That old bugbear Constitution

[Lyoncet]

I know Constitution and its effects and role always crop up time to time, and I wanted to... well, make this another one of those times!

My deal with Con is that in a world of cookie-cutter stat distributions, it could be a wild-card stat. Builds that wish to optimize their damage output could skip it, those who want greater survivability could skip it, and some would fall in between. But as-is, the benefits of Con are small enough that those looking for more survivability are better suited taking other stats and killing faster and better. I think the Character Vault backs this up, with (from what I've seen) very few Roguelike winners investing in Con. The 200 HP difference of going from 10 to 60 Con (plus a little bit of save) isn't really enough to make it worth grabbing in most cases.

The big draw of Con is to go for Thick Skin. Of course, instead of investing in Con, people usually just hoard +con items or use Pain Enhancement System to skirt the requirement altogether. To me, that seems like poor design - plus it does nothing to really reward investing your stat points in Con.

So what I've been thinking about is, what if we:

• Made Con more appealing intrinsically
• Changed Thick Skin to key off of Con, up to a ceiling of 15% at 59 (the current requirement for 5/5 Thick Skin)*
• Possibly turn Thick Skin into a 1-point talent so that builds who want 15% DR have some extra generic points to make up for the extra investment in Con

*I don't think Thick Skin can really be rolled into Con without breaking monster scaling, especially on higher levels.

So, that would have the net effect of eliminating the stash cheese, while keeping 15% DR from Thick Skin on the table, and without breaking monsters. I think.

The only remaining factor would be to spruce up the benefits Con brings you a little bit. To do that without breaking monster balance, you'd want to go for things that are nice for the player, and that monsters wouldn't get too much use out of. Resources and/or resource regeneration, especially Stamina, is one possibility I've seen brought up. But my personal preference would be to give benefits that all classes can use, since again, I like the idea of something that anyone can get use out of so that the decision on when/whether/how much to invest in Con is more interesting and a bigger point of differentiation. To that end, I've thought that maybe +healmod and maybe (a little) +life regen might be a good starting point. Healmod especially is a very nice stat that lots of builds across classes covet. You'd want to make sure it's not too much so as not to make Con too powerful for them, but I think it could work well as an added benefit. You might also want to adjust the %DR on Thick Skin upwards a little bit, since the investment would be a lot bigger - unless you also reduced the number of generic points it takes. I've also thought about + all saves or + crit shrug-off, but both (especially the latter) could really skew monster difficulty. And saves are also kind of their own can of worms.

The idea here isn't to make the game easier. (If anything, removing Thick Skin cheese might make it harder on the whole.) I just wanted to toss around some ideas for making the stat more useful, remove the cheese element, and hopefully make Con a stat that can serve as a touchstone point of differentiation between builds.

Finally, I may take a shot at at coding this. I haven't gotten into modding ToME yet, but I've been thinking I might want to try my hand at it, and I imagine this might be a good place to start. And I know that having a proof-of-concept can go a long ways. (Secretly I'm hoping to see something like this rolled into the base game.) Of course, if anyone else wants to take the ideas and run with them, I'm all for that, too!

Thoughts?

[blahblah]

I've gotta agree with this. I went thruogh the game twice with Berserker. In hind-sight, I regret maxing my Con to 60 both times.

Spending years playing RPG's, you get conditioned to think "Con = toughness / survivability".

In TOME, however, the intrinsic things that go along with Con (extra hp, etc) don't justify buying it up, and the skills it unlocks are lackluster to not warrant buying it up either.

With 60 con + level 5 damage resistance skill + maxed out Combat Veteran tree (to increase hp recovery) ... I was still getting one-shotted right and left (due to enemies having physical resistance penetration that basically negated my level 5 resistance skill) ... and the hp recovery was so lackluster I had to use infusions all the time for healing. That was my first play-through... I stale-mated in the Prides.

My 2nd play-through, I stupidly did almost the same thing... 60 con, max dmg resist .. but I ignored Combat Veteran. I bought up 2 more infusion slots, b/c they are the healing bread-n-butter... 1 healing, 2 regens, 1 wild, + 1 other.. this was my healing. But, then waiting for infusions to cool down to over-saturation to kick in got hairy.

