Hitpoints:As long as you have 1....

[Tammuz]

You're not dead.

But how much CON should a character have really (presuming you are not TR) have? As a human caster (capped) I have a base CON of 16, and with everything else added in (no greensteel as it comes to mind) it comes to 25 or 27 with rage. I only have +1 tomes on this guy, and a +1 exceptional. Likewise on my rogue right now (whose only midlvl, not capped) I have a base con of 14 and an end result of 18 (no tomes on him yet).

How much con should I have? I feel at a bit....I dont know, in comparison to other casters I see with 400 or 450hp compared to my 290/310hp. For my rogue, I dont know. At least when I have run ADQ2 I know people have said they would rather I have 400hp.

Given that +3's are now on sale, I am thinking about buying some, albeit they are expensive. On my higher level character I am not sure if I want to TR. It took me about a year and a half as a casual player to cap, and so with the XP increase I am not looking forward to 2x that to return to it (unless I've got another character around that lvl so I dont feel like I am missing out). I can say I will probably shell out to upgrade from 28 to 32pt build with Greater Reincarnation as soon as I unlock the favor reward however, and probably try to put those points into CON. I know with GREATER Reincarnation, it does not waste your tomes in the end.

[Cogdoc]

You're not dead.

But how much CON should a character have really (presuming you are not TR) have? As a human caster (capped) I have a base CON of 16, and with everything else added in it comes to 25 or 27 with rage. I only have +1 tomes on this guy, and a +1 exceptional. Likewise on my rogue right now (whose only midlvl, not capped) I have a base con of 14 and an end result of 18 (no tomes on him yet).

How much con should I have? I feel at a bit....I dont know, in comparison to other casters I see with 400 or 450hp. For my rogue, I dont know. At least when I have run ADQ2 I know people have said they would rather I have 400hp.

Given that +3's are now on sale, I am thinking about buying some, albeit they are expensive. On my higher level character I am not sure if I want to TR. It took me about a year and a half as a casual player to cap, and so with the XP increase I am not looking forward to 2x that to return to it (unless I've got another character around that lvl so I dont feel like I am missing out). I can say I will probably shell out to upgrade from 28 to 32pt build with Greater Reincarnation as soon as I unlock the favor reward however, and probably try to put those points into CON. I know with GREATER Reincarnation, it does not waste your tomes in the end.

I have played with a bunch of great players in the past:

- wizards who behaved really like wizards, they knew everything like as if you would be talking to a walking library,
- barbarians, who refined their dps to an extent, their skill pushing ability has cast a big shadow on any casters spellcasting speed,
- sorcerers who splashed 1 level of barbarian just to shock other party members, not mentioning the speed bonus at the side,
- divines who knew everything about how to spell and scroll heal, and which order is the best considering the cooldown of these abilities,

for a long time, these dear friends of mine didnt have hit points, it wasnt available for checking, and noone ever asked with the rare exception of late game boss tanks, and if you have seen a guy to die the 20th time next to you in a quest.

I am still not used to the fact that we can check it, I simply dont watch it.

Cogdoc

[Teharahma]

You're not dead at -9 either, just incapped.

[Tammuz]

You're not dead at -9 either, just incapped.


Maybe so, buts thats too close for comfort. That and it seems to me as you get up there, mobs are more inclined to coup-de-grace you than let you lie their to maybe be healed, or regen. (Assuming you actually stay above -9, it seems much more common to be further into the negatives from whatever attack sends you below 0)

[gerardIII]

You're not dead.

But how much CON should a character have really (presuming you are not TR) have? As a human caster (capped) I have a base CON of 16, and with everything else added in (no greensteel as it comes to mind) it comes to 25 or 27 with rage. I only have +1 tomes on this guy, and a +1 exceptional. Likewise on my rogue right now (whose only midlvl, not capped) I have a base con of 14 and an end result of 18 (no tomes on him yet).

