Stat Change

Just had a small thought about changing how hp base and how some of the stats (str/con/dex/int/wis) work. Skip to very bottom for short form without explanations.

I'd like to separate these stats from each other. First, I'd like to see the primary consideration for base hp being class, not con. It makes a lot of sense on a lot of levels. A warrior and necro should have roughly the same HP pool, regardless of race, because all the things that affect HP in the game are class based and thereby are balanced among classes, not races. (notable exception: regen, talked about later).

Warriors/zerks are more balanced around having a lot of HP than they are balanced around races compensating different HPs. Mages are balanced around mitigating damage or having output to offset it, and so forth for other class archetypes. My point is that classes are balanced around classes, not races, and HP should be more of a class consideration than a race one.

Set some standards (what is balanced base for warriors, for necros, and so on). We kind of already have it in the game now, but con is a big factor on the final number. Consider, for example, current hp pools for races with 22ish int/wis to be a good standard for mages and the same for con in melees. Use 20 for hybrids/rogues for both mana/hp.

For balance, think about some extremes:

Will it break fire giant shamans to have an elf-quality mana pool? (low to mid (mage tier) mana)

Will it break illithid to have an elf-quality mana pool? (high to mid)

Will it break drow warriors to have a minotaur-quality hp pool? (low to mid (melee tier) hp)

Will it break dwarf warriors to have a minotaur-quality hp pool?

I think those all will be better off than they are now.

However, there is a big problem with the idea: every race starts to feel the same with every class. More of the same may be balanced, but it isn't fun. So we change how con/int/wis works.

If the HP base is decided by class, let con play an even bigger role in hp regen. An elf warrior might have 1100ish HP, but it will take forever to regen due to low con. Dwarves would have the same 1100 hp, but they regen very well. You can throw some racial specials in there (like we already have in ogre roar/hp/regen, faerie mana) to spice things up. By making this very simple thing, you will empower a lot of the 'crap-tier' race/class combos while slightly weakening the 'top-tier' choices...this results in better balance. The con differences will still make the tougher races bounce back a lot faster, but the 'wimpy' races still have a shot in those classes. To keep variance, make stats control the regen rates more instead of base pools.

The same is true for mages. Let wisdom control mana regen (like con), taking the intelligence stat out of it completely. A fire giant shaman has the same base mana pool as a drow shaman, but they a lot more down-time once the pool is exhausted (which is how it works now anyways, so the noticeable change is much less on casters). On the other hand, they'll have high con regen for their hp and melee stats. I think it will result in an overall superior balance than we have now. Some certain race stat adjustments might be needed, but not many.

Keep the stat resistances to saves category, but I would do dex for afflictive, con for maledictive, and int for mental. This gives a nice spread because those are the three defining stats for archetypes. Most races either have two of those being good and one being bad, or all three being fairly average. Giants are weird in that they have two of them bad and one of them decent, but that is the giant fate. This is good balance among different race/class archetypes and what they need to resist, but always useful in some way. I'm not sure what the values are at now, but a reasonable starting place would be +/-5 saves per 1 point +/- 20. At 25, you get -25 saves, at 20 you get 0, and at 16 you get +20 in the category. Strength will need some benefits to compensate for the boost to con/dex.

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Short form without explanation:

HP base determined by class:

Melee/melee hybrid class in the 1000 to 1200 range (high zerk, mid warrior, low ranger)

Rogues/hybrids 800-1000 (high-to-low monk/blm, dk/paladin, thief/ninja)

Communer ~800.

Mages are 700 - 800 (variable on class, high bmg, low necro, mid invoker).

(reverse for mana, some minor rearrangement needed)

Con has a larger affect on HP regen, wisdom controls mana regen

saves bonus distribution (aff - dex, mental - int, maledictive - con)

boost str to compensate con/dex importance

Class is already plays a pretty big role in deciding the HP gains...

I also don't understand your examples...

