Burliness buffs and HP

So I'm playing a dual-wielding Axe-specialist rogue on this runthrough of DoD. Very fun build. I'm using Avenging Executioner, though, and in the process I've noticed something odd.

Let's say you're at 130/150 HP, and you get a temporary buff of 2 to your burliness (such as from What is Best in Life). You're now at 132/152 HP - not only did your maximum HP increase, but your current HP did as well.

When that temporary buff to Burliness disappears, you'll be at 132/150 HP. The extra healing provided by the max HP increase doesn't go away.

I think that buffs (and debuffs) to Burliness should work similarly to Constitution debuffs in other RPGs - it should increase or reduce both your current and your maximum HP in both cases. That way a wounded character that takes a burliness debuff (or loses a burliness buff) remains at relatively the same ratio of HP/Max HP.

I recognize that Avenging Executioner isn't a canonical skill, but Berserker Rage is and presumably would have the same issue of inadvertently providing a constant source of healing for killing (or in BR's case, hitting) monsters. It really feels just a tad bit OP to me.

 

It's not that overpowered, since most buffs either last for a long time (so you'd have to wait for a long time to get any meaningful amount of health) or only give you minor bonuses (ditto). And that way it is more idiot-proof (otherwise, if you had +10 health from buffs and had 9 health when the buff wore off, you would die instead of remaining at 1 point). But yes, it is a way to gain a few points of health if your build has no healing whatsoever, and even then it's overshadowed by any other healing method so you are not going to use it if your character can heal, and you will be immensely grateful for the healing it can give you if your character has no healing abilities and no source of respawnable healing (I'm assuming the highest difficulty with permadeath there).

 

That's not the case, though. You get the HP immediately, as soon as you get the buff.

The previous two points would be more the case if the buffs weren't stackable. I think Avenging Executioner is worse for this than Berserker Rage because you can A. Get it every round if you can one-shot monsters on your floor (which I mostly can can) and B. Stack it to 10 instead of to 3.

I'm actually going to try out a character that uses these two abilities for its main source of healing and see how it goes. I play on the highest difficulty, but without permadeath. But in my experience with AE, I've stopped eating food and Fairywodger almost altogether except when I do something really stupid like teleport into the middle of a monster zoo to AOE it down with Axe cooldowns and Bloody Murder procs.

 

Are there that many burliness buffs in the game?
Are there builds that are actually taking advantage of this?
Can I eat and cancel prince mushrooms to get fast healing?

 

~sigh~
That is the case, because you would've gotten that health even if you lost it later (hello...), but to get a second batch of it you do need to wait for the buff to time out.

But "Avenging Executioner" is not a part of the core game - it comes from a mod. And it is modders' duty to keep their mods balanced, not developers'.
Test it with only core skills and see how well you do that way.

No, no, and there's no point in bothering because of the second answer.

 

"Can I eat and cancel prince mushrooms to get fast healing?"

Yes and no. Prince mushrooms do heal you, but the buff can't be cancelled as far as I know.

Actually, after some testing, let me clarify:

Unlike temporary HP buffs from Burliness, extra health derived from Prince mushrooms is properly removed from your current health after the buff wears off. With that in mind, it makes sense that temporary HP gained from a temporary Burliness increase should be removed after the buff wears off as well.

It also makes sense that if buffing Burliness increases your current health, then debuffing Burliness should decrease it as well. This is the way that a debuff to Constitution would work in most RPG games.

It's looking more like a minor bug to me - which makes this the wrong forum to post it in, but a bug regardless.

I appreciate your participation, but I truly don't need you to tell me stuff that I already know. So please stop wasting your time and cluttering the thread by way of contradicting things that I never said. It's really pointless.

 

Most "healing" that can be gotten from base stat adjustments from Berserk Rage in a single round: 11 (assuming More Berserk Rage procs both on hitting and on being hit, very unlikely).

Assuming you can keep all three procs stacked to max, you're healing 21 HP per 7 rounds, or 3 HP per round, and only in combat. (Remember, the first example assumes you get two More Rage procs in one round.)

Compare to Knit Flesh, The Cure, Crystal Healing, or even Socialized Healthcare - is this really OP? No, not really, particularly because getting all those procs involves getting hit in the face a lot.

Is it insconsistent with how the game calculates adjustements to straight HP total? Yeah. Is that an issue? Doesn't really seem to be one to me. I'll let the devs make the call, though.

 

That, alone with two paragraphs above it, is a good explanation, so I think it is for the best if we wait for one of the developers to comment on it.

I appreciate your answer, but I would like to remind you that you are the one who seemingly cited a mod-granted skill as an example of something being unbalanced in the core game. Therefore, I was not cluttering this thread, and neither am I doing it now because it appears that I do have to expand my explanation on the fact that you appear to have used Berserker Rage (which does this when you are hit, therefore not really being an issue) and Avenging Executioner (which is a mod-granted skill tree, once again), as examples.