Then you also realize... you're warrior keeps running out of stamina. Why is that?

It's because Willpower increases Stamina. That doesn't make much sense.

Plus, willpower increases saves vs. mental & spell. While I could start to shrug off some physical, the things killing me most were psionics and spells. There's no "armor" for that stuff unless you cast a barrier. And even the high level barriers you can get in the game and blown to bits in a turn by the amount of sheer force enemies are throwing at you. It's better to simply eat it and heal 500 points then to waste time casting a 200 barrier and watch it get blown out of the water and you still have 300 damage you need to recover.


I just find it odd that Con acts as a noise-gate to unlock some skills that should simply be intrinic to the stat (like hp recovery, damage resistances). It seems like having skills cover that is just a poor excuse to inflate the number of skills that exist, and just causes many folks to complain about how under-powered those skills are when they have to shell out their hard-earned skills points for thigns that don't do much and have diminishing returns layered on top of it. (Meanwhile, intrinsic factors given to you in a stat level linearly.. but, the "power" levels fade as you then need 2 power to get 1 effective poiint, then 3 then, etc).

The mechanics are overly-complicated.

End-game, I realized how much of a waste Con was. It bumped up my hp some. Whoopee, not enough to really matter. It bumped up my phys save some... whoopee, not enough to matter due to diminishing returns on how the "power" effective points system quickly blows that out of the water of meaningfulness. It unlocked damage resistance skill... whooppee... enemies blew through that by either doing an epic s**t-ton of damage or having penetrations that made it moot. It unlocked hp-recovery skills... whoopee, they're so lackluster they didn't make a difference.

So... yeah, Con is pretty pointless.

Since Willpower gives stamina, spell & mind saves .. Warriors should invest heavily in Str & Wil ... and ignore Con... which doesn't really make sense. But, that's what the game mechanics promote. So...yeah.

Even Dex is a pointless skill for Warriors, because you can eventually get your armor so high that defense doesn't matter. Who cares if things are hitting you physically when no damage goes through?

And, the loophole is that you put on stat-boosting stuff... then level your skills... then take off the stat-boosting stuff. So, you can get around the stat limits (which I think is cheating... probably a bug).

I can't really think of a way to make Con more valuable other then to make damage resistance and hp recovery increases intrinisic to it. So, when you raise it, they grow on their own w/o having to invest skill points in superfluous skills.

[jenx]

I've gotta agree with this. I went thruogh the game twice with Berserker. In hind-sight, I regret maxing my Con to 60 both times.

Spending years playing RPG's, you get conditioned to think "Con = toughness / survivability".

In TOME, however, the intrinsic things that go along with Con (extra hp, etc) don't justify buying it up, and the skills it unlocks are lackluster to not warrant buying it up either.

With 60 con + level 5 damage resistance skill + maxed out Combat Veteran tree (to increase hp recovery) ... I was still getting one-shotted right and left (due to enemies having physical resistance penetration that basically negated my level 5 resistance skill) ... and the hp recovery was so lackluster I had to use infusions all the time for healing. That was my first play-through... I stale-mated in the Prides.

My 2nd play-through, I stupidly did almost the same thing... 60 con, max dmg resist .. but I ignored Combat Veteran. I bought up 2 more infusion slots, b/c they are the healing bread-n-butter... 1 healing, 2 regens, 1 wild, + 1 other.. this was my healing. But, then waiting for infusions to cool down to over-saturation to kick in got hairy.

Then you also realize... you're warrior keeps running out of stamina. Why is that?

It's because Willpower increases Stamina. That doesn't make much sense.

Plus, willpower increases saves vs. mental & spell. While I could start to shrug off some physical, the things killing me most were psionics and spells. There's no "armor" for that stuff unless you cast a barrier. And even the high level barriers you can get in the game and blown to bits in a turn by the amount of sheer force enemies are throwing at you. It's better to simply eat it and heal 500 points then to waste time casting a 200 barrier and watch it get blown out of the water and you still have 300 damage you need to recover.


