Question about familiars

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

I've noticed that the wording is "when the familiar dies", as opposed to
"gets killed", so I'm wondering if this means that a familiar can/will
naturally die after a certain amount of time. Or is the only way for it
to die (and for you to lose a point of CON) is if it's killed in battle?

 

[Guest]

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"John Salerno" <johnjsalNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:40856aea$0$16484$61fed72c@news.rcn.com...
> I've noticed that the wording is "when the familiar dies", as opposed to
> "gets killed", so I'm wondering if this means that a familiar can/will
> naturally die after a certain amount of time. Or is the only way for it
> to die (and for you to lose a point of CON) is if it's killed in battle?

RCV: Don't worry, familiars don't die of old age any more than
characters do! Familiars die the same way that characters do, through
taking damage or by being hit with an instant death spell/effect.

Rich

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

Rich C. Velay wrote:

> RCV: Don't worry, familiars don't die of old age any more than
> characters do! Familiars die the same way that characters do, through
> taking damage or by being hit with an instant death spell/effect.

Thanks. That's what was keeping me from summoning one. Although it
raises another question about CON anyway: Now that my characters are
beyond level 10 (most of them are, at least), does it even matter what
their CON is for determining HP gain per level?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

John Salerno wrote:

> Thanks. That's what was keeping me from summoning one. Although it
> raises another question about CON anyway: Now that my characters are
> beyond level 10 (most of them are, at least), does it even matter what
> their CON is for determining HP gain per level?

Not for HP gain per level, no.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

Kish wrote:

> Not for HP gain per level, no.

Ah, shoot. I should have chosen to lose a point of constitution in my
dream, then, instead of wisdom. Now my wisdon is 17. Not that it really
matters, except for the wish spells, but I doubt I'll use them that much
anyway.

What does my CON affect now that I'm past level 10? The only other thing
in the manual is chance of resurrection, but you said that wasn't
implemented in the game.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

John Salerno wrote:


> What does my CON affect now that I'm past level 10? The only other thing
> in the manual is chance of resurrection, but you said that wasn't
> implemented in the game.

How well you can hold your liquor, how long it takes you to get
fatigued, and retroactive hit points (if you lost a point of
Constitution, you could potentially lose one hit point for each level
where you had a Constitution bonus). From a roleplaying viewpoint,
there's a lot more that isn't implemented in BG--how likely you are to
catch cold, pain threshold, stuff like that.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

"Kish" <Kish_K@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:wefhc.39045$A_5.2294@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
> John Salerno wrote:
>
> > Thanks. That's what was keeping me from summoning one. Although it
> > raises another question about CON anyway: Now that my characters
are
> > beyond level 10 (most of them are, at least), does it even matter
what
> > their CON is for determining HP gain per level?
>
> Not for HP gain per level, no.

No... but it will affect the HPs you have *previously* gained.

That is:

If your CON is 15, that provides +1 per level for the first 10 levels
for a mage, for a total of 10 bonus hps.

If you then increase your CON to 16, this provides +2 per level for
the first 10 levels as a mage, for a total of 20 bonus hps - and a
difference of 10 bonus hps to a mage with 15 CON. When you increase
your CON, you actually gain those 10 bonus hps retrospectively, so you
have 20 bonus hps plus the points you rolled up (1d4 per level for the
first 10, then 1 for every level after.

The same happens in reverse when you lose CON.

Jonathan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

Jonathan Ellis wrote:

> If your CON is 15, that provides +1 per level for the first 10 levels
> for a mage, for a total of 10 bonus hps.
>
> If you then increase your CON to 16, this provides +2 per level for
> the first 10 levels as a mage

Wow, I didn't know it worked that way. I thought you had to start with a
16. That's cool, though.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

"John Salerno" <johnjsalNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:408574c5$0$16470$61fed72c@news.rcn.com...
> Rich C. Velay wrote:
>
> > RCV: Don't worry, familiars don't die of old age any more than
> > characters do! Familiars die the same way that characters do,
through
> > taking damage or by being hit with an instant death spell/effect.
>
> Thanks. That's what was keeping me from summoning one. Although it
> raises another question about CON anyway: Now that my characters are
> beyond level 10 (most of them are, at least), does it even matter what
> their CON is for determining HP gain per level?

