classes/talents gain extra benefits from Con than see the stat itself given a buff. I think it would do a lot more to make Con attractive, since the two issues I see with putting points into Con are 1) diminishing returns as the game progresses and 2) lack of interactivity. You could solve the first problem just by, say, making each point give a small heal modifier, but that does nothing about the second. Also, that way inherently introduces significant power creep. So I like the proposals about scaling e.g. Thick Skin with Con would be a much better way of boosting constitution without breaking game balance or requiring a huge balance overhaul.

Even more than on the generic talent side, though, I'd love to see constitution being linked to more class talents. It would be more work to balance it, but that balance work could make it a more valuable stat and still keep out the power creep. And I like the idea of some classes getting particular benefits from Constitution while for others it's more of just a durability buff.

I agree with you that more talents should scale with Constitution, but that doesn't mean the stat itself shouldn't be buffed as well. Currently, Con is the least interesting and one of the least useful stats in ToME, since the only thing it does is add a tiny amount to your health pool that doesn't even come into play most of the time (the 0.35 Physical Save per point is worthless because of diminishing returns). Even if it gave 0.2% healing mod per point (which is very little), it still probably won't be taken over Cunning, Dexterity, or Willpower on most characters, but it will still help close the gap between it and the other stats.

[Delmuir]

Why not just tie constitution to every classes resource, to some degree or another, and heal mod?

You avoid a complete re-organization or power creep while essentially forcing an opportunity-cost on not putting points into constitution both early and late.

Just nerf the per-level resource gain of every class and tie it into some reasonable amount of constitution like say 50… anything above that is a bonus. You could do the same with classes that have resource caps like Afflicted… just lower their resource cap a little and have it inch its way back up to its normal max at constitution 50 but offer a small bonus to the cap above that. It'd make starting a Cursed that much harder but if the amount was small, like say 10% and offering 5% (thus, the first 50 points gets you back to 100 and the the last 10 points give you a greater return: 5 additional hate to your cap) over then it might not notably affect gameplay and be worthwhile.

For a stat like Equilibrium, just scale it to fail-rate.

Then, reduce the heal mod to slightly below 100% (like cursed with hate), maybe 90%, and have the first 30 or so points in constitution get you back to 100% and the last 30 or so provide a greater return to heal mod.

[Red]

No comment on that crunchwise, but it doesn't make much sense in some cases.

Equilibrium-Doesn't make much sense. This is how in tune you are with nature, not how healthy you are.
Feedback-Makes some sense. How much pain you can take.
Hate-Doesn't make much sense. I personally tend to be much angrier when ill, and it's really a mind thing, not a body thing.
Mana-Could make sense. The body has to be tough enough to channel magical energies.
Souls-No sense at all. None.
Negative Energy-Same as mana. Then again, not even 100% sure what this is.
Positive Energy-Same.
Paradox-No sense. This is how much you've - up time, which has no relation to your body.
Psi-Same as mana and +/- energy.
Stamina-Makes total sense.
Vim-Maybe? What exactly is vim? If it's life force, then this could make good sense. But if it's similar to souls, just in a more diluted manner... I've not read nor do I know of any lore on vim itself, and that'd be needed to make sense of this.

Overall, it'd just not make sense for a lot things. Plus it'd be cruel to classes like Archmage that shouldn't need it-they really on shields, not muscles. And, of course, Arcane Blades. They can already use Strength, Dexterity, Magic, Willpower, and Cunning. Now you want them to need Constitution too? Cruel, Delmuir. Cruel.

[Doctornull]

I agree with you that more talents should scale with Constitution, but that doesn't mean the stat itself shouldn't be buffed as well. Currently, Con is the least interesting and one of the least useful stats in ToME, (...) it still probably won't be taken over Cunning, Dexterity, or Willpower on most characters, but it will still help close the gap between it and the other stats.

Yeah I have no problem with Con being irrelevant to some characters, but I don't want it to be irrelevant to ALL characters.

Why not just tie constitution to every classes resource, to some degree or another, and heal mod?

Strongly disagree with this.

What you're proposing is really difficult to balance right.

I think it might be interesting to have Con grant +regen for Stamina and Psi, but not muck with the other resources.

[HousePet]

I'd be happy with con granting increased stamina and vim.

[Delmuir]

I suppose I don't buy the argument that it doesn't make sense. Everything is tied to physical health… mental performance included. To that end, I don't see any thematic problems… that just strikes me as over-thinking.

Having said that, I'm not exactly in love with the idea so… here's another one!

Each point of constitution raises your resistance caps and status resistances by 1/10 of 1%, thus 100 points would increases caps by 10%. It's not broken as it's hard to max resistances anyway. More so, it would ensure (assuming you maxes constitution) that everyone had about 5% resistance to all statuses.

[SageAcrin]

New idea from me;

Thick Skin: Talentscale (2, 7, 15 cap)%allres. This roughly halves the base. Additional (0.5, 5)talentstatdamage(con)% boost to your life-so Con boosts your maximum life in a %based way as well, but only on leveling Thick Skin.

Constitution: +0.1% allres boost to Constitution in addition to its current effects.

Net result; 12%~ allres at 60 Con and L5 Thick Skin/1.0 Combat Mastery, and about 3% more MHP. A small but notable nerf for those not utilizing much Con, a large buff to those heavily building Con, particularly to high HP classes utilizing Con(which will get potentially +100 Life and better resists than normal).

Thoughts?

[bpat]

I'd be happy with con granting increased stamina and vim.

This overlaps with Willpower too much in my opinion. Constitution should probably remain a strictly defensive stat.

[Doctornull]

Thick Skin: Talentscale (2, 7, 15 cap)%allres. This roughly halves the base. Additional (0.5, 5)talentstatdamage(con)% boost to your life-so Con boosts your maximum life in a %based way as well, but only on leveling Thick Skin.

No, bad, just get rid of it.

Constitution: +0.1% allres boost to Constitution in addition to its current effects.

That's in line with what I'd proposed, yeah. That's the right direction.

This overlaps with Willpower too much in my opinion. Constitution should probably remain a strictly defensive stat.

Agree.

[HousePet]

Its only a 50% overlap, since willpower doesn't give stamina.
I find it puzzling that willpower gives stamina anyway.

Anyway, I would like more talents to scale with con and I don't like the idea of granting resist all via con. It is similar in effect to the life bonus and I'd rather see a small heal mod boost.

[Gatewalker]

Pretty sure I've been skipping thick skin more often than not, lately. Or at least only putting 1-2 into it. Sage's idea would certainly make me look it over again, and build con more.