Rework idea for Barring Death's Door

[thelee]

56 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I've seen a fair number of AI enemies just happily attacking a character with BDD on them, i.e. they're too dumb to switch targets. So not only does BDD function as protection, it's also pseudo crowd control, since quite a few enemies like to prioritize near death targets.

sure, especially with rogue-type AI around. but it's very short duration and needs to be paired with other stuff or else mostly it just stalls the inevitable. in this respect the special lay on hands variant is very powerful if even shorter duration because it comes with a free (in terms of action economy/resource) heal.

resurrection comes with a 20s death prevention shield and no one really blinks an eye at it in terms of power level. BDD stands out because it's much easier to do something degenerate with it, which implies interaction with salvation of time and/or wall of draining and/or brilliant (and the new strand of favor tech someone discovered here)

i hope ppl here aren't just theorycrafting; if so please try a few hard fights where you have BDD and no brilliant/duration-extension exploits. it's not going to blow the fight wide open. And even when used exclusively with salvation of time [but no resource recurrence] the power level is not significantly past what i would expect out of a total casting of two level 5 spells and two level 6 spells to be, as someone who played using this interaction with a few glass cannon builds; it all functionally boils down to resource recurrence in fact.

Edited March 22, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

9 hours ago, thelee said:

resurrection comes with a 20s death prevention shield and no one really blinks an eye at it in terms of power level. 

Honestly though: I either never noticed or forgot about that.

I guess mostly because you don't have to use it a lot. It's an ability you'd only use when you screw up (mostly) and thus players tend to pick something else that would be useful in every fight. You cannot cast it on party members who are still up. So there's very little motivation to build around it (unless you have a full blown Vengeful Defeat Suicide Bomb in your midst I guess) while BDD is different: it cries for .

Edited March 23, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

11 hours ago, thelee said:

resurrection comes with a 20s death prevention shield and no one really blinks an eye at it in terms of power level. BDD stands out because it's much easier to do something degenerate with it, which implies interaction with salvation of time and/or wall of draining and/or brilliant (and the new strand of favor tech someone discovered here)

Yeah, as I stated I a bit above in the thread, the difference is not only about convenience but also about the wound you have to take to get resurrection effect which makes infinite recast impossible. Resurrection is much stronger, but not abusable.

Quote

i hope ppl here aren't just theorycrafting; if so please try a few hard fights where you have BDD and no brilliant/duration-extension exploits. it's not going to blow the fight wide open. And even when used exclusively with salvation of time [but no resource recurrence] the power level is not significantly past what i would expect out of a total casting of two level 5 spells and two level 6 spells to be, as someone who played using this interaction with a few glass cannon builds; it all functionally boils down to resource recurrence in fact.

I think it's different to say that a spell is simply overpowered and that it can be abused through combo.

Brisk recitation is a good example of something simply overpowered. The phrase generation bonus is simply too high.

Salvation of Time on the other hand is not overpowered on its own (except maybe with Blade Cascade but it is so tedious to use that it is tolerable for me). Balance Polishing Mod tweaked it in a way that caps at doubling the duration of a given effects. However, BPM's version applies PL and INT to the duration gain.
BPM's version of SoT is not technically a nerf because it makes it stronger in general case but prevent abuses.

 

As you point, BDD effect is indeed not overpowered for a Tier 5. I agree with you on that. It is abusable (through infinite recast). It does not require a nerf. It requires a tweak IMHO.

That's the kind of change (still open to debate, just to provide an example) I have in mind for BDD :
- Infinite duration for the trigger (aligned with Watchful Presence)
- When near death, it would triggerd a shield for 12s (200 pts base + 10/PL beyond 5)
It would make BDD stronger in general (anticipated casting, longer duration, shield "covers" healing better than prevent death) but would not provide technical immortality anymore.

[Boeroer]

Normal BDD without Brilliant and timebending isn't particulary powerful, right. Since I neither use Brilliant nor SoT and WoD (because too good = boring) I also never use BDD because it's not very good - at least for my playstyle.

[NotDumbEnough]

On certain glass cannon builds BDD with 1 or 2 casts of SoT should be enough time to effectively end the fight (if not, follow up with Withdraw). I also had a Streetfighter/Forbidden Fist Death Godlike playthrough where my MC could take advantage of being near death and punch everything to death within the span of ~20 seconds, though I guess that's specific to the race and class.

[thelee]

7 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

- When near death, it would triggerd a shield for 12s (200 pts base + 10/PL beyond 5)

the main problem I have with damage shields in this game is that they're extremely hard to reason about - you have no indication how much or how little health is left.

 

with the BPM's change to salvation of time is a BDD tweak really necessary? (does BPM also incorporate that brilliant nerf?)

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

the main problem I have with damage shields in this game is that they're extremely hard to reason about - you have no indication how much or how little health is left.

 

with the BPM's change to salvation of time is a BDD tweak really necessary? (does BPM also incorporate that brilliant nerf?)

Well I don't know yet.

Current BPM has a Tier 3 limit to Brilliant regen but my local version uses a cycling version which regenerates up to Tier 3/6/9. With it BDD could be regenerated every 9s on average.