How much con should I have? I feel at a bit....I dont know, in comparison to other casters I see with 400 or 450hp compared to my 290/310hp. For my rogue, I dont know. At least when I have run ADQ2 I know people have said they would rather I have 400hp.

Given that +3's are now on sale, I am thinking about buying some, albeit they are expensive. On my higher level character I am not sure if I want to TR. It took me about a year and a half as a casual player to cap, and so with the XP increase I am not looking forward to 2x that to return to it (unless I've got another character around that lvl so I dont feel like I am missing out). I can say I will probably shell out to upgrade from 28 to 32pt build with Greater Reincarnation as soon as I unlock the favor reward however, and probably try to put those points into CON. I know with GREATER Reincarnation, it does not waste your tomes in the end.

My lvl 7 Human Archmage (TR2) has 30 Con raged and 187hp.

You're a capped fleshie wizard so you could be Palemaster and get +4 Con from Lich form (+40hp). That's what my wizard is going to do at lvl 13. At lvl 20, raged in lich form I will have around 600 HP.

A first life human palemaster with no exceptional or epic gear can easily get to 400 or so.
Greater False Life, Toughness (feat, enhancements, item effect), +6 Con item, Lich Form, Rage ...

Breakdown for lvl 20 human palemaster:
Con:
Starting 16 +1 tome +1 human +1 exceptional +6 item +2 rage = 27 (+8 mod)
HP:
20 starting
80 wizard 4 * 20
160 constitution 8 * 20
22 Toughness feat
20 Toughness enhancements
30 greater false life
20 Toughness item
20 palemaster III
---------
372 HP (raged)


40 Lich form
---------
412 HP (raged in lich form)

You can add in a item with a large guild slot for +20HP, a +2 tome for another +20HP

[pseudomasochist]

Maybe so, buts thats too close for comfort. That and it seems to me as you get up there, mobs are more inclined to coup-de-grace you than let you lie their to maybe be healed, or regen. (Assuming you actually stay above -9, it seems much more common to be further into the negatives from whatever attack sends you below 0)
This is where casters' fancy AoE and DoT spells come back to bite them. Monsters will switch targets from incapacitated characters(very silly and artificial behavior IMO) but if an AoE/Dot ticks on them, they'll come back to finish you off.

[Mrmorphling]

Both your starting CON are perfectly fine as on a wizard is easier to spare build points as you need to worry about only INT while on your rogue you are more spread out.

From lvl 14/15 onward you should aim at:
- +6 CON while mlvl13 can be expensive mlvl 15 is usually very cheap
- +Greater False life (30hp)
- Toughness easily found on Minos Legens (if you own necro 4) (20hp)

Feat/AP wise don't forget to grab toughness as it'll open enhancments (racial toughness), on your wizard you should grab first two tiers (for a total of 20hp from feat + 20hp APs)
Palemaster 1+2+3 will net you other HPs and, at lvl 18, Lich for will be your definitive form for another +4CON.

You should aim for 400hp on your first life w/o epic / hard to get gear.

[Rusty_Can]

But how much CON should a character have really (presuming you are not TR) have?

Rule of thumb: at creation, spend at least 6 "build points" for CON.

I don't like "min-maxing" and the following assumes you have decent gear, select Toughness feat and pick some of your racial and class enhancements to Toughness; I feel comfortable with the following base figures:
- Human and half-elves: 15 base + 1 from Adaptability enhancement, which unlocks Toughness enhancement III;
- dwarves and Warforged: 16 - 18, depending on class(es) and build; up to +2 CON from racial enhancements;
- elves and drow: try to hit 14; if you are well geared, 12 might be enough;
- rest: 14 - 16, depending on class(es) and build.

Keep in mind that there is a lot of gear and buffs that can increase your HP; e.g.
- enhancement (up to +7) and exceptional (+1 and +2, stacking) bonuses to Con;
- False Life: from 5 (lesser) to 40 (superior) hp;
- Toughness: 20 hp; it stacks with Toughness feat;
- Greensteel gear: up to 45 hp;
- Madstone Rage <----- it prevents spell-casting, so beware;
- Rage spell;
- Yugoloth potions;
- ship buffs: another +2 to CON.

