God Proposal: The Duality (2)

[bcadren]

Concept: The god boosts half your abilities, while locking the other half.

Upon joining the duality; your skills are cut in half. You now spend all your time split between two forms; the god controls when you switch, based on time alone, with a rapid piety decay to keep you from waiting it out. Existing skills are added to your new skill set; for example Dodging and Armour are added to your Defense skill, with Defense using the higher of the two Aptitudes.

Changed:
Fire + Ice = Thermal Magic
Earth + Air = Natural Magic
Summoning + Translocations = Warping
Necromancy + Poison = Death Magic
Armour + Dodging = Defense
All Weapons + UC = Melee
Bows + xBows + Slings = Ranged
Shields + Stealth = Elusiveness
Charms + Hexes = Enchantments

Unchanged:
Fighting, Spellcasting, Invocations, Evocations.

Locked:
Conjurations. Any current skill is added to Spellcasting. Pure Conjurations are locked. Elemental Conjurations are treated as pure (Flame Tongue as Pure Thermal, for example).
Transmutations. Any current skill is added to Spellcasting. All spells are locked.

Human Form (Reaver):
Your DEX is set to 2. The rest of your DEX is added to your STR.
Innate Wizardry; but mild Spellpower reduction.
Uses Fire, Earth, Summoning, Poison and Charms magic. The other half of spells are locked.
Elusiveness is used for your Shield and Defense for your armour.
Melee is used for all weapon types equally.
Ranged is used for all Ranged weapon types equally.
Your Stealth is set to 30 (cannot be changed).
Your EV is set to 5 (cannot be changed).

Wolf Form (UC Stabber):
Felid equipment restrictions
Your STR is set to 2. The rest of your STR is added to your DEX.
Wild Magic.
Nightstalker.
Fangs II.
Claws III. (Stabs like Fe Claws)
Uses Ice, Air, Translocations, Necromancy and Hexes magic. The other half of spells are locked.
Elusiveness is used for your Stealth and Defense for your Dodging.
Melee is used for UC.
You may carry any amount of weight (god ability).

---

You have twice as many spell levels as normal. (though only have access to half your spells at a time.) Furthermore the god offers invocations at higher piety levels; acting like a good god (while human) and a chaotic god (while wolf).
That's the basic idea.

[Yea, I'm still trying to push the idea of a werewolf, but it's pulling into weirder and weirder mechanics each time I draft it.]

[nicolae]

[Yea, I'm still trying to push the idea of a werewolf, but it's pulling into weirder and weirder mechanics each time I draft it.][/i]

If you keep trying to make a werewolf but the design keeps getting weirder and more complicated, maybe you should take a step back and consider: perhaps Crawl does not need a werewolf.

[bcadren]

If you keep trying to make a werewolf but the design keeps getting weirder and more complicated, maybe you should take a step back and consider: perhaps Crawl does not need a werewolf.

Weirder and more complicated isn't necessarily bad; I think this is interesting.

[and into]

Are you sure some of the features/bonuses of this god were not supposed to be wrath effects? Walking around with 2 of any stat is a major punishment/nuisance (to take one example).

It seems like this god just weirds things up a lot and makes you want to switch your items around a lot whenever you suddenly shift, which sounds annoying, especially if you can't autotravel back to stashes thanks to the rapid piety decay. (A god with really rapid piety decay could work, if it largely rendered autotravel unnecessary in one way or another, but I'm not sure how one would do that. Otherwise the god punishes autotravel which would be unfathomably bad.)

While a god that blocks a spell school could be fine, in this case there is the problem that UC isn't all that interesting if you can't use forms.

Weirder and more complicated isn't necessarily bad; I think this is interesting.

The game really doesn't need another god that meets or exceeds the Nemelex benchmark for complicated, opaque mechanics.

[bcadren]

Are you sure some of the features/bonuses of this god were not supposed to be wrath effects? Walking around with 2 of any stat is a major punishment/nuisance (to take one example).

Set to 2 and have no use fot he stat. It's also supposed to be a hard set (immune to Stat draining, though all other stats are effected) but I didn't specify that.

[WalkerBoh]

Weirder and more complicated isn't necessarily bad.

This explains so much.

[Leafsnail]

Why would a werewolf be super weak or clumsy?

[and into]

Well having your strength set to 2 also means melee damage takes a big hit, and ranged combat takes an enormous hit. And 2 dex means you will have miserably bad EV.

Anyway, my main problem though is that this god seems like it is all about making choices for the player and shoehorning him/her into a single mold, which is really bad. This god makes sense precisely and uniquely for a player who wants to be a "battlemage" half the time and a "UC stabber" the other half of the time, without any control over when you are one and when you are the other. And even when you are one of those things, you have weird restrictions on which magic schools you can use.

On a very abstract level, "Duality" could be a cool flavor/theme for a god. But as proposed I don't see any way this god could work, to be honest.

[nicolae]

If you keep trying to make a werewolf but the design keeps getting weirder and more complicated, maybe you should take a step back and consider: perhaps Crawl does not need a werewolf.

Weirder and more complicated isn't necessarily bad; I think this is interesting.

Oh, I'm fine with weird. Go nuts with the weirdness, is my motto.

Complicated is another problem, though. For instance, your god completely redoes the skill system for what appears to be very little actual benefit. Why? Who needs that? Some forms lock your Str, Dex, EV, Stealth, etc., making certain other features, like equipment, mutations, and skill training, completely useless. What is gained by setting STR to 2 instead of just having a Str penalty for some form?

