Let's Talk About Constitution
dustbubsy
Member Posts: 249
Apologies for leaving this one for a couple of days.. we’re talking about Constitution this time, the stat that measures a character’s hardiness - their resistance to illness, ability to function without sleep, and general physical health. In the Baldur’s Gate games Constitution only affects a few things, like getting extra hit points at level ups. A very high constitution will cause you to have limited regeneration capibilities.
Also, I wasn’t aware how this worked up to writing this, but the short races get saving throw bonuses based on their Con. From the Baldur’s Gate Wiki:
"Gnomes, Dwarves, and Halflings get bonuses to saving throws based on their constitution, up to a maximum of +5 at 18 constitution. Collectively known as the "shorty bonuses", these bonuses are re-calcuated on level-up. So, while you may qualify for an extra saving throw bonus by using the Manual of Bodily Health, you will not see the benefits until you level up. Gnomes receive this bonus to their Wands and Spells saving throws, while Dwarves and Halflings both have the bonus added to their Death, Wands and Spells saving throws."
Veddy interesting. So, without further ado...
CONSTITUTION SCORES
7: Xan
Elves have a constitution penalty, as we’ll soon see, and Xan is the sickliest of the lot. Any lower and he’d be feeling a hit point penalty. Maybe his health affects his melancholy disposition? Poor thing.
8: Viconia
Next we have Viconia, one of the elven subrace Drow. Very frail, but she has more options to buff herself than Xan, and her dexterity is excellent (19).
9: Garrick, Shar-Teel, Aerie, Haer’Dalis
Another elf and a tiefling (I think Haer has some elven heritage?) here, plus a fey actor. Funny how Aerie, despite losing her wings in an extremely gruesome manner, still has 2 more con than Xan. I’m surprised Shar-Teel has such low Con, given her exceptional 18/58 strength and Amazonian persona. As an aside, from a RP perspective Con should generally be a very important stat for adventurers given all the travel involved.
10: Xzar
Dead average.
11: Faldorn, Quayle
Disappointing low for Faldorn. I would think Druids would have very good con given their outdoorsy lifestyle (don’t they become immune to poison at some point?), but like most of her stats it’s distinctly average. High however for a walking brain like Quayle, and indicative of how the short races are surprisingly hardy (gnomes even get a con bonus in Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale 2).
12: Safana, Coran, Alora
Working our way through the average scores, I’m sure the developers just assigned more or less random numbers for most characters. Still, it’s fun (to me) to think up role playing reasons for this or that.
13: Canderous, Osprey, Cernd
Another druid with a disappointing Con.
14: Kivan, Dorn, Neera, Rasaad, Clara, Hexxat
How strange, almost all the Beamdog NPCs are here! No extra HP for these guys, with Dorn feeling this the most as he’s the only one of a warrior class. I would’ve thought Vampires gained supernatural toughness but I guess not.
15: Mordaine, Montaron, Minsc (BG1), Branwen, Eldoth, Skie, Jan
So, Kivan, an elven ranger (outdoorsy warrior) has less con than Mordaine, an elven mage? I think the tutorial NPCs have even more arbitrary scores than most. At 15 you get 1HP bonus per level up. Not really worth it, I would think.
16: Deder, Imoen, Ajantis, Edwin, Dynaheir, Tiax, Minsc (BG2), Yoshimo, Anomen, Nalia, Mazzy, Baeloth
Lots of characters here, just like with 16 dexterity. 2HP bonus per level up. Interesting that Dynaheir originally had more con than Minsc (maybe accounting for his head wound?). Edwin too, with his paltry strength and dex scores, has very respectable constitution. Now, the Invoker (Dynaheir’s class) requires 16 con, while the Conjurer (Edwin’s) requires 15. So some mages have to be really hardy folk to control the forms of energy they specialise in. It makes me look at both of them slightly differently now, as well as Nalia and Imoen.
