The Drunken Lizard Pub

Apologies for the caps, but I figured people would want to be able to find this topic. Here's a list of everything obvious that the stats do:

STRENGTH:
- Max Encumbrance (+4 lbs per point)
- Max Combined Weight Held in Hands to Cast Spells in Combat Only (+1 lb per 3 points)
- Max Damage (+1 per 5 points for Unarmed, Swords, Bludgeoning, Cleaving, Throwing)
- Max HP at character creation (+1 per point)
- Max HP on level up (+1 per 10 points)
- Toxin Resistance (about +2% per 2 points)

DEXTERITY:
- Max Damage (+1 per 5 points for Piercing, Bows, Throwing)
- ToHit (+1 per 5 points)
- Armor (+1 per 5 points)
- Pick Locks (+1% per 3 points)
- Hide in Shadows (?)

ENDURANCE
- Max HP at character creation (+2 per point)
- Max HP on level up (+1 per 5 points)
- HP Regen Rate (up 1 category per 1 point)
- All Four Resistances (about +2% per 2 points)

SPEED:
- Max Damage (+1 per 5 points for Unarmed, Swords, Bludgeoning, Cleaving, Piercing)
- Armor (+1 per 5 points)

INTELLIGENCE:
- Max MP at character creation (+1 per point for non-Healers)
- Max MP on level up (+1 per 10 points for non-Magic Users [BUG])
- Learn Elemental Spells (at 15, 20, and 25 INT)
- Max Learned Elemental Spells (+1 per 2 points)
- Elemental Resistance (about +2% per 2 points)

WISDOM:
- Max MP at character creation (+1 per point for Healers)
- Max MP on level up (+1 per 10 points for Magic Users [BUG])
- Learn Divination Spells (at 15, 20, and 25 WIS)
- Max Learned Divination Spells (+1 per 2 points)
- Disease Resistance (about +2% per 2 points)

PERCEPTION:
- Max MP at character creation (+2 per point)
- Max MP on level up (+1 per 5 points)
- MP Regen Rate (up 1 category per 1 point)
- Magic Resistance (about +2% per 2 points)

CONCENTRATION:
- Max Encumbrance (+2 lbs per point)
- Max Damage (+1 per 5 points for Bows)
- ToHit (+1 per 5 points)
- Disarm Traps (+1% per 3 points?)
- Spellcasting Failure Rate (?)

For Max Damage, the 2 relevant stats seem to be combined, e.g. with 12 Strength and 13 Speed your Max Damage with Swords will go up 5 points, not 4.

Finally, some preliminary data on skills.
Meditation raises the MP regen rate by 1 level for every point in the skill, just like it's extra Perception! Ugh.
Weapon skills appear to increase ToHit by +1 on odd levels, and Max Damage by +1 on even levels.
Unarmed Combat appears to give no bonuses whatsoever to make up for the lack of weapon-based Max Damage.

CONCLUSIONS:
Increasing damage or to-hit ratings with stats is slow compared to skills, but both of those methods are slow compared with buffs. (The +6 to-hit and to bonus damage from a level 6 Bless spell (requiring 11 Divination skill) is the equivalent of 12 levels in a weapon skill.) Therefore, getting to 40 Perception for the MP and MP Regen bonuses is probably the most sensible use of early game attribute points. Furthermore, increasing INT or WIS above 25 to have a fuller palette of spells won't cost you much in lost combat bonuses.

Very cool Slarty. This helps a lot.

Slarty wrote:
ENDURANCE
- Max HP on level up (+1 per 10 points?)

+1 per 5 points.

Thanks for information!

Hmm. If that's true of PER as well, I think that means there are no more class-based bonuses to HP and MP gain. Can anyone confirm that? That would simplify character creation a little bit.

Yeah, buffing yourself is clearly better than boosting your combat stats. This is something I'd hope would be modified in book III. All classes should have advantages and disadvantages, but as it stands now a mage/cleric is clearly better than a fighter at everything, including fighting. I hypothesize that a mage/cleric is also a better thief in many ways but I can't test this hypothesis since I HAVE NEVER FOUND MELT LOCK OR TRAP KILL DESPITE BEING LEVEL 14.

Which is really the only check on caster power in Eschalon II: random spell availability. My guy has no melt lock, no trapkill, and had only Fire Dart for direct damage until level 13 (!), at which point I found that freeze thing. I still have no area of affect damage. Except this just reinforces my point; since I only found fire dart, I had to concentrate on buffs.

Historically a caster is very powerful but also very squishy. The buffs available mean a caster is very powerful but no more squishy than a fighter type. Probably fewer HP, but since the caster can easily and quickly self-heal that is misleading.

Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't a fighter be better at fighting than a caster. Less versatile, sure. But if you make casters better fighters than fighters, you remove the whole point of the class. Sorry for the rant; it's left over annoyance from DRAGON AGE: ORIGIN which had the same problem. They addressed the issue in the AWAKENING expansion; I hope Eschalon does the same.

Now I should point out that I love the game. Since I just spent a minute ranting.

Yeah, this feedback was given about book 1 as well, where the same thing was true. The buffs weren't adjusted at all for book 2... so I don't think this is something Basilisk wants to change.

We can actually try checking fighter stats and full buffed mage stats at the end of the game to see the numbers.

That would be worthwhile. Fully decked out heavy armor fighter with tons of strength and endurance against a character wearing light armor with high perception but running ogre strength, nimbleness, bless, chameleon, leatherskin, and whatever else I'm forgetting. Nimbus helps against ranged, of course, but we can probably ignore that.

Strength also effects max weight of equipped items when casting elemental. Max casting equipment weight is 1/3 of Strength, as far as I can tell.

I think the Int/Wis requirements to learn spells may have changed. I checked in-game and got 15/20/25.

I am judging spell level based on purchase price and casting cost. I was not able to learn the spell I judged to be third level, Portal, so it is possible I am mistaken about that one.

I ran into the 20 as well and was wondering if the third was 25.

The game seems to have only three levels of spells, although there are more than 3 levels of prices. There are only a handful of 3rd level spells but Portal is one of them. You couldn't learn Portal at 25 Int?

No, my Int was less than 25, so when I tried to learn the spell, the error message told me the requirement.

Sounds like it is just 15, 20, 25 then.

In that case, you only need 17 Wisdom and 13 Intelligence to access 3rd level spells (with all available items to boost those stats up). Hmm. I wonder if I can pare down the list of spells I want to know to just 12 of each type?

Regarding buffed mage/ pure warrior stats comparsion. Here are mine close to the end of the game. Im using pretty cheap light armors - price range from 400-2000. Got most of em before middle of the game and enchanted +2 armor for all of them. Using quest reward axe (cos it weights only 3, good for casting). Having 8 points in cleaving and 15 points in light armor. Using all possible buffs.
Tohit: 22
Dmg: 27+2
Armor: 54
Dmg reduction: 22

Also dont forget that caster can easily use haste all the time, meaning double attack and also can use invisibility and chameleon (-40% incoming attack on caster) and heal up to 60 hp per round with haste.

Wait... 33 + 2?

Did they actually adjust all the buffs to increase Max Damage instead of Bonus Damage?

If so, they made them all half as strong in terms of their addition to damage... this is a good thing in terms of game balance.

That also makes it more worthwhile to invest points in the weapon skills themselves. Alternately, it makes it more worthwhile to rely on direct damage spells backed up with insane MP regen.


DOUBLE WAIT... only 17 ToHit?

What are all the buffs you are using? Surely that must be higher...