Boniface, God of Ignorance

[Shtopit]

Boniface is an ancient God who disappeared immediately after creation, because he didn't know any better and fell headlong into a mole hole. There he still is to be found; his hole is a pilgrimage site, and his most loyal followers choose their own hole in which to meditate about their god's fate.



Boniface offers you a steady, passive increase to your defences, whatever their kind. Each * you gain will have you offered a + to assign to MR, AC, SH or any elemental resistance. Boniface's last gift will make you fully immune to a single kind of attack: be it a flavour (torment counts as its own flavour for this) or a weapon type. If you have maxed rN, you can get immunity to torment. If you have maxed rF, you can get immunity to Fire and Hellfire or Fire and Holy (all holy). If you have maxed rC, you can get immunity to cold and drowning, as well as flight. If you have rP, you can get immunity to poison. If you have rE, you can get immunity to Airstrike and smites. If you have maxed RM, you can get immunity to magic. If you have put as many + in AC or SH as possible, you can become immune to a weapon type (as defined by skills).

However, Boniface asks you to partake of his ignorance. You will slowly lose your grip on accountability: you will not know how much money you have, you will only get an estimate for MP and HP, you will start not recognizing specific kinds of monsters, you will not be able to count items in stashes, and, after a while, you will not be able to recognize different items from another (e.g. different one handed long blades): you will need to test them and appreciate the results, and then decide autonomously whether to keep them or not. You will also not get estimates for spell success or hunger cost or noise.

[PleasingFungus]

extremely good flavor.

paging minmay to the thread to post that "crawl of the future" picture

[tasonir]

I actually really like the idea, primarily for the ignorance conduct. While some of it could be annoying - not being able to tell different long blade types apart I'd remove, but I think a lot of that would be interesting. I'd make it so you can tell what the base type of items is, and maybe even still allow you to see egos, but don't show enchantment levels. Maybe periodically (every 1000-3000 turns?) you lose the knowledge of a type of potion/scroll? You can still re-identify it, if you have scrolls. Great flavor, but I'm afraid it might just encourage people to inscribe everything which would mostly defeat the point. At least hiding enchantment levels, spell success/hunger/noise shouldn't encourage too much scumming. I don't think too many people will go through the horrible, horrible spell success calculations manually, and experienced players probably have a pretty good idea of how to ballpark it anyways. You could maybe make it so that it only reports your skill levels to whole numbers? Or even to the nearest even number?

I think the passive gains to resistances/AC/SH/EV? (you didn't mention EV, but I assume it would be a choice?) is a good perk, but probably not enough alone to carry the god. Needs 1-2 actives? Maybe have a skill that causes all monsters in LOS to forget you, aka go back to wandering status - they can still detect you again, but maybe give it a brief 1-3 turn period where they can't notice you, depending on what kind of power level you are going for.

Single targeted skill that causes a monster who knows spells to forget their spellbook? Would make a single caster pretty harmless, maybe make it not work on demons so you can't trivialize hell/pan lords? But turning an ancient lich into a melee monster would be pretty strong, and with a decent piety cost, well balanced (basically a ranged, more reliable anti-magic hit).

I realize this wasn't too serious of a proposal, but hey, I'm on board.

[duvessa]

bonerface

[jwoodward48ss]

Good flavor, awful implementation. Remember those roguelikes where you would write down what each item was in case you read a Maud scroll?

NEVER mess with the UI by removing things. Bad idea.

[Queen Cassie]

I really like the flavor, but I'm with jwood on this: affecting the UI like that is awful and horrible and I'd never want to use this god for that reason alone, especially not being able to read such vital information as your HP and MP.

[and into]

There could be ways to flavor "ignorance" that will work in the game. Reduce LOS (benefit; "ignorance is bliss"), conduct that lowers stats and/or restricts # of spell slots, gives perma *confuse (damage has chance to confuse you), ability to make enemies forget where you are, etc.

Ignorance / forgetfulness is a cool theme for a god, but you need to explore that theme in a way that doesn't screw with the UI.

[MainiacJoe]

The only thing that ever made me rage-quit a Nethack game was one time I had a strong character that got amnesia's by a mind flayer. ID game is more important in Nethack of course, but man that just SUCKED.

[Siegurt]

The only thing that ever made me rage-quit a Nethack game was one time I had a strong character that got amnesia's by a mind flayer. ID game is more important in Nethack of course, but man that just SUCKED.

But you can eat them for +int, who doesn't love that

[scorpionwarrior]

Bonaparte, God of Overcompensation

[scorpionwarrior]

Bonoface, God of Stupid-Looking Sunglasses

[jwoodward48ss]

bonaparte was not short

not. short.

[Queen Cassie]

bonaparte was not short

not. short.

You know I went looking this up, and it turns out you're right. Napoleon was actually around 5' 6"/5' 7" making him only a couple inches shorter than me, and taller than the average Frenchman at the time. Whaddya know.

[Shtopit]

I have given the concept some thought. Yes, screwing up the interface isn't a Crawl thing or, in general, a good thing.

So I thought that the PC could become the Unqualifier, the Bringer Of Ignorance and the Defiler of Competence.

One effect can be a passive aura removing the fighter flag from monsters in LOS, plus an active aura that makes all enemy magic go haywire like with AM. Add a skill draining bolt or blast and eventually the ability to summon penalty-inducing allies on two different power levels.

I wonder if such a god would need a conduct, since giving up abilities is already Ru's thing. The smaller view field is OK, I think.

[and into]

Here's my stab at a god with this theme:

Upon joining:

+ “You struggle to remember spells.” Base time to cast a spell increased to 2.0 auts.
+ “You have trouble keeping up with small items.” Equipping/swapping jewelry takes as long as equipping armor. Base time to read scrolls, drink potions, and evoke items is increased to 2.0 auts. (“Where did I put that scroll of <foo> again?”)
+ EDIT: Suppresses clarity.

* Strength in Ignorance. Active, small piety cost. Confuses player and also provides the !might effect. The confusion is of a short duration, the might effect lasts about as long as the potion.
** “What I don’t know cannot hurt me.” Passive, reduce LOS by 1.
*** Collective Amnesia. Active. Confuses player upon activation, and attempts to inflict “forgetfulness” status on all enemies in LOS. Forgetful enemies can only move and perform basic attack. Checks HD, not MR. No enemy is immune, but higher-HD foes recover more quickly from the forgetfulness. Moderate piety cost.
**** Passive LOS reduction increased to 2.
***** Ignorance is Bliss. Active, temporarily sets LOS to 2 squares around player. (I.e., doesn't stack with darkness, etc.) High piety cost.

[cerebovssquire]

I really like some of these ideas (especially the Ignorance of Bliss ability which I would love to see as a high-piety-cost god ability). I imagine the constant confusion could be quite annoying though, since it essentially adds keypresses to the ability by either making you press a few buttons to walk around aimlessly, or press qwhatever for a potion of curing.

[and into]

Ok, I thought about it more and posted a different, more fleshed out (hopefully) god proposal in GDD:

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21337&p=288373#p288373