17: Khalid, Jaheira, Yeslick, Keldorn
Warrior classes get +3HP here. Also, I’m probably reading too much into things here, but spouses Khalid and Jaheira have the same con, as do couple Skie and Eldoth, and one-sided couple Coran and Safana.
18: Sarevok, Wilson
+4HP for warriors. No suprises Sarevok has the perfect score for his race, though I thought Wilson would have a higher score. He still regenerates from what I’ve heard.
19: Arkanis, Korgan
Yep, dwarves are the antithesis of elves in so many ways, and they get awesome Con scores to prove it. I can see Korgan easily surviving a brick house falling on him. Not only does he get +5HP per level, he has a +5 bonus to his saving throws due to being a dwarf. None can stand up to his stamina. Except, maybe...
20: Kagain
“That’s right, yer muttonheads! I win! I’m so tough my wounds close by themselves! Korgan, ye’ve guts, but ye’ve a long way to go till you can match Kagain. Yeslick, shave yer beard. Might as well pass yerself off as a pansy elf if yer gonna have the constitution of halfa one...”
...so how important is Constitution to you? I admit, I always max it out to get the maximum hit points possible, but I’m not sure how useful those extra hit points are in the grand scheme of things.
Can you tell a person's general Constitution by looking at them? Consider that Edwin and Ajantis have the same Con score, as do Skie and Montaron, and Dorn and Neera. If not, then just what conditions the stat?
Another question, does anyone know how many hours characters can go before getting fatigued, going by their Constitution scores? Seems like that might be cool to know.
Also, I wasn’t aware how this worked up to writing this, but the short races get saving throw bonuses based on their Con. From the Baldur’s Gate Wiki:
"Gnomes, Dwarves, and Halflings get bonuses to saving throws based on their constitution, up to a maximum of +5 at 18 constitution. Collectively known as the "shorty bonuses", these bonuses are re-calcuated on level-up. So, while you may qualify for an extra saving throw bonus by using the Manual of Bodily Health, you will not see the benefits until you level up. Gnomes receive this bonus to their Wands and Spells saving throws, while Dwarves and Halflings both have the bonus added to their Death, Wands and Spells saving throws."
Veddy interesting. So, without further ado...
CONSTITUTION SCORES
7: Xan
Elves have a constitution penalty, as we’ll soon see, and Xan is the sickliest of the lot. Any lower and he’d be feeling a hit point penalty. Maybe his health affects his melancholy disposition? Poor thing.
8: Viconia
Next we have Viconia, one of the elven subrace Drow. Very frail, but she has more options to buff herself than Xan, and her dexterity is excellent (19).
9: Garrick, Shar-Teel, Aerie, Haer’Dalis
Another elf and a tiefling (I think Haer has some elven heritage?) here, plus a fey actor. Funny how Aerie, despite losing her wings in an extremely gruesome manner, still has 2 more con than Xan. I’m surprised Shar-Teel has such low Con, given her exceptional 18/58 strength and Amazonian persona. As an aside, from a RP perspective Con should generally be a very important stat for adventurers given all the travel involved.
10: Xzar
Dead average.
11: Faldorn, Quayle
Disappointing low for Faldorn. I would think Druids would have very good con given their outdoorsy lifestyle (don’t they become immune to poison at some point?), but like most of her stats it’s distinctly average. High however for a walking brain like Quayle, and indicative of how the short races are surprisingly hardy (gnomes even get a con bonus in Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale 2).
12: Safana, Coran, Alora
Working our way through the average scores, I’m sure the developers just assigned more or less random numbers for most characters. Still, it’s fun (to me) to think up role playing reasons for this or that.
13: Canderous, Osprey, Cernd
Another druid with a disappointing Con.
14: Kivan, Dorn, Neera, Rasaad, Clara, Hexxat
How strange, almost all the Beamdog NPCs are here! No extra HP for these guys, with Dorn feeling this the most as he’s the only one of a warrior class. I would’ve thought Vampires gained supernatural toughness but I guess not.
