Gods of random spells


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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2016, 21:10

Gods of random spells

Here is two not very polished god idea- I am curious whether it is possible to design a god that requires you to adapt to random spells that she gives you.

NUMBER ONE - adapt tactic to current spell set
1. Upon joining you forget all spells. You cannot memorize spells from books.
2. While gaining piety you receive random spells right into your memory, starting from level range 1-2 upon joining (you get one immediately) to 1-9 at max piety. You gain them very quickly, depending on your empty spell slots - the more empty spell slots you have, the more frequent the gifts are. (I imagine that when you do not have any spells, you get one for every piety point earned.) You do not need to memorize a gift, but if you do, it always succeed.
3. Spells use your invocation skill instead of spellcasting, spell school skills and IQ. It also determines your spell slots, and spells you cannot memorize are never gifted. If you do not have empty slots, you do not receive gifts.
4. When you cast a spell, you immediately forget it.
Piety by exploration + xp.

NUMBER TWO - adapt strategy to spell set
1. Upon joining you forget all spells. You cannot memorize spells from books.
2. The god will gift you a predefined set of spells, one for each level, up to level 9, as you gain piety. You can see the list before joining. you cannot refuse spells - you will memorize them no matter how many spell slots etc. you have.
3. Spells use your invocation skills instead of spellcasting and spellschool skills and IQ, but you got negative wizardry for every additional spell school.
Piety by invocation skill, that you will only receive the next spell when it's success rate is below 50% without items.

For this message the author sanka has received thanks: 2
dpeg, Lasty

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 07:56

Re: Gods of random spells

I'm a bit sleep-deprived and jet-lagged right now, but your NUMBER ONE suggestion sounds really interesting to me right now. A bit like Nemelex, but much more fun and better interface. I'll keep thinking about this, but at this moment I like it a lot.

Abyss Ambulator

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Joined: Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 15:03

Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 08:21

Re: Gods of random spells

Thanks for the encouragement. I like the first one better myself, the second one is belongs more to dpeg's random gods I think. I do not like current nemelex, but I would like to play with a god who gives you random abilities.

One thing that may make the first one a little bit better if spells that you do not cast fade from your memory after a while.

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 10:21

Re: Gods of random spells

i also really like it so long as you get spells back fast enough, i'd hate to have plenty of mana and no spells to cast.

you did not add any piety-sink (or other tradeoffs like ru), it could maybe use 1-2 useful skills to offer a choiche (for example -> expend piety to immediately receive a new spell?, or expend piety to not "use up" your next spell? or maybe expend piety to reshuffle or expend piety to bump up your spellpower for the next cast or anything)

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 11:11

Re: Gods of random spells

I would not add active abilities, as the constantly changing spells seems to be enough. Piety gain is mainly for determining spell gifts.

Since you receive piety on XP (killing) and exploration, and if your spell pool is empty then 1 point is enough to give you a gift, I would imagine you will not be without a spell to cast for too long.

Maybe if the first proposal seems to be good enough we can move id to GDD?

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 12:20

Re: Gods of random spells

i can see the situation where you want to kill a rune vault but run out of spells, can't kill anything and need to backtrack to somwhere else in order to try again (as opposed to just resting?) that would be tedious for sure and possibly promote ignoring enemies when you are fully charged to keep for later (which is mostly offset on other gods because piety decays over time and weak monsters aren't worth much)

active abilities that cost piety make for some really good choiches on other gods, of course it shouldn't be too severe since here your main "resource" are spells themselves but an active that somehow mitigates the other issue would likely make the god better. of course, in order for it to be a choiche you need benefits to keeping your piety high but i unerstand here it would be receiving high lvl spells.

maybe turn it a little more traditional with a normal piety-decay mechanism to discourage leaving weak enemy pockets behind and you can burn some piety to immediately receive a new spell, maybe make it a large amount of piety to receive a spell from a select school. alternatively, award piety on spotting monsters instead so you get your gifts when getting in the fight rather than afterwards.

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 13:24

Re: Gods of random spells

sanka: Very interesting proposal!

I think this would make a good GDD proposal, with some more details (also restrict to the first option). Myself, I don't like Nemelex either, and this is basically because that god is a whole, huge system on its own. Your proposal very niftly keeps the randomness of cards but avoid the cognitive burden by using an already established system (spells). I like that a lot!

My main "contribution" to Nemelex (should've just lobbied for deicide, but I was too young) have been the active powers which allow followers to mitigate the randomness. I think that can also work for your random spells god.

Some further twist to make the god a bit less like ordinary spellcasting: when casting one of the random spells, the weakest skill of its schools is replaced by Invocations (or by Evocations, if we want to preserve some Nemelex feeling). Hey, that's a bit wacky, but it's important to dish out the crazy ideas, too. And/or Invocations could replace Spellcasting, including the cap of how many random spells you can hold.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 13:30

Re: Gods of random spells

Thanks, dpeg!

Actually if you read the OP i suggested to use invocations instead of *all* spellcasting related skills (and possibly IQ).

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 13:39

Re: Gods of random spells

probably going to need to still rely on int or you'll just be able to build cookie-cutter-meleekilldude with invocations instead of evocations and gain a spell list as powerful as a purebreed caster that raised 6+ schools

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 14:12

Re: Gods of random spells

sanka: Hey, I read the OP, but admittedly too hastily. Thus, I say now: Using Invocations for all Spellcasting is probably too strong and should be toned down. :)

Abyss Ambulator

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Joined: Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 15:03

Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 20:05

Re: Gods of random spells

Spellcasting has 4 effects:

1. Spell slots. Since you can only cast every spell once, you need some buffer - I think you need some spell slots for the god to work at all.
2. Mana. Since you cannot spam spells, its not so powerful to have mana.
3-4. Spell success/spell power. Originally this will be low anyway, since invo also replaces IQ. Later you need success and power for the god to be competitive as you can only cast every spell once (and then need to wait for the gift) as opposed to spamming it by learning it.

I feel that the god would be a little bit on the week side (but I do not care - it sounds fun and thats matter, and we can make it stronger, also I do not want to design a god which is stronger than the existing ones). I cannot imagine this god to compete with Fedhas/Yred/Makhleb. Maybe armour/shield/wizardry etc. should not affect your spell success.

As an attempt to judge the god compare it with somebody who invests in spellcasting:
DRAWBACKS:
- you cannot control what spells you have
- you cannot spam the spells
- you don't have an other god (important!)
BENEFITS:
- you spent about half as much xp, (in the case of multi-school spells less, in the case of single school spells more)
- your spells will be much more varied, which is mostly a drawback but occasionally can be a benefit


I may create a proposal in GDD later if a mod does not move this thread there, but currently I cannot really add anything else to polish it a little bit.
Last edited by sanka on Thursday, 19th May 2016, 20:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 19th May 2016, 20:07

Re: Gods of random spells

Never hurts to continue to brainstorm!
infinitevox on akrasiac & berotato
Busy dying horrible deaths from chugging too many pots of Mutation.

Abyss Ambulator

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Joined: Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 15:03

Post Friday, 20th May 2016, 13:41

Re: Gods of random spells

I have created a proposal in GDD, this thread can be closed.

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