[Gizeh]

IMO those con score are just fine for first life 28 point characters; con 16 for a caster sounds reasonable, and so does con 14 for a rogue, who has to distribute his build points on several stats.

When I got to lvl 20 on my con 14 rogue's first life, he had about 300 hp iirc. He was the first character I played, so I didn't have any other characters that could give him any equipment or plat. But his hp total slowly increased by adding little bonuses here and there: +2 con tome (favor reward for reaching 1k total favor), +6 con item, greater false life item, toughness item, etc. In the end the character he had an unbuffed total of 407 hp before I TR'd him, and it took me a while to get these 100 extra hp.

My point is this: If this is your first level 20 character and he hasn't been lvl 20 for a while he will lag behind other characters in terms of equipment, be it hp enhancers or anything else. That's the way the game works - lvl 20 is just the beginning of the journey when it comes to acquiring powerful items.

The only thing you can (and should) do, even if it is your first character, is to take the toughness feat and the toughness enhancements that are unlocked by it (for a halfling rogue that's up to 42 extra hp at lvl 20, for example).

So just keep playing and don't worry too much about your characters' hit points - they will get them eventually :)

[Farayon]

False Life: from 10 to 50 (superior false life) hp


False life goes from 5 - 40 hp.

Also +1 for the helpful post.

[Rusty_Can]

False life goes from 5 - 40 hp.


Yes, you are right. Fixed my previous post.

[Tammuz]

MMMMmmm -albeit I'm a sorcerer, this all seems like pretty sound advice in general.

[hockeyrama]

with the cove out you could pick up a hevay fort ring of the ah and build a superioir false life helm. You can make a trinket with +2 int to free up needing to put +2 int on a tod ring (when you get one if you don't have) and put +2 con as well..


The truth is that gear and choices in build feats decide hps way more then starting con. On my human pm i am over 500hps in my epic quests with full gear. IF you respec to pm you will go in lich form and that boosts both int and hps so in the end is worth it (never mind that you will be a killing machine if you can get your necro dc very high). Other then that it takes time to sort out hps.

I do believe in min/max toons and my rogue does very good dps but has over 600hps when double madstone and my dps kensei fighter is over 700hps and my stalwart tr will be just under 1000hps. I started as a rogue and saw that evasion, good skills and all are not enough to overcome some of the stuff that can hit you and hps are always needed. So i started specifically saving and looking for hps gear. Minos (20hps from toughness), large guild slot item (another 20 hps), con 6, gs 45hps, gfl or sfl and the fact that I consider it mandatory to start with at least 14 con (which you did) and take toughness at least once on every toon (fighters will have it multiple times with their extra feats). So stick in there and grind the gear you will be fine. At least on a caster if you careful and have good buffs (displace, fireshield....) you can avoid alot of damage from spells and should not be close enough very often for melee so it fine to be a bit lower on hps.

[Chilldude]

You're not dead.

But how much CON should a character have really (presuming you are not TR) have?

It totally depends on the player, how the player plays, who the player plays with, and what the player wants to do.

If you play with friends or a guild, I'd say if you're not dying a lot then you have enough. If you do die a lot then you might need more, but you might just need to adjust how you play a bit. If you want to play in PuGs, especially at end game, the party leaders often use HP as a benchmark because it's simple and easy for them to understand.

[Bodic]

The HP race os all about gear to be honest.
your best epic gear grants 3 profane con.

+7 Con item ( 1 item of 3pic set)
+3 ex con item
+1 human ap
+3 profane (5 piece epic set)
+4 tome
+4 lich form
16 base
38 con standing or 280HP

40 sfl
45 GS hp
20 minos
22 toughness feat
30 racial AP
80 base
20 heroic
10 argo
262

542 total HP before buffs
if Helf increase +40 HP
is barb PL +10 -30
add yugo, ship,rage, GH,store, False life spell, Aid spell you get close to 700 HP there is not much else.