15: Mordaine, Montaron, Minsc (BG1), Branwen, Eldoth, Skie, Jan
So, Kivan, an elven ranger (outdoorsy warrior) has less con than Mordaine, an elven mage? I think the tutorial NPCs have even more arbitrary scores than most. At 15 you get 1HP bonus per level up. Not really worth it, I would think.
16: Deder, Imoen, Ajantis, Edwin, Dynaheir, Tiax, Minsc (BG2), Yoshimo, Anomen, Nalia, Mazzy, Baeloth
Lots of characters here, just like with 16 dexterity. 2HP bonus per level up. Interesting that Dynaheir originally had more con than Minsc (maybe accounting for his head wound?). Edwin too, with his paltry strength and dex scores, has very respectable constitution. Now, the Invoker (Dynaheir’s class) requires 16 con, while the Conjurer (Edwin’s) requires 15. So some mages have to be really hardy folk to control the forms of energy they specialise in. It makes me look at both of them slightly differently now, as well as Nalia and Imoen.
17: Khalid, Jaheira, Yeslick, Keldorn
Warrior classes get +3HP here. Also, I’m probably reading too much into things here, but spouses Khalid and Jaheira have the same con, as do couple Skie and Eldoth, and one-sided couple Coran and Safana.
18: Sarevok, Wilson
+4HP for warriors. No suprises Sarevok has the perfect score for his race, though I thought Wilson would have a higher score. He still regenerates from what I’ve heard.
19: Arkanis, Korgan
Yep, dwarves are the antithesis of elves in so many ways, and they get awesome Con scores to prove it. I can see Korgan easily surviving a brick house falling on him. Not only does he get +5HP per level, he has a +5 bonus to his saving throws due to being a dwarf. None can stand up to his stamina. Except, maybe...
20: Kagain
“That’s right, yer muttonheads! I win! I’m so tough my wounds close by themselves! Korgan, ye’ve guts, but ye’ve a long way to go till you can match Kagain. Yeslick, shave yer beard. Might as well pass yerself off as a pansy elf if yer gonna have the constitution of halfa one...”
...so how important is Constitution to you? I admit, I always max it out to get the maximum hit points possible, but I’m not sure how useful those extra hit points are in the grand scheme of things.
Can you tell a person's general Constitution by looking at them? Consider that Edwin and Ajantis have the same Con score, as do Skie and Montaron, and Dorn and Neera. If not, then just what conditions the stat?
Another question, does anyone know how many hours characters can go before getting fatigued, going by their Constitution scores? Seems like that might be cool to know.
12
Comments
For me DEX is more important than CON. In fact, CON is one of the stats I tend to decrease at the character creation if I have to invest points elsewhere. I tend to play a no-reload (or a minimal-reload at least) game, so HP gains are quite random and it seems to me there's practically no differency in having, for i.e., 9 CON and 16 CON when at level 5 and later. I'd better take the guaranteed modificator to AC from DEX than rely on a random HP roll. To be hit less is also a thing here.
In BG2, however, with the high number of dangerous spells flying around, CON becomes more important, especially in ToB when AC starts to be less important. But we have a girdle of CON that sets this stat at 18 so that all my characters who have 9, 10, 11 and so on CON can get a serious addition to their HP overall.
I don't know, maybe the aforementioned is connected with the fact I seldomly play as a fighter character, I prefer rogues and casters. Of course, when we speak about a fighter, the more CON the better. My dwarven wizard slayer has 21 CON with the Buckley's Buckler and he is badass. When I roll a fighter, I try to max CON as well as DEX and often decrease STR instead (to 15 or 16).
To me DEX > CON > STR for warriors and for mages. This has to do with the fact that even lower STR warriors (15-16) will hit stuff anyway, thanks to their great Thac0 progression. Mages won't be meleeing anyway so I'd rather invest in their ability to dodge hits, their ranged effectiveness, and in their health.