What are the central features of werewolf-ness that you're trying to incorporate into a mechanic? Why not just go with a "Werewolf Form" Tmut spell, for instance?

[bcadren]

What are the central features of werewolf-ness that you're trying to incorporate into a mechanic? Why not just go with a "Werewolf Form" Tmut spell, for instance?

A werewolf is stealthy, self-berserking with Troll speed and great dodging, but Felid equipment restrictions. One o fhte charms of the idea that keeps me plugging it is the 'forced switch' the idea that the player has two forms and can't control when they switch (unlike a spell) as a spell though...it' be like Spider dodging/stealth, with good UC, but not as good as dragon and no equipment, like both.

[and into]

I won't say it is impossible, but I think it would be very hard to have a god whose central feature involved (rather frequent) uncontrolled changes to your form. At minimum, the form you are switched into would need to be an improvement in most respects, with drawbacks that aren't too extreme or one-sided, and which can be worked around. Unpredictability and loss of control are in themselves a huge liability in a game with permadeath, and the werewolf or werewolf-like form you get forced into unbidden would have to be very carefully designed around that simple fact.

[nicolae]

One o fhte charms of the idea that keeps me plugging it is the 'forced switch' the idea that the player has two forms and can't control when they switch (unlike a spell) as a spell though...

See, there's the problem: taking control away from the player arbitrarily. Crawl already has some features that take away player control to some degree: teleportitis, banishment, and other involuntary translocations, berserkitis, paralysis, bad polymorphs, etc., and what those things all have in common is that they are all considered undesirable things to have happen to you. (Whether such things should be in the game at all would probably be a very lively discussion.) Having a werewolf form be something that's an option when you get zapped by polymorph might work, since players are already used to hostile wands of polymorph doing that kind of thing. Or possibly as some form of god wrath, since god wrath is at least in some way the player's own fault. But nobody's going to voluntarily sign up for a god whose main effect is to inflict werewolf form on them, at random, with no warning or permission, if werewolf form means cutting out half their skills, stats, and equipment. That might be fine in other games, but it's not something that works in Crawl.

[Leafsnail]

A stealthy "wolf form" could work as a high-level transmutation. I don't think any other forms do anything similar.

I'd be tempted to give it jump attack but that might be too Dith.

[File200]

New duality god idea: cut out the form-changing crap, but keep the skill combinations. Opposing skills are now combined into a single skill which takes twice as long to train. Now you can cast both earth and air spells with the same skill, meaning shatter+rMsl comes online a lot sooner. Enchantments goes back to being a single OP school. Add in some activated abilities like combining spells of opposite schools (like a combined fire storm and glaciate) and you have an OK starting point for a magic god concept. No idea what to do with melee though.

A stealthy "wolf form" could work as a high-level transmutation. I don't think any other forms do anything similar.

Unless it gives a bonus to unarmed stabbing, there's not much point.

[bcadren]

A stealthy "wolf form" could work as a high-level transmutation. I don't think any other forms do anything similar.

Alright, if so; traits would be:

Transmutations/Hexes (7?)

9 AC; rC+; rN+
HP +25%
Claws III (+6 UC damage; no boost to Trolls)
Fangs III
Berserk on 25% of hits that don't kill the target.
Movement delay set to 7 (12 if Cheibriados)
Halfing Size
Huge DEX Boost (+15)
UC Stabbing (unarmed damage on stab vulnerable targets is treated as a long blades stab; [half Short Blades multiplier])
Line of Sight -1
Evocable Howl (Noise + Cause Fear; can be used while berserked, costs breath only).

Great stealth boost; as much of a dodging boost as Spiders, with better defense. Relatively weak for pure dam, but a better bonus than Necromutation. Berserkitis gives the benefits of a further HP boost and haste if you need it. Something like that...

And actually:

Where god of the duality started was a god that is both evil and good (switching between which benefits are offered based on (something; random, time, conducts); and considered chaotic regardless. intersection of the three kinds of gods).

[nicolae]

Evocable Howl (Noise + Cause Fear; can be used while berserked, costs breath only).

If wolf form is supposed to be a stealthy UC form, why would you add an evocation that ruins your stealth and makes things run away?

It's not necessary to cram in every single idea that you can think of. Just focus on the basics: stealth bonus, UC damage bonus with fangs and/or claws, wolf size with corresponding EV bonuses, maybe berserkitis.

[Leafsnail]

I think -1 LoS might be interesting, but if it's part hex then the player could already have Darkness anyway. Not sure about berserkitis on a form that's meant to be stealthy

[Confidence Interval]

Strange Case of Dr Bcadren and Mr Duvessa

[File200]

Werewolf form might be interesting if the stealth boost is enough to offset the orb of zot's stealth malus. Use it to avoid pan lords on the orb run. Somewhat risky, since it doesn't give great damage and leaves your ac low.

[Viashino_wizard]

more complicated isn't necessarily bad

This is why all your suggestions are terrible.

[Patashu]

Werewolf form might be interesting if the stealth boost is enough to offset the orb of zot's stealth malus. Use it to avoid pan lords on the orb run. Somewhat risky, since it doesn't give great damage and leaves your ac low.

The orb of zot thirds your stealth so it would have to be insane (or special cased)