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Will it break fire giant shamans to have an elf-quality mana pool? (low to mid (mage tier) mana)

A well built fire giant shaman/cleric will have similar mana pool as an elf. My last fire cleric had 1200 mana.

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Will it break illithid to have an elf-quality mana pool? (high to mid)

Illthids already have a better mana pool than elves...

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Will it break drow warriors to have a minotaur-quality hp pool? (low to mid (melee tier) hp)

A well built drow warrior will have similar HP pool to a mino warrior.

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Will it break dwarf warriors to have a minotaur-quality hp pool?

Dwatf warriors have a better HP pool than mino warriors already...

Honestly, I don't understand your suggestion and I don't understand what exactly will it change from the current situation.

How you build/itemize your character plays the biggest role when it comes to hp/mana/moves pool.

Not sure if you were suggesting HP pools be determined by class or not, but they are already, more or less. At least, the min/max hp you can gain is determined by class, not race.

I think it's a lot of work for having it staying about the same. Since the end result would be very similar (for HP/mana) and what isn't can be corrected with trains and equipment.

Actually. It changes a lot.

I see it as an direction more than a suggestion of how.

Where should we be in the future? Continuing down a broken path of power spiking numbers?

Perhaps I am optimistic, but I see this as a signpost offering a new path toward balance.

This suggestion would certainly create a window of opportunity for at least 1 school of magic to land in todays world.

Without the need to take away (read gimp) from any existing cool stuff.

Note: Ogres would need special attention I believe.

@f0xx yep, I meant that Illithid (who have more mana) would be thus reduced to something like drow mana. Same with dwarf to mino. The suggestion takes both the low and high ends of the pool and moves them to the 'sweet spot' for their class. So a dwarf warrior would lose some hp in this system and a half-elf warrior would gain quite a bit.

I don't think that the base pools for a drow and mino warrior are close. The gap might be somewhat reduced by trains (this benefits only one end of the stat spectrum though) and through equipment. My suggestion looks at the pools independent of equipment. A drow warrior might have 800ish HP now post train, pre-equipment? A dwarf might have 1200. These are guesstimates, but the difference is clearly there.

The thought is that low hp warriors suffer from a number of disadvantages outside of HP that already make them poor warrior choices. Levelling out the HP pool would alleviate many of the 'bad class/race' combos DOUBLE disadvantages (bad stats and bad HP to just bad stats now). The reverse is true too. A dwarf cleric has a lot of HP...more than a cleric a should have for base. My argument is that clerics are better balanced around clerics rather than dwarf stats.

@Erelei I guess it boils down to whether the net result is actual close or not. Like I posted above, a low con warrior has a lot less base hp than a high con warrior, maybe 66%. The consideration would be if my numbers are way off, then it isn't much of an issue like you say. The argument is that a high con cleric shouldn't have more base hp than a low con warrior. In fact, there should be a good distance between the two. All warriors need the hp pool and clerics become somewhat overpowered with high hp. That is what I mean by it being more of a class consideration than race. That is what the change would accomplish in that regard.

@myaIf somebody could post a dwarf warrior and cleric's base hp at 50 pre-train as well as an elf warrior and cleric's base hp at 50 pre-train, we'd have a good starting point for figures on how much con vs class really affects the hp pool. I could very well be completely wrong.

Con plays a part in the roll between two different numbers which are determined by the class. Just for argument sake, Warriors get 10 - 13 hp per level. Depending on con (high or low) it will roll 10, 11, 12, and 13 and decide on a number. The higher your con, the closer to max (13) you'll get.

Clerics, though, would be something like 8 - 11.

Of course, these aren't actual numbers, but this is how HP is decided.

What you're saying is CON have NO affect at all on HP gain per level?

@Erelei Made some edits while you were posting. Yes, that is what I'm saying. I'm saying get con completely out of the base hp pool, because it I believe balancing it on class is going to result in better balance than with the race-based con figured into the hp pool. On the other end, con might need to be an even greater influence on regen (and wis for mana) to allow the racial variety to come out. Add in the racial specials that are already in place, and you still have good, interesting differences between races playing the same class but at a better starting balance point.

