Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Should the Undead Race have a CON score of 0?

The undead race will soon be added to the game. There should be something special about them, as reflected in their Racial Abilities.

In D:OS 1, undead were immune to poison, which is a good start, but I think there should be more to it than that now that they've become playable.

D&D gives Undead a CON score/bonus of 0. But perhaps that's not the right way to go for D:OS.

What if Undead start out with a HIGH con, say, a base of 10 con, and they start out with 50% damage resistance to physical attacks, BUT they do not gain any HP per level up?

(Maybe that's too much of a disadvantage, and they start out with 15 base CON?)

I feel like the Undead's HP/Con should be handled in a different way than that of the living races, but I'm not sure how. What are your thoughts?

white skin?

No skin?

Not sure how that work. If there's no hp gain per level than you either have a character that's heavily nerffed after the first few levels or one that's overpowered until the mid-late game. Unless there's some other game mechanic I'm unaware of.

Maybe the undeads could increase their constitution not at levelling up but in some other ways? Something like: "Increase the damage you can take by nailing your ribs to your backbone using the 9-inch-nails".

I popped into D:OS 1 and did a quick check.

Going from level 13 to level 14, all characters gained roughly an additional 7% HP upon leveling up.
At level 14, increasing their CON by 1 point boosted most characters HP by 12% (the Glass Cannon's HP only went up by 10%, but I think that was due to Glass Cannon).

What if Undead didn't gain HP on level-up, but they gain much more HP per point of CON than other races (like 20% HP per CON instead of 12%)? If you add in some damage resistance (representing no functional vital organs to damage), than maybe that would help offset the lack of HP per level-up?

Also, more generally, if everyone gained fewer HP per level up than they do currently, that would also help. There was a good deal of HP inflation present in D:OS, after all. If that could be cut back a bit in D:OS 2, that would change the dynamics some more.


I'll note that I haven't made up my mind on anything yet, this thread is for exploring and debating ideas for Larian to think about.

I think that forcing one stat to be constant is a bit harsh.
When we dramatically change the core mechanics for a race the results might be too different from races of other players. This means that either the difference must be small or they must require other resources that are comparably available within the game.
Endurance/Resistance does fit Undead very well, the thought pushing it onto hp might be too concrete already.

Now i will flood this thread with my other ideas:



EDIT:@stabbey I like this concept; it makes Undead more gear-dependent and allows for high-hp-builds. And you can easily make middleground between this and standard.

I don't really see undead increasing their health through constitution as making any more or less sense than living creatures. I mean, how can a human get hit by 2 sword attacks at level 1, and 10 at level 12? The way I see it with undead is constitution would basically increase their vitality, their connection to life itself. You can take more physical blows because you have greater willpower.

Wonder if Undead will basically have zombie talent by default, where poison heals and healing hurts? And then maybe a special ability like "Channel Life," that lets you temporarily reverse that, or just let you get healed by regular healing.

Plus crushing vulnerability and slashing resist, if it is more of a skeleton. Necromantic source power for raising dead would be cool.

I guess we will have to wait for the prototype.
People here have different conceptions of what the "undead" will be. Walking Skeletons ? Vampires ? Zombies ? Soulless shells denied the afterworld because of the Source ?

Because obviously creating skills for a skeleton may be very different than for a zombie.

I would really love to see undead get damage from healing, it makes a lot more sense if you look at dnd. A racial ability like Channel life would be very cool indeed. And what about potions, can they still you those?
I heard Swen didn't like the idea of undead getting damage from healing in the first game, hope he changes his mind now that undead are a race.

If we go by Dragon Commander, the undead are skeletons.

Why would a skeleton who was begrudgingly raised from the dead by a necromancer want to practice necromancy himself? I feel like that really clashes. It'd make more sense if you have a vendetta against necromancers and want to kill them all.

Well now that i's confirmed they are indeed skeletons, it's a bit late to point out that there were sentient zombies and ghosts in other games. But yes, in DC, the undead "race" were skeletons :p

Well, people who are abused often become abusers themselves. Similar case here. Could be a choice the player can make, either to do unto others as has been done unto them, or to assume most people don't want to be turned into the undead.

Maybe instead of the same set of stats as everyone else they are different all around. Con can be density (of bones) essentially redressing the stat as something else. Still a way to keep it balanced as other characters are, but at least giving the stat a little flavor opposed to just using CON and HP etc...

Maybe a CON of 0, and NO HP gain per level-up is too harsh. I'm just spitballing ideas around. How about this one as an Undead Racial Passive:

Unvitality (Passive): Gain twice as much HP per point of CON, but your maximum HP only increases by half-as much when you level up. Your HP is also not restored to full upon leveling.

This means that Undead gain -some- Max HP when leveling up automatically, but it's a lot less effective than that of living people. Also a further penalty - living creatures HP is automatically restored to full when they level up, but the Undead do not. They have to work harder to maintain their decaying bodies.

