Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Undead and their masks

So, I finally got around to watching the undead gameplay video... and, I must say... undead kinda seem BS.

My criticisms?

1. Boy is terrified of Fane without hood. Hood back on? Same child reacts like Fane is a living human... which is stupid. Does he have the memory of a gold fish? Will all NPCs somehow forget that they saw undead a few seconds ago? If Fane gets revealed, or any undead, that NPC should permanently have the same reaction... unless the mask is used, changing their appearance.

2. The mask. So, let me get this right- not only does Fane LOOK like that race, he gets their abilities AND knowledge of their culture? That is ridiculous. Unless you are an undead elf, you shouldn't get corpse-eater as undead. Unless you are an undead lizard, you shouldn't get fire-breathing. I personally think that is 100% BS, because there is no good explanation of how that would even happen, unless corpse-eating and fire breathing are nothing more than genetic, physical traits (meaning, not learned, taught, or practiced).

The only thing I can hope is that it will be sincerely difficult/expensive to gain access to the ingredients necessary for the mask.

3. Poison healing. It looks to me like it would be way more convenient to be undead than living. The need to make poison potions? Please. Poison wands, geomancer skills. Poison surfaces don't disappear. There are no healing wands. That means anyone with a wand can remotely heal undead, without any magical skills. There are geomancer skills which create persistent clouds of poison, no persistent clouds of healing (without bless, which will apparently require source points to use and is only available around level 5 or 6 at earliest).

I played through the alpha, beginning to end. There were some undead fights, but 80-90% of encounters were against living opponents. So, unless things are vastly different in the full release, or later acts... most of the time, using poison will be very strategically viable against enemies. Meaning to say, spreading poison all over the place for undead party members (hypothetically, Fane and player) is super practical.

4. AI 2.0. So, if the AI realizes that undead party members are healing from poison... they will use healing on the undead party members? That is bad for the undead party members, yes, but also bad for the AI, as well. Cooldowns. Means they can't heal themselves now, meaning that they die sooner. Also, doesn't change the fact that there is poison all over the place... which is killing mortal AI. So, they set it on fire and now burn their AI party members? Sounds like undead party members with high fire resistance will be practically unstoppable. Lay down poison clouds to heal, laugh if AI is "smart enough" to ignite the fields.

poison fields rarely last more than a single turn before being ignited and causing a huge chain reaction that ends up killing you... on top of that the ai is smart enough to use decaying touch and healing to achieve maximum damage from their heals and since all that damage bypasses your armor completely you will most likely die from it.


and onto the mask.. it is super easy to craft and is easily obtainable in act 1 all you need is the faceripper from the guy in the flesh golem area (forget his name) then you use that on a dead body + source and you get a mask of whatever race you used it on. once you get all 4 you combind them all together to make the true mask (though they can be used seperatly and anyone can use them not just undead)

one thing to keep in mind regarding the mask is that it cannot be used in combat.. upon entering combat the mask will be removed and youll be a normal undead (but you wont be wearing a helmet cus the mask takes up your helmet slot)

If you create a poison field around your undead character(s) who is fighting in the midst of the enemy at melee range, their choice is to either get poisoned and allow the undead character(s) to be healed, or to ignite it and also set themselves on fire... lose lose, with the 2nd option only being moderately better (because your undead isn't healing now). I don't think I ever saw the AI ignite a poison field. I certainly did, but wouldn't if I had 2 characters who would heal in it...

And, again. If your undead have high fire resistance, then igniting the poison still is a lose lose for the enemy. You will stop healing, but will take much less fire damage than they will. Max out fire resistance? Now you have undead that can thrive in poison or fire... unlike the vast majority of your enemies. Typically if they are earth-based, fire is their vulnerability or vice-versa. As an undead, all you need to do is pump up your fire resistance and you are incredibly dangerous.

Hah! Now I just want Fane and myself as undead executioners. Only take levels in geomancer + necromancer + warfare + leech and go around slaughtering. If they bleed, we heal. If there is poison, we heal. If we hurt them, we heal. We will be doing all of those things. Once we have fire resistance high enough... We will torch our enemies as well...

Don't think I ever had AI apply decaying touch to me either... maybe once. If they apply that to your undead, that "helps" because now you can use normal healing on them. And, again, if they use healing on the undead party members to hurt them.... now they can't heal themselves. So, they hurt themselves by using that type of strategy.

I understand that it was a stretch goal and not necessary, it just seems drastically overpowered. If it just changed appearance, I wouldn't have an issue with it. But, given racial abilities on top of the cosmetic changes seems excessive.

I'm pretty sure a undead does not heal, if you apply decaying touch and heal. At least in the EA I think I tested it once and even got twice as much damage, from being zombie and being decaying.

Also not sure, if leech does heal you or kill you, if you are undead. They worked at Necromancy not killing you, but not sure how the state of leech is.

this... decaying touch + undead = twice the heal damage essentially making you an unarmored easy kill.. and there are often more enemies than you.. so they can afford losses while you really cant.

even with just the zombie trait i had tons of archers using first aid on me.

Fair enough. I never tried undead- unless you have to be a dev or media person, didn't know that it was possible otherwise.

Decaying Touch checks against armor though last I checked.

Yes, the touch checks armor, but after it is applied, you can do with heal direct damage, even if they regained armor.