So You Want to Talk Stats?

[hyzhenhok]

Endurance is immensely important in succeeding as any kind of soldier in real life. For example, even riding horses in real life takes physical effort on the part of the rider. My argument is that the code should reflect how important endurance is in combat and all sorts of things. I am thinking of ways for this to happen. You all have proven the encumbrance option is not viable. So I am proposing other things.

Endurance is important in the game. But Strength and Agility are also important.

There is nothing about the code that prevents you from roleplaying a defensive warrior or roleplaying the importance of endurance while fighting or out in the desert.

[Synthesis]

Endurance is the stat for people who are too weak and slow to get it done quickly, or the tie-breaker when your strength and agility are matched.  It's important, yes...but if you're significantly weaker and/or slower, it's not going to save your bacon, unless you're running away.

I think it would help you if you mentally replaced 'endurance' with the typical D&D 'constitution' stat, because that's -mostly- how it works for Armageddon.

[Delirium]

Fighting taking stamina points might sound nice in theory (I don't personally think it does) but it would wreck playability.

[Fathi]

Fighting taking stamina points might sound nice in theory (I don't personally think it does) but it would wreck playability.

On the bright side, everybody would be easier to kill because they'd all be wearing Kuraci camouflage sandcloth instead of real armour.

[Wolfsong]

Provided you could find them, yes.

[Delirium]

"Yes, sir, the army's just over that dune."

"What army?"

[Kaineus]

You're right, it fits the DnD definition. But Arma doesn't work entirely like DnD, and so I think the stat is still underpowered for these two reasons.

-The effect of constitution on hit dice in DnD is cumulative, and I'm not sure the starting modifier in Arma is significant enough to compensate for the lack of this cumulative hp gain. I have seen racial and guild modifiers to be very significant. But I don't think the endurance modifier is enough to warrant anyone prioritizing it. If you got the hit-dice modifier on your DnD character only for level one, and no subsequent levels, no one would prioritize this attribute in DnD either.

I recall human warriors in DnD with 18 constitution becoming rather troll-like (seeing as half-trolls only have constitution capped to 22 or some such). In Armageddon it's as if humans are capped at 14 constitution, dwarves capped at 16, and muls and half-giants are somewhere around 22 or 24. This is only from my experience, and I don't want to talk in terms of the ranges of HP I've seen in Arma--but I think no-karma humanoid races get screwed in terms of endurance mattering as a stat.

I'm speaking without knowing the code, but it is just my sense that endurance is under valued and I'm trying my best to defend this point.

Also: all physical descriptions and backgrounds should conform to the stats of your character. I think people like to forget endurance (not to mention the famine and diseases ravaging zalanthas) exists when they write their physical descriptions.

[RogueGunslinger]

[picardfacepalm.jpg]

[sprucebark]

I had a dwarf once with poor str, exceptional agility, wisdom ( he had wisdom, I just don't remember what it was), and absolutely incredible endurance.

The poor strength meant he had to get real choosy with armor and weapon, otherwise he never had trouble hitting someone in a spar.
The high agility helped him dodge a lot of attacks and he struck back faster.
The endurance let him regenerate in the middle of a spar and be almost always ready for another match.

I think it worked exactly as intended and desired. He was in great shape, very fast, but just couldn't deliver -huge- blows.

Now I dream of rolling AI strength with the other stats staying the same......

[RogueGunslinger]

The endurance let him regenerate in the middle of a spar

What?

[Wolfsong]

Dwarves don't count, though. Hell, I had a dwarf ranger that, straight out of the box with no armor and a pair of shitty clubs, could go off and smash carru, day 1.

[Kaineus]

And also the "dwarves don't count" bit reinforces my point about DnD endurance/constitution range being more flexible than Armageddon's. But I accept that dwarves can have obscene str/endurance and humans cannot. It's fine. It adds to the setting of the game to have races so drastically differentiated in terms of stats.

[Dark Fate]

Ideally I'd like to a lot more high-endurance, defensive characters. But I will simply never prioritize endurance again because it is an essentially worthless stat. Prioritizing it lowers your defense (by forgoing the encumbrance boost provided by strength and reducing your ability to dodge) so much that the increased HP counts for nothing.

Why is endurance the defensive stat?
Endurance... is endurance. It isn't and shouldn't be "the defensive stat". It should be your characters endurance.
It also isn't worthless.

Prioritizing it doesn't lower your defense. It means you will have at least a decent endurance. With all the benefits of a decent or high endurance.

Being stronger lets you wear heavier things.
Being faster lets you dodge more attacks.
Being tougher lets you take more hits.
Why isn't it ideal that all three physical stats each contribute to make a "defensive character"?

