Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Stat inflation is downright stupid.

With the reduce stat bloat mod, the author implemented a DnD version that runs on those numbers.

Just registered an account so I can comment on this. I tried the mod, with different scalings. The no scaling at all is nice, but the game did prove to be too easy. Or to be more precise, the damage overscaled the amount of armor/HP when you had good weapons (for enemies as well). I would feel that no scaling would work better if we had twice as much HP and armor (exact value up for debate). To be fair this was my experience in driftwood, not sure if it remains the same later on.

I had a similar experience. I tested that mod, using DND numbers, on a fight that was fairly difficult vanilla tactician. It was very easily defeated with the mod active.

Changing the enemy stats is relatively simple though, so you could make a custom tactician with +70% armors instead of +50%.

The issue that prevents me from playing that way is that the relative strengths of physical vs magic aren't preserved. Somehow physical attacks are better after the mod is applied, making an uneven balancing even worse.

I'm too lazy to go through and edit each skill individually so I think I'm going to wait for a bit and see how things shake out. Either until someone else does the grunt work of hand-modifying each skill, and to see what Larian releases in their patch.

Lots of interesting feedback on my mod, thanks everyone.



I just released a "fix" that slightly increases the scaling of magic damage by increasing the damage bonus from magic abilities from 5% to 7%. I don't know if these numbers are exactly right, but they should help some.

Interesting that people are finding the game easier after installing different variants of my mod. You may consider my Enemy Randomization mod to increase difficulty (though it certainly is a big change.) Are ya'll playing on Tactician?

Maybe I just have a crappy party, but I'm finding the game very satisfyingly difficult, at least at level 10. I'm using the No Scaling version (plus a whole bunch of my other mods Not to toot my own horn, but it just feels way better knowing that my characters and enemies aren't becoming more powerful in an arbitrary way, but because of more access to skills and more nuanced gear.

We always played with mixed setup, some had high speed, others did not have high speed because they had different built. Don't know why you should get facerolled just because you are not high initiative on all.

@Baardvark

I saw your fix so I went ahead and started a new game with the DND scaling. I'm doing classic difficulty with double monsters as well. It's been pretty tough so far, I'm liking it

Thanks for the 'fix', I really appreciate it.

I guess the only reason why Larian make a bloated a system is that they want to create money sink so resources would become more limited.

Perhaps, but after Fort Joy I always seemed to have enough money... even without stealing... to keep my gear up-to-level. I just HATED spending all of my time on vendor and inventory screens instead of enjoying the adventure.

While others enjoy looking through loot and wares. That said the stat inflation is a puzzler overall to me.

It can be enjoyable if finding something is meaningful. But, when you can only use an item for a couple hours it seems more like a meaningless chore.

I have to agree I dislike the stat inflation and how quickly gear becomes obsolete. Spending hours and hours messing with vendors and changing gear out is not very fun and makes the game slow and tedious.

I agree with the OP. The scaling should be tone down. Some parts of the game was super easy because my party had 1 or 2 levels ahead than the enemies, while other battles was very difficult because my level was lower than the enemies or my gear was underlevel. The last battle is the biggest example of this, after I switch a level 18 bow for a level 20 xbow on my archer, the fight was easier (I mean I still had to retry a couple of times until I could refine my strategy and was challenging, but easier than before).
I only play on Classical Mode, so wasn't that game breaking for me, but I imagine that on Tactician it's a big deal.
I also agree that refreshing a vendor to get the best gear is a little tedious.

I reached level 14 and the lumber mill and spent a little while carefully getting all my people into position. Once reach, I attacked. Red Prince, my Knight with the highest physical armor, got all his armor and half his health stripped on one turn from a single enemy.

I guess in fairness the last time I went on a major shopping spree I was level 11, but I've picked up some stuff since then.

Time to go shopping to replace all my gear. Or more accurately, time to go shopping, then leave the game running for an hour to see if merchants have stuff worth buying to fill up the rest of my slots. Repeat as needed.