Thieves and priests on the other hand have lacklustre Thac0 at the beginning of the game while I do like them to hit enemies. To compensate I tend to give them relatively high STR, at the cost of CON if I don't have enough stat points. In other words: DEX > STR > CON.
I must say though that I play shorties slightly more often than not. In those cases high CON certainly becomes more appealing (17 to be increased to 18 with the Manual of Bodily Health for max saves), even for non-warriors who don't gain any hitpoint benefits beyond 16 CON. I'm also a no-reloader and though I try never to rely on saves, sometimes they do save my characters...
At character creation, I ensure that I get the maximum bonus from high Constitution, but it is not such an awesome bonus that I will miss greatly if I have to drop Stat points.
18 Con only provides +4HP/level for warriors up to L9, +2HP/level for priests up to L9, +2HP/level for rogues and mages up to L10. The bonus HP only amounts to 36HP at most. For reloading games, 36HP for high-level characters may not amount to much. Mages and Druids can protect themselves with magic, which further reduces the need for high hit points. Also, high hit points will only come into play when you are hard-pressed. Say, if you lose about 50HP every encounter, does it matter if you have 100HP or 150HP? The high hit points will not really come into play unless you are losing >100HP. With careful play by going for good AC, having summons to tank, fighting with missiles and spells, maintaining an arsenal of protections on characters and fighting in waves to pick on stragglers instead of taking on everyone at once, the chances of the excess HP coming into play is even lower.
But I accept that for non-reloading games, every bit of bonus is precious, so having high Constitution is essential. Also, there is some relevance to the shorty races for saving throws (though I am not fond of shorty races in general) which can be very useful early-game and mid-game. I will also emphasize that I do push for Constitution like most players, but if I cannot, I will not cry over it since I do not consider the bonuses particularly spectacular.
For 20+ Constitution, it sounds nice to have regeneration, but in practice, the rate of regeneration is so slow that it is at best an ability for flavor instead of being a staple.
"I recently discussed this matter with the mighty A64. It's a long story, but I'll try to summarize it.
Fatigue behaviour:
- characters gain +1 fatigue every 4 in-game hours, aka 1200 real seconds
- character's CON value determine a fixed base bonus/penalty to fatigue
- with vanilla's tables characters start to gain -1 luck penalty at fatigue 7 (see fatigmod.2da), thus after 8400 sec, aka 140 minutes of real time
- from then on, every other 1200 seconds another -1 luck penalty is applied
- fatigue can be increased, but not decreased (sadly), only resting completely reset fatigue
Luck is supposed to cause many things, but many of them are not implemented (e.g. there's no penalty to saving throws, nor to thieving skills - Item/Spell Revisions manually added them). The plain opcode only affects hit and dmg rolls, and influence how much dmg you take (*).
For example, a character with -1 luck from fatigue would suffer -1 penalty to hit and dmg rolls, and suffers +1 "minimum dmg" for each dice of dmg from damage dealing spells (e.g. when hit by a 5d6 fireball normally you take 5-30 dmg, but with a -1 luck penalty it becomes 10-30).
I hope I managed to be clear."
We all agree that intelligence, wisdom and charisma are mental attributes. You go as far as your mind (or brain) can take you.
We in modern Western societies generally view constitution as a physical attribute. However this is not true for everyone. In some parts of Eastern Medicine (and in those who believe in the approaches recomended by Holistic Medicine) the mind plays just as big a role in healing and hardiness as do the more automated biological mechanisms and neural responses. Meditation and the like has grown in popularity even in the West.
I personally think this stuff is most likely a bunch of Bantha poodoo, but I am not ready to dismiss it off hand, and many respected biologists and neurologists do give a little credence to aspects of holistic and eastern medicine. Meditation has been shown to help healing (though less than basic sleep, lol). in a fantasy setting based off of human mythology and ancient almost-magical practices, where monks can meditate to fight off disease and infection, this can certainly be the case. Not to mention that Druids can heal with touch.