I just find it odd that Con acts as a noise-gate to unlock some skills that should simply be intrinic to the stat (like hp recovery, damage resistances). It seems like having skills cover that is just a poor excuse to inflate the number of skills that exist, and just causes many folks to complain about how under-powered those skills are when they have to shell out their hard-earned skills points for thigns that don't do much and have diminishing returns layered on top of it. (Meanwhile, intrinsic factors given to you in a stat level linearly.. but, the "power" levels fade as you then need 2 power to get 1 effective poiint, then 3 then, etc).

The mechanics are overly-complicated.

End-game, I realized how much of a waste Con was. It bumped up my hp some. Whoopee, not enough to really matter. It bumped up my phys save some... whoopee, not enough to matter due to diminishing returns on how the "power" effective points system quickly blows that out of the water of meaningfulness. It unlocked damage resistance skill... whooppee... enemies blew through that by either doing an epic s**t-ton of damage or having penetrations that made it moot. It unlocked hp-recovery skills... whoopee, they're so lackluster they didn't make a difference.

So... yeah, Con is pretty pointless.

Since Willpower gives stamina, spell & mind saves .. Warriors should invest heavily in Str & Wil ... and ignore Con... which doesn't really make sense. But, that's what the game mechanics promote. So...yeah.

Even Dex is a pointless skill for Warriors, because you can eventually get your armor so high that defense doesn't matter. Who cares if things are hitting you physically when no damage goes through?

And, the loophole is that you put on stat-boosting stuff... then level your skills... then take off the stat-boosting stuff. So, you can get around the stat limits (which I think is cheating... probably a bug).

I can't really think of a way to make Con more valuable other then to make damage resistance and hp recovery increases intrinisic to it. So, when you raise it, they grow on their own w/o having to invest skill points in superfluous skills.

+1

[Davion Fuxa]

Constitution definitely needs to be addressed at some point in this game. The best way though to get a change is likely to make a mod for it; so good on you if you can do that Lyon.

The only thing I think I would maybe make a note of is turning Thick Skin into a '1 point' talent for those with investment in Constitution*. Personally I'd be for making it so that Thick Skin always gives some benefit when you invest in it - with it benefiting from Constitution or without it doing so. I'd maybe try to work it so that builds with Constitution will still find worth investing a full amount of points into the talent (it isn't like Constitution has THAT many talents associated with it).

*Edit: As an example, Vitality is a talent that you get benefits with regardless of whether you invest in Constitution or not - but if you invest in Constitution you will benefit moreso from the talent then without.

[Sheila]

I've gotta agree with this. I went thruogh the game twice with Berserker. In hind-sight, I regret maxing my Con to 60 both times.

Spending years playing RPG's, you get conditioned to think "Con = toughness / survivability".

In TOME, however, the intrinsic things that go along with Con (extra hp, etc) don't justify buying it up, and the skills it unlocks are lackluster to not warrant buying it up either.

With 60 con + level 5 damage resistance skill + maxed out Combat Veteran tree (to increase hp recovery) ... I was still getting one-shotted right and left (due to enemies having physical resistance penetration that basically negated my level 5 resistance skill) ... and the hp recovery was so lackluster I had to use infusions all the time for healing. That was my first play-through... I stale-mated in the Prides.

My 2nd play-through, I stupidly did almost the same thing... 60 con, max dmg resist .. but I ignored Combat Veteran. I bought up 2 more infusion slots, b/c they are the healing bread-n-butter... 1 healing, 2 regens, 1 wild, + 1 other.. this was my healing. But, then waiting for infusions to cool down to over-saturation to kick in got hairy.

Then you also realize... you're warrior keeps running out of stamina. Why is that?

It's because Willpower increases Stamina. That doesn't make much sense.

Plus, willpower increases saves vs. mental & spell. While I could start to shrug off some physical, the things killing me most were psionics and spells. There's no "armor" for that stuff unless you cast a barrier. And even the high level barriers you can get in the game and blown to bits in a turn by the amount of sheer force enemies are throwing at you. It's better to simply eat it and heal 500 points then to waste time casting a 200 barrier and watch it get blown out of the water and you still have 300 damage you need to recover.