RCV: No, once you are getting X amount of HP per lvl, rather than die
roll per lvl, con has no effect on what you get per level up.
HOWEVER, losing con, at anytime, CAN affect your total hps, if the con
loss puts you below certain "benchmarks".
For example, if you are a 10th lvl Mage with a 16 con, you would have
gotten an extra 2 hps per lvl up, or 20 additional hps. If a con loss
reduced your con to 15, then you would lose 10 hps immediately, i.e. those
extra hps you had from having a con of 16 rather than 15. If that Mage then
suffered another con loss, to 14, then they would lose all of the extra hps
they had gained from having a con of 15, thus they would lose another 10 hps
immediately - which would of course also limit their maximum number of hps.

For example lets imagine your mage rolled 10x 3 for hps to 10th lvl.
They have a base hp total of 30. If they also have a 16 con then they would
add 20 hps to that base, for a maximum hp total of 50. If they suffered a
con loss which reduced their con to 15, they would lose one hp per lvl, to
lvl 10, from their hp total, in this case reducing their maximum hp total to
40.
If this guy lost another con point, to 14, he would lose another 10 hps,
i.e. one per lvl to 10th lvl, for his con of 15.

Regardless, it makes sense to get your familiar as soon as you find the
appropriate scroll [note that you don't have to learn and memorise it -
simply read the scroll from a quick item slot].

Rich

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

Rich C. Velay wrote:

> Regardless, it makes sense to get your familiar as soon as you find the
> appropriate scroll [note that you don't have to learn and memorise it -
> simply read the scroll from a quick item slot].

If you learn it, can you cast it again? Does that do anything?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

John Salerno wrote:

> Rich C. Velay wrote:
>
>> Regardless, it makes sense to get your familiar as soon as you
>> find the
>> appropriate scroll [note that you don't have to learn and memorise it -
>> simply read the scroll from a quick item slot].
>
>
> If you learn it, can you cast it again? Does that do anything?

Not if you currently have a familiar. If your familiar dies, you can
summon another.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

"John Salerno" <johnjsalNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4085dc18$0$16484$61fed72c@news.rcn.com...
> Rich C. Velay wrote:
>
> > Regardless, it makes sense to get your familiar as soon as you find
the
> > appropriate scroll [note that you don't have to learn and memorise it -
> > simply read the scroll from a quick item slot].
>
> If you learn it, can you cast it again? Does that do anything?

RCV: If you learn it, yes you can cast it from memory. One can't have
more than one familiar at a time, so all learning the spell does is allow
you to replace a dead familiar.
However, there are a number of such scrolls in the game and only the
protagonist [you] can cast it, so there is really no reason to learn it,
except for the xp I guess...

Rich

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

Rich C. Velay wrote:

> However, there are a number of such scrolls in the game and only the
> protagonist [you] can cast it, so there is really no reason to learn it,
> except for the xp I guess...

Ah, that's right! I was thinking I could let Imoen have one too, but I
guess not.

 

[Ragnar]

Archived from groups: alt.games.baldurs-gate (More info?)

"Kish" <Kish_K@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:S1ghc.24696$4T6.17279@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com...
> John Salerno wrote:
>
>
> > What does my CON affect now that I'm past level 10? The only other thing
> > in the manual is chance of resurrection, but you said that wasn't
> > implemented in the game.
>
> How well you can hold your liquor, how long it takes you to get
> fatigued, and retroactive hit points (if you lost a point of
> Constitution, you could potentially lose one hit point for each level
> where you had a Constitution bonus). From a roleplaying viewpoint,
> there's a lot more that isn't implemented in BG--how likely you are to
> catch cold, pain threshold, stuff like that.

From doing a little Shadowkeeper tinkering, subtracting a CON point will
cause your character to lose hit points (assuming you were getting a CON
bonus).

For instance, when I increased my 17 CON level 10 fighter to 18 CON, he
gained 9 hit points, which is the +1 bonus times 9 levels.

When I decreased him from 17 to 16 CON, he lost 9 hit points. Ouch.