If they want to be tough, they'll have to invest points into Constitution (but if they do that, they will go farther than that of ordinary people). Their extra gains from CON represent being tougher to injure and kill because of a lack of vital organs.

Giving the Undead (and not the Lizards) the "Consume Dead" ability, which lets them eat corpses to regain HP would make for a great synergy.

Basically, you want the character to have to work to stay in shape, but not make it such a feature it simply becomes a chore to play an Undead (as in too much time and effort needed to keep her in shape), or, on the other side of the spectrum, a flavor mechanic that barely balances strong bonuses. And by all that I mean that the whole "I am Undead, I have to fight decay" deal should not be something that will suck all the attention you put into the character. It should be something lighter, to reflect it's nature, and not a heavy feature that constantly requires you to go out of your way to keep the character up.

So, for me, the simplest way to do that, is to consider what it takes to "upkeep" a regular living character, and see how we can bend these rules when applied to an Undead.

You could just make the Undead very tanky, additionnal HPs, damge reduction, resistances, immunities (to most DoTs and crowd control mainly) but deprive them of all the usual ways of regaining life. Let them heal back to full health on level ups, and work to keep them alive between them (making tactical decisions, whether in combat or not), with the occasional prodigal source of nutrients you might find while exploring that'll make you say "oh god that's EXACTLY what I needed."

Make the Undead a powerful force that keeps waning over time, but relentlessly rises back up if you manage her everyday un-life wisely. Might even underline that eternal life is mostly about making smart decisions come the right time in the process, rather than eating corpses or any other sort of sacrifice.

Could you be a bit more specific about some of your ideas about how to keep an undead character alive, and what upkeep you think an undead character should have to deal with? I think you have something in mind, but it's not coming across very well.

My idea is a fairly simple one, really.

Undeads get inate bonuses to damage reduction (piercing, slashing, death magic, cold magic), some vulnerabilities (fire and blunt weapons), immunities to sleep, stun, mind control (basically anything that affects the mind), poison, bleeding, the obvious stuff. They get a substantial bonus to HPs.

On the other side, they can't heal unless they level up. They might stumble upon a powerful artefact now and then, or get a very rare opportunity to suck the life out of something, find a fountain of undeath, I'm just shooting vague concepts. The idea behind that would be punctual and rare findings that might restore some health for the savvy explorer.

The real trick about keeping the Undead alive would reside in the player's ability to manage a big health pool that just keeps going down. That would be tactical choices on the battlefield, knowing when to protect the character or have her fall back, adopt defensive strategies to spare some valuable health, as well as outside combat, knowing when to pick a fight, chosing to avoid conflict. Will you take side with your allies knowing that might be that one too many fight for the day? Will you sell one of your group members out if it meant saving some of your precious decaying health? Or Would you be the martyr up front, trusting, hoping that your team mates will have your back?

Making decisions. Is this fight really worth it? Can I afford it? I think it goes well with the global idea of competitive cooperation that they are trying to push forward. Might also make players think about why, sometimes, they'll want to take the darker approach. It is, after all, the Undead.

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification. I just wanted to know what you meant before I posted my response. So this is in part a response to your previous post:


Well one problem with looking at the upkeep of a living character in a videogame for a starting point is that there ISN'T any. Which is because as you pointed out - upkeep is annoying.


I'm not so sure about making it a struggle to keep an undead character going until the next level-up. The first reason is because each combat encounter is intended to be challenging enough to be dangerous. If all those buffs to an undead's surviability make them so much tankier than normal characters, that'll let undead steamroll encounters intended to be challenging.


The second reason is that if the buffs don't make the undead able to survive easily, then the undead will be worn down by attrition. Level-ups are definitely not frequent, and they get even less so the farther you go (which is also the time when enemies get more dangerous). Having only very rare chances to heal will kill a lot of characters by attrition and small mistakes, especially gamers who are less experienced.

I believe that Undead characters are supposed to be equally viable choices as a race, not just some kind of punishing hard mode, So I think healing as an undead should be more forgiving than your proposal.

(I also think that making them immune to sleep, stun, and mind-control on top of their other bonuses is too much. )


As for how to heal an undead, I agree that it shouldn't be quite as easy as a living character. Some people have suggested poison, but I'm not sure about that either. In D:OS 1, poison only worked on zombies, not skeletons. Poison is also pretty common. But if I take out poison, and if you don't want the corpse-eating healing method, all I can think of is some kind of life-leech skill. That could be used on party members who would be able to heal normally.

Well, actually I do have another idea - I suggested an active skill:

Undying Will (Active): This skill has a duration of three turns, and if you die while it is active, you automatically resurrect to 50% HP. 8 Turn cooldown or once-per-combat.

If you time its use correctly, you'll die, but be restored to 50% health immediately. It's a bizarre method of healing, I grant you, but it does fit with the "implacable man" style, and it does make tactical considerations of when to use the ability more important.

Although I still do think the corpse-eating method could be workable.