AoD combat stats and discussion thread

[Lord Andre]

If DEX gives you more AP AND you act faster in combat it's instantly #1 combat stat.

Not really, from my own experience, max dex is a bit of a trap build for combat. Trying to keep those 12 AP forces you to wear light armor and you're survivability will suffer a lot for it.

If I was to pick 1 stat as absolute king, that would be Perception 8. I see no reason to go with anything lower than 8 for perception on any kind of build, fighty, talky, hybrid etc.

 

[Shadenuat]

8 points of DEX seem to also be worth it, can wear heavy armor too.

 

[Tigranes]

Dex8 and Per8 are a given for basically every single one of the 50+ characters I've rolled since beta. 10AP is easy to achieve with better armours / crafting, and per8 is a sensible investment for any fighter as well as for the various dialogue per checks, most of which seem to be 8.

In contrast, there are real reasons to go anywhere between 4 and 10 for STR, CON, INT, CHA (though maybe not as high as 10 for for CON/CHA).

 

[Mozg]

8 Dex is OK between:

There is a lot of extremely good 10 AP armor, giving you like 11 DR and 60+ vsCrit in Maadoran pretty easily. The DR/vsCrit jump between 10 AP armor and 8 AP armor is not close to 12->10.

The fact it saves you 2 stat points.

Block is naturally a little higher than dodge.

One-handers benefit enough from stuff like sharpening that they eventually pull away from 2-handers. Eventually.

But all that is what it takes to make up the difference. I think there's nothing really competitive with 8-10 dex if you're gonna do combat.

I can't think of any AP game where maxing the AP stat wasn't a top-tier build.

I think it would be cool if the superheavy low AP armor gave you immunity to aim:limb effects. I'd try a no-defense slug tanker build if he didn't automatically get -30 hit every fight.

 

[Shadenuat]

After 7 hours of playing finally killed everyone in first Mercenary quest, tried to kill the merchant too but got black screen instead of combat. Game is still buggy.
Strangely enough I ended up with 9 DEX. Feels very wrong but it allowed me to go first in assasin fight avoiding his crossbow shot. The plan was to use Spiked club for Knockdown + Aimed: Head and grab +1AP Lorica. Feels kinda dumb and not that useful but somehow 11 AP proved useful. Beaten him with a spiked club Nameless One style.
The challenge for me was in keeping enough hp (~20-25) before fighting 2 thugs and keeping merchant alive. Managed to do that with Knockdown hits aggroing both thugs on myself. Combined knockdown, aimed to legs for penalty to dodge & fast and strong attacks for -1DR and merchant kill stealed one thug I mean it was the plan but I wanted the kill. Oh well.
Crafted with 5 Crafting iron club (like +% to crit) and bronze armor set & shield.
5 DR helmet proved very useful because if you don't wear good helmet AI goes for Aimed: Head and fucks you up with daggers for 7-12 damage every round.

Actually a second mini-playthrough, I picked swords on first char and didn't like it, and wanted to try something with bag slots so pumped Throwing a little - completely worthless, can't go with multiple weapons in the beginning at least. Five or ten wasted points into Throwing made inner autist in me cry so restarted lol.
Ended up with Clubs, Block, Streetwise, Crafting & Alchemy as my picks for now.

Although Swords + Alchemy really felt better for synergy with double ticking damage & whirlwinding to apply 3-5 poison ticks in first round of combat.

 

[Mozg]

If you wanna save that dude buy the bolas/nets from the merchant and neck the guys

 

[Shadenuat]

Well I just used Knockdowns. He'd probably still rush them and die or something. His AI is really stupid, and his dagger attacks are worthless cause their armor blocks all of his damage.

 

[Mozg]

His AI will kick in and actually use aimed attacks and shit that will hurt them if they are helpless from a bola. He only uses fast attacks because his hit chance is so bad.

 

[Shadenuat]

Interesting. My chance of hitting something with 2-3 Throwing in the beginning seemed minimal though (I mostly tried shit like javelins tho).

 

[Mozg]

bolas/nets don't use throwin' and don't check opponent's evade. Shit just works. You just only get a handful of them per "chapter" so you need to ration them.

 

[Shadenuat]

Do bombs hit automatically too?

 

[Ninjerk]

Do bombs hit automatically too?

With no throwing training, I have 100% on bombs and liquid fire.

Regarding dodge and block: game only checks which one is higher when wielding a shield, or always checks block and never dodge when wielding shield?

 

[Mozg]

If dodge is better you dodge.

Do bombs hit automatically too?

Yep. There's a ton of guaranteed shit that's "consumable" to let you edge case through basically one fight per chapter that your character can't really win on stats like that.

I wish bolas were 100% instead of 75% so I could honestly use 'em instead of feeling guilty knowing that I am gonna F9 when I miss my consumable trump Trump card

 

[Shadenuat]

Well it's cool on one hand, but it also kinda makes Throwing skill shitty since you can use best throwing stuff without it, unlike, for example, Arcanum where it affects how well you throw everything, from knives to grenades, newspapers and 1000 lb rocks.

 

[Mozg]

Also if anyone didn't know this if you put items in the belt slots in inventory you can switch them to your hand for free, and if you have something in hand that fits in a belt slot you can switch back to THAT for free.

So you can do something like dagger in hand, net in belt -> switch, throw net, switch back to dagger, use dagger. Only costs the 4? AP to throw a net. Which IMO makes two handers less attractive because they don't fit in your belt and cost 2 AP to unequip then re-equip.

