Nude God

[bcadren]

{Foo} the Ascetic is, God of Self-Reliance, teaches that the best warriors need no equipment to survive and may rely only on their own bodies.

Piety

Likes:

• Empty Slots (no Armour, no Weapon, etc.) [Except Jewelry]
• Traveling light (having empty inventory slots).
• Piety gain on exploration scaled with total number of slots empty and number of inventory slots less than 26 you have filled.

Dislikes:

• Evocations.
  • Evoking wands causes piety-loss.
  • Evoking rods causes penance.
  • Evoking jewelry causes excommunication.
• Consumables - Piety loss for using a consumable. HIGHER loss if the effect is available from a normal spell.

Powers Passive skills are always in effect. Active skills have a (small) piety cost and cause the player to be out of breath for a few turns. Skills are unlocked in a random order. One given immediately on joining others being added at each * level until *****.

Passives:

• Concussive Force - (STR) - Requires empty weapon slot - Makes UC stabs have a chance to confuse the target; checks STR vs. HD. Targets develop a resistance to further confusion with repeated hits (similar to the temporary rSleep from multiple uses of Hibernation).
• Pure Body - (STR) - Requires empty armour slot - rPois, rCorr and AC boost scaling with strength and empty slots.
• Clear Thoughts - (INT) - Requires empty hat slot - MR boost scales with INT; direct INT check triggered when clarity would come into effect.
• Powerful Thoughts - (INT) - Requires empty glove slot - MP Regeneration boost that scales with INT and empty slots.
• Side-Step - (DEX) - Requires empty cloak slot - Once-per turn; when you would be hit for noticeable damage (more than 1/16 HP); you may 'side-step' instead (chance scales with DEX). Side stepping is moving one space out of the path of the attack. Side steps may dodge attacks dodging skill cannot dodge.
• Sure-Footed - (DEX) - Requires empty boot slot. - Large bonus to-hit (scales with DEX). Removes the chance to fumble attacks in Water, Liquefaction, etc. Chance to ignore Trample (scales with STR).
• Naturism - Elemental (Earth/Air) enhancers that scale with piety and empty slots.

Skills:

• Force Palm - Requires empty weapon slot - UC strike for triple damage; knock back and chance of concussion (Sleep).
• Monster Fling - (STR) - Requires empty gloves slot - You pick up an adjacent monster and throw it. Checks STR vs. HD. Causes damage to the thrown creature and any creature it crashes into. Can use to insta-kill low HD creatures by throwing into Water or Lava (saving throw by HD similar to a confusion stumble into lava). Damage uses STR and Throwing.
• Grapple - (STR) - Requires empty armour slot - You constrict any target by wrapping your whole body around them. Attempting to melee any creature other than the one your grappling will break the constriction.
• Taunt - (INT) - Requires empty hat slot - Attempts to berserk the target. Checks your INT vs. Target's adjusted INT (HD x Monster Intelligence); cannot work on Plant/Zombie intelligence creatures. At high INT can even berserk Ancient Liches, etc.
• Tame - (INT) - Requires empty boot slot - Attempts to enslave all animals (by intelligence) in LoS. Chance scales with empty slots and intelligence.
• Disarm - (DEX) - Requires empty shield slot - On humanoids, attempts to steal the target's weapon; may break (non-artifacts) in the process; checks DEX vs. HD. On non-humanoids, applies a -Slay modifier; slay amount varies with STR; chance checks DEX vs. AC.
• Deceive - (DEX) - Requires empty cloak slot - Uses the opponent's strength against them (causes the target to melee itself); also attempts to get a tier-2 (confusion) stab. Success rate of all parts depends on DEX.

Removed stuff:
Pugilism, Cranium Crash, Pure Thoughts

Notes:

• You may not gain bonuses for slots you don't normally have.
• Anti-Evocations is meant to be the 'jewelry' part of the god's conduct as offering abilities for empty jewelry slots (on a normal character) would only result in quick switching.
• All no weapon bonuses are to UC to forbid just swapping a weapon away in half an aut for a bonus.
• Edge cases (Octopodes and Felids) may require special casing as they already don't have MOST the slots the god asks you to give up.
  • Thinking Octopodes get Shield, Hat and weapon bonuses normally and receive the other bonuses from giving up 4-6 ring slots. (Unsure)
  • Thinking Felids receive the UC bonus for free and Naturism for 'traveling light' as giving up wands is still a non-zero cost for them. (Unsure)

[and into]

I think there's a potentially interesting concept in a god that rewards empty slots in different ways, but the god should not force (in effect) UC, and probably the rewards should not just be to turn you into a suped-up UC ogre who gets boosts similar to the egos you would get on lucky armor drops that would be worn in the slots you are keeping empty. For instance, empty hat slot gives you +MR... So what is the interesting decision, here? I can't wear a helmet, but I am guaranteed a +0 hat of MR++? Unless a very good helmet dropped, that's an easy decision in favor of the +0 hat of MR++ (which happens to be flavored as an empty slot).

