Sanity talents and trophies

This page lists what raises, protects or exploits Sanity and the Abnormal state. For the per-hero changes of the state itself see Abnormal state; for what the Lunatic stage does see Lunatic state.

Talents shared by all five heroes with a tree#

Each hero (Terrence talent tree, Viola talent tree, Benita talent tree, Norwood talent tree, Jerold talent tree) has a sanity branch of the same shape. Elena has no sanity talents.

Talent	Levels	Effect (code)
Sanity	3	Maximum sanity +5% / +10% / +15% of base. Thresholds scale with the maximum.
Devout	1	Sanity lost by hitting enemies (the campaign "damage costs sanity" rule) is reduced by 15%. It does not reduce enemy-move sanity damage or time drains.
Sanity: Enhanced Elixir	1	+5 sanity instantly when you drink a potion or elixir in the listed set (28 item ids for each hero, including the Elixir of Sanity but not the Elixir of Hallucination or the Vertebra Nail). The game text says 10; the data and code use 5.
Lucky Madness	2	Raises the weight of certain drops in every drop table by 5 / 10 points (Drops and loot). See below for what it affects and the wording mismatch.

Lucky Madness by hero#

Hero	Item types affected (data)	Wording in the English text
Terrence	701, 706 (trophy materials)	Materials for trophies, Abnormal only
Viola	801, 803 (Raw Stone, Blackwater Stone)	Raw Stone and Blackwater Stone, Abnormal only
Benita	802, 702 (elixir materials)	Materials for elixirs, Abnormal only
Norwood	601, 602, 603 (trophies)	Trophies, Abnormal only
Jerold	601, 602, 603 (trophies)	Text says "combat items", but the data lists the same trophy types as Norwood

In the drop code the talent is added to each drop entry's probability weight unconditionally, so it works in the Normal state as well. It also works inside the Abnormal-only extra drop tables.

Hero-specific talents#

Each hero tree also has three talents that reshape that hero's Abnormal-state penalty or bonus. Their effects are tabulated with the penalties they change in Abnormal state#How talents reshape these effects.

Hero	Talents (levels)
Terrence	Adapt to Abnormality: Dodge (1), Adapt to Abnormality: Life (2), Knight's Instinct (1)
Viola	Adapt to Abnormality: Stamina (2), Adapt to Abnormality: Critical Strike (2), Brutality (1)
Benita	Adapt to Abnormality: Elixir (2), Adapt to Abnormality: Potion Resistance (2), Bloodthirsty Instinct (1)
Norwood	Adapt to Abnormality: Inertia (2), Obstinate (1), Berserker Instinct (1)
Jerold	Calming Rage (2), Sendril Affinity (2), Sendril's Arrival: Brier (1)

Talent types that exist but nobody uses#

The talent effect list contains eleven sanity entries that no talent row uses: lock reduction, first-kill reduction, extra sanity from events, from kills or from skills, guard-based gain, item sanity-loss recovery, dodge recovery, and three percent/value property changes. They look like cut content.

Trophies#

Trophies are rings, claws and charms with a numeric "logic" effect. The ones that touch sanity:

Abnormal-state boosts#

These apply whenever the hero is Abnormal or Lunatic. They add up across equipped trophies: two +20% attack trophies give +40% attack, applied as one multiplication to the attack stat.

Effect	Trophies	Strength by family
Attack	Bloodthirsty Eye, Beastheart Stone, Glowing Crystal, Zealot's Crest	+12.5% (ids 67xxx), +17% (68xxx), +20% (69xxx)
Physical defence	Poison Arrowleaf, Pagan Icon, Executioner's Gloves	+12.5% / +17% / +20% of the defence stat
Fire, Poison, Arcane and Dark resistance	Mist Bracer, Stag Rings	+12.5% / +17% / +20% of each resistance

The numbers do not rise with the trophy's enhancement level (levels 1 to 6 of the same trophy all carry the same value). Physical defence and the four elemental resistances are separate trophies.

Lunatic survival#

Trophies	Effect	Stacking
Skullcutter, Beast Chain, Meteor Bracelet, Hunting Claw, Daemon Mask	Time-based sanity drain -50% while Lunatic (open world, Lost Valley and maze); the non-Lunatic Lost Valley and maze drains are not affected	No stacking (best one counts)

Other#

Trophy	Effect
Loneliness Whisper	Enemy attacks that carry sanity damage deal half as much to you. (The game text says "reduced chance"; the code halves the amount.)
Melos Bottles (ten different ones: Pitch-black, Gloomy, Pale, Dim, Luminous, Fulgurant, Flaming, Dazzling, Cyclical and Imperishable)	The hero is permanently Abnormal "at the risk of Lunatic" even at full sanity, except in the carriage. The bottles cannot be enhanced or reforged, and they share one equip group, so only one can be worn at a time (Trophy list).

