Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Face changing mask, why?

Well, don't forget that undead take damage from healing (even while transformed, I believe). That is a massive drawback. Poison healing makes up for that some, but it will still be a big inconvenience and threat from enemies. I'm not sure if you can hide your undeadiness in combat though and hide the fact that healing damages you. That will definitely be very strong if you can.

mmmmm that could be trick that they will be using, that you lose your skills cause basically undeads gain buffs from stuff does not heal living, for example elfes flesh does heal but that would hurt undeads (the devs did said that food would hurt undead) unless they meant meat (or bones) of errrr dead undead???
But undead with his skills and skills of some other character would be tooooo much OP I mean even devs have to realize that.
If they would leave it like that, that would basically mean that you can have party of four with only two person or party of four undead each with powers that would count for two players that would technically mean party of eight.
There is no way that they would not nerf undeads with skills it is just too OP

In the video they use the mask to transform into a dwarf and an elf. Once the transformation animation completes the undead racial ability disappears from their ability bar and is replaced by the other racial skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B5rJ_VG7Lw - 7:45 for dwarf and 8:00 for elf

Indeed, way too overpowered and makes 0 sense!

Yeah, first instinct is not to like gaining racial abilities. Have to see it to see how balanced it is, but it's kind of a slap in the face to the other races.

Lot's of misinformation in this thread. Probably worth watching the VOD of the live stream as they explain it and show it in action (starting around 1:38:30 is a good place to start for mask discussion). The biggest point is that the mask grants you the races skills and abilities AND can be used by anyone, not just undead.

Key points:
- Knowledge of how to make the mask comes from Fane, so it appears you have to do a bit of his story to get access to it.
- Mask is made through a crafting recipe
- Requires getting a special tool to steal faces (found on or around the torture in fort joy)
- You have to steal the face from a fresh and intact corpse (on the stream they accidentally turned the first dwarf they murdered into ash and so had to kill another)
- You have to steal a face from each race to unlock that races shapeshift
- You can make the mask without having collected all the faces (but will only work for the ones you have so far - on stream they only stole a dwarf face and made a dwarven mask of shapeshiffting)
- ANY character can use the mask (not just Fane as PC or companion, not just custom undead). This may have been stated in the chat only. VOD @ about 1:42:00 - 1:42:20
- When you choose your race with the mask you gain access to that races racial traits (e.g. corpse eater for elf) and class skills (e.g. Metamorph for dwarf, see this example on the livestream)
- Characters will treat you as the race you are.

I think the purpose of the mask is to ensure that you can access more of the games content with a single playthrough, whether that means being able to not terrify people as undead or not miss out on corpse granted skills if you don't have an elf in the party, or access quest lines that are gated behind races.

Opposite of what a lot of people have said in the thread, the mask means you aren't forced to play or include any race in your party comp. Instead, it opens up more freedom.

Here is the VOD of the livestream for reference: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/171233930

[Edit: for clarity, cut some erroneous examples from alpha that may not be in game anymore, and link to VOD]

Doesn't make sense for a mask user to gain the other racial abilities. If they do need to still gain them, they should be heavily penalized, like 1/3rd the benefit and double the cooldown compared to when used by a real person of that race.

Having all the racial dialogue as well strikes me as nonsensical too, why should someone donning a shapeshifting mask suddenly gain actual cultural/historical knowledge of the race they are copying? They should actually get into trouble for trying to pass off as another race and then acting/saying the wrong things.

They did said that if you have solid perception skill you can see that it is undead with mask so I dont see racial dialogues silly there is still option that you can fail them.

The fact that they can be any race is really strong yes, but as far as I understand they can still only heal through poison so that is what makes them inferior to simply picking the race they are pretending to be.

Yea true if I picked up all from stream they are not getting healing bonus from healing potion, they still need poison.

Also I don't know if this has been mentioned but you need a Source Orb (A tier 5 enchantment item judging by it's description) and the face in question to create a Mask of the [Race]. We don't know exactly how late and how much effort you have to ACTUALLY go through to actually get a working Mask.