[tasonir]

But this is the god of felids! You get all the bonuses with no downsides, and there's even a scaling hp boost! You can have health again!

Put more seriously - there's going to be problems with this god applying evenly to races which already have restricted slots. Trolls will always have free gloves/boots with no downside, so how can it be balanced for that while also being good enough that a human might worship the nude god?

Passives are also on a breath timer? I have to invoke my hat of magic resistance, and then that blocks everything else? If the passives conflict with using the actives, then they aren't really passives imho, which would flip and into's example in my opinion. I'd rather have a real hat of resistance since then I can use that and force punch/whatever in the same fight. Giving up a few slots to get one power you can use every few turns isn't that convincing. Let the passives be actually passives.

The traditional piety system works very well and I wouldn't advocate abandoning it without good reason. Ru and Gozag did their own things but I don't think that's a general direction that all (or even most) new gods should go in. Yeah, saying "piety for kills" isn't exciting, but you have the entire rest of the god proposal to cover that. Also it's unclear how using wands giving piety loss would matter since there's apparently no piety system? Even penance for rods relies on the piety system - you work penance off by gaining piety most of the time, unless you're very slow to find monsters to kill and get a wrath effect first.

[Siegurt]

I am going to assume the following details are missing:

1. Piety is gained for exploration with percentage of slots empty (similar to ash)
2. You can only gain powers for unfilled slots you actually have.

3. The passive effects are always on. (Hence passive)

4. The passive and active abilities are gained at piety levels which are just missing from the post.

If I read it that way it sounds alright.

I would remove pugilism (uc/throwing don't need slaying bonuses, and the ability is a little too specific for me)

Confusion on uc stabs is basically "the god power for no weapon slot")

I might add a piety-based bonus to ac (proportional to percentage of open slots)

I would, for simplicity, reduce it to one possible passive and one active for each slot, and remove the dual slot restrictions)

And I would make the actives use piety (buff then if you feel they are too weak)

[bcadren]

Took Siegurt's words into account and updated. Some updates are changes others are just clarifications.

[duvessa]

sounds good as long as its like, thor or atlas. not anubis or hephaestus though, eww.

[Hirsch I]

not anubis or hephaestus though, eww.

you dont know what you're missing.

[floatRand]

But this is the god of felids! You get all the bonuses with no downsides, and there's even a scaling hp boost! You can have health again!

Put more seriously - there's going to be problems with this god applying evenly to races which already have restricted slots. Trolls will always have free gloves/boots with no downside, so how can it be balanced for that while also being good enough that a human might worship the nude god?

I'd figure if they don't have something to sacrifice, they won't get the bonus.
Plus felid's are already wearing fur.

Anyway, I really like the idea though. Eschew weapons and armour, become beautiful being that needs no equipment.

[daggaz]

The Nude God should be A-OK with hats. Seriously.

[Hirsch I]

"you can leave your hat on" should pop when you remove a hat.

[Greyr]

The Nude God should be A-OK with hats. Seriously.

and socks

[daggaz]

Business socks. Its fucking business time, baby.

[XuaXua]

Just take those old records off the shelf; I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself!

[Hirsch I]

funny thing, I replied to a guy called /u/business_socks on reddit today. this is the first day I read the term. now I saw it twice.

[Greyr]

No doubt in part popularized by the always funny Flight of the Conchords,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

[dpeg]

I find the core concept to be interesting. Some comments:

1. I like at least trying out how fewer inventory slots work. But I don't think that promoting that by piety gain for fewer slots is a good start: it is easy to imagine how that leads to strange behaviour. One could argue whether such behaviour is actually bad play, but I think it's easier to make that part of the conduct. This could go two ways: either a flat 26 item slots limit whenever you follow the god, or item slot cap decreasing as piety goes up (this might also lead to strange behaviour --characters not going for maximal piety-- but its a bit like Cheibriados, perhaps worth a shot).

