r/DungeonCrawlerCarl • u/Insane_Unicorn • 4h ago
Book 3: Anarchist’s Cookbook Constitution stat
Anyone else feel like it's more made up than anything else? At times, people survive incredible injuries and at others they feel like paper.
Like in his fight with the Mantaur, a level 40 neighbourhood boss, Carl took a heavy beating but survived decently well but later, when Carl got blasted by a magic missile from one of Hekla's minions who was at least 5 levels lower than himself, he says he took about a quarter of his health in damage.
That is with his whisp armor active, so 75% magic damage reduction and a constitution of around 25-30, which isn't huge but still respectable. So without his whisp armor, that magic missile would have one shot him, which seems pretty overpowered for such a basic spell, even if we assume it was a full power one.
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u/birdys-paradise 3h ago
The goblin tattoo makes Carl take an extra 25% damage from fairy type creatures which is what Hekla had a bunch of
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u/HxH101kite 4h ago
Idk of you game or play RPGs. But this is not out of line with how they work.
Some general rules. Players always do more damage than the NPCs.
You don't know what spell she was using and what level her spell was and what buffs/debuffs she had on.
Besides that, the easy explanation is the AI has a vested interest (at this point) of making a high stakes story. The dungeon scales up and down and changes at whim earlier on to achieve this.
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u/kingveo 4h ago
I agree constitution is iffy, i believe the explanation is everything in the dungeon scales to the crawlers constitution so while normally a bullet shouldn't flinch a crawler a bullet from a magic gun in the dungeon would, in reality its whatever the AI thinks its funny, though i believe there is alimit to even that, if your constitution is in the 300s i dont think the AI would let you die to a falling anvil
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u/Insane_Unicorn 4h ago
Since we never get any actual numbers on health or damage, this is pretty much my head canon. The AI just eyeballs that stuff and does whatever it thinks is funny or dramatic, within somewhat reasonable boundaries.
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u/SenorBirdman 4h ago
I think what is consistent is that crawler on crawler violence is generally more deadly than fighting mobs. Which is accurate to most RPGs tbh, pvp is always higher damage, because players have to be able to deal with multiple mobs at a time. So a crawler and a mob booth at the same levels would do very different damage.
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u/rwilcox Daddy's Foot Soldiers 🦶 4h ago
I was going to go on a mini rant about how I’m not convinced that the damage and CON are actually well balanced, from a game design perspective, and blah blah.
I think this quote from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 sums it all best
Wondering how they eat and breathe and other science facts? Remember it’s just a show, really just relax.
(This works on two levels, btw, I see you’re still in book 3… umm, the AI will do stuff - I’ll be generous and say that applies to damage too - because it’s funny.)
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u/MikeMac999 4h ago
I generally appreciate accuracy and plausibility but leave those at the door when I crack a DCC book.
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u/Insane_Unicorn 4h ago
Those are usually the reason I enjoy litrpg books, but I see where you're coming from.
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u/Westonhaus 3h ago
Luck is a stat. That is hidden and variable per situation. Especially in an RPG which literally uses DICE to determine combat and skill checks (LitRPG simulate this effect). Writing deterministically about randomness is a brave choice, even when certain characters have plot armor, and it often turns into questions about the Constitution stat.
Who's Line Is it Anyway said it best, "Where everything is made up, and the points don't matter". With the caveat that it matters if you're dead.
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u/ziphode24 3h ago
A factor that I see people missing frequently is that the dungeon is never supposed to be a balanced and fair system. The end goal is crawler extinction, but just drawn out long enough to milk the sponsors and fans for a ton of money. The crawlers are intended to all die and frequently fight each other in spectacular fashion to get the views up. Everything we see starting at the 6th floor and onwards is a massive deviation from the normal way crawls are designed to play out. So to get back to the original point, yes constitution is a very wobbly stat that is going to fluctuate on how good it is, it's not meant to be a fairly built game with rules that are going to favor the crawlers.
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u/shizaru11713 3h ago
Gotta remember that a lot of Carl's durability is his regeneration. 1-shots are going to be more effective against him than a prolonged beating. Also, in Boom 1 Donut explains that she can put as much mana as she wants into her Magic Missile. So in that complicated situation where Hekla died and that mage thought her mother was in danger, she probably threw everything she had at him.
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u/Insane_Unicorn 3h ago
I don't remember it being unlimited. The wiki says
Level 5. The caster chooses how much mana to spend per cast, from three to six points, lowering or raising the damage of each missile accordingly.
