Skip to content

Potion Of Fortitude Useless In EE?

I'm sure that back in the days of the original BG, you could use potions of fortitude for a healing effect on low Con characters, i.e. when it wears off, you'd just lose any extra hitpoints above your normal max hitpoints.

Trying it now, it seems that it removes any extra hitpoints you gained so a character under the effects of the potion who is down to 1 hitpoint will drop dead when the potion wears off.

Has anyone found any use for these potions or does everyone consider them junk to be sold alongside the potions of infravision?
Blackraven

Comments

  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    I've come to like them a lot and tend to collect every potion of fortitude I can find. There are plenty of low CON characters that really benefit from the HP boost the potion gives:

    - In BG1 I use them in specific battles for squishy mages or thieves (Safana, Neera, Quayle etc), for example at the bandit camp with all those archers, and on low CON warriors in particularly hard battles (such as at Iron Throne, or against the greater wolfweres in TotSC),
    - In SoD they often go to NPCs who are needed on the front line and who can't easily boost their HP pool in other ways such as Minsc, Dorn, or Viconia (SoD doesn't have any tanky NPCs),
    - In BG2 Mazzy is another good candidate in addition to the three mentioned above.

    I should note that I hate it when companions die. If that happens a lot it makes me lose interest in the run (too sloppy). So I often try to keep everyone alive using whatever consumables it takes.
    StummvonBordwehrJuliusBorisovAerakar
  • Very_BigSwordVery_BigSword Member Posts: 222
    For fighter types it can increase max HP by up to 32 points while active (+4 per level). Dorn, Kivan, Coran, Shar-teel spring to mind with their Con <15. Minsc and Montaron get lesser but still significant HP increases, and Montaron possibly gains +1 to his shorty saves?

    It can be used in conjunction with other con increasing abilities e.g. rage or DUHM to get regeneration while travelling between maps. This is pretty niche though and not the best use for them in my opinion.
    StummvonBordwehr
  • ZaxaresZaxares Member Posts: 1,325
    I usually don't go out of my way to buy them, but yeah, as others have mentioned, I hang onto them and use them on low Con characters (in BG2, this is always Aerie. XD) before big fights just to give them a bit more padding in case they get targeted.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    I'm not sure I have ever used them, but it does seem like a bug if the HP granted is removed, causing a character to die merely because the effect wore off. How does the game engine track which hit points are the result of which, and which get lost first?

    That said, there have been a few points in my current run where Aura has struggled in Durlag's Tower, so I might consider using them so long as she can get healed before the effects wear off. She got chunked already because Imoen was struggling to detect traps in that place.
  • PingwinPingwin Member Posts: 262
    You don't lose hitpoints (unless over your max hitpoints) when Larloch's Minor Drain wears off so there's no game engine reason for the potions of fortitude not working in a similar way.
    leeuxsarevok57Skatan
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    Larloch's Minor Drain is literally about stealing another person's vitality. Raising your constitution is merely about making your body a little hardier. There is a difference.

    By the way, I have never rigorously studied this, but from my experience, it seems like the game is set up so you neither lose nor gain HP.
    Say you have 6 HP and you drink the potion and gain 2 temporary HP for a total of 8. Then you get injured and lose 4 HP. You are now at 50%. When the potion's effect runs out you are left with 50% of 6 HP, which is 3 HP.

    Again, this is just my impression, so I might be wrong.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited November 2019
    By the way, I have never rigorously studied this, but from my experience, it seems like the game is set up so you neither lose nor gain HP.
    Say you have 6 HP and you drink the potion and gain 2 temporary HP for a total of 8. Then you get injured and lose 4 HP. You are now at 50%. When the potion's effect runs out you are left with 50% of 6 HP, which is 3 HP.

    Again, this is just my impression, so I might be wrong.

    It doesn't work that way. Although the game only shows a single HP figure for your character, that's the result of various calculations in the background. In particular for this conversation we're interested in the distinction between your base HPs and the added HPs for constitution. The added HPs for constitution are dynamic and change whenever the constitution bonus changes.

    Let's take the example of a new thief with constitution of 14 - he starts with just base HPs of 6. Drinking a fortitude potion pushes constitution to 18 and gives him 2 bonus HPs, to take the total to 8. In a battle he takes 6 HPs of damage before killing his opponent - reducing his HPs down to 2. If he remembers to heal himself immediately then all will be well, but if he makes the mistake of waiting around too long or travelling the potion will wear off - removing the bonus 2 HPs from constitution. As he only had 2 HPs he will die. Note though that he would survive in this example if he rested as the additional HP from the rest will be applied (arguably incorrectly) before the loss from constitution.

    As @Pingwin said, this treatment is not the same as original BG, where you could get permanent, rather than temporary, healing from constitution adjustments. Personally I preferred that to the current method. For some other forms of temporary HP increases, there is still a permanent effect. For instance if you drink a potion of power you keep any HPs gained from that even after the potion wears off (subject to your normal maximum HPs).

    Even if the methodology did not revert to vanilla, there would still be another option to avoid some slightly unfair deaths from loss of constitution increases. In vanilla you also used to be able to use berserker rage for healing, but Beamdog changed that so that you lost the full additional HPs gained. However, some people presumably complained about characters dying as a result and Beamdog changed the method again so that, if HPs would be reduced down to 0 or below as a result of the bonus being lost, this would make the character go unconscious rather than die. The same methodology could potentially be used for losses of constitution bonuses - though it might be tricky to code that if you want to be able to distinguish between the impact of a temporary bonus ending and actual reductions in constitution.
    SkatanStummvonBordwehrJuliusBorisovAerakar
Sign In or Register to comment.