Talk:Damage Sponge (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

	Spanambula likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	This is a nice thing for Fighters. It's good for Con builds but not overpowering in early levels with the limiting factor of HD.

Sulacu is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

I like the idea of giving characters more options to be tough and take a lot of hits, but the fact that this feat gradually loses its usefulness as your level gets higher bothers me a little. Constitution is a stat that is rarely focused upon, so I don't expect to get much use out of this beyond the first 5 levels unless the point buy is very high. This feat would be fantastic for a low power Epic 6 style game, but as it stands, there are archetype feats that give you more extra hit points, and at higher levels, DR to boot. I don't know if that makes those feats overpowered or this one underpowered, but I have to agree that this feat could use a little boost. Something like, perhaps 'equal to your Constitution score or twice your character level (whichever is lower)'. Could be a little too much I suppose.

	Ghostwheel likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Helping tanks be tanky is nice.

Comments

Why the lower of char level or con mod? Doesn't that make it grow to con mod and then plateau at a pretty anemic point? 1 point of temp hp to start also seems really small. It just seems weird for an H feat. Are you sure you didn't want to take the higher of the two? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 01:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

At lower levels, where you usually only one attack a round if that, temp hp is almost as good as DR (this becomes more irrelevant as you level and are expected to take on stronger things or more numerous weaker things). I didn't feel comfortable with potentially starting out someone with DR 5, though in practice it would probably be DR 2-3. I waffled on it a bit, but ultimately kept it so I could be sure it wasn't unexpectedly stronger than intended at 1st and 2nd level. By 3rd and beyond, it'll be the same and running as intended. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:29, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the DR comparison at lower levels (particularly given the relatively uncommon occurrence of energy damage), and see not wanting to give too much too soon... though I disagree with the solution. I don't have anything that isn't more complicated or a BAB prereq in mind though, so meh.

Can you run me through your beyond 3rd level reasoning though? Or really just your beyond 10th reasoning? Because it seems to cap before that unless you're going crazy into con boosting, and that doesn't seem that great as energy damage values go up and you have more attacks per round to deal with. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:02, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

On further thought I find myself in agreement that the bonus at later levels is fairly poor. I am currently considering Con mod x2, though keeping the "whichever is lowest" limit. As a general rule I wouldn't want it to greatly exceed one's character level. That said, "why don't I just make it as character level?" Mostly I want to promote tanky high Con types to use it and discourage low Con types. Take a wizard, which gets a bit more out of Dex than Con and will probably make it tertiary; I rather give it to the barbarian who I know both has and will use the temp hp instead.

Currently debating. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

If you are okay with extra bookkeeping, you could have max of character level, but replenishes Con mod each round (rather than the full amount). --Aarnott (talk) 18:30, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I have decided and I like the cut of your jib, Aarnott. It is done. Please review your ratings in case this changes anything. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:23, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

VH-level Version Idea

A VH version could be something like this: Gain your BAB multiplied by the number of attacks you gain from BAB as temporary HP each round. So levels 1-5 would be 1-5 temp hp, 6-10 would be 12-20 temp HP, 11-15 would be 33-45 temp hp, and 16-20 would be 64-80 temp hp. This would scale, for the most part, with the amount of damage a player would be taking. It's more than a bit too crazy for H-level, but at VH, where damage is hardly the main thing to worry about, I think it would be a fair. --Aarnott (talk) 20:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not really comfortable with temp hp that high that respawns on a round by round basis. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, not for High-powered characters. But for Very High, I think the numbers actually work out fine. We can assume a VH character can deal at least 1d6 damage per level per attack. So, at the extreme end, you'll have 4 attacks each doing ~70 damage, which will mean this feat will negate just over 1/4 the damage (on average). --Aarnott (talk) 18:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way to make this a reasonable feat for VH. The thing that separates High from VH isn't the amount of damage being done, but the number of things besides damage there are to do. Surgo (talk) 19:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

If you think that, then it might stand to reason that you would also agree that VH characters aren't defined by how much damage they do, but instead by the other effects they can inflict. Yet I don't think that this is the case. Thus, if you crank the HP high enough you should at some point not be in H-level territory anymore. It won't be very interesting to get 9001 temporary HP every round, but it's certainly much stronger than H-level stuff. --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The trick of a VH version of this feat would be plenty of temp and giving a bonus for as long as the temps are still up, brb giving this a try. --Leziad (talk) 20:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Here is my attempt. --Leziad (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Yet I don't think that this is the case." I, on the other hand, do believe it to be the case. That there are some degenerate classes that don't bring anything to the VH table except damage is a flaw with those classes, imo. Surgo (talk) 20:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Then you're not looking at it correctly. Damage is not "just" damage. It's also the ability to inflict the "death" status effect. If enough applications of the "damage" effect are inflicted (we'll ignore the complications of DR or whatever for this), then it results in the "death" status effect regardless of the creature's defenses.

If you say that damage, no matter how high, is H-level, then applying the death status effect automatically is H-level as well. Which, I think we can agree is not true.

The nice thing about damage is that it's on a range. On one side, you have damage that "takes multiple applications to cause death". On the other, you have damage that "takes a single application with a failed save to cause death". Finally, you have damage that "takes a single application, regardless of saves or attacks rolls (if any are even present), to automatically inflict death". This becomes more complicated when you consider dealing damage to more than one enemy at a time (for example, a 9001 damage specific-multiple-target-spell on almost any group of monsters that do not possess evasion). So actually, damage is equal to death, either immediately over over multiple uses, and stacks with team mates' attempts to do the same (TEAMWORK!) which is why it is (and should be) the cornerstone of most encounters IMO. --Ghostwheel (talk) 18:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I think Surgo's point was more that an excess of hit point damage or temp hp or healing or whatever isn't really VH, even if it isn't H either. He'd probably toss it in the "malformed homebrew" pile or whatever. And in that I'm inclined to agree with him.

It should still be marked VH of course, because it exceeds the H category. It should just expect a very poor reception there. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 00:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)