Enhancements that require low HP are bad

[HatsuharuZ]

As above. At any level, if you are at less than 25% HP and fall, you're going to die unless you get healed. Personally, I would rather spend AP on enhancements that do not depend on HP.

Edit: Unless, like Defensive Roll, they make my characters harder to kill.

[DeafeningWhisper]

As above. At any level, if you are at less than 25% HP and fall, you're going to die unless you get healed. Personally, I would rather spend AP on enhancements that do not depend on HP.

In the trading card world we call those "cards that encourage bad hand management", if you have 1 or less cards in hand this monster gets +x sort of deal.

There should never be any sort of active ability that encourages you to be dying... It's bad threat management.

[Seikojin]

In that vein, no one should weild weapons that damage them as they swing, or delevel them for alignment...

It is a cost associated with the effect that is thematic more than anything else. People who use those abilities know the cost.

Chug a pot.

[scoobmx]

Is there a particular enhancement that you're talking about? So far I've only seen the wizard ones posted.

[voodoogroves]

The half orc fury is one.

I'd caveat the statement that some *may* work - namely those that actually function to increase HP, defenses, etc. Life Shield proccing at an increasing rate inversely related to your HP, etc.

In other games / situations (like the amusing PNP Trouser Snake Dwarf or some of the 4e near-dead builds), you kinda want it but you also kinda want to build your build so it is ALWAYS on.

That said, in most games offense is better than defense, period.

[Charononus]

orcish fury is the big culprit here and you have to spend points on it if you want your str point enhancements from being horc. It's a bad system

[AtomicMew]

They're bad (as in not worth taking), but not a bad idea.

Enhancements that reward active gameplay and tactical thinking are a good thing. It rewards players who are able to correctly predict the situation, and punishes those that miscalculate.

however, what needs to be done with the horc fury enhancements is to make the strength bonuses progressive and honestly just more so that they are worthwhile. Something like: +4 str < 75%, +8 < 50% and +16 < 25%.

[HatsuharuZ]

Is there a particular enhancement that you're talking about? So far I've only seen the wizard ones posted.

The Orcish Fury racials and the Vengeful Magic enhancement in the Angel of Vengeance tree. Both increase offensive power (in one way or another) when one is at low health. Anything that makes it easier for my character to survive when under a certain amount of HP is okay. They might even make the difference between life and death. But these ones that increase offensive power when low on HP? Traps, all of them.

[Gkar]

orcish fury is the big culprit here and you have to spend points on it if you want your str point enhancements from being horc. It's a bad system

Well that's stupid.

STR enhancements are a key thing that makes Horc good.

It became pretty clear in my first week as a Horc that fury was bad and I haven't taken it since.

[Seikojin]

The Orcish Fury racials and the Vengeful Magic enhancement in the Angel of Vengeance tree. Both increase offensive power (in one way or another) when one is at low health. Anything that makes it easier for my character to survive when under a certain amount of HP is okay. They might even make the difference between life and death. But these ones that increase offensive power when low on HP? Traps, all of them.

OOOH, that is what you meant. I think of those as tactical abilities. They have their use, but the requirement is stiff. You best have a backup plan in place. In otherwords, never count on it.

[Ryiah]

Traps, all of them.

Traps perhaps for those who are sitting with a low HP maximum.

[sephiroth1084]

So many problems with offensive bonuses for low HP.

• A small boost to offense doesn't outweigh the much greater risk of dying, and when you're dead, your offense is 0.
• The game is largely designed around the group healing at higher levels, and players do not have the option of either excluding individuals from their spells, nor from opting out of the castings of others, so unless you are soloing or not traveling with a healer, you have almost no say in whether you gain those abilities or not.
• Additionally, the methodology for group healing in DDO is geared toward not allowing characters to get below a certain level of HP, and not to allow characters to sit at low HP for long. This is more prevalent in raids, but can be true for 6-man quests as well.

