Post Friday, 25th August 2017, 21:53

Merge Ash and Jiyva

I had these thought while answering TeshiAlar's post, but I didn't want to hijack someone else's thread, so I opened a parallel one.

Ashen should change, because it's bad that a complex chain of player choice is floor-derived, and, while the curse system has been slightly streamlined, it's still clunky. However, the idea behind Ashen is that of giving the player a certain agency deciding the penalty to pay for Ashen powers, which is very different from Cheib's one-piece speed penalty. I think that Ashen would merge better with Jiyva because of this, since she gives you some choice on what you can keep and what you can't.

Of course, there is a difference between powers and conduct. I mean, do Ash powers actually mesh well with the conduct it imposes? Ash conduct is built as a switch to allow you to choose which passive powers you want to activate, which I think is a unique mechanic in Crawl. But then there are passives like identification which have nothing to do with this, although they would work well with Jiyva (if all items came up identified, your choices when deciding what to leave and what to pick would be more meaningful).

Then you could leave the spammy jellies away, and simply destroy all items not in your inventory when you leave a floor.
As for the bonus selection, since you can see what is cursed and what is not, you could be able to expend scrolls of remove curse to gain a permanent bonus in a certain skill. The bonus starts up at +1 and increases as piety grows. 1 scroll = 1 skill.

So here is the rough draft proposal:

Ajivzari, the Wise Traveller

Ajivzari is an ancient deity of foo, that requires his followers to leave forever what you can't put in your backpack, and substitute it with knowledge.

Get XP by exploration.

Conduct:

Item destruction
When you leave a floor, all items which you didn't take with you are destroyed, except artifacts and those worn by monsters. There is a turn-based timer regulating destruction after you leave a level (so falling into a shaft doesn't completely screw you). (The timer could start as you already are in the level, more Jiyva-like, but plz no jellies.)

Powers:
.
Full item identification
As the timer destroys items, you get satiation, which can reach up to engorged.

*
Ash Map Detections (portals, creatures, items...)

**
Skill boost: you can use up a scroll of remove curses to increase one of your skills by 1. The bonus will rise as piety grows. You can do it on more than one skill, only one scroll per skill.

***
See invisible, clarity
Understanding: (4 MP, 100-200 Food, 8-12 Piety) Coats your weapon with slime for a few turns, which turns enemies into neutral travellers of their species. This only works against monsters with undead or natural holiness. (it's just slimify, without jellies).

****
Skill bonus: +2
You can use up 3 (number to be adjusted) scrolls of identify to see through walls, like with current scrying. Better invo = lasts longer.

*****
Transfer Knowledge
Master of the four ways: when hit for more than 25% of your health, there is a chance you will generate a weaker illusion of yourself.
Skill bonus: +3

******
Skill bonus: +4


Notice that you aren't immune to curses, so you might want to save some scrolls if you find a cool cursed item, or you are death-cursed.

It's a veeeery rough draft, but I think that a few ideas are good.
I Feel the Need--the Need for Beer
Spoiler: show
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