If the max potential difference is only ~3 per rank so * 50 ranks = 150 hp, then I agree it isn't worth the change as the variance is low enough. I was under the impression it is more like double or triple that.

I was under the impression the balance comes in where most high dex races don't have a great constitution they make up for it in other stats like dexterity. A drow has bad hit points but a high dexterity and intelligence which gives them bonuses elsewhere.

@ZaveroThat is true, and class-side racial balancing certainly exists, but it would also need a lot of changes to balance all the combinations out. That way would be the other way of rebalancing things. You could make adjustments on the class side and change skills to balance them better with different racial stats so that a drow warrior turns out different, but relatively balanced with a 'natural' warrior such as a giant or fire giant shaman to a drow shaman. You can see it currently in play in skills like defenses that rely on dex. You'd need a lot more of those bonuses to help out the 'low-tier' choices and a few thrown in to weaken the top tier. And because the low/top tiers aren't solely defined by racial stats, you'd have the complication of accounting for a race that has low tier stats but great racial skills/perks and turn out to be a good choice without any changes. Taken out to the logical extreme, it would likely end up being a bunch of race to skill-specific changes (as opposed to stat on skill changes) in the end to maintain balance among races in the classes.

I think it is simpler to adjust the race side because it is much less complex and I see HP as doing it well. I don't think this system will balance out all the races in classes, but what it does do is take some of the power extremes (more noticeable on the melee side, but we see it with dwarf clerics (and used to be bards) for example too) and even them out a bit.

Class-side balancing is the better way of doing solving the issue, but it is a much harder job.

Probably 300 more HP for the Dwarf over the Elf, but stuff been changed so much, I don't even know for sure. But that's the most extreme case.

Here is what I have that might be relevant:

Gnome Warriror:

Hp   :  736/736 

Mana :  730/730

Move :  429/429

Prac  : 214   Train: 13

Dwarf Warrior:

Hp   : 1083/1083

Mana :  558/573 

Move :  441/441

Prac  : 132   Train: 13

Stone Ranger:

Hp   :  944/944

Mana :  415/562

Move :  412/438

Prac  : 73    Train: 13

Elf Ranger:

Hp   :  629/629

Mana :  804/881

Move :  434/434

Prac  : 124   Train: 13

Some of this data is several years old, and most likely the numbers are not the same now. But it does grant an historical perspective. They all naked. No trains spent, and 1 practed, (Not sure on the giant.)

Warrior Dwarf to Gnome is 347 hp but gnome should have 2x49 = 98 extra  practices over dwarf and a load of mana. In the end it will be gnome: 1080 HP vs Dwarf  1345 hp.

Ranger Stone to Elf is 315 hp but again more practices for the Elf, so, final Stone 1147 hp vs Elf 883 HP.

This is a really interesting discussion, for Warriors who don't value mana.  Now put a Invoker. A Human 20 con/Int vs a Elf 16/25 con/int. Sure the human gets more HP but the elf gets more mana. They trade about the same. Mages are balanced, it's mostly a meele problem.

There are some things that are such an integral part of the game that trying to fix them will bring unbalance in other areas, and change stuff that makes FL FL.

Can you explain what should be the target HP for Warrior/Zerk/Ranger and each of it's races?

This sort of thing would probably force the creation of a new table that correlates Race with class archetypes (War, Mage, Cleric, Rogue) to extract the new CON Hp bonus for calculations.

What about vulns? Giving a dwarf a lower HP pool while keeping their huge water vuln doesn't seem like balance to me. Similar to giants. They have more hp, but have a mental weakness. Ogres have higher HP, but a HUGE magic vuln. 

EDIT: Also, is HP what makes a gnome warrior weaker than a giant warrior or is that a giant warrior has better perks that come into play? IE: Giant size. Higher Strength. Enhanced Damage at 102.. 

If anything, I feel like racial perks are the way to make certain races more viable. So, let's take a gnome, for example.

