The Tavern

I am currently with Zin going for 2nd rune but I have found 2 potions of beneficial mutation. Is it a good idea to convert to TSO or Elyvilon to quaff them and then come back to Zin? I am using distortion eveningstar so blessing a weapon is not an option.

I wouldn't, if just because of the opportunity cost.

On the other hand I guess you can buy back your piety with Zin pretty quickly via extra donations, so maybe if you like !benemut a lot, and you've got gold to spare, then sure why not.

Off topic for Advice, but Zin should probably keep tabs on you to prevent these sorts of shenanigans, similar to how the good gods stalk you indefinitely and bust out wrath if you worship something they don't like.

Should Zin care if you renounce him, use a bunch of draining wands and eat the yaktaur victims, and come back? The piety is your penalty for doing that.

TSO/Blessing/distortion: I know that Kikus Painbranding overwrites Disto harmlessly. It would stand to reason that TSOs blessing does that as well (but no guarantes, this being Crawl and all).

rchandra wrote:Should Zin care if you renounce him, use a bunch of draining wands and eat the yaktaur victims, and come back? The piety is your penalty for doing that.

None of those things will continue to benefit you actively while you are worshiping Zin. Unlike !benemut.

and into wrote:
rchandra wrote:Should Zin care if you renounce him, use a bunch of draining wands and eat the yaktaur victims, and come back? The piety is your penalty for doing that.

None of those things will continue to benefit you actively while you are worshiping Zin. Unlike !benemut.

Does Zin care if you have drunk !BeneMut in the past before you became a Zinner?

No, it just seems weird you can worship Zin for however long, swap out to get as many mutations as you want, then swap back and even keep a good chunk of your piety, with ability to buy back a good portion of that which you had lost almost immediately and have Zin protect your DNA to lock your mutations in place.

But I guess practically useful loopholes exist even in Crawl's religions or w/e.

You do realize that you lose less piety for successfully mutating under Zin than you do by abandoning him and coming back, right? (unless you abandon with less than 25 piety)

duvessa wrote:You do realize that you lose less piety for successfully mutating under Zin than you do by abandoning him and coming back, right? (unless you abandon with less than 25 piety)

My understanding is that Zin blocks mutations from the potion. Isn't it the case?

Yes it is, if you've got enough zin piety. But you still get the piety hit.

Sandman25 wrote:
duvessa wrote:You do realize that you lose less piety for successfully mutating under Zin than you do by abandoning him and coming back, right? (unless you abandon with less than 25 piety)

My understanding is that Zin blocks mutations from the potion. Isn't it the case?

It's why I added "successfully". If you quaff it and it gets blocked (by Zin or any other form of mutation resistance that works on the potion), you don't lose piety. If it successfully mutates you, you do. Zin isn't guaranteed to block mutations unless you have 200 piety; the chance is (piety/2)%.

duvessa wrote:
Sandman25 wrote:
duvessa wrote:You do realize that you lose less piety for successfully mutating under Zin than you do by abandoning him and coming back, right? (unless you abandon with less than 25 piety)

My understanding is that Zin blocks mutations from the potion. Isn't it the case?
It's why I added "successfully". If you quaff it and it gets blocked (by Zin or any other form of mutation resistance that works on the potion), you don't lose piety. If it successfully mutates you, you do. Zin isn't guaranteed to block mutations unless you have 200 piety; the chance is (piety/2)%.

You do realize that I am close to max piety otherwise I would not ask for advice but either quaffed the potions or change gods twice?

I was responding to and into's derail, not your original post. Sorry for any confusion.

If all of Zin's granted abilities had an additional check with a chance to fail based on the number of mutations a player has, would that make players more likely to minimize their exposure to mutations or cure their mutations before choosing Zin?

Maybe a 30% chance to fail with one mutation, up to 80% chance to fail with five of more mutations?

Or set a limit on Zin piety of 6 stars minus the number of mutations the player has?

^ At that point I'd just say have Zin suppress all mutations while you worship him, and maybe also just have him grant 100% protection from mutations (good or bad) from when you start worshiping him. Alternatively, just let Zin not block beneficial mutation potions, and either allow their use or punish it, rather than making the use of them a hassle. Loopholes allowing beneficial mutation under Zin strikes me as weird, but then again its quite possible that any of these changes would make things more weird, not less.

duvessa wrote:You do realize that you lose less piety for successfully mutating under Zin than you do by abandoning him and coming back, right? (unless you abandon with less than 25 piety)

For one mutation, yes. Being able to switch and mutate as much as you want, then switch back, without having to deal with god wrath or anything, strikes me as a loophole (though perhaps it was intended for this to be doable). Admittedly, doing something like that is pretty dumb, because giving up sanctuary once you have the piety and invoc skill for it is a huge cost that is not balanced out by the benefit of horns and the first tier of icy blue scales and innate clarity or whatever that you pick up from your !benemut binge.

jejorda2 wrote:If all of Zin's granted abilities had an additional check with a chance to fail based on the number of mutations a player has, would that make players more likely to minimize their exposure to mutations or cure their mutations before choosing Zin?

Maybe a 30% chance to fail with one mutation, up to 80% chance to fail with five of more mutations?

Or set a limit on Zin piety of 6 stars minus the number of mutations the player has?

Keep in mind that Zin's mutation protection fluctuates with piety, so this proposal means that whenever the protection isn't complete, you could conceivably get a mutation against your will despite Zin's protection, thereby lowering your max piety, thereby lowering your protection, thereby making you more likely to get mutated by the same source that just mutated you, thereby further lowering your max piety . . . effectively, as soon as you started getting mutated, Zin would abandon you.

For the record, I converted to Ely, quaffed both mutations and returned back to Zin. The piety stayed relatively high and I was able to get to 6* pretty fast. Later I found another 2 potions of benef. mutation and repeated the process, but this time I had to sacrifice half money twice because one sacrifice wasn't enough and I was about to enter Zot so I believe it is not a bug and nothing should be changed.

i think the real problem here is that crawl has a billion gold and there's literally nothing to spend it on except zin piety in lots of games

if you gave up something actually valuable to get your zin piety back there would be no loophole here

crate wrote:i think the real problem here is that crawl has a billion gold and there's literally nothing to spend it on except zin piety in lots of games

if you gave up something actually valuable to get your zin piety back there would be no loophole here

So what's the fix? Less gold drops? More shop spawns? Maybe mini-shops like vending machines with consumables?

crate wrote:i think the real problem here is that crawl has a billion gold and there's literally nothing to spend it on except zin piety in lots of games

if you gave up something actually valuable to get your zin piety back there would be no loophole here

Why does Zin even allow you to donate half your gold for piety? Why doesn't he just force you to earn piety slowly like all the other gods? Isn't beating most of the game under 1 god, switching to Zin, donating half your gold for max piety, switching to TSO, remaxing piety, doing pan/crypt, switching back to zin again, donating half your gold again, for max piety again to do the hells, a bigger loophole than someone getting a couple of benemuts under Zin?

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Zin and beneficial mutations

Zin and beneficial mutations

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