Talk:Lifesteal (3.5e Equipment)

Calculation

Fiddly percentages don't really work well for things that are not computers. This has been a thing with a lot of your recent stuff, and it's between problematic and will never be used because people don't want to interrupt every one of their attacks to figure out percentages. --Undead_Knave (talk) 20:17, 7 May 2017 (MDT)

I understand that and it's been mentioned. I've been working on altering much of it, except the percentage chances for things to happen, which would just be a d% or 2d10 rolled when you roll your damage roll, just like a lot of people roll their attack and damage rolls at the same time. As it's actually adapted from a video game, it's a work in progress, as you can see. Please be patient, but know that this particular page is, in all reality, functioning properly. Lifesteal chance was an integral part of the original concept and one that works in either application, since rolling a percentage chance is either than calculation percentages of damage. Zhenra-Khal (talk) 22:08, 7 May 2017 (MDT)

Right, but rolling extra dice slows the game down, and rolling things that have virtually no chance of success (a 1 in 50 chance is effectively nothing, you'll maybe get a couple heals over the course of a long term campaign). Quite frankly, if I had a weapon that had a 2% chance to heal me every time I attacked with it, I would basically forget about it every time. As it is, this isn't really worth it, because by the point that the percentage is anything nearing appreciable your weapon is hella expensive and magically powerful or whatever, but does literally nothing except maybe rarely heal you question mark but probably not. I really can't think of a good build to use this, because a heavy hitter will basically never have it activate, and a TWFer will need to get it twice, and probably won't be healing much with it, so it's much less attractive. I think it needs to be reworked. I would advise using the base material as an inspiration rather than trying to emulate it as closely as possible. If you want some suggestions for how to rework it, I'd be willing to help some, but as it stands, I really think this is...problematic. --Undead_Knave (talk) 01:08, 8 May 2017 (MDT)

As a potential fix, why not let every successful attack heal an amount of hit points equal to the weapon's base enhancement bonus? In that way, a +1 dagger of lifesteal would heal 1 hp per successful attack, and a +5 dagger of lifesteal would heal 5 hp per successful attack. You avoid fiddly percentages and optimized damage dealers don't get rewarded for their massive damage output. --Sulacu (talk) 04:52, 8 May 2017 (MDT)

If I could just gesture at the Soulbinder here for a moment, particularly Essence Defiler. It's meant to work with that. The percentage on the weapon enchantment would be higher, but a base 30% chance to happen from the Soul Sparks, plus possibly an additional 15% from Vampiric Sparks, up to an additional 5% each from Hope Stealer and Dark prayers, combined with a 10% weapon, creates a 65% chance for the attacks to heal you, 'including your Eldritch Blasts and other damaging abilities focused through the weapon (Meaning it affects spells, powers and just about everything else if using the Magic Implement enchantments). 5% per Enhancement Bonus would be up to 25%, which is a quarter of the time, and more or less, 5% of the time is the same chance as rolling a nat 20. But that creates the problems of a near-constant 70% chance to self-heal, which is, while intended, rather massive.

At least unlike the original, I didn't do the Lifesteal in the abstract Lifesteal stat they had, which was a 1% chance for every 400 you had in the stat, boosted by equipment and so forth. You ended up with a lot of funked percentages I was glad the computer was keeping up for with me.

As far as being rewarded for damage output, that's intended. You can either lots of damage in large hits, hoping to heal massively, or specialize in lots of small, rapid hits, triggering the percentage more often in hopes of healing more reliably. This is also meant to work with the Weapon Speed variant rule shown here, which keeps the weapon damage somewhat controlled by changing the rate of attack.

@Sulacu, if I was gonna do that then the Wrathful Healing enchantment (+3 equiv., Enemies and Allies, P.20), which just heals you for half the amount of damage your weapon does per hit.

Increasing it to 5% per EB means it would end up happening on a nat 20 rather than the percentage chance. 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% all add to that range, so that the heals are coming up on a 20, 19, 18, 17 or 16. So the percentages aren't unworkable with this, they're just too low right now, which I'm fixing as we speak. However, when combined with the Scourge Warlock (Especially the Soulbinder), it's just simpler to roll a d% or 2d10 in addition to the attack roll as I said before. Zhenra-Khal (talk) 06:58, 8 May 2017 (MDT)

My thoughts on that particular weapon quality aside, can't that argument be given as a response to both our ways of doing it? Whether you choose to lower the amount healed or introduce a proc chance, I would go for the option that requires less rolling and mental arithmetic. Either way, it was only a suggestion. Other possibilities include limiting the healing effect to once per round, or tying it into the weapon's critical threat range, but personally I'd choose the option that can't be easily optimized the hell out of . --Sulacu (talk) 09:01, 8 May 2017 (MDT)

Those that do not want to use this method will not use this method. I'm not putting stuff out there for the likes, subscriptions and so forth; I'm simply typing it down and posting it so it's there for reference and not just in my head. Zhenra-Khal (talk) 12:56, 8 May 2017 (MDT)