[probably not bug] Planetar regeneration

[DavidW]

This is a subtle one (which I picked up from polytope here). In oBG2, planetars have regeneration (4hp per second base, possibly increased because they're hasted, though I'm never sure how that works), but it's nonfunctional because of a well-known problem with regeneration timing. Beamdog fixed it in the EE *but* I think that was a mistake - the playtesting of ToB will have been with non-regenerating planetars, and planetars are already pretty powerful without regeneration. (I had a pretty similar issue with Ascension and decided not to restore regenerating enemies on the grounds that playtesting had assumed no regeneration.)

However, by the developer-intent metric we're using, I don't see how it can be a bug: someone from Bioware obviously intended planetars to regenerate, and even if we suppose that it wasn't the overall intent of Bioware to add regeneration, it was clearly Beamdog's intent. So I think this counts as a bad design decision but not a bug.

[polytope]

50 minutes ago, DavidW said:

In oBG2, planetars have regeneration (4hp per second base, possibly increased because they're hasted, though I'm never sure how that works)

Yes, it's 8hp/second so far as I can see, but planetars also have 10% physical resistance which puts the effective physical damage per round needed to merely overcome their regen in the mid 50s (the game rounds dam down, but never below 1). That's in addition to their AC of -8 (including dexterity) and requirement for +3 weapons to hit them at all.

Additionally, a planetar can Heal itself if not slain in the same round, thus we're looking at ~180 damage in a single round to kill one before it heals, rather than ~120 as in vanilla. Very few enemies have that kind of potential dps.

Take (vanilla) Gromnir for instance: With the Ice Star, a second +3 morningstar offhand, an illegally high number of attacks (many boss type warriors seem to get this as a substitute for haste or something) and 23 strength in rage he does ~119 damage per round on average (and misses AC -8 only with a roll of 1). He has a good chance of taking down a vanilla planetar, but the damage he can effectively deal to an EE "fixed" planetar is almost halved, so he won't prevent the planetar from casting Heal.

This situation gets worse when you realize that even improved AI can't effectively deal with player controlled summons whose regeneration makes them effectively invincible (whereas they can recognize Protection from Magic Weapons or the physical immunity of Mordenkainen's sword). Nor does the AI know to wolfpack regenerators and concentrate all possible attacks on them.

A really bad "bugfix" from Beamdog.

Edited July 17, 2022 by polytope

[CamDawg]

On 7/17/2022 at 6:15 AM, DavidW said:

However, by the developer-intent metric we're using, I don't see how it can be a bug: someone from Bioware obviously intended planetars to regenerate, and even if we suppose that it wasn't the overall intent of Bioware to add regeneration, it was clearly Beamdog's intent. So I think this counts as a bad design decision but not a bug.

The other side of this is that Bioware playtested planetars and were satisfied with how they worked sans regen, or they would have noticed and fixed it. And not just just planetars--several critical ToB characters have permanent regen that are now suddenly working: the chinchilla Bhaalspawn, Toop the Brave, and Tibbit, though thankfully Bondari, Nanoc the Barbarian, and Tim Goldenhand are unaffected. It also affects some less critical ToB characters like Balthazar, Draconis, and Demogorgon.

As for Beamdog's clear intent: more than likely this was passed along to the code team as a broken opcode, e.g. 'regen doesn't work with permanent timing', and they fixed it.

[Angel]

I checked the lore on this.  As stats go, BG2 planetars are fairly close to their P&P incarnations except in hit dice (14 for P&P, 25 for BG2) and thac0 (7 for P&P, 5 for BG2).  And yes, P&P planetars do indeed have high rate of regeneration at 4 HP per round, so lore-wise at least the devs got that exactly right.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Angel

[Guest Morgoth]

I do not agree with your points Camdawg. Surely we can guess that Bioware found planetar satisfying even without regeneration but we cannot get such a clue from the fact that they didnt fix the bug. This was a good fix from Beamdog.

It's also lore-compliant .

