The Tavern

What do folks think about changing Makhleb so that he allows consecrating a weapon (like TSO/Lugonu/Kiku etc) at max piety for vampiric brand?

how about yredelemnul, fits to death knight

dunno makhleb is already very good thatd be a little overkill imo

Well, I figured it fit in better with Makhleb's innate vamp theme, but I'd be ok with Yred, too.

Vampiric brand is so powerful that I'd expect the god to have extremely limiting conduct, something like Trog (no spells) + Qazlal (noise) + Zin (no eating of intelligent monsters) + Ashenzari (all slots should be cursed or the weapon temporarily loses the brand). Even then it could be too easy IMHO.

It is powerful, but it is also only useful for the first few runes. Most of extended makes it sub-par at best. None of the other gods have seriously stringent requirements for their brand gifts. Do you really feel like vamp needs them given the very limited scope of its usefulness?

I say nay.

Vampiric brand would push mahkleb way over the top.

Vampiric is basically worthless in Hell, Pan, Tomb, Crypt, Hall of Blades, and Abyss. Vampiric is ridiculously good everywhere else. Ergo vampiric is ridiculously good for winning the game, and in that (very important) sense, it isn't actually narrow in usefulness.

I don't think a god would need all those conducts to make up for vamp though, Sandman. I mean pain (esp combined with gifting necro books) is really really good too, and distortion + no unwield effects via Lugonu is very powerful as well. Neither Yred nor Makhleb needs a buff, and certainly a buff on the order of "get vamp brand" to either of them would be silly, but I think it would be possible to design a god that gave vamp brand at max piety without bogging it down with multiple conducts.

Also, Makhleb can already shoot spitballs, he just calls it "Minor Destruction" to keep up appearances.

Heheheh. Well, that was my secondary idea: some kind of vampire god along the lines of Beogh or something. I haven't worked out any specifics. Some kind of blood magic powered by your HPs instead of mana or something. I'll give it some thought.