Ashenzari idea

[Shtopit]

When you start worshipping Ashenzari, everything on your body becomes cursed and stays that way, unless you abandon him. You can only swap your stuff by using a piety cost ability. This way, Ash ceases depending on random drops.

Any thoughts?

[bcadren]

I like it; but it's a major buff to an already powerful god.

[BabyRage]

Remove cursed items from the game. Let Ash worshipers curse and uncurse items at the cost of piety.

[Sar]

This way, Ash ceases depending on random drops.

Well, except you still aren't guaranteed to have any jewellery and aux armour by the time you get the altar.

[Shtopit]

You can expect to have a bunch in a short time, and they will be cursed the moment you wear them.

[Sandman25]

You can expect to find lots of scrolls of remove curse also...

[Shtopit]

To make my idea clearer: once upon a time, you had to pray on your individual pieces of armour to turn them ponderous, have them slow you down and have Chei give you his powers. Now it's all automatic: once you start worshipping Chei, your speed decreases, and it will decrease more and more as you gain piety and powers, without having to use a clunky mechanic like individual ponderizing.

The idea here is to have Ash work in a similar way. The moment you start worshipping, your slots are cursed. Whatever you wear will be cursed the moment you put it on. You want to swap something? Pay your piety cost, and the new item will immediately be cursed. Piety gain is stable and doesn't depend on how many cursed things you are wearing; you could be naked, you still would be gaining piety. The moment you equip something, however, it gets cursed. While the interface for Ash has got much better in the last versions, I think that this would be more straightforward, and, in a way, fairer. This is also why it doesn't matter how much stuff you are wearing when you first convert, and why it is fairer than item drop. About the "no guarantee of jewels", that's also true for felids, who have nothing else to bind. This version would make it fairer for them.

There are of course a few weaknesses to the concept. One is that the number of swaps being limited by piety makes them effectively infinite and that they would have, right now, no effect for a high piety character. This is why I would move most later abilities a * higher, so that swapping actually takes something from you.

Another one is that scrolls of remove curse are a limited number and need to be used in a smart way, while this would be easier with piety uncurse.

The last one is how to handle the skill increase. I would simply have it depend on items equipped or on piety. It is somewhat less strategic than how it is right now.

[Sandman25]

How can I leave weapon/ring slot uncursed with new system? It is often a good idea.

[Shtopit]

I guess you wouldn't be able to. You'd have to use piety for swapping them.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole "everything is cursed!" thing wouldn't make the game actually more cumbersome, since it would be a pain for e.g. rod users.

[Lasiace]

You could maybe make rc scrolls on ash cause a single cursed item to become permanently uncursed, allowing you to swap. It would allow rc scrolls to remain relevant on ash. If that were the system, I guess it would basically change the god from "choose which items you want stuck" to "choose which items you don't want stuck"

Not sure how well that system would work, and it might just make the god stronger, but it's a potential solution.

[Shard1697]

Ash could do with being stronger, tbqh

[jwoodward48ss]

ash should curse w/o piety

but that's assuming the ash reform from gdd isn't put into effect

which it should be

[ximxim]

Merge Ash with Chei into a "god of careful exploration". Remove link to curses to open up design space for curse reforms.

[Can-ned Food]

Ashenzari conceptually is an omniscient but impotent deity. So, the idea is that you trade one for the other in a similar manner.

I had presented an idea once which used a piety factor for the gain rate while being a worshipper of Ashenzari. The longer any equipment slot went with no changes, its piety co-efficient would increase. These were totalled for each slot and that factor used to determine your piety gain rate per unit turn. When a slot was changed, its particular co-efficient reset to zero. You kept your piety but slowed your accumulation rate.

That way, you don't need to bother with sticky items or scrolls, nor be restricted by such choices.

I also said that there needs to be a way to prevent people from using Remove Curse to cheat Ashenzari.
So, using the Curse prayer|ability, locking one of your valent i.e. equipment slots should provide an instant increase to piety; that increase is then lost when you use a scroll of Remove Curse on that slot.
As for the rate of piety gain: that should continue to function as above, so the act of Cursing an equipment slot has no effect on your rate of gains excepting, of course, the fact that you will be accruing a bonus to your particular factors for the accursed slots.

Furthermore, the emphasis should be on the slot and not the item. You ought be able to Curse an empty slot if you wish.

[duvessa]

Ashenzari conceptually is an omniscient but impotent deity. So, the idea is that you trade one for the other in a similar manner.

ohhh, so THAT's why masturbation makes you go blind

[BabyRage]

Ashenzari conceptually is an omniscient but impotent deity. So, the idea is that you trade one for the other in a similar manner.

ohhh, so THAT's why masturbation makes you go blind

No it doesn't. I tried.

[Cheibrodos]

Speak for yourself rookie im foruming by text to speech