Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Explanation of Thick Skin Talent

I am confused about the Thick Skin Talent. It states that it "...gives you 5 extra base armour + Man-At-Arms x 2." I can see the modifier on my armour rating, but I see no Man-At-Arms modifier anywhere. I read it to mean it increased Man-At-Arms Rank 1 to Man-At-Arms Rank 2. I would love for someone to explain it better to me. At this point I can't tell if it's a bug, or a misunderstanding on my part.

Thank you for your help!

I would understand it as meaning:

base armor += 5 + man-at-arms*2

So, if man-at-arms is 0, the talent gives you +5 armor.
If man-at-arms is 1, the talent gives you +7 armor.
If man-at-arms is 2, the talent gives you +9 armor.

Haven't checked, but that's my understanding from your post.

I believe it means that your armor will be increased 5 + Man-At-Arms Level x 2. So if your Man-At-Arms is a level 1 your armor would be increased by 7 (5 + 1 x 2). If Man-At-Arms at level 2, armor would increase by 9.

Thank you very much rejam! That is it exactly, so yes, a misunderstanding on my part. I appreciate your explanation and you not pointing out my stupidity directly!

I picked that talent and thought the exact same thing Eronel hahah ..

Mentioned this elsewhere in a bug report, but there seems to be a problem with the way this talent interacts with the Armor Specialist ability.

"Armor Specialist improves your armor rating by 5% per point and decreases heavy armor movement penalty by 20% per point."

My character has Armor Specialist 2, and an Armor Rating of 33. When I mouse over the rating for a breakdown, it says:

From Gear: +24
From Armor Specialist: +10%
From Thick Skin: +7

According to the definition of Armor Specialist, it should be 34, not 33.

(24+7) * 1.1 = 34.1

The only way it could be 33 is if the Thick Skin talent is not being factored into the Armor Rating until the end.

(24 * 1.1) + 7 = 33.4

However, Armor Specialist states it "improves your armor rating", and in this case "armor rating" is defined as the total armor from my gear AND armor for the Thick Skin talent.

I'd like to know which way is intended. While the difference is currently 1 point, the difference between the two calculations will increase as I invest further points in Man-at-Arms (which the Thick Skin bonus is calculated from) and my Armor Specialist ability.

My take is that the Armor Specialist bonus only applies to actual AC, not to AC bonuses from another talent.

I would assume that any modifying ability such as this modifies BASE. You are assuming that it modifies you're already modified armor rating. In the vast majority of such mechanics I've ever encountered, it doesn't work that way.

Your second calculation is the correct one and I would feel safe assuming that this is working as intended. The other way would be weird and would open up all kinds of cans of worms. For example, if there were multiple +% abilities, which applies first?

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you can safely assume ANY game mechanic that modifies an attribute always modifies the base attribute.

I'm assuming it applies to your *Armor Rating* because (again) it says this in the Armor Specialist tooltip:

"Armor Specialist improves your armor rating by 5% per point and decreases heavy armor movement penalty by 20% per point."

It says "armor rating". Not "base armor", nor "base armor attribute", and not "actual AC". And your "Armor Rating" is a combination of many things including, *but not limited to*, your base armor as well as additional modifiers. There isn't even a "base armor" score. It's just a "From Gear" modifier, which is one of several modifiers that make up your Armor Rating score (along with Armor Specialist and Thick Skin).

I would also say the tool tip of "Armor Specialist" fulfills your "..unless explicitly stated otherwise.." condition, since it explicitly states "armor rating" quite clearly.

As for your concern about "if there were multiple +% abilities, which applies first", it's moot, because there isn't when it comes to armor.

Don't safely assume anything. Better to ask the developers and let them decide how they intended for it to work. Either way, whether it's the tooltip or the order of calculations, something needs fixing.

Of course you should wait for official word, I was simply throwing my opinion out there.

The game doesn't layer bonuses, it uses addition over multiplication.

Take health, for example. On normal you get +15%, glass cannon you get -50%, lone wolf you get 70%.
In total, you'd have 100% health plus 15 - 50 + 70 or a total of 135%, because the game takes your base, smooshes the other numbers together, then does a little dance and makes the sum.

For armor - armor specialist and thick skin are both added at the same time.
So with a base armor of 20, thick skin, man at arms and armor spec of 1 you'd see the following:
A regular guy has 20 armor
You get the 5% bonus on top of this, which is worth 1 more.
You get thick skin which is worth 5 + twice man at arms rating, so 7.
You smoosh it all together to get 20+1+7 or 28. You wouldn't get a 5% of the thick skin because nothing in the game has shown anywhere it layers bonuses, it just smooshes them together.

Obviously you'll wait for official response because you want to hope it's an error, but it's not. They don't layer bonuses.

That's all irrelevant (and, unless you're the developer on the team responsible for this, speculation on your part).

Either Armor Specialist improves your armor rating by 5% per point per point or it doesn't. The tooltip says it does (in fact, it says precisely that), but in practice it doesn't. Either the tooltip needs to be updated with the correct information (e.g. "Armor Specialist adjusts your armor rating from gear by 5% per point"), or the calculation needs to be corrected to include all the modifiers that make up a character's armor rating score.

As I said from the start, one way or another there is an error that needs fixing. "Working as intended" isn't the correct response here.

I have to say, it's really strange to see people arguing against me on this. From the start I laid out both calculations (and thus I'm confused as to why people feel they need to provide a lecture on how it works when I already provided that information earlier in the thread). From there I simply pointed out that the current calculation being used does not match the tooltip description, noted that one of them was obviously in error, and asked for the error to be fixed (whichever error it may be).

There's really nothing to debate here, and yet people seem to want to do exactly that.

soo much anger...

We've had to live with it for months...

Only if you choose to read it that way. It's text.

Armor spec cannot increase Thick Skin if both are applied at the same time.

Not a bug. Please submit a bug report so you'll run silent on the matter until they come back to tell you it's not a bug, it's simple mathematics.

It's pretty clear from the math that things are being done additively instead of multiplicatively. That said, the skill could use an updated description just to make that a little more clear.

Are you purposely being obtuse, or it just happening naturally? Because I'm using simple English and yet it's still doesn't seem to be clicking with you.


Thank you. Someone gets it.

I'm pretty sure "Man at arms" is gone however, with the change of skills to different categories like offense, defense, naughty things etc.
I might be wrong on that.

And yes, as stated, the calculation is done IN ORDER OF THE MOUSEOVER.

So if it says x... +10%... +x the last x isn't calculated in, just the first x.
Why some bonusses are placed after and some before is something only Larian can tell us however.

"Man-at-arms" is still around; it's the ability that allows you to learn more Warrior skills. The effectiveness of the Thick Skin is dependent on your man-at-arms score.