So I'm thinking that in this context (D&D/Forgottem Relams) we should view constitution as both a mental and physical trait.
I speculated that he's old (it's hard to tell with dwarves though) and I believe Con decreases as you get older? Also, he's been imprisoned for a while, and joins the party already wounded. He was probably starved. 17 is still one of the higher scores overall. His intelligence is another matter however...
"What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. "
"Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment. "
Quotes from the lovely Video Game Alpha Centauri, a strategy video game made back in 1999, by a brilliant but horrible man that lead one of the factions you could play.
In real life, I remain skeptic about the benefits of meditation (though it does calm me), some Eastern medicine, and the idea that the mind can heal the body (if it can, I really wish mine would get to work). Going by the rules of D&D, though- specifically, both the monk class and the psionic class- I think in D&D, such things *do* work. As said, a monk can meditate to heal themselves. There's something to that.
The quotes above might help guide an evil character with a frail body but still a high constitution: someone who might be think and 'weak', but still surprisingly resilient due to their strength of will. To believe you will not get sick, and then truly not get sick... I think there's something to that, though it's beyond my understanding.
But characters like Tiax and Edwin is far from sane either, but i think Tiax is confident in his faith in Cyric, and Edwin in his intelligence.
Montaron is also a pyscho but compared to Xzar and Shar-teel he feel quite sane and confident. It's quite interesting to see that confident women seem to have a high constitution, while more unstable have low constitution.
There is absolutely some merit in the concept of body and mind somehow influencing each other - but the concrete effects are largely unknow. Especially interesting to me is the documented effects of recovery after surgery, this review article sums up that there seems to be some correlation between psychological factors and recovery post surgery:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0020306
And then there is the writing before and after surgery, which is pretty well documented:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/07/13/how-writing-heals-wounds-of-both-the-mind-and-body/
In essence, if you write about your feelings before and after surgery, many people experience a significant faster recovery. Quite interesting
Or if it represents all of these things, it would seem that they are only slightly related to each other (physical condition and health) or not related at all (reaction when sleep deprived).
As for the mental aspect mentioned by @booinyoureyes and @Aristillius, I've though about it a bit as well. Normally when you hear reports from people who subject themselves to draining situations (be it triathlon competitions or Navy SEAL boot camp) they more often than not tend to talk about how it's really a mental struggle rather than a physical one. Presumably, this notion regards the outlook once you're closing up on your physical limits - hence for an untrained person, running a marathon won't be a mental struggle but rather a purely physical one until he gets into the kind of shape where his body can handle that sort of prolonged activity.
At that point, when you feel like you more than anything want to stop, lay down and catch your breath but your body is still capable of carrying on, the mental aspect ostensibly comes into play and can be said to directly affect a person's hardiness. But then again, this assumes that the outcome isn't just a result of a slight difference in actual physical capacity as well.
As for medical health it seems more complex. There's a patient's actual medical state, and there's the way that patient experiences his medical state, at least for any kind of illness where the two can be separated. The latter is extremely individual and can be affected by a lot of factors, e.g. placebo, whereas the former doesn't lend itself to examination just as readily.
Constitution is also one of those stats that are either very good or useless. Viconia with her 8 CON get no bonus to health, but neither does Cernd with his 13. CON is actually a pretty decent 'dump' stat because 7-14 is the same so it doesn't matter which you pick unless you're going to use a tome on 14.
If you're not playing a fighter class (Ranger,Paladin,Barbarian,Fighter) having more than 16 CON gives you nothing at all, unless you're playing a shorty race.
15 CON : +1 HP/Level
16 CON : +2 HP/Level
-------------------
Fighters, Rangers, Barbarians, Paladins continue to gain bonus.
-------------------
17 CON : +3 HP/Level
18 CON : +4 HP/Level
19 CON : +5 HP/Level
20 CON : +5 HP/Level/Minor Regeneration.
So if you're playing a human rogue you don't want higher CON than 16 because you won't get anything out of it. If you're playing a half-orc rogue you might want to go for 19 CON because that way with a tome you'll reach 20 CON and get your regeneration.
