Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Action Points the Magic Number

There is a direct correlation between damage/defense/utility and Action Points. The more AP that you have the more potential you have for these actions (and vice versa for less AP). There are also a number of skills that play a role in modifying available AP like haste, sacrifice flesh, adrenaline, and a few talents -- you could also reserve points by delaying a turn and have the AI come to you.

I feel the current system poses many questions, like;

Do you think that 4 is the magic number? Why not 3 (which is base in Arena) or 5?

Do you think that there should be an attribute that modifies AP like in DOS1 - Speed?

What about weapons that increase maximum action points (some daggers in DOS1)?

Should skills like haste and adrenaline be adjusted -- moved to higher tiers and flesh sacrifice only providing a 0 AP damage bonus?

Let me know what you think.

I use Flesh Sacrifice and Adrenaline on all of my characters. Extra action points are very strong.
On Flesh Sacrifice in particular, I've never felt the need to use any race other than elf, and without some love given to the other racials, I doubt I ever will. I wish the other racial abilities offered something that could be as competitive, at least in some scenarios, but it isn't even close.

I did like the speed stat in DoS1, but I imagine it makes balancing the actions much harder. It was my favorite stat for all classes.

A smaller amount of AP may not be awful, it currently feels like the first actors in combat often determine the whole thing. Adjusting the amounts of damage, health, armor, and CC may be the solution to that though.

I always make an Elf as well, Flesh Sacrifice is incredibly strong.

Try to not use "Ability points" when you actually mean ACTION POINTS. Action points are what is used in combat to move and perform actions. Ability points is used to improve abilities.

Whoops! I'll edit that thanks Stabbey

Personally, while I think 4 is a good number for AP, having a separate pool reserved for just movement would serve the game best.

Something like 4 AP and 2 MP, with distance per point reduced so that spending all 6 to run would get you about as far as the 4 AP does now.

That way there's room in terms of balance for characters to have less powerful movement skills(they're not as critical), and The Pawn becomes less critical for melee positioning.

As far as movement skills go, they should most be weaker in terms of the distance to cost ratio, and some should be made endgame skills.

4 AP seems fine, but racial skills like Flesh Sacrifice are way too powerful. On the other end, talents like glass cannon that give full AP but remove CC resistance are way too weak. Then there's the fact that hard cap on max AP is very very strange to me; it should be removed in my opinion cause it makes haste pointless to glasscannons....who are giving up some serious protections in order to have more AP per turn

4AP allows for two attacks from two handed or sword and shield or dual wielders. Two decent spells from a mage.

One strong skill from a character and movement/weak action. Two item heals.

^^ I think they did a very good job at choosing a base AP of 4. I do think that a return of increasing AP per turn and max AP would be great though

EDIT:
Also, I very much hate the new stat system and would prefer a return to the old one.....the only thing I'd carry over is STR ability to imporve movement in armour. However, I'd change that so it's not a decrease in penalty but a bonus added to the penalty. That way crafting +movement armour doesn't make the STR bonus moot.

EDIT2:
I also like Memory :P

AP limit is critical for cases like 'wait for the enemy to get close, unleash 12 AP worth of damage'.

It's not like spellcasting causes Opportunist attacks anyway, so there's no issue delaying those until after you made space for them(be it moving yourself, or delaying the turn to cast after the target exhausted his pool).

Removing the hard cap wouldn't allow for 12 AP...maybe 8? but alot of that is dependent on temp buffs.

Also, considering magical shield and skills that restore are their just for that kind of tankiness

More AP in't the greatest advantage in the world when you have to break through a second health bar and the enemy can regenerate it

I want to highlight Flesh Sacrifice again.

Flesh Sacrifice
Receive 1 Ap and 25% damage boost at the cost of Constitution.
Special - 100% Chance to set Flesh Sacrifice for 3 turn(s)
Action Point Cost - 0 Use
Properties - 4 turn(s) Cooldown

It gives you 1 AP unlike the Human racial skill that costs 1 AP and the Dwarf and Lizard racials that costs 2 AP. Damage bonus aside (which is nothing to sneeze at mind you) that 1 AP isn't tied to any direct action so it's potential is whatever you chose it to be -- Stealth, Flee, Auto Attack, Hail Strike, Battering Ram, Movement, etc. The disparity created by this one skill is pretty huge.

If the other racial skills were given larger boosts life would be better :P

Decrease the cost of Lizard skill for instance and increase the damage by 100% and/or add something special to it to turn it into more than just another flame spell with short AoE

Or give them something more universally useful like shed skin to solve CC effects and stuff

*shrug* just shootin ideas out. Either Flesh Sacrificed needs to be changed or the others need to evolve to match it. I prefer the later cause I like the ida of powerful, defining racial traits

EDIT
The Elf skill is powerful cause of the AP cost and AP/damage gain, but AP alone isn't what makes it better than the others

I actually think this is the best idea I've seen on the forums for balancing racial abilities, making them all universal.

[quote=Kresky]I want to highlight Flesh Sacrifice again.

Flesh Sacrifice
Receive 1 Ap and 25% damage boost at the cost of Constitution.
Special - 100% Chance to set Flesh Sacrifice for 3 turn(s)
Action Point Cost - 0 Use
Properties - 4 turn(s) Cooldown

It gives you 1 AP unlike the Human racial skill that costs 1 AP and the Dwarf and Lizard racials that costs 2 AP. Damage bonus aside (which is nothing to sneeze at mind you) that 1 AP isn't tied to any direct action so it's potential is whatever you chose it to be -- Stealth, Flee, Auto Attack, Hail Strike, Battering Ram, Movement, etc. The disparity created by this one skill is pretty huge. [/quote]

I don't think Flesh Sacrifice is overpowered compared to the other racials. The 25% damage boost is not multiplicative, i.e. if you already have +100% damage from other sources, that part is essentially halved. The Constitution penalty is very steep, at a negative modifier equal to your level (at level 10+ you need to put points into constitution or have +hp gear, or using it will kill you).

I think the +1 AP is warranted and without that action point the ability would be very weak except for a character whose only purpose is to deal and avoid damage (keep in mind it's competing with an AoE buff/heal, a 2-turn CC and 'cone of flame').

The disparity in actions is compensated by the disparity in hp; you might not notice it at lower levels, but later on the sacrifice will take away most if not all of your health on a glass cannon character.

I've found the base of four to be pretty good, it allows every character to contribute something to the fight and feel like they're participating. When I first started playing the first game, I wasn't really sure how the stats and AP worked and my first melee character felt useless in a lot of fights because he simply couldn't move very far, couldn't move and attack and/or couldn't use enough abilities to be useful in the engagements.

While the above problem was remedied once I began to understand the correlation of speed to AP and began thinking of my turns in terms of AP efficiency, the base of four and the cost of actions and abilities in this game has made building a character a little less dependent on min-maxing the build to make it effective, which I encourage.

On the other hand, AP is still a premium and the more you have, the more effective you are. I do think having a return of some way to increase max AP and AP gain per turn would help accentuate the "speed" style of play.

Just an idea but maybe a counterbalance of some kind. Like, a player could build a character to have and recover more AP per turn allowing for more mobility and actions per turn but this kind of build would require a sacrifice in some other area (defenses, damage output, durability, etc) while another player could build to be more efficient with their AP and accomplish the same tasks with less actions and movement while a third player may be trying to find a balance between the two? I'm not sure if that's possible, just an idea.