If you roll a gnome warrior your gnome heritage in inventing makes you able to understand the intricacies of your equipment better. Every piece of armor you wear gains an innate -4 ac.(Just an example.)

Plus Gnome dex sucks I believe.

@mya Thank you for the numbers! I included a rough estimate of what I consider decent starting numbers in the first post:

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HP base determined by class:

Melee/melee hybrid class in the 1000 to 1200 range (high zerk, mid warrior, low ranger)

Rogues/hybrids 800-1000 (high-to-low monk/blm, dk/paladin, thief/ninja)

Communer ~800.

Mages are 700 - 800 (variable on class, high bmg, low necro, mid invoker).

(reverse for mana, some minor rearrangement needed)

@Trick I agree with you completely. It is getting into my reply to @Zavero above. The ideal way to balance would be take a race/class/(cabal) combo and pit it against every other combo and adjust bits of each to empower them to the same general strength. You can do this in most detail by adjusting class skills (class-side balancing), but you can also paint broader strokes by adjusting races or cabals. The wider the stroke, the more combinations it affects.

I want to change the base HP pool from a race/class mechanic to a class mechanic because we currently have a much better class balance than we do race/class balance. I believe that isolating the HP base pool variable will also make balancing both classes and race/class combinations easier as we go forward.

We usually look at the class level because that has the most variables (skills/spells), so we can fine-tune balance easily. That is why almost all changes are done class-side. This is generally good because that is where most of the balance needs to be and already is. The bad point about this is that because we focus on class to class balancing, we often neglect less-than-ideal races for those classes. When we balance warriors, we typically don't think about gnome warriors but instead about giant-sized ones. The result is that warriors are balanced pretty well for some races but other races are considerably weaker. Rarely, a certain race might be considerably stronger, but that is usually balanced quickly because strong combinations are much more disruptive than weak combinations.

This issue exists for all classes, but it is most noticeable in the melees, so that is my discussion focuses on them more than others.

Like Trick said, a gnome warrior is weaker than a giant warrior because of not only the HP but also the racial perks. If a gnome warrior and giant warrior had the same hp, the giant would still be better. I agree with this. This is what I meant by a double disadvantage to low-tier races as certain classes. They are often hit by the HP pool on top of whatever racial perks makes them less than ideal. That is why I suggest evening out the HP pool...this will make many of the poor choices better than they were, but still worse than the current ideal ones. It is thus a quick rebalance that helps out some of the worst combinations by lessening their disadvantage (and at the other extreme, slightly weakens the top end, which is also good). The 'sweet spot' is in the upper tier of races (not in the middle), so it is more of a boost for lower races than a nerf for strong races in their class. Gnome warriors would still be weak, but not as horribly weak.

You (@Trick) are making the suggestion that we should be looking at class/race as single entities to rebalance things as opposed to balancing class and races separately. This is great and jumps a few steps ahead of what I was suggesting. Every race should have a unique set of parameters for every class that is available to them. A gnome warrior might get a series of parameters that are much more favorable than ogre or giant because the gnome has much weaker stats/general racial perks. It would require a lot of changes though because there are many race/class combinations available. It would be easiest to come up with some of the worst combinations and work from there.

If you continued along those lines, you'd end up with a set of racial synergies for every class path combination (of which there are a lot). The next step would be to take all those combinations and create parameters for every cabal combination. It becomes a lot of work, but it could be reasonably handled if you limited the scope by limiting it to three 'synergies' per class (not class path) for each race and not worry about cabals.

Doing that, however, you'd find yourself pretty limited as @Zavero just pointed out. You'll run into problems about how certain class skills should work somewhat differently for different races, but not based on the five stats. An elf might dodge better than a human, but a human thief might dodge better than an elf crusader. This means you'd be creating versions of skills. To keep the scope reasonable, instead of making each skill unique for each race, you'd make a set of levels or tiers inside each skill. You'll end up with dodge 1, dodge 2 that does something better, dodge 3 even better, and dodge 4 that is super specialist dodge and simply assign races and classes to each level to fix the elf crusader/human thief issue.