Also, I don't care whether you wanted to be nice here or the opposite, but the part of your message that I quoted does appear to be rude, so if the first one is the case here you might want not to reply in such a way to some other forum members.

 

Thus far, none of the other forum members have been rude to me - so I don't foresee it being a problem.

This is what I said in my first post.

"I recognize that Avenging Executioner isn't a canonical skill, but Berserker Rage is and presumably would have the same issue of inadvertently providing a constant source of healing for killing (or in BR's case, hitting) monsters. It really feels just a tad bit OP to me."

1. Please read my posts more carefully. When I say "inadvertently", it means that I think something is unintended. I didn't throw that word in there for no reason.

and

2. There is a very good reason why I'm asking you to stop telling me stupidly obvious things that I already know. Because you keep doing it and being rather unpleasant about it at the same time. For the last time, quit it.

Berserker Rage also procs on hit, sir.

http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/#2585
25% chance of
Berserker Rage
when you hit in melee

13% chance of
More Berserker Rage
when you hit in melee

 

Melee builds need healing love. No change necessary.

 

Berserker Rage at full upgrades would grant approximately 1 average HP per round in any round you both hit and are hit (1*0.25+1*0.25+2*0.13+2*0.13=1.02).

Just to put a number on it.

That's roughly equivalent, on average, to having 1 AA and 1 in every resist added into the skill line. As an unintended effect, it blows Ancestral Body Paint out of the water, in my opinion - although Wootah may have a good point in the post above this one! Heh.

 

I was under the impression this was done to prevent deaths from losing stat buffs. Because frankly, that'd be fairly silly. These buffs exist to help you survive. They ought to do that.

However, this does seem inconsistent with straight max buffs. Why not change it so that buffs to max HP let you keep the health as well?

I'm not going to go into realism arguments with this, simply because I feel it makes gameplay and balance sense to let you keep the HP you gained. As for the comparison to other RPGs, I don't feel there's a point to that because they're different games, with differing mechanics in various areas. Just look at how many different variations of a "Critical Hit" there are.

 

And there was your second post in which you phrased it in an unfortunate way and I misread it. But that is irrelevant because both of us appear to be getting defensive and thus it's going nowhere. So I am not going to "point" at that particular bit any more, even if just for the sake of not causing unnecessary conflicts.

And I feel the same here, for the same reason or at least a similar reason. On my side it was unintended (I did not mean to sound unpleasant), and I want to believe it was unintended on your side as well so, as it was said a few posts back by Lorrelian, I think it would likely be better if we waited for the developers' official statement.
One thing I want to say while I'm at it, though. Nothing is "stupidly obvious" because you don't know people with whom you are conversing on forums, and thus there happen people for whom some things of this sort are not obvious. And no, I am not necessarily talking about you, just in general about people who use the internet, as (as you likely know) they can be very different from each other.

Yes, it does. That was my oversight, and I'm sorry about that. It still isn't potent enough to unbalance anything (and thus it still is a non-issue as far as this skill tree is concerned), but it is not a justification for me not having checked that before replying.

 

I don't think you have a similar reason to feel that way, because I haven't peppered my responses to you with snide asides like "~sigh~" and "(hello...)". If responses with an attitude like you're talking to an idiot who needs obvious points explained slowly are necessary, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that they come with information that's actually somewhat useful to me.

That said, if that condescension was unintentional, just try to be aware of it in the future so as to avoid repeating it and let's move on.

 

You assume one attack per round (i.e. no counter attack, no CK or Unarmed) and one opponent. I was simply assuming circumstances in which the buffs refresh as soon as they wear off, which is very possible in zoo situations or just wandering through the later floors. Also, the fact that getting hit is necessary to get some of that "healing" makes it far worse than normal, as an ill timed hit can flat out kill you...

 

I tend to play a lot of melee builds and I think it's a little strong, but not necessarily overpowered. Melee has gotten a ton of buffs in recent patches, but it still does not make up for the immense number of advantages a player has when playing a ranged build.

I am speaking from the perspective of Going Rogue only, however, so maybe it is too strong on other difficulties.

 

Going rogue is the only way to play!

 

Melee (and casters too, if mp regen worked the same way) still could be stronger if the regen from stuff like Walk It Off gave more than 1 hp a turn.. I feel like it's a pretty heavy limitation. I dunno why regen caps out like that. I like the Mastery of Arms tree, but I feel like getting Walk It Off is a little useless. IIRC you need something like 15 regen to get 1hp a turn? 1 proc of Walk + Suit Up and you're pretty much at cap. Why bother getting it to 30hp regen.. The 2 Stubborness per stack doesn't feel -that- good either (6 magic resists and block if you're at max stacks? Pretty weak imo). I feel like Burliness buffs are a much better source of healing cause of the regen cap =/

 

Vampirism.

 

Yeah, Vampirism.

And to elaborate, because some people might not know. Most of Vampirism's healing effects (most notably the on-hit health drain) scale with health regeneration, so the more of it you have, the more you will heal when you spill blood.