I just find it odd that Con acts as a noise-gate to unlock some skills that should simply be intrinic to the stat (like hp recovery, damage resistances). It seems like having skills cover that is just a poor excuse to inflate the number of skills that exist, and just causes many folks to complain about how under-powered those skills are when they have to shell out their hard-earned skills points for thigns that don't do much and have diminishing returns layered on top of it. (Meanwhile, intrinsic factors given to you in a stat level linearly.. but, the "power" levels fade as you then need 2 power to get 1 effective poiint, then 3 then, etc).

The mechanics are overly-complicated.

End-game, I realized how much of a waste Con was. It bumped up my hp some. Whoopee, not enough to really matter. It bumped up my phys save some... whoopee, not enough to matter due to diminishing returns on how the "power" effective points system quickly blows that out of the water of meaningfulness. It unlocked damage resistance skill... whooppee... enemies blew through that by either doing an epic s**t-ton of damage or having penetrations that made it moot. It unlocked hp-recovery skills... whoopee, they're so lackluster they didn't make a difference.

So... yeah, Con is pretty pointless.

Since Willpower gives stamina, spell & mind saves .. Warriors should invest heavily in Str & Wil ... and ignore Con... which doesn't really make sense. But, that's what the game mechanics promote. So...yeah.

Even Dex is a pointless skill for Warriors, because you can eventually get your armor so high that defense doesn't matter. Who cares if things are hitting you physically when no damage goes through?

And, the loophole is that you put on stat-boosting stuff... then level your skills... then take off the stat-boosting stuff. So, you can get around the stat limits (which I think is cheating... probably a bug).

I can't really think of a way to make Con more valuable other then to make damage resistance and hp recovery increases intrinisic to it. So, when you raise it, they grow on their own w/o having to invest skill points in superfluous skills.

Sounds like you have some misconceptions as to what you should be doing and what some things do, rather than something being useless.
Sure, con isn't worth 60 points but that doesn't stop you from adding 32 base to it to obtain skills from conditioning while making them scale better. 32 base (the number in brackets) is more or less how high a stat can go after having maxed 3 others at 60 base, not counting potions and randomized stats from the wyrm bile. For zerk you want 60 base in str, dex, and cun.

Dex is a stat that does much more than defense, defense is nearly worthless in every difficulty, aside from some talents that give %evasion, those are much better. What dex really does is give you accuracy (which you can't ever have enough of, as there are accuracy bonuses and they're not a waste) and also lowers your chances to get critically hit. This last bit is important because critical hits are really what kill a lot of characters and not having a little less hp from con. If you need more generics you don't need to (and shouldn't) 5/5 weapon accuracy if you're maxing dex, the skill starts scaling more poorly after 2/5, maybe 3/5 if your character is low on dex, but you pretty much always want dex instead of con, aside from a few exceptions like alchemist and oozemancer that have skills that greatly cut down on crit damage. If you need more hp you should look out for hp on gear, as it comes in much bigger and cheaper quantities than what con demands and will help you survive burst damage more easily.

As for willpower, you don't need willpower at all, it's nice to get from gear but honestly you don't need it on a warrior.
Combat veteran is great for 5/5ing the first skill, that, along with bloodthirst should solve nearly all your stamina issues, and if it doesn't there's always relentless fury (a must, imo) and maybe adrenaline surge. Bloodthirst also has Unstoppable which will help you bruteforce through things that would kill you otherwise or make an escape. I'd unlock the category at level 10.

Also that infusion setup is horrid , I recommend taking a movement infusion, a wild, a heroism, and a regen, with the last slot being up to you, it's questionable whether you need more healing or not, especially with bloodthirst being a thing. Movement infusions make you stun immune for a few turns and provide a valuable tool to engage safely ignoring stuns or retreating reliably when needed.

[bpat]

Constitution is actually pretty solid with Conditioning thanks to UFR. If there were more talents like UFR that scaled with Con, that would help solve the problem. If the stat itself were to receive a buff, 0.5% healing mod per point would be my preferred way of doing it.

[nsrr]

If the stat itself were to receive a buff, 0.5% healing mod per point would be my preferred way of doing it.