You'd be thus assigning races certain tiers of skills. But if you are going to do that, why not let players specialize into those tiers as well? Different warriors train and focus on different things, after all, and it would be a miracle for code-based RP. So you'll have the player selection layer as well as whatever race layer you were working. Doing that, you'll suddenly find yourself having implemented integrated paths. This is, as I understand it, the natural conclusion of balancing as performed in the style of FL and this is exactly how I came to that conclusion.

In short, yes, I agree with you.

This thread's suggestion is meant to broadly alleviate many low-priority imbalances without a lot of fuss. It isn't as ideal as full class-side balancing or, even better, an integrated balancing approach, but it is very simple and helps out. It also nicely paves the way for future balancing as we isolate important mechanics/variables so we can control them better.

Gnomes get more trains/practices than a giant. At 50 you will be able to throw these into HP and then you will have HP comparable to that of a giant. That's why we see characters that normally shouldn't have such high HP, hit these numbers. Invokers, for example. Additionally, you'd have to rework equipment as well as the armor that is in place is designed to cover certain weaknesses. IE: Plus HP gear for casters that also boost -ac or saves. 

I disagree that changing HP will change the way a combo plays. 

EDIT: The above being said, I've never put a gnome to 50 and allotted my trains/practices to HP to see how close it is to a giant's.

If you put it on the class side, you don't need to worry about trains very much. If they were allowed at all, it would still be ~100 point variance at the extreme end and thus be pretty inconsequential in the overall scheme of things. Personally though, I think the train issue is burdensome and creates some weird balance. I'd prefer it to be completely class based, not considering stats (whether they come from con or through another layer as trains through int/wis). It makes ranking into a weird min-max thing for certain races in practicing skills as well that I don't see as beneficial to the game.

You really wouldn't need to rework equipment with the change because the pool would be set at what eq is currently balanced around (i.g. the mid upper tier for race/class). EQ is already balanced around elf invokers and giant warriors, for instance, and wouldn't seriously change how a human at those hp/mana levels would operate. If anything, it makes eq balance better (and easier) as well, because you are working from a clear number, rather than a wide range of numbers for the class. It is a lot easier to balance mage +hp eq if you know what mages will have for hp (which we generally do already, because mage hp/mana variation is much tighter than melee).

It may or may not change how a combo is played. For most people, the change is invisible. You'll play your giant warrior the same as before. However, if you wanted to try a faerie thief, you'd notice a huge change. You'd still play the same in general for each class. The only way you'd play differently is if you implemented the second part of my original suggestion which is to make changes to wis/con regen rates. Then you'd see a distinction between high/low regen styles which you can currently see in effect between feral/ogre ranger/warriors or drow/fire shaman. The suggested saves layer adds a bit of distinction as well in how you gear but is fairly minor.

A giants -25 aff saves from low DEX isn't minor. It's unbearable.

It would certainly mean that they'd need to gear towards it whereas some other race with more dex might be able to dedicate a few eq slots elsewhere. Giants have some crappy stats (two of the three categories) and would take the biggest hit, but they also have some of the best racial perks in the game. Still, I think it works itself out, but the numbers can always be adjusted. Ogres are the weird race, but they'd need special attention in this change anyways due to their unique hp pool/stats/regen.

An alternative would be to consider only positive stat to saves and ignore the penalties. So high stats would help you, but low stats would the same as average stats (which is no affect on saves).

The saves suggestion wasn't the main point of the thread, it was just an example of how you can vary races in classes using stats.

Gnome gets 3 negatives, all needed by melee. Low str= misses vs -650. Low dex= ain't getting - 650, low con = bad news. Will likely die a lot, so from 18 he heads down. But remember, when created detect invisible and magic were auto and not class specific.

It just makes no sense that different races in the same class will have same HP pools.

You saying that Dey's faerie zerker should have same HP as a fire giant zerker? How does that follow any logic?