Also, anyway to get the background bonus information on the recruit screen or when you highlight over a background? Would make it much easier than having to reference the excel spreadsheet each time.
Added this in the latest vanilla version, which now automatically applies the reforged tweaks if it detects reforged is installed -- I'd recommend uninstalling this one and using that one instead! (link on this mod page).
Funnily enough, that was one of the backgrounds I was considering nerfing for the next patch. Someone else did the math, and against enemies who have both head and body armor, it translates to a roughly 50% damage boost.
Explanation: Without any boosts or perks, 75% of damage goes into the body and 25% (x1.5 if they don't have steel brow) into the head. So if the oathtaker swings 4 times against an enemy with a weapon that does exactly 100 dmg, on average the body armor would receive 300 damage and the head armor would receive 100 damage (hits to head don't deal bonus damage against armor). Against an enemy with 300 head and body armor, they'd take 0 health damage (assuming 0 armor pen on the weapon).
But against that same enemy, if the oathtaker is guaranteed to hit the body, they would destroy the armor in the first 3 swings and then deal 100 health damage with the fourth, leaving the helmet undamaged. The extra damage is a consequence of concentrating all the oathtaker's damage into a single armor piece, rather than spreading it out between the two -- and then the 15% bonus adds an extra 60 health damage on top of that.
Of course it's somewhat balanced by the anti-synergy with certain perks, weapons like maces, and other bros who are damaging the head armor of targets. And against beast enemies who don't have steel brow it basically does nothing. But I'm still thinking about where the sweet spot is. Thanks for the input!
it is not a split of damage it is a chance of 25% to do a critical hit, or hit to the head which deals 150% damage ( not to mention injuries, disables, fatalities .....) . So, the normal 25% crit chance or hit to the head (that deals 50% increased damage) it basically a 12.5% (25% to do 50%extra = 12.5%extra) damage increase compared to 0% head hit. There are couple of weapons (ranged mostly, taht oathtakers cant use) in the game that do not add the 5% chance to hit the head but pretty much all weapons at least add the 5%, making it 30% chance overall, or 15% damage increase.
With 15% i would understand it and be like... okay Oathtakers do a niche build for ... well i dont really know which weapon to use for this to benefit. But as things are i read: You cannot crit, you deal 5% less damage than any other background, most weapon improvements and famed weapons (namely increasing head hit chance) are useless for you.
I love the mod, but oathtakers are just getting unfair treatment... (as a suggestion) Adv noble mod makes sense for oathtakers, and nobles can get leadership type or smthn else
EDIT: your math = 4 swings of 100 damage are (in case of 1 out of four being 25%)
10% 440 with perk = 4x110 450 with no perk = 3x 100 + 1x150
15% 460 with perk = 4x115 450 with no perk = 3x 100 + 1x150
You make good points, but a couple things to keep in mind: - The 150% bonus damage to heads does not apply to armor damage, it only applies after their helmet is destroyed or to armor piercing damage. - The 150% bonus damage to heads does not apply to any enemies with steel brow. This is pretty much all of the 'tougher' enemies (schrats, lindwurms, unholds, swordmasters) plus all ancient undead (and reforged adds it to some additional enemies, I believe).
So in both of the above cases, hitting the head provides no advantage. But the biggest, 'hidden' buff to oathtakers is that their damage is no longer split between two armor pieces. So for an enemy who previously had 300 body armor and 300 head armor, they can take up to 600 damage before starting to lose health (usually it will be less than that, since the damage is unevenly split, but on average they'll take close to 450 armor damage before starting to lose health). But against oathtakers, they will ALWAYS start losing health after taking 300 armor damage. By guaranteeing that they only attack one of the armor pieces, oathtakers effectively cut the armor of all enemies in half (and that's before applying the extra 10% damage). It would obviously be even stronger if it guaranteed they only attacked the head, but guaranteeing they attack ANY specific body part is crazy strong.
Honestly, it probably needs to be nerfed even further, since as it is I think it's probably the strongest bonus of any of the backgrounds (on an already strong background). But perception of a bonus' power is also important, and at first glance it can certainly look weak.
I apologize for not looking properly on the math part and you are correct, it only applies to HP which doesn't make the headshot all that noticable for stronger enemies.
In reality it only means that most of the times instead of one hitting footmen/raider swarm trash mobs that spawn in great numbers i have to waste 1.5 turns on average to kill as i can reliably work through their stronger chest piece not being able to oneshot with head hit.
unless you have 12 oathtakers, those really hard to crack 300/300 armor will be ganged up by more than 1 guy on and still be hit on the head with other guys so the value of only targeting chest piece is lost (also, you wanna loot that chest piece anyway : knifetime! )
Weapon damage/perks/enemy spawns and game is balanced about head hit.
In vanilla, this makes more sense but in reforged, this comes with additional downsides. Good at using hammers but you get forced professional and trained perk group pretty much setting you up to use variety of melee weapons suited for situation... but you cant as they have downsides with many of the other weapons.
Maybe they are good to use as tanks because u can get 2 weapon perks for 1 point and they reliably do more damage, still waste.
But lest forget about everything above: This goes against the game idea of background NOT defining a build, this disables so many perks and weapons in reforged, or makes them bad to use/spec.
I dont wanna be mean, just wanna make things better =D
Really like this. Some Backgrounds already had bonuses like this so I'm glad to see you expanding on them. Any plans on giving compatibility patches to other mods?
