Sanity

Sanity is the third meter every hero carries besides health and stamina. It starts full, drains while you fight enemies or linger in the Dark Mist, and decides which of three mental states the hero is in: Normal, Abnormal (the UI word for the first stage) and Lunatic. Each hero has a different set of penalties and bonuses in the lower two states, and many trophies and talents only work there.

The meter#

Every hero has a base maximum of exactly 100 sanity. The game computes it from the hidden attribute row of the hero (hidden attribute 1, which maps to 1,000 on the attribute curve, times a 100/1000 rate), so there is no hero that starts higher or lower.

The talent Sanity (every hero tree) adds 5% / 10% / 15% to the maximum. Because both thresholds are fractions of the maximum, they move up with it:

A larger maximum therefore does not move you farther from the stages in percentage terms; it only gives a bigger pool above them.

Losing sanity#

Damage costs sanity (campaign)#

Whenever the hero lands damage on an enemy in the campaign, the game takes SanDamage x HP removed / enemy max HP sanity from the hero. A "SanDamage" of 5 therefore means: depleting that enemy's whole health bar costs 5 sanity, whether you do it in one blow or many.

Across the 2,747 enemy placements in the data:

Boss values: Maddened Ascetic 90 (75 in its later chapter 7 appearance), Holy Father 85, Jenny of Exilium 100, Edith 70, Frollo 55, Elmar 20, Elena 55, Fused Sprenger 120, Proxy Higgins 120 (130 in the second set of chapter rows, story 1006), Usurper 130, and the three DLC bosses 130 (The First Messenger and Terror Obsession cost nothing). Each chapter's rows exist twice in the table (story ids such as 1 and 1001) with the same values unless noted. A value above 100 sounds fatal, but boss rooms pin your sanity at a floor, see Lunatic state.

The talent Devout (every hero) cuts this particular loss by 15%. It does not reduce the "enemy move" losses below.

Enemy moves that hit sanity directly#

Only four enemy models carry sanity damage on specific attacks:

These are scaled down at long range for moves with a damage-distance falloff (full value inside the move's minimum distance, sqrt(1 - x^2) of it in between where x is how far you are between the minimum and maximum distance, and nothing beyond the maximum), and halved by the trophy Loneliness Whisper (see Sanity talents and trophies#Other).

Gaining sanity#

No hero skill in the data carries a sanity-gain value (the code would add a skill's SanAdd on executions and backstabs, but every SkillData row has 0), and the talent types for gaining sanity from kills, events or skills (SanKillAdd, SanEventAdd, SkillSanAdd) exist in the code but are used by no talent.

When sanity does not change#

Sanity is not lost at all:

• while the host hero is dead or the game has stopped attacks (cutscenes);
• in dream sequences;
• in Arcade mode outside boss fights (Arcade mode);
• from hero allies, which ignore sanity damage entirely outside the maze.

Sanity belongs to the hero#

Each hero stores its own sanity in the save. Switching heroes carries the old hero's percentage to the new one, but switching is blocked while the current hero is Lunatic. After each hero is created, saved sanity is clamped to that hero's current maximum, and a hero loaded while at or below the Lunatic threshold is re-locked at the cap.

Hidden mechanics#

• Campaign kills never refill sanity. The "SanKill" gain is zero for every ordinary enemy in chapters 1 to 9, and the only non-zero rows there are the four chapter bosses (+200) and the two club-elite entries (+200). Killing in the maze is the opposite: it costs nothing and refills 1 to 10, and Lost Valley - Heggem pays +3.
• The sanity cost is proportional to damage dealt. Weak enemies you barely scratch cost almost nothing; a huge-health enemy costs the same total as a small one.
• Large damage-to-sanity numbers on bosses are safe. In a boss fight the minimum is pinned at the Lunatic bound, so a "130" boss cannot kill you through sanity.
• Sanity potions ignore your defences. The sanity statuses (Elixir of Sanity, Elixir of Hallucination, Vertebra Nail, the ground effects) are tagged with the physical defence type, but their defence scale (Param3) is 0, and the status code multiplies your resistance by that scale before using it. Every tick is therefore simply ceil(base x (1 + item talent bonus)): 1 for the Elixir of Sanity, 5 for Hallucination and the Nail, 2 for the ground effects.
• "Improved Effect" doubles the Elixir of Sanity. It multiplies the per-second value by 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 (talent levels 1 to 3; Elena has two levels, 1.15 / 1.3) and the result is rounded up, so the 1 always becomes 2: the elixir gives about 30 instead of 15 over its duration. The same talent raises a Hallucination tick from 5 to 6 / 6 / 7. "Prolonged Duration" lengthens both elixirs by 10% / 20% / 30% for Terrence, Viola and Benita, 10% / 20% for Norwood and Jerold, and 15% for Elena (Buffs#hm-the-item-talents-are-bigger-than-they-look). The Vertebra Nail is on neither list.
• Benita's potion resistance also halves sanity elixirs. While she is Abnormal or Lunatic and her Drug Resistance status is switched on (see Abnormal state#Effects by hero), every potion-type status tick is halved before rounding up: Hallucination 5 becomes 3, the Elixir of Sanity stays at 1 (even with Improved Effect, 1.1 x 0.5 rounds up to 1).
• The Lunatic lock is not rounded. Refills stop at 57.5 with three Sanity talent levels while the Lunatic test rounds up to 58, so the lock never lifts you out of the state. Full numbers: Lunatic state#hm-the-lock-is-exactly-half-never-rounded-refills.
• Statue and frog numbers are on a doubled scale. The code halves every sanity cost and gain printed on these offers (inferred reason: they were written for a 0 to 200 scale), so a "Dedicate 10 Sanity" statue really takes 5 (Maze statues#Sanity is halved).
• Several talent descriptions point the wrong way. "Adapt to Abnormality" talents read as additional penalties but are reductions of the penalty (Abnormal state#hm-the-penalty-talents-are-reductions-the-english-text). "Lucky Madness" claims to work only in the Abnormal state, but the drop code applies it always (Sanity talents and trophies#Lucky Madness by hero).
• Lost Valley and the maze never charge for damage. The code skips sanity-by-damage in Lost Valley scenes, and every maze monster and every Lost Valley placement carries a SanDamage of 0 in the data.
• Unused data. The constants for a "sanity first-kill" reduction table (10 / 5 / 1 kills, 100% / 60% / 20%), SanDeadRate 0.6, and the Terrence dodge-close rate 700 are defined but never read.