Saying that, I do agree about the racial abilities BUT I suppose if you like to play Lone Wolf then you can use it as an option to change race and play with that for a bit or for more roleplay potential. Although I like the idea that the racial skills in question may be weaker (Flesh Sacrifice could just give +1 Ap and not the damage, encourage doesn't give the con bonus etc) than the none shapeshifted race

You don't get access to flesh sacrifice as an undead, only corpse eater.

I'm not too sure about that.



Edit: I'm probably mistaken here, but I believe that during yesterday's livestream Swen implied that all races can use the mask once it's been created. I don't know if you need the mask in your inventory/face slot for it to function, but if everyone in the party can use it you'll probably end up with the entire party picking a specific race that suits the situation(s).

What we do know is that when undead use the mask they still take damage from healing spells etc. Based on the video it seems that the cosmetic change also unlocks new racial abilities, but I don't know if talents also are affected.

That is strange, because I was certain they said during the stream that wearing the mask doesn't give you access to racial skills.

I went back and rewatched the stream. When he uses it to turn into a dwarf at 1:41:20 he also unlocks the dwarven racial skill instead of the undead one. He mentions that any race can wear the mask, but I couldn't find the part about him mentioning racial abilities/talents.
The entire idea just seems absurd to me and I'm honestly not too sure what to make of it. Considering that it still requires multiple items (Source orb and face ripper) which don't appear to be early game items I'm not too sure what to think of it. The mask probably won't have a large overall and long-term impact on the game but the notion of unlocking other racial abilities just seems weird to me. idk

I guess my post above falls into the tl/dr category.

Direct quote from Sven: "Look at that I get Dwarven options. I also get Dwarven talents and abilities. So anybody can wear these mask. So non-undead can wear these masks." VOD at 1:42:00 - 1:42:30

Here is the clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/CloudyFaintWaterOhMyDog

You can also see the Dwarf racial skill Metamorph show up on his hot bar after changing into a dwarf around the 1:41 mark.

Ill check the video again, but i thought he said you get the racials from the race you are wearing.

But that about gaining the ability to use corpse eat if you wear the face of the elf. That is from the newletter.

Follow is a pure copy paste from the newsletter update thing

"For example, you can shift to a Dwarf for better prices from a Dwarven merchant, or shift to an Elf to dine on a corpse and learn their memories with the Elven racial ability Corpse Eater. "

Sorry, didnt check the next page :P
Then i dont have to check the info.

So really, if you make the mask, you can pick whatever race and their racial that you need for different situations.

Making the mask itself very OP.

As if infinit lockpicks wasn't already making it difficult to have a party without an undead in it.

I think that the changing mask would fit better as a "new game+" thing, so people can change race whenever they feel like, to get the "perfect" choices.

And then make it so that the undead race you pick, is the only face you can wear (Like undead lizard only wears lizard faces). And really, the undeads looked like they would do fine as long as they are wearing clothes that hide the undead parts. No real need to hide the face behind a mask (if we take you only wear the face of your race).

After watching twitch live it felt like it would take around 1-3hours of playing maybe, before you can make the first level mask, which only is for one race.

So by that i would guess it will maybe take a few hours into the game to be able to build the artifact itself.
But yeah, gaining the racials of whatever race you wear, is way to overkill.
Being able to get better prices when bartering and be able to get different options when talking to NPC's , depending on the race you pick. Is really good enough. Though i guess that would make it so some people dont care about making the artifact, since they would do fine with just one mask or not getting any mask.

So yeah, if i understood it correctly, there is no "need" for the masks at all, just wear good clothes and your good. I really hope there is a very good in game and story reason for being able to build this OP artifact that pretty much forces everyone to have Fade (or whatever the undead origins name was) in the party.

in the newsletter it says that everyone even the living can wear the masks. you will just need to do a lot of faceripping. Think you will need 16 faces for one mask (4 faces of 4 races).

but yeah, it doesnt change the fact that you are undead underneeth. it "Just" fools everyone into thinking your the race you have picked. As well as give you the racials.

So really, why would you do anything other than have the whole team be undeads. That way you can have one or two with the necro focus as well as poison. For healing. And then just use masks to pick whatever racials you want to have or the race that would fit best with the npc you are going to talk too.

i think it would be a better fit if only fade could wear the face changer, due to something or other in the story.
That would limit the racial swapping to only him.