Hit points and difficulty
velehal
Member Posts: 299
What do you think is more challenging (I know that the difference in difficulty will be only small but nonetheless):
a) play with random hit point rolls on level up
b) play with maximum hit point on level up and maximum hit points for all enemies in the game (via Tweaks-Anthology)
a) play with random hit point rolls on level up
b) play with maximum hit point on level up and maximum hit points for all enemies in the game (via Tweaks-Anthology)
0
Comments
The reason is that your opponents take longer to die and can do more things to you.
I think random hp rolls are already biased to the high end of the spectrum.
so you get on average more hp then it is supposed.
anyway, even with the EE help to the hp pool imo it is more challenging to play with random hit points on level up.
even if the game seems to be an equation with the damage you do and the damage you take as variables it is not really so. even players that was well convinced of it, that was all on the "kill them fast before they kill you" approach at the game once they begun to try the LoB mode had to change their mind.
the real key of the game is the party resilience, intended as capability both to avoid or mitigate damage, replenish health in the battle and avoid to be hit by spells or attacks that are more damaging then your actual hp pool can handle or instant kill spells and giving a sustained damage to the enemy that allows you to prevail before you deplete your resilience resources.
only in very few cases the raw offensive capability is the key, it happens when the enemy has a huge regeneration capability, like fighting against greater werewolves or at a higher level of difficulty against the tactics mod improved tor gal, that has an obscene regeneration rate.
to play vanilla or to play modded games with the most broken and powerful builds only deceives about the true nature of the game as starting with a decent hp pool and damaging enough fast you prevail, but as soon as you play LoB or use not super optimized parties the limits of that approach show up.
to have a low hp pool is much more challenging then to fight against enemies with more hp.
every time a mage that thanks to his maxed hp survives, but barely, to an adhw or an other damaging spell with rolled hp he would have been dead, every time you win and end with your fighters at very low health with maxed hp you would have started to loose fighters and would be overwhelmed by the enemies. and on and over.
a better hp pool allows you a wider margin of error, gives you more time to heal, withdraw or protect a toon that is taking too much damage.
and this is always true, in a modded or vanilla game and against the super buffed LoB enemies and the normal ones.
only the fact that with super optimized parties and/or on difficulty setting that is not LoB the game is actually very easy to beat for a player with some knowledge hides this fact and make the false equation
damage done>damage taken=win
to appear to be true.
we must not assume that in bg2 all your party is always at full hp for all the battle and in every battle as it is simply not true.
so even having more levels and better hp pool some hp more can sometimes make the difference even in late tob.
However, if you play no-reload (as I do) then a single instance of running out of HPs in the game will be fatal. When you need to win many hundreds of battles without ever losing one, it's pretty irrelevant to gameplay if enemies have slightly higher HPs. Under those conditions I would say that random HPs would be far more difficult.
because even if you reload if charname dies you have actually lost the game, you give to yourself a second chance, but you have lost.
the same every time a comrade is chunked beyond the possibility to resurrect him, you have lost that npc, also here reloading you only give yourself a second chance to try again at something you failed.
and if you don't roll super stats or use npcs with sub optimal con to avoid the worst case or to survive to it is even more difficult.