Related#

Lunatic state, Abnormal state, Sanity doppelganger, Sanity talents and trophies, Sanity in special areas, Maze statues, Terrence, Viola, Benita, Norwood, Jerold, Characters, Consumables.

Sources#

• Thresholds: gamedata/playerdefine/animalbase_value_define.lua:13-17 (SanBound 1 / 0.7 / 0.5), logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:1663-1684 (GetSanType), :1708-1712 (GetSanBound), :717-740 (death at 0).
• Maximum: tables HeroData (Attribute_7 = 1), HeroPropertyData rows 8, 58, 108, 158, 208, 258, 308 (PropertyId 8, Attribute_7 = 100), HeroAttributeData (AttributeId 7, Property_8 = 1000). Talent: HeroTalent 11401, 12401, 13401, 14401, 15401 (Type 93, value 50 +50 per level).
• Losing: logic/player/animalbase.lua:16716-16735 (SanDamage x HP removed / max HP; Devout via SanAttackSub), logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:2150-2197, 2777-2797, 2925-2946 (skill SanSub, distance falloff, Loneliness Whisper), controller/controllerstorymode.lua:19-24, 2180-2290 (drain constants and branches), StatusData 10074, 10040, ui/controller/statueuictrl.lua:208-241, ui/controller/frogctrl.lua:328-337, 396.
• Enemy data: tables StoryMonster (SanDamage, SanKill), SkillData (SanSub on hero ids 20007, 20014, 20022, 20029), TrapData 10005 and 10006.
• Sanity statuses ignoring defence: logic/status/statusbase.lua:238-248 (GetStatusParam), :294-344 (defence multiplied by Param3/1000 at :324, Benita halving at :340-342, round-up at :344); gamedata/structdata/exportdata/es_statusdata.lua rows 10009, 10040, 10074, 10100 (Param3 = 0).
• Execution/backstab SanAdd: logic/player/animalbase.lua:6662-6690; hostile call hero: controller/controllerstorymode.lua:1904-1910, :27 (CallHeroAddSanRate 0.1), logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:1236-1251; revive: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:142-147, controller/controllerstorymode.lua:1944-1981; unused rest function: controller/controllermain.lua:3148-3156.
• Gaining: StatusData 10009, 10100, 10083, logic/status/status103.lua, logic/status/statusbase.lua:270-345 (tick value formula, physical-resistance reduction at :312-342, GetCommonPropertyDefence :356-364), logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:1822-1840, structdata/ms_skilldata.lua:9-17, StatusData DefenceType of 10009, 10040, 10074, 10083, 10100, logic/player/animalbase.lua:6636-6640 (ItemSanAdd), HeroTalent 11302 and 11305 condition lists, controller/controllerstorymode.lua:3459-3470 (SanKill), :1896-1902, :2428-2444, :4506-4517 (jar markers, radius logic/item/itemscene.lua:8), tables ItemData 20020, 20021, 20030, 26003, 26004.
• No change: logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:981-1008, 1155-1172.
• Damage cost skipped in dark-forest scenes: logic/player/animalbase.lua:16716-16720 (IsDarkForestScene() == false); SanDamage and SanKill of stories 101 to 105: table StoryMonster (101: SanKill 3 on 16 rows; 102 to 105: 0); story 101 = Lost Valley - Heggem (table StoryData StoryId 101, StageId 20003).
• Elite and boss kills: table StoryMonster rows with SanKill 200 (hero ids 20007, 20014, 20022, 20034 and 20030); lock removal only for boss kills: controller/controllerstorymode.lua:3459-3470.
• Scripted events: table StoryQuest 15075 (SanAdd 100), 15040 (SanSub 27), 20019999 (SanSub 100); applied at controller/controllerstorymode.lua:9336-9348 with the normal add and subtract functions.
• Per-hero storage and switching: structdata/fs_savestory.lua:3128-3160, controller/controllermain.lua:3382-3445, logic/player/animalbase.lua:9514-9545.
• Altar rest: ui/controller/playerinfoctrl.lua:9174-9185 (Rest button) -> logic/player/animalbase.lua:13075-13078 (WorshipingRest) -> controller/controllerstorymode.lua:1969-1975 (HostPlayerReborn) -> logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:142-147 (RebornValue clears both locks and sets sanity to maximum).
• Unused data: gamedata/playerdefine/animalbase_value_define.lua:18, controller/controllerstorymode.lua:174-186, 2403-2425, gamedata/playerdefine/hero10001_define.lua:29.