Four additional trophy entries (ids 67068 to 67071) have Chinese-only developer names and much higher values (attack +100%, physical defence +200%, elemental resistance +200%, Lunatic drain -50%); they look like test items.

Hidden mechanics#

Melos Bottles turn the Abnormal state on permanently. Because Abnormal trophies, hero bonuses and the enemy "crazy" flag all key off the state, a bottle plus four +20% attack trophies gives +80% attack for free; the cost is the hero's penalty and being one threshold from Lunatic state.
Lunatic-survival trophies are the only ones that do not stack in this family. The equip code takes the maximum for trophies flagged "no overlay" (the other non-stacking effect is the low-health Rage trophy, see Trophy effects).
Devout is much smaller than it looks. It only affects the damage-to-sanity rule, which exists only in the main campaign.
Improved Effect and Prolonged Duration reach the sanity potions. Both talents list the Elixir of Sanity and Elixir of Hallucination (not the Vertebra Nail). Prolonged Duration lengthens them by 10% / 20% / 30% per level for Terrence, Viola and Benita, by 10% / 20% for Norwood and Jerold, and by 15% for Elena (Buffs#hm-the-item-talents-are-bigger-than-they-look). Improved Effect multiplies the per-second value by 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 (Elena 1.15 / 1.3) and the result is rounded up, so the Elixir of Sanity goes from +1 to +2 per second (no defence is applied to these statuses; see Sanity, Hidden mechanics).
"Adapt to Abnormality" talents are penalty reducers, not extra penalties (see Abnormal state).

Sanity, Abnormal state, Lunatic state, Talents, Trophies, Consumables.

Sources#

HeroTalent types 42 and 48 (Prolonged Duration, Improved Effect): StoneLevel "2,3" for 14302, "2,5" for 15302, "2" for 17302 (Value 150), "2,3" for 17304 (Value 150), three levels for the others.
Talent rows (table HeroTalent): Sanity 11401, 12401, 13401, 14401, 15401 (Type 93); Devout 11402, 12402, 13402, 14402, 15402 (Type 5, value 150); Lucky Madness 11403, 12403, 13403, 14403, 15403 (Type 43); Enhanced Elixir 11404, 12404, 13404, 14404, 15404 (Type 46, value 5); hero-specific 11408-11410, 12408-12410, 13408-13410, 14408-14410, 15405-15407. Effect names: structdata/ms_herotalent.lua:9-80.
Talent formulas: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:471-540 (AddSanPropertyDiffValue and Rate variants), logic/player/animalbase.lua:16726-16731 (Devout), :6636-6640 (Enhanced Elixir), controller/controllerstorymode.lua:5372-5380 (Lucky Madness in GetStoryDropItem).
Unused types: comparison of ms_herotalent.lua type names against the HeroTalent table (script build/wiki/scripts/sanity/p16.py).
Trophy rows (table TrophyData): LogicType 121 (SanAttackAdd), 122, 123, 124 (NoOverlay = 1), 116, 119; ids 60027, 60068-60075, 60079, 60080, 67001-67017, 67101-67517, 67068-67071, 68001-68515, 69001-69515. Formulas: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:2234-2243, 2278-2297; summing: structdata/fs_trophyequiplist.lua:238-252.
AlwaysSan: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:1678-1684.
Loneliness Whisper: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:2788-2796, 2940-2946.
Drain trophy scope: controller/controllerstorymode.lua:2185-2242, 2276-2287. Round-up and defence scale: logic/status/statusbase.lua:324, 344.
Item talents on sanity potions: HeroTalent 11302 (Prolonged Duration, Type 42) and 11305 (Improved Effect, Type 48) condition lists; logic/status/statusbase.lua:296-308.
Melos Bottles: TrophyData rows with LogicType 119 (items 60068 to 60075, 60079, 60080) all carry EquipUniqueId 60068 (one equip group). Enhanced Elixir text versus value: HeroTalent 11404 (TextValue 10 is shown in the text, Value 5 is used by the code).

Categories:Sanity