2. You already make an exception for jewelry. I think that's good, but you should perhaps also exclude weapons, for reasons already explained in this thread. If you need some thematic underpinning, that's easy: just mumble something about how the god is fine with anything done with your *fingers*, but not much else Finger god, here we come!

3. Anti-evocation sounds like a fun conduct, especially as Evocations are so prominent now. But! In the grander scheme of things, there will be a time when they're toned down again. And I reckon it's hard to convey how bad wand uses are: if you take a gigantic portion of piety, it's like a pretty evil way of saying "Don't use wands"; if you only take a little piety, players have a hard time eyeballing whether wands are tactically viable or not.
I am not convinced this conduct is crucial for this god, but here's a different attempt: under the deity, Evocations are zeroed, wand use is penalised by costing thrice the charges.

4. Piety loss for consumables again sounds like a nifty concept, but that one might actually suck the fun out of the god: at least for me, consumable use is part and parcel of the Crawl experience. If you want that, there are probably better ways to achieve that (but again, I am not sure about this kind of conduct).

5. In my opinion, the powers are too many, and too direct. Okay, so the god wants you to run around with no armour items. And then you get a hodge-podge of effects immediately aiming at counteracting this sacrifice (you get resists, AC, indirect defense by -slaying on enemies etc.). At the very least, this is unwieldy to explain. (I have been very much guilty of concepts a lot worse than that, so it's just experience speaking, no finger pointing.)
I'd try to find a simple method of rewarding the conduct which is (a) generally useful to characters, and (b) not a direct AC etc. boost. Note that we have two parameters to use (piety and uncovered armour slots). Here are some rough ideas on that front. There's always the problem that not all armour slots are equal (body armour is so much dominant).

• The god conveys guardian spirit from the get-go -- more Health is always some kind of defense. You could combine this with the anti-evocations conduct to sacrifice evocables in order to boost maxMP (divinely, you'd be back to normal maxMP when abandoning the god), or to sacrifice evocables for immediate MP regeneration (i.e. healing).
  This idea is intentionally double-edged: on the one hand, casting combat-relevant spells is at odd with guardian spirit; then again, being able to regain MP is good for casting.
• You get a [thing] on an adjacent non-wall square for every open armour slot. That [thing] wouldn't be be an ally, enemies can step on it; it'd do things like having monsters attack on it with equal chance than one the character's square (even if another monster is standing on it). It'd be an abstraction of the idea that in the absence of encumbering clothing, you are more flexible in open space. I probably did a bad job of conveying my idea -- more power to you if you got some idea
• If you forfeit body armour, you have a doppelganger, who mimics your actions (including spells) and who is an equal target for monsters. That's another take of increasing HP, and is also about increasing attack power while being more fragile. Your doppelganger grows in power with piety, and if he dies, you get him back with more piety gained.

[hannobal]

Piety gain on free inventory slots could lead to following behavior:
1. Before going to new floor, drop all non-necessary stuff to staircase down on previous floor
2. Explore the level enjoying piety gain from free inv slots, visit the stash at previous level if you need something
3. After the floor is explored, go to 1

I like the concept of travelling light though - so maybe just hard limit the amount of slots that are available, that cannot be exploited.

Free equipment slots can be prevented from exploiting if you start gaining piety only after X turns the slot has been free, and equipping something in the slot resets the timer.

[Hirsch I]

If you forfeit body armour, you have a doppelganger, who mimics your actions (including spells) and who is an equal target for monsters. That's another take of increasing HP, and is also about increasing attack power while being more fragile. Your doppelganger grows in power with piety, and if he dies, you get him back with more piety gained.

this is stepping a lot on deathmangoes toes, though.

[dpeg]

hannobal: Exactly! That's why it makes more sense as a conduct than as a piety rule.

Hirsch: Probably, I just tried to dish out ideas that feature a single concept. Of these, the first one looks best (i.e. least bad)... now that I look at it with some hours of sleep.

[bcadren]

I just wanted to say the original proposal came from two idea roots:

• 'anti-Ashenzati' (something that gives piety for wielding nothing or carrying few items as opposed to cursing the wielded item to your hand).
• Tactical god - god that gives single melee and ranged abilities as opposed to what are more-like spell effects the other gods give. (Including, at very least the ability to throw enemies like an octopode crusher with other non-magical abilties).

dPeg was wandering from the second part while keeping the first. The second, though, is the bigger hole in the gods to me; I want something where I use a god ability to enhance my next melee hit; with a cost in (small) piety, breath, exhaustion, (small) HP, etc. rather than it counting as a spell cast.