I'm using Auto Health, Magicka, and Stamina which adjusts your HMS according to your skill level and not picked on level up (by using ely's uncapper). As per the author he uses the setav function for this.

I'm also using Duke Patrick's combat mod which calculates strength for various combat effects from the actors's base health and Duke says modav won't work.

Question:
Does setav affect base health and thus work with Duke's mod?

Or in Duke's own words:

Question, will:

BaseHealth = me.GetBaseActorValue("health")

be effected by the script function "setav" ?

Yes, SetAV changes the BaseActorValue.

You can confirm this in the console,

Player.GetBaseActorValue Health

This returns the players base health excluding any modification by armour etc

Player.SetActorValue Health 50

Then when you use:

Player.GetBaseActorValue Health

It will return 50

Again any modification to health remains unchanged.