I'm hoping to do one for the "more backgrounds and events" mod, but that's still a ways away from being done, and potentially for the fantasy bros mod, depending on what systems that mod changes in its upcoming update. No plans other than that, though -- this (or at least the vanilla version of this) should be compatible with most other mods, but any newly introduced backgrounds won't have bonuses
Thanks! Unfortunately I've only spent a few hours in legends, so don't have the knowledge or plans to a make a version for it. But if you or anyone else wants to make a legends version you're more than welcome to use my version as a jumping off point! (Once I finish the vanilla version it should be compatible with legends, but won't have any of the new legends backgrounds, obviously)
Yep, that's my next goal! I'm much more familiar with reforged, though, and I think there'll need to be quite a few balance changes to make it good for vanilla -- daytaler, for example, would currently be reaaally OP with the vanilla meta.
17 comments
Thanks for the suggestion!
You can be invulnerable tanks that can hold off entire armies... cause the guy was a Mason? it's way too good.
Otherwise everything feels great. Thanks for your hard work.
Ba dum, tss!
Explanation: Without any boosts or perks, 75% of damage goes into the body and 25% (x1.5 if they don't have steel brow) into the head. So if the oathtaker swings 4 times against an enemy with a weapon that does exactly 100 dmg, on average the body armor would receive 300 damage and the head armor would receive 100 damage (hits to head don't deal bonus damage against armor). Against an enemy with 300 head and body armor, they'd take 0 health damage (assuming 0 armor pen on the weapon).
But against that same enemy, if the oathtaker is guaranteed to hit the body, they would destroy the armor in the first 3 swings and then deal 100 health damage with the fourth, leaving the helmet undamaged. The extra damage is a consequence of concentrating all the oathtaker's damage into a single armor piece, rather than spreading it out between the two -- and then the 15% bonus adds an extra 60 health damage on top of that.
Of course it's somewhat balanced by the anti-synergy with certain perks, weapons like maces, and other bros who are damaging the head armor of targets. And against beast enemies who don't have steel brow it basically does nothing. But I'm still thinking about where the sweet spot is. Thanks for the input!
So, the normal 25% crit chance or hit to the head (that deals 50% increased damage) it basically a 12.5% (25% to do 50%extra = 12.5%extra) damage increase compared to 0% head hit.
There are couple of weapons (ranged mostly, taht oathtakers cant use) in the game that do not add the 5% chance to hit the head but pretty much all weapons at least add the 5%, making it 30% chance overall, or 15% damage increase.
With 15% i would understand it and be like... okay Oathtakers do a niche build for ... well i dont really know which weapon to use for this to benefit.
But as things are i read:
You cannot crit, you deal 5% less damage than any other background, most weapon improvements and famed weapons (namely increasing head hit chance) are useless for you.
I love the mod, but oathtakers are just getting unfair treatment...
(as a suggestion) Adv noble mod makes sense for oathtakers, and nobles can get leadership type or smthn else
EDIT:
your math =
4 swings of 100 damage are (in case of 1 out of four being 25%)
10%
440 with perk = 4x110
450 with no perk = 3x 100 + 1x150
15%
460 with perk = 4x115
450 with no perk = 3x 100 + 1x150
So nearly same damage, with huuuuuuge downsides
- The 150% bonus damage to heads does not apply to armor damage, it only applies after their helmet is destroyed or to armor piercing damage.
- The 150% bonus damage to heads does not apply to any enemies with steel brow. This is pretty much all of the 'tougher' enemies (schrats, lindwurms, unholds, swordmasters) plus all ancient undead (and reforged adds it to some additional enemies, I believe).
So in both of the above cases, hitting the head provides no advantage. But the biggest, 'hidden' buff to oathtakers is that their damage is no longer split between two armor pieces. So for an enemy who previously had 300 body armor and 300 head armor, they can take up to 600 damage before starting to lose health (usually it will be less than that, since the damage is unevenly split, but on average they'll take close to 450 armor damage before starting to lose health). But against oathtakers, they will ALWAYS start losing health after taking 300 armor damage. By guaranteeing that they only attack one of the armor pieces, oathtakers effectively cut the armor of all enemies in half (and that's before applying the extra 10% damage). It would obviously be even stronger if it guaranteed they only attacked the head, but guaranteeing they attack ANY specific body part is crazy strong.
Honestly, it probably needs to be nerfed even further, since as it is I think it's probably the strongest bonus of any of the backgrounds (on an already strong background). But perception of a bonus' power is also important, and at first glance it can certainly look weak.
In reality it only means that most of the times instead of one hitting footmen/raider swarm trash mobs that spawn in great numbers i have to waste 1.5 turns on average to kill as i can reliably work through their stronger chest piece not being able to oneshot with head hit.
unless you have 12 oathtakers, those really hard to crack 300/300 armor will be ganged up by more than 1 guy on and still be hit on the head with other guys so the value of only targeting chest piece is lost (also, you wanna loot that chest piece anyway : knifetime! )
Weapon damage/perks/enemy spawns and game is balanced about head hit.
In vanilla, this makes more sense but in reforged, this comes with additional downsides.
Good at using hammers but you get forced professional and trained perk group pretty much setting you up to use variety of melee weapons suited for situation... but you cant as they have downsides with many of the other weapons.
Maybe they are good to use as tanks because u can get 2 weapon perks for 1 point and they reliably do more damage, still waste.
But lest forget about everything above:
This goes against the game idea of background NOT defining a build, this disables so many perks and weapons in reforged, or makes them bad to use/spec.
I dont wanna be mean, just wanna make things better =D
Any plans on giving compatibility patches to other mods?