I think I also need to boost my Knight's INT to 14 and my Mages's STR to 14 so I can wear the opposite type of chest armor, because mages get ridiculously little PA just using INT-requiring gear.

I find this topic interesting and am thinking I will try Baardvark's mod (thanks for creating it, sir!), probably using the DnD version. I'm wondering though, if this won't make Constitution a more important attribute?

If I correctly understand Baardvark's comments (https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/58/?), the DnD version reduces the increase in vitality to 4+4% on level up, and since armor and damage values are based on this, they get reduced, as well. But I also understand that a point of constitution gives builds a 7% increase to health. So, am I right in believing this makes a point in constitution far more valuable than it was before?

Yep on Tactician! I noticed (especially on the very low scaling or none at all) if you have a good weapon on you it is very easy to destroy enemies armor in one go, usually no one I am focusing manages to survive enough to be hit by my full party (usually dead when my second character ends their turn). Maybe it is the combination of having the perfect weapon and optimal stats distribution, but I feel that in the no scaling version, either HP or (or both perhaps) armor need to be buffed. Personally, I would feel that increasing base HP by 50%, and doubling how much armor everything (player and NPCs) has will fix the how fast things die. To be very clear, I am not necessarily saying that the game is objectively easier because NPCs can burst as hard as you, but the player has a huge advantage in knowing what to do considering the situation. So if HP and/or armor are buffed, this element can be remedied.

@Baardvark:

I tested two variants of your mod, both on tactitian: Moderate Scaling and DnD scaling. I finished Reaper´s Coast with the later.

Before going into the feedback proper, I have to thank you for your mod, it made the game much more enyoable.

Unfurtunatly I lost all my old saves a couple of days ago, so I cannot provide them (or at least load them up to give you accurate numbers). I used Penetrating Debuffs as well, so I cannot give you a clean feedback.
That beeing said, DnD scaling works perfectly fine but I have to agree that things (including the player) die pretty fast. This is especially true for physical damage or encounters where the AI has a "fixed" first turn.
A good example for this was the fight with the eternal at the end of midnight oil: If I remember correctly I did the fight at Level 16 and she basically one-shoted (or at least stunned) most of my party on her first turn. I had to split up my party, only one activating the device.

TL;DR: I second the suggestion buffing armor values on the low scaling variants.

Edit: It was pointed out that the aforementioned encounter isn´t fixed, but due to high initiative it is likely the AI goes first.

The eternal's turn isn't exactly "fixed", she just has 46 initiative on tactician if I remember correctly, I was able to act before her on my lone wolf mage, for none lone wolf chars it might also be possible with a lot of initiative gear and clear mind spell, and then maybe you can do a blessed smoke cover to invis your entire team.

There are enemies with up to 56 initiative on reaper's coast but almost all of them follow the rules, the only exception I found is the wolf abomination who ignores initiative and always gets a free turn, which is probably a bug.

The wolf is a bug. My 20+ wit ranger go first before him.

But anyway. I reached end game and it feel super super boring. I don't even bother to buy new gears.

Stat bloat does kill this game enjoyment. Most of crap or scrolls you pick up a long the way? You'll never use it. It sound stupid but when skill book is fully available from the start, it kill the need to save scroll for hard battle.

Thanks for pointing out, edited my post.

Point still stands. The fight is manageable if you prepar for it via postioning or blocking LoS, buffing etc. I usually try to avoid things like this as I consider them cheesy. I am strange in that regard

DnD scaling therefore could use a slight increase in armor values for PCs and NPCs.

I tweaked Baarvark's mod (loose version, editing Data.txt) to have 100 starting vit and +2% scaling per level (no flat scaling). End result is very nice since it avoids the granularity issue (due to how damage scaling is rounded up, it makes runes imbalanced, creating weapons with 6-7 physical damage and 4 modifiers with 2-3 damage, as an example), and the scaling is slow and steady, you don't have to replace gear every level just to keep up with damage/armor scaling, instead every 4-5 levels you start feeling the need to upgrade. I also changed magic damage ability scaling to 6% and warfare to 4%. It really hit the sweet spot for me balance wise.