 

[Lord Andre]

Why not just keep the net in the other hand ? But yeah moving stuff to and from belt slots cost 0 AP.

 

[Mozg]

You can't hold a thing in your "offhand" slot if you are using a twohander. So it's 2 AP to unequip it, move a thing from belt to offhand, use it, 2AP to re-equip twohander, which is rarely viable.

The "big one handers" (stuff that costs 4 AP to fast attack with, e.g. a Handar) don't go in the pocket either. "Small one handers" (2/3 AP fast attacks) do. Bucklers don't fit in pocket.

 

[Shadenuat]

Yea but you can equip shield and switch between 1-hander and nets/javelins.
I'd really prefer to this just having 2 sets of weapons/items really.

 

[Shadenuat]

Aim Injury should be nerfed. AI abuses arm crits and it stacks without penalties when opponents hit you which basically gets your chances to hit anything except fast attacks too low. In 1 turn you can get to -30 and then up to -60, and that's with wearing heavy armor and stuff with crit protection. Each penatly after first one should get lower and lower.

It makes little sence when you block almost all if not all damage from crit yet you still get stacking penalties to accuracy from aimed: arms (1 point of damage turns into -15 to accuracy for 3 turns debuff, lel; add multiple enemies and after 1st round of combat everything but Fast attacks gets obsolete again). The penalty should depend on how bad the wound you actually got is.
Maybe add a pain resistance potion to Alchemy at least that would lessen the effects from crits and injuries.

Also Critical Strike description says it protects against crits but I don't see it in my char list or in practice. It should be a flat bonus to every part of the body in Crit Def.

Also I dislike how every little girl or old man apparently has 40 hp at least and like 8+ Dex and 5+ points in combat skills. Even if some enemy with lethal weapon like heavy crossbow can be very dangerous he should at least go down in less hits than melee guys, so it would make sense to change your target priority depending on enemy setup.

Also shield bash says it pushes enemy away 1 tile (Buckler) and has no crit effects, but it sometimes does that and also knocks enemy down.

Can't Knockdown/Shield Bash into Liquid Fire tiles

Also smallest of crossbows seem to be powerful enough to go through heavy armor ignoring ~8 DR and still doing loads of damage, and weakest of bows which glanced off armor and shields long time ago have no trouble penetrating all that either. Why have stronger versions of them then anyway, if heavy crossbow from 1st assasin fight does 7 dmg, while later enemies with handheld crossbows do 2 shots for 7-12 dmg?

 

[Anthedon]

I don't remember having issues with the attack penalty from arm injuries in my tank playthrough. After putting a few points in sword fighting and getting the blade for 2000 Imperials from Maadoran I was hitting with almost every attack for the rest of the game.

 

[Shadenuat]

Maybe it's cause I neglect my defensive skills and have to go with status effects, bombs and knockdowns on that char I get critted often. It's still a crappy system - do 1 dmg and apply a ten-thirty times stronger debuff.
I also use them clubs for now.

One other thing I don't like are infinite AOOs.

 

[Anthedon]

Maybe it's cause I neglect my defensive skills and have to go with status effects, bombs and knockdowns on that char I get critted often. It's still a crappy system - do 1 dmg and apply a ten-thirty times stronger debuff.
I also use them clubs for now.

One other thing I don't like are infinite AOOs.

No defensive skills sounds like the culprit here, I had block pretty high pretty quick. That's 30-50% avoidance by itself.

 

[Perkel]

DEX not affecting anything ranged even throwing? Eh? Well guess it's a balance feature.
I am surprised that no stats affect civil skills, unlike combat skills. Thought pumping CHA would instantly boost a few social ones.

dex affects dagger and sword acc. Not much though.

 

[Tigranes]

Throwing nets etc used to be tied to Throwing skill, which made them much less useful for all other characters since it's heavy investment to equip them and throw them and miss. The current solution is better for everybody, though not for throwing as a skill.

The block / aim thing is a bit weird - from my experience, there are times you block damage and shrug off the aim special, but there are also times when you get hit for like 1-2 damage and still get the penalty, though the penalty also seems smaller than if you didn't block. Maybe Vault Dweller can explain.

Shadenuat most of the difficulties you describe for your characters is related to your lack of defense skills. If the enemy sees that they have very good THC against you, the crossbow user will go for a Power shot instead of Fast, and with a 2-hander xbow, definitely do enough damage (e.g. 10-13 is the heavy xbow power attack i believe) to get past DR. 8 DR is really not enough for you to be confidenet that you can shrug off all damage, it's not that high at all.

 

[Elhoim]

Aim Injury should be nerfed. AI abuses arm crits and it stacks without penalties when opponents hit you which basically gets your chances to hit anything except fast attacks too low. In 1 turn you can get to -30 and then up to -60, and that's with wearing heavy armor and stuff with crit protection. Each penatly after first one should get lower and lower.

It makes little sence when you block almost all if not all damage from crit yet you still get stacking penalties to accuracy from aimed: arms (1 point of damage turns into -15 to accuracy for 3 turns debuff, lel; add multiple enemies and after 1st round of combat everything but Fast attacks gets obsolete again). The penalty should depend on how bad the wound you actually got is.

Next update:

- Fixed issue with "half-blocks" still getting secondary effects, like arm injury.