Effects like this work in PnP because you have much more freedom in how you interact with healing, and where withdrawing from combat isn't the weak tactic that it is in DDO most of the time.

[DeafeningWhisper]

[*]Additionally, the methodology for group healing in DDO is geared toward not allowing characters to get below a certain level of HP, and not to allow characters to sit at low HP for long. This is more prevalent in raids, but can be true for 6-man quests as well.[/LIST]
Effects like this work in PnP because you have much more freedom in how you interact with healing, and where withdrawing from combat isn't the weak tactic that it is in DDO most of the time.

As a healer anyone with less then 33% mid fight I consider to be "near death or dying" and will get a heal or a mass centered on him ASAP.

[sephiroth1084]

As a healer anyone with less then 33% mid fight I consider to be "near death or dying" and will get a heal or a mass centered on him ASAP.

Precisely. And for some big fights, I'm sure that value rises even higher where being under 50% for more than a couple of seconds can be a death sentence. Or where you see someone down in the 50% range, and know that they will be lower by the time you get off a Mass Heal, with its longer casting animation.

The point is, many players don't get to choose whether we want to remain at 10/20/30% health for more than a moment, even if that's what they'd like, despite the dangers.

[Noctus]

As a healer anyone with less then 33% mid fight I consider to be "near death or dying" and will get a heal or a mass centered on him ASAP.

Ditto.

[Sympl]

I'm still trying to finish my download for lammania after not being able to log in at all last week....sitting at 84% on the second update pass at the moment today....so feel free to write this off as I'm only basing it on what I've read here (while waiting for said update/download to complete).....

But if I'm dying for whatever reason in a fight (and do keep in mind that as an enhancement we are talking about low level characters as well as capped ones so it's not ALWAYS a situation where the next hit is guaranteed to do you in) and I can get stronger/deal more damage/potentially annihilate my enemy before I bite the big one and so end up surviving instead....not a bad thing.

Also. Thematically horcs are intended to get stronger and stronger until you kill them, yeah? It's part of the glory, part of the machismo, part of the 'Today is a good day for someone else to die!' kind of mythos with them.....

And as I gather (from reading this thread only), it's a low level pre-req......wouldn't be the first pre-req in the world required for better things that wasn't....shall we say....worth the points spent on it.....*shrug* Which is still a point open to debate in my mind based on the prior two points.

I agree that anyone building with this as a core ability might be insane or tactically challenged....I wouldn't build a deck around them, to steal from a prior allegory, or even include them in a deck if they weren't a pre-req for something better.

I guess in a nutshell I'm trying to say: Thematic, not a straight negative (you can't play counting on it - or shouldn't, but it doesn't make you situation worse should you find yourself going under), and as a pre-req it becomes a minor opportunity cost (similar to any multiclass situation).

Just some thoughts while I download. I really want to be in and hands on. My two cents. Take them or leave them for the next guy. But always go for the twenty in the gutter.

[Gkar]

Traps perhaps for those who are sitting with a low HP maximum.

Just as bad for high HP characters. Let's say you have 2000HP. When the healer is scanning the red bars do you think they will not instinctively heal the "dying" character with 1/3 HP? Of course they will. That's especially true if they aren't a healbot and are also trying to cast offensively/fight at the same time (I guess that might no longer be an issue in the future ). What's more, if you have a couple 800 HP character sitting next to you the mass heals for them will be keeping you at 75%+ health at all times.

Total waste unless you are very high HP and a self healing solo player.

[-Nismu-]

i personally kinda like the low hp skills, though in ddo they don't seem to be so effective, but in old days in lineage 2 i loved my necromancer being on low health and dealing huge damage (i think did double damage when you were somewhere half hp)

[~Pinel]

I also think they don't work on DDO

[~goro158]

These kinds of enhancements might work better like this: When you fall below n% HP, you gain bonus xy for, say, 20 seconds. This would even promote the healing to be able to gain the buff again.