I'm not sure what would be more detrimental in combat, though; -20% max health or -50% damage resistance. I may be mistaken, but it seems that the latter option penalizes the character even harder, while lacking the former one's sense of urgency and need.
Besides, wouldn't the +1 attribute bonus suffer from the same problems as the +20% health bonus: namely, wouldn't it wear off before it can come into play while you're exploring or talking to other characters?
... and please, if anyone from Larian is reading this, keep the Soul Devourer ability.
/sorry for the misspellings, I'm trying my best to get rid of them.
Well, the damage resistance numbers could be changed, but the visible constant tick of the health bar going down discourages exploration and roleplaying, which is not at all a desirable outcome for this kind of game.
Plus, since the only bonus is +20% to Max HP, and playing normally, talking to NPC's and exploring will drain the bonus back down to where it was before the +20%, that effectively means that the bonus doesn't exist at all (especially at the worst possible time, the start of a combat encounter).
Sure, there may be "ways" to replenish it, but I can pretty much guarantee you that a constant maintenance required to keep HP up is busywork that'll be more likely to produce a sense of annoyance in players, not a sense of roleplaying.
EDIT: And the +1 Bonus is a CONSTANT effect as long as you have a Source Point. It doesn't degrade until you spend the Source Point.
Maybe it's me but I really dislike the idea of micro-managing every few secs/mins, depending on the circumstances and penalties. After all, there may also be areas cut off from the Source and spells doing damage to your Source points. The idea of having to reload or run back to a Source area very often if there's something off-balance, doesn't sound very appealing to me. After all, if the Source Points hit 0, they cease to exist, right?
Uh, did you watch the previews and videos?
Source Points are those rare-ish and special things which you can usually only have one of at a time, and you spend them on high-powered spells. I don't think there will be any "cut-off from Source" areas, and definitely not any "You lose your hard-gained source point arbitrarily lol" regions. I said Source Point(s) because it was implied that you could get more than 1 (and I'm thinking of making a suggestion to have the Undead Race start with a capacity of 2 Source Points instead of 1, because of their Source Dependence).
If the devs tweak your suggestion to fit the system so you can still recover and you don't have to micro-manage like allowing players to bank Source Points in the form of potions, etc., then maybe it's doable? Or maybe we've a device that acts like a bank with interest rates.
Again, that was in the previews. They have "Blood stones", which can hold a charge which restores a Source Point, and there are ways to recharge Blood Stones or acquire Source points another way.