I'm not set on changing BDD. I've spoken with CP Authors about BDD before this thread and they may try a nerf to limit BDD in some way. Then this thread started while I was already scratching my head about how to tweak BDD.

I'll see what I'll do after CP Authors try in their own way. It also depends where this thread goes. I'm not in a hurry.

I'm just happy to have this barrier-based solution which seems quite straightforward and doesn't rely on an obscure mechanic to prevent immortality. It's good to have a pretty satisfying solution in case something has to be done.

[Elric Galad]

Hi, I'm planning to rework BDD for next version of the Balance Polishing Mod.


Given what was discussed above in this thread, my favorite solution for the moment is the following for technical feasibility and mechanic simplicity, but it is relatively far from the original :

Replacing prevent death by an infinite duration beneficial effect that triggers once a 200pts (+10/PL) damages shield for 12s (longer than current duration) when Near Death 

(sort of single target Watchful Presence with a much higher "protection value" but that won't actually heal ; numbers can be discussed of course).

Thanks @Powerotti for coming up with the shield idea, even if his suggestion was a bit different.
It could be cast preventively and protect for a longer duration but isn't a 100% guaranteed immortality for a duration anymore. BDD in its current form isn't overpowered on its own, but is basically God mode when cast repeatedly. That's why this is a tweak, not a strict nerf.
I plan something similar for Shieldbearer's Lay on Hand.


That said I'm open to suggestions.
JUST BEWARE THAT TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY IS A HUGE CONCERN. So if you make suggestion, try to :
- Make precise suggestions about the mechanics
- Try to reuse mechanics from existing abilities
- Try to check the list below about what is feasible or not. If you have questions about the feasibility of a given mechanics, let me know, I'll update the list.
- Try not to make a suggestion that is not too complicated or rely on obscure mechanics for the player.
- Try to read what has been already discussed, since some solutions' drawbacks/advantages were already discussed.

 

Things technically possible :

Resurrect when knockdown (but with a wound)

Resurrect when knockdown and remove all wounds (but this would be Overpowered  )

Add x pts of damages shield 

Condition “under x% of health” for a trigger

Prevent death for the next n times damaged

Prevent death for the next n Graze/Hit/Crit

Prevent death for a duration (of course)

Fixed duration (INT and PL not applying), but it will still be prolonged by re-applying

Apply an effect a fixed duration (INT and PL not applying) after cast

Apply an effect when the duration elapsed (but re-applying will prevent it)

 

Things technically not possible (unless I'm proven wrong by some modder  ) :

Prevent death for the next n times fatal damages

Resurrect when knockdown and remove exactly 1 wound (so +1-1 wound = zero wound)

Condition “under x health” for a trigger where x is a specific number (such as exactly 1 health that one reaches with prevent death)

 

Cheers !

Edited May 11, 2021 by Elric Galad

[thelee]

so in my mind watchful presence also functions as a "prevent death" of sorts - if you recieve fatal damage, you instead appear to go down to 1 (or 0?) and then instantly heal up. does the same thing happen with the tweaked BDD (except a damage shield instead of a heal)? i just think it's ideal if there's not a situation where you recieve so much damage that you bypass near death and die without getting the preventative shield.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, thelee said:

so in my mind watchful presence also functions as a "prevent death" of sorts - if you recieve fatal damage, you instead appear to go down to 1 (or 0?) and then instantly heal up. does the same thing happen with the tweaked BDD (except a damage shield instead of a heal)? i just think it's ideal if there's not a situation where you recieve so much damage that you bypass near death and die without getting the preventative shield.

Interesting, I will check this. I doubt the shield would prevent death, but it would be easy to add something like "heal 1 hp" so you can't be one shotted.

Another good think with Shield is that even if it can't be monitored, when it cracks you're still left with any healing that has happened for the shield duration. You're less naked than when a Prevent Death effect cracks.

[thelee]

on the plus side, it seems technically feasible to add in that momentary death prevention if it doesn't already exist - duplicate whatever watchful presence does but have it heal only like 1 health or something. wouldn't feel as "neat" though.

[Elric Galad]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

on the plus side, it seems technically feasible to add in that momentary death prevention if it doesn't already exist - duplicate whatever watchful presence does but have it heal only like 1 health or something. wouldn't feel as "neat" though.

It could even be possible to put the trigger on 0% health Instead of Near Death, so it really works on knockdown.

I have to try this.

[Elric Galad]

On 5/11/2021 at 7:08 PM, thelee said:

so in my mind watchful presence also functions as a "prevent death" of sorts - if you recieve fatal damage, you instead appear to go down to 1 (or 0?) and then instantly heal up. does the same thing happen with the tweaked BDD (except a damage shield instead of a heal)? i just think it's ideal if there's not a situation where you recieve so much damage that you bypass near death and die without getting the preventative shield.

After checking, Watchful Presence does not work like that. If you go directly from bloodied to knockdown without being Near Death, the knockdown happens.

[thelee]

On 5/16/2021 at 8:05 AM, Elric Galad said:

After checking, Watchful Presence does not work like that. If you go directly from bloodied to knockdown without being Near Death, the knockdown happens.

oh nuts, good to know