Shorties (Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome) should always go for as high constitution as possible because of their saving throw bonus.
Dwarf's and Half-Orcs want to go for 19 because with the tome from BG1 you'll reach 20 CON and start to regenerate. You might not notice this regeneration that much when you're walking around with your party, but when you rest that party member will most of the time regenerate most if not all of his health while your other characters will only gain 1-2 HP.
Because it's so easy to get a good roll for CHARNAME i'll always go for 16/18/19 CON scores depending on what class and race i'm playing. But i'm not going to decline an NPC in my party because of a low CON score, unless it's a fighter type and even then it's very rare for them to have bad constitution (Shar'teel, Dorn).
There is also a belt in BG2 that raise your constitution to 18 for 8 hours. And the potion of fortitude will also raise your constitution. This potion might not look that good at first glance, but if you give it to a level 5 Dorn he will gain 20 health from it. Give it to a level 7 Dorn and he'll gain 28 health from it.
You should also take the tome that you get in BG1 into consideration when you make your character. Because if you're playing a rogue, cleric, mage or druid and you're going to give the tome to yourself, you might want to create that character with 15 constitution, that way when you get the tome you'll reach 16 and have the best possible CON score you can get instead of ending up with 17 and not getting anything at all from it. You're not missing out on anything from giving CHARNAME 15 CON or getting the book late, because once you get the book it'll give you the correct amount of HP depending on your level.
So getting the tome at level 1 will not be any different from getting it at level 10.
Same outcome at the end, but a rather different journey to get there.
On a side note, is constitution important for rangers? With the exception of Stalkers, rangers are usually on the fringe of battles and from what I know con doesn't give any bonuses to ranged attacks.
7-14 = No bonus at all (except if you're shorty)
So you can either put it down to 7,8,9 or just go with 15-18 for 1HP/Level.
Then again, intelligence isn't important to Mages and charisma isn't important to Bards so it doesn't really matter.
As to Bardic Charisma, there is no class-specific benefit, but obviously there is the minimum requirement of 15.
I would not really recommend pumping Con unless you are seeking to max out the Con bonus, and even then, if you are strapped for stat points, you need to consider if the cost is worth it. If you have stat points to spare, go ahead. Otherwise, you need to make a judgment call based on the math.
Consider that the min Con score that does not hurt your HP is 7:
Boosting Con from 7 to 15, you get 9HP or 10HP for 8 stat points
Boosting Con from 7 to 16, you get 18HP or 20HP for 9 stat points
Boosting Con from 7 to 17, you get 27HP for 10 stat points
Boosting Con from 7 to 18, you get 36HP for 11 stat points
Boosting Con from 7 to 19, you get 45HP for 12 stat points
Note that the stat point cost per unit HP gain decreases as you pump in more. Conversely, adding a whopping 8 stat points just to get a 9HP or 10HP... you need to decide if it is really an economical use of stat points if you are rolling for a class with very tight stat point allocation.
@jackjack That's not what I said :O
Still, that was poorly said. It's important, but not as important as it's supposed to be. In fact I've come across places where it was suggested than in BG2 Wisdom should be the prime requisite due to the wish spell being far more important than the ability to scribe spells.
However, the significance of those hitpoints will very much depend on the character in question. For a level 6 fighter with 18 con and max hp on level up, going from 84 to 90 hitpoints isn't going to be hugely significant.
For a mage with 12 con and average hp on level up, going from 15 to 21 hitpoints is a very significant increase.
I meant to quote @demented
Hopefully I've fixed rather than exacerbate my mistake… It doesn't affect the number of spells you can memorize per level, but as far as I'm aware, it does affect how many different ones you can scribe into your spell book. My wording was also ambiguous.
Edit #34768: Spelling!
EDIT: I see now that's what @demented said, so you probably misquoted somehow.