+1

I think that would a great little buff for Con. Useful, but not over-powered.

[posetcay]

+1, thats the most logical way to fix Con I have ever heard so far.

[Lyoncet]

Awesome! +Healmod was IMO the best rider effect I could come up with*, but I didn't have a good sense of how to tune it. Does .5% per sound good to everyone?

Alongside that, what do people think of the outlined adjustment to Thick Skin - keeping the values/cap but scaling it with Con to avoid cheesing the prereq? I like eliminating cheese when possible, and that makes legitimate investment in Con more appealing without breaking anything as far as I can see. And with the healmod, I don't expect it the whole thing would come out to a big buff or nerf, which is definitely a major goal.

Besides, I like the Con = DR element. This would keep it, but with greater verisimilitude, and without powering up monsters or eliminating the generic point investment.

*High in value, in complexity, unique as a stat-based effect, and most importantly, doesn't break monster scaling AFAIK.

[HousePet]

NPCs only recently got those stat effects added to them anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised if they needed rebalancing.

[bpat]

0.5% healmod per point is definitely not overdoing it since it's only 25% more when maxed. It'll probably never be one of the core stats of a class but at least non-physical classes would be inclined to take Constitution over Dexterity as a tertiary stat. I prefer not going overboard with buffs otherwise we'd have stuff like 1.3.0 Chronomancers lol.

I disagree with changing Thick Skin to scale with Constitution much because Combat Training is a bunch of flat boosts mostly independent of stats. It shouldn't scale with Constitution just like Weapons Mastery shouldn't scale off Strength and Combat Accuracy shouldn't scale off Dexterity.

[darkgod]

Heal mod, good idea! Done!

[Lyoncet]

Heal mod, good idea! Done!

Whoo! Praise darkgod! Christmas on Thanksgiving this year!

That was my secret plan all along; I just thought I'd need to make a proof-of-concept mod to get it in. (And it's good I didn't. As a complete modding noob, I couldn't even find the lua stats data!) Did you put it in at .5% per point, or at a different value?

Now we'll just need to see how it pans out. I doubt everyone will flock to Con - which was definitely not the intent anyways - but I can definitely see some healmod-hungry builds picking it up. Fungus-junkie Wyrmics, Archmages, that sort of thing. At the very least, I imagine high-Con builds should feel perceptibly tankier.

Next up, I'll try my hand at modding in a Thick Skin change and see what I can come up with. Probably make a new thread for it. (Make a thread-fork?)

Also, I'm surprised at how straightforward that conversation was. IIRC, when I saw changing Con brought up a year or two ago, it was an absolute forum-bloodbath.

[Zeyphor]

why don't you also buff combat veteran's fast metabolism talent to do barely anything at level 1 but scale with both con and max hp at the same time?
heres a modification of what I posted in the combat veteran thread:

fast metabolism could stand to give hp regen based on total hp and constitution
something like: .375% of max hp added to life regen at level 1, and 75% of max hp added to life regen at level 5
each point of constitution after the tenth point would add .25 life regen at level 1, and .5 life regen at level 5

so if an enemy has level 5 fast metabolism, 68 constitution, and 50000 hp, then it'd get an extra 404 hp regen at 100% healmod; it'd be even more at higher talent levels
and if you have level 5 fast metabolism, 60 constitution, and 2000 hp, then you'd get an extra 40 hp regen per turn from level 5 fast metabolism at 100% healmod; it'd be even more at 1.3 mastery
but if you have level 5 fast metabolism, 14 constitution, and 160 hp, then you'd just get an extra 3.2 life regen at 100% healmod

it may make madness and insane and even nightmare alot harder, but madness was designed to be unbeatable anyway lol
if the regen is too much, the max hp part could be halved or it could just have the current values with additional con scaling, or you could ban the talent from NPCs like you did with saw wheels, and maybe it could also scale with level if the scaling from max hp is reduced by over 50%

[posetcay]

I checked the GitHub a few days ago and indeed saw that +%0.5 healmod/Con was personally added by darkgod to the changes and is likely to be added to the game in the next patch.