Attribute Potions

[Conforama]

So what's the idea? A step forward in one stat, step backwards in another?

What's the strategy, collect a bunch of different stat potions and drink em all in a row for overall improvement?

[Pete Mack]

They replace stat drain potions with something more interesting. And yes, your Ranger/Rogue can stockpile INT stat swap potions for later, when DEX/STR/CON are already above 18/10--and you really want reliable haste/resistance/TO spells. (Same for contemplation for Paladin needing HEAL spell.)

[Sky]

the trick is: when your BASE stat is 18 *exactly* and you drink a potion of stat swap, the stat at 18 will increase MORE than 1 point.

from 3 to 17 -> 1 point
18 -> 1 to 3 points circa
over 18/50 -> 1 point or less

stat swap potions are useful for mages, because the *only* thing that matters is your INT, at least in the beginning. stat swap is ok for warriors, although it can sometimes lead to a seesaw with STR up DEX down, then DEX up STR down. But, if you make sure to drink them only when you have 18 exactly in that stat, you will likely gain more than you lose.

protip - if you see a potion of stat swap you do not need in the Black Market, you can buy it to ID it, then sell it, for a loss of 2400 gold.This way you don't accidentally drink Contemplation or Intellect (or Toughness, that one too generally isn't useful)

[Derakon]

Or you can just immediately drink the potions that boost stats you want, and hope they drain something you don't want. You can do the min-maxing thing and net come out ahead, but it's fiddly enough that I usually don't bother.

[Werbaer]

So what's the idea? A step forward in one stat, step backwards in another?

Later, you'll find better potions which increase one stat without decreasing another.
Still later, there is a potion that increases all stats.

What's the strategy, collect a bunch of different stat potions and drink em all in a row for overall improvement?

I might use some of these potions early to improve the most important stat for the character. I store the others.
Later, when some stats are near maximum and others drag behind, i use the potions that increase those stats.

[AnonymousHero]

Or you can just immediately drink the potions that boost stats you want, and hope they drain something you don't want. You can do the min-maxing thing and net come out ahead, but it's fiddly enough that I usually don't bother.

Yeah, it really don't make much practical difference. (I'm actually a bit annoyed by the nature of these potions precisely because they encourage that min-maxing for what is ultimately incredibly little benefit. Of course, they're still better than the old game where no improvement was possible until stat-potion-depth. I guess I would have just had half-effective stat-gain potions instead, but that's probably a bit too bland. I suppose the "yay!" or "doh!" nature of Brawn/etc. do kind of make it a bit more exciting -- it's just the min-max potential that's a bit annoying.)

[Derakon]

The swap potions could have linear behavior even when above 18. Then there'd be no way to net come out ahead of the game only with swap potions.

[AnonymousHero]

The swap potions could have linear behavior even when above 18. Then there'd be no way to net come out ahead of the game only with swap potions.

A good point, well made. Didn't think of that for some reason .

[Sky]

would that mean that you *always* get +1.0 points? because regular stat potions don't give you the full point once you reach around 18/50+

i'm partial to making all stat potions simply +1 or +1/-1 swap.

even without the exploit i would still use stat swap on warriors and mages, to get enough STR to tunnel through walls, or for more mana.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

A mild rant... The Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth, the orbit of the planets isn't a circle, despite the death of Copernicus and the arrest of Galileo. Why is it an "exploit"? Why must things be symmetrical? Why must they fit into a box?

[Sky]

well, those used to be cursed potions. potions you are not supposed to drink.

later on, like most "bad" items in the game, they evolved into something which has tradeoffs. However, if used in the very specific manner described above, they no longer become half-good/half-bad items, but just good items. This is generally considered outside of the original intent and therefore referred to as an exploit.

[Derakon]

would that mean that you *always* get +1.0 points? because regular stat potions don't give you the full point once you reach around 18/50+

i'm partial to making all stat potions simply +1 or +1/-1 swap.

Gain-stat potions used to give you +/10 per potion until you got near 18/80 or so and then started giving you less, so you needed several potions to get those last few effective points. E.g. a single potion might take you from 18/90 to 18/94. At some point that was changed, and (possibly at the same time) you got more than a point's worth of gain per potion early on in the 18s (taking you from 18 to 18/30 in a single potion). I assume that the goal was to reduce the amount of time people spent scumming for stat gain potions, which is something I have trouble arguing with. We could make stat potions all linear; that'd mostly mean you'd have to find, what, 2-6 more per stat to max out? I don't have a good feel for what that'd do to the pace of the game.

A mild rant... The Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth, the orbit of the planets isn't a circle, despite the death of Copernicus and the arrest of Galileo. Why is it an "exploit"? Why must things be symmetrical? Why must they fit into a box?

My perspective on this is that exploits are things that a) are non-obvious, b) grant an advantage, and c) are not fun, they're just silly hoops that optimizing players have to jump through. Of course there's some fun to be had, for at least some players, in going "I know a special trick for getting stats faster!" So deciding whether something is an exploit is going to vary from person to person, even if they agree with my definition of the term above. Personally I don't enjoy hoarding stat-swap potions until I hit that magic threshold, so I consider it an exploit. You are free to disagree.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

My perspective on this is that exploits are things that a) are non-obvious, b) grant an advantage, and c) are not fun, they're just silly hoops that optimizing players have to jump through. Of course there's some fun to be had, for at least some players, in going "I know a special trick ..."

It is a line-drawing problem. At what point is something a special trick or a silly hoop? Is it a special trick to read unid scrolls on stairs, so that @ has a convenient escape, or is it just knowledge learned from playing? How is that knowledge different from knowledge about stat swap potions? Sometimes I use stat-swap potions before the "magic" natural 18, sometimes I hoard them. Sometimes I ignore them entirely (except the one id use).

[Philip]

The difference seems pretty clear to me - knowledge that having an escape handy when doing something dangerous is a good idea is just basic reasoning. Minutia about the mechanics of stat boosts is just that - minutia.

In the first case, you have discovered that stairs are a good all-purpose escape, and you have learned that un-id'd objects can be dangerous, so you combine that knowledge. These are all intended mechanics, and it is also intended that the player minimizes those risks that cannot be eliminated. Taking the three criteria, it sure seems like an obvious conjecture to me, and it also doesn't seem like a tedious process.

In the second situation, a player learns that stat gain and loss contains (probably unintended) asymmetries that the player can use to achieve an unintended and unbalancing goal, at the cost of tedious gameplay. The fact that stat gain and stat loss are not determined by inverting the other, but by some other, asymmetric process is counterintuitive, especially in a game where your first interaction with stat boosts is "gain one, lose one" which implies that the process is symmetrical. It also does not seem fun.

It may be possible to set up an actual edge case (asymmetric LoS comes to mind), but this is certainly not one, and even if there is an edge case, it wouldn't actually devalue the assertion that this is an exploit.

[Derakon]

It is a line-drawing problem.

Per my definition, it is a fun-having problem. I don't enjoy it, which is part of why I classify it as an exploit (it must require obscure knowledge AND grant an advantage AND not be fun to be an exploit).

To the extent that fun is a line-drawing problem then, I agree with you.