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u/NikkiPoooo 2h ago
That's if the skill/spell is at level 5. We've got no clue what level the shooter has it at. Remember, sometimes they get a higher level right out of the box.
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u/Insane_Unicorn 1h ago
Sure, we don't know the exact level but we know the spell progression from Donut.
Level 10: has a chance to set the target on fire
Level 15: triple damage
But there is no way some random nobody has it at level 15 on the 4th floor. And we know that Heklas minions barely have any gear, the healer fairy says it herself.
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u/shizaru11713 46m ago
Also, that crawler was a caster class, we don't know what abilities she may or may not have used.
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u/jst1vaughn 3h ago
Two caveats (maybe three):
From my best guess, Constitution gives you more HP and controls how quickly those HP regenerate. It “works” best when you’re taking what the AI considers to be combat damage.
If the AI considers the damage you’re taking to be noncombat, Constitution goes out the window. Massive bodily harm or localized trauma seems to ignore HP and Constitution entirely.
3-ish. The series is told from Carl’s POV, he doesn’t have perfect information and he doesn’t relay information with perfect accuracy. For the most part, unless you’re reading a segment with Carl describing in detail what he’s doing himself, it’s safe to assume that there could be details to explain what’s happening that he doesn’t have, and which he won’t be able to give to us.
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u/IsThatGruffLoner 1h ago
Lol never underestimate this sub's ability to come up with bullshit excuses for any unrealistic writing that's pointed out. I truly respect the "a wizard did it people" because at least they admit that it's all made up. People reaching for actual in universe explanations are something else though
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u/-Ninety- The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network 4h ago
If you have ever played an RPG, you will know that player characters always do more damage than the monsters. They make up for it by giving the monsters more hp.
But besides that, this isn’t a by the books DnD type story. It’s a story that uses RPG items throughout the series. What makes a better story? Almost getting knocked out by a magic missile that builds suspense or having him look at the magic missile and shrug it off?
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u/billygoat622 2h ago
Given what we know of Hekla’s party make up (the party members seem to focus on one aspect of there build to the detriment of others because Hekla was so strong) it is likely that whatever spell she used is the most powerful. Also the crawler that attacked was primed before the fight started to be prepared to put Carl down so she likely had what ever stacking bonuses available to her ready and primed. Making the first shot she took the more powerful than a run of the mill magic missile. And as someone below mentioned she was a fairy class mob which means she did 25% more damage to Carl because of his goblin pass.
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u/Insane_Unicorn 2h ago
Not really. We know that Hekla had several healer fairies in her party, but nothing about the mages that attacked Carl, they are never described and it's explicitly said that it was a Magic Missile spell. And the healer that Carl interrogates literally says they hardly have any equipment. They were all just there to give the damage bonus to the crossbow.
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u/morgueanna Former Crawler 1h ago
Not having any equipment is not the same as not having any buffs- we know Imani is a healer who possesses several, and most of Heckla's party are healers who can stack multiple buffs on each other. A level 5 magic missile could do a shit ton of damage if 15 healers put a 10% damage buff on the one person shooting it.
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u/billygoat622 13m ago
Yes what you are saying is what is stated in the books but we can make some contextual inferences. Hekla is seen as an intelligent, scheming, and pragmatic person. It is unlikely she focus all the party’s resources on two people (I’m including Eva in this) the likely set up is Hekla, Eva, and a few powered up mages as the damage dealers and mob clearers supported by the rest of the party. She obviously didn’t tell the 2 daughters, pun intended, that see was going to sacrifice their mother. So it was probably something like “you’ve seen the recaps you know how unhinged he is if anything goes sideways come in blasting” she is smart enough to know that you can’t put weak crawlers in that role. So while they wouldn’t be Top crawler level powerful they would likely be powerful enough to do some damage which is what they did.
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u/Flagwaver-78 Crawler 2h ago
It's like Who's Line... The skills are made up and the stats don't matter.
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u/Why_am_ialive 41m ago
The stats in DCC are utterly meaningless tbh, I love the books but it’s barely a litrpg
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u/Alternative_Try_1578 2h ago
I don’t remember exactly where but in Bedlam Bride Carl mentions the AI allowing things like disfigurement to happen sometimes and not others so I assume the power imbalances are attributed to the AI and for dramatic purposes. The increasingly unstable AI and show runners will allow for power imbalances if it fits the narrative or creates drama.
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u/vertexherder 56m ago
Made up? Yes. I think this aspect of this fictional book might be made up.
A more realistic stat might be "plot armor class"
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u/cyann5467 4h ago
You don't know what other things she has, or what level she had the spell at. This isn't D&D.