[polytope]

7 hours ago, Angel said:

And yes, P&P planetars do indeed have high rate of regeneration at 4 HP per round, so lore-wise at least the devs got that exactly right.

In P&P it's 4hp/round, in BG2EE it's 4hp/sec. i.e. 24hp/round base, doubled to 48hp/round due to the planetar's permanent haste, they're regenerating 12 fold what they legitimately should!

[CamDawg]

9 minutes ago, polytope said:

In P&P it's 4hp/round, in BG2EE it's 4hp/sec. i.e. 24hp/round base, doubled to 48hp/round due to the planetar's permanent haste, they're regenerating 12 fold what they legitimately should!

Yeah, this. If it was 4 hp/round--even doubled to 8 due to haste--I'd be inclined to leave it be, but this is Bugged Karoug levels of silliness.

[Angel]

39 minutes ago, polytope said:

In P&P it's 4hp/round, in BG2EE it's 4hp/sec. i.e. 24hp/round base, doubled to 48hp/round due to the planetar's permanent haste, they're regenerating 12 fold what they legitimately should!

 

29 minutes ago, CamDawg said:

Yeah, this. If it was 4 hp/round--even doubled to 8 due to haste--I'd be inclined to leave it be, but this is Bugged Karoug levels of silliness.

Agreed, that does indeed seem a bit excessive.  I had missed the per second bit.  Mm, I would say 2 HP every 3 seconds would be closest to P&P values.  On the other hand, regeneration effects are overall stronger in BG2 than they are in P&P; trolls for example regenerate 6 HP per round (should be 3) and the Ring of Regeneration regenerates 1 HP per round (should be 1 per turn).

[polytope]

17 hours ago, CamDawg said:

And not just just planetars--several critical ToB characters have permanent regen that are now suddenly working: the chinchilla Bhaalspawn, Toop the Brave, and Tibbit, though thankfully Bondari, Nanoc the Barbarian, and Tim Goldenhand are unaffected. It also affects some less critical ToB characters like Balthazar, Draconis, and Demogorgon.

Oho, well on those last three:

Draconis's regeneration rate is pretty slow at 1 hp/2sec. He tends to use the combination of Invisibility + fleeing + healing spells to restore his health and so this regen is unlikely to be noticeable or really add to the dificulty of the fight.

Demogorgon regenerates 6hp/sec, so far as I can see, with 10% physical resistance vs Balthazar's 5hp/sec, no physical resistance, both are substantial but still less than a hasted planetar's 8hp/sec & 10% PR, unless Demogorgon somehow gets hasted, via an unlucky Wish, perhaps? Vanilla Balthazar, as a monk, is immune to haste. To my mind, the best summon in the game becoming a lot more resilient is a higher priority for fix than the two easiest ToB bosses anyway.

That said, Demogorgon's regeneration certainly can cause a bug if it keeps him above the minimum he needs to trigger the cutscene of his defeat since unlike Balthazar he has a minhp item, he has a fairly generous threshold of hit points less than 30 as a trigger though.

Vanilla Balthazar, unlike Demogorgon, is not an optional battle and possibly a problem for certain playthroughs as he kills most summons on hit and his AC+regen may prove a hurdle for certain characters without a lot of magical firepower or good combat abilities, I'm thinking solo single class druids might have difficulty with it (most other classes and parties certainly won't, at this stage of the game).

[Angel]

I checked around a bit more.  All planetars summoned by spells (or in Dorn's quest in EE, divine intervention) regenerate at 4 HP per second.  However, planet01, which is as far as I can tell unused, does not, she has a more reasonable 1 HP/second (6/round, same as trolls).

This is 50% more than P&P, but planetars in BG2 also have 11 more hit die than P&P ones, so I think that can be forgiven.  So my suggestion is to tone down the others to the same amount.

EDIT: While adding this to F&R, I noticed EE is actually even more all over the place than I thought.  Of the six planetars added compared to oBG2 (all having to do with Dorn and the Scroll of Retribution), two regenerate at 4 HP/sec, the other four at 1 HP/sec.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Angel