[Calavera]

I removed a post as well as the posts that quoted it. Nobody's judging anybody by their post count, but if you sarcastically flame-bait people I'll judge you for that whether you've been playing for a decade or a week.

[Synthesis]

The endurance let him regenerate in the middle of a spar

What?

About...8-10 years ago, if you failed a bash on (or got bashed by) someone in the middle of a fight, you would regenerate hp while you were in the sitting position.  It worked for everyone, not just people with high endurance.  They've since fixed it.

[Bogre]

I can't see HMG-CoA reductase either.  Doesn't mean atorvastatin doesn't work.

Whoosh, Synth. Whoosh. I think I'm the only one who understood that statement. If someone needs a $4 co-pay card for Lipitor, hit me up!

Nah, I got it

[Bogre]

And having played a human with 88 hp, and humans with HP over 110, I promise you the guys with more HP were MUCH more effective in combat. You get a bad init round of combat with a big baddy with your 80-something HP and you can be sitting in the 40's or LOWER, and if you have 120 you're still at 80 and not in panic mode.

For most characters, especially for newer characters, I think endurance and HP is a better determinant of survivability than strength and being able to wear armor, because not every PC will be maxing out with heavy-weight armor.

As people have said, if you want to be able to take crits and damage, prioritize endurance. If you want to dish it/rely on armor, take strength. It's tailoring stats to the PC and your own playstyle. I really, really like being able to take damage, and I rarely, if ever, prioritize endurance last.

[Cutthroat]

Sadly, all the evidence that suggests endurance is actually useful right now is mostly anecdotal, but I'll share some anyway:
- I tend to favor roles with some element of combat in them
- My longest-lived characters tend to have over 100 HP
- There have been many, many times while playing where, had my PCs had a bit less HP, they would be dead
- Similarly, there have been many times where, had my PCs had a bit -more- HP, they would be alive
- Repeat the last two, except with stamina and stun
- Poison is scary.

Instances where endurance is used are: to determine hit points, and stun points; when poison is encountered; resistance to hostile transformations (such as polymorphing); living through extreme physical shock; and walking across long distances.

Endurance: often under-appreciated, until it saves your PC's life.

[X-D]

I recall human warriors in DnD with 18 constitution becoming rather troll-like (seeing as half-trolls only have constitution capped to 22 or some such). In Armageddon it's as if humans are capped at 14 constitution, dwarves capped at 16, and muls and half-giants are somewhere around 22 or 24. This is only from my experience, and I don't want to talk in terms of the ranges of HP I've seen in Arma--but I think no-karma humanoid races get screwed in terms of endurance mattering as a stat.

That amuses me...the docs straight up say, "nothing matches the hardy dwarf for endurance, though muls and half-giants come close".

If you were to assign DnD style numbers to the races, it would look more like, human 14, half-giant 20, mul 24, dwarf 26.

And you need to stop equating HP with end. Though end does determine your top HP inside that race the race itself determines your MIN HP.

As to the bonuses to combat and otherwise to having high end...there are many, some stated in the docs, well, most, some not.

But I can say, if you are a warrior and you have low end and hence low stam, stun, hp...you will be having a harder time then the one with higher....since it directly determines how many times you can kick, bash, disarm and other things.

[John]

Anyway, I don't know why everyone is so concerned about stats, anyway. This is the kind of shit that takes away from roleplay.

You know we never had these sort of discussions back before stats became prioritisable.

[Yam]

Ohhhhh yeah we did.

[John]

Ohhhhh yeah we did.

Naaah. There was always people just bitching about how much it sucks to have sucky strength when they've spent their entire main desc writing about how big their muscles are. From time to time someone might mention how it's odd that they've got absolutely incredible strength and it should probably be less based on the description they wrote.

We had that conversation again and again and again. All the time, that conversation popped up. However I don't ever recall us having a thread dedicated to how endurance isn't important enough in the game and should do more stuff.

[Synthesis]

My only gripe about endurance is that even with high dwarf rolls, you can still get screwed pretty hard by a bad diceroll.  I think one reason people might be discounting it is that it's very difficult to appreciate the difference between, say, 10% and 25%, if a failure means dying.

[Thunkkin]

the phases of the moons

I've long suspected this. I don't care if it's true or not. I BELIEVE.

[roughneck]

Endurance is an awesome stat.

Resist poisons, survive falls, resist getting 'reeled', regenerate hp, stamina and stun way faster.

For the bonus on saving throws vs poisons alone, high endurance is extremely valuable.

Hell, for any one of these advantages endurance is very valuable.

The stats are fairly well represented in the game, i think.  Especially compared to several years ago.