The Tavern

ABANDONMENT: 25 penance. RETRIBUTION: HD = your XL. Spell level = 1 + random_range(XL/5,XL/3) capped at 9. Spells include fire storm/hellfire at 9, LCS at 8, poison arrow/iron shot at 6. XL27? Expect 3d20 hellfire, 8d20 fire storm and 3d48 LCS. Oh, and the spell automatically bypasses EV/SH. Have fun!

nago wrote:For a single zig I'd say it's still very dumb.

nago wrote:On the basis Vehumet is an extremely good God (especially if using Firestorm) to clear a single ziggurat, and personally I'd keep him, for all the reasons above-mentioned, rather than switching god, even if the option is Makh

gammafunk wrote:For clearing a single zig, the dumb part is enduring Veh wrath when Veh is perfectly viable for clearing the zig in the first place. Probably a couple zigs with Veh would be just fine as the zig scaling isn't terribly steep.

I've experienced older Veh wrath, and it wasn't trivial even then. New wrath can blast you will LCS, firestorm, or hellfire instead of generic fairly low-level damage, and then having spells blow up in your face remains a problem. That's still something you're likely to live through, but if all you want is to clear a zig, Veh will work just fine as you won't be taking significant damage.

nago wrote:I don't say that clearing a zig to Makh is dumb. However, going trough the "ordeal" of switching from a god with extremely good powers to clear a zig (or extended if we want to include that in the point) and an harsh wrath, to another one who provides a different benefit, but forces the player to offset other losses (i've put them in the end of the post) isn't an optimal decision, because of the wrath it actually lowers the chance to clear the zig/win the game/survive/whatever.

In other words, I'd say that going in a zig (not mega zig) with Vehu ins't worse (for a "mage" char) than going with Makh, so I weight more the dangers of the wrath than the eventual (which, to repeat *I* don't consider substantial) benefit to have Makh instead of Vehu. For another example, I'd agree with a switch like Oka -> Makh for a zig char, as the former would provide little to nothing, so the loss of not useful powers and the trouble of stone giants throw to you would be totally offset by the greater utility of a god like Makh


From my point of view, staying with vehu (which is pretty much repeating what KoboldLord said)
- the char keeps current powers. I don't considerer the extra experience needed to offset the wiz loss a serious problem, as we're talking post-end, provided it isn't so bad the char can't reliably cast any good offensive spell. However, I find significant the loss of mp on kill and especially the 1 extra tile range (and both are extremely good in a zig)
- the char doesn't put himself in potentially deadly situation due vehu's wrath. I honestly don't know what are the reasonable ways to clear his wrath, but if that means scumming "safe" area like abyss 1 they aren't "reasonable" to me, as wasting a lot of time time to solve a problem voluntarily created instead of actually playing ins't interesting (at least for me)
- the char misses heal on kill, which depending on situations, can be quite easily solved with other means, like regen, hw, dd's door, bjorg (or even necromut, if i'm allowed to say that).

nago wrote: XL27? Expect 3d20 hellfire, 8d20 fire storm and 3d48 LCS. Oh, and the spell automatically bypasses EV/SH. Have fun!

tasonir wrote:To be fair, firestorm being 8d20 is only 80 average damage. If we assume you have rF+, and I'm remembering correctly that firestorm was 45% unresistable, you would take 67.5% damage, or 54 damage, with 0 ac. With 20 ac you'd take 40.5 damage. Granted this is an average so it could go up to 80, But overall it's only about 50%-100% stronger than a hellfire. With 8 dice roll you're going to be strongly averaged anyways. Double hellfire hurts, but if you've finished the game and are preparing for a zig, I think double hellfire would be survivable.

I still very rarely switch gods, but it's doable. Maybe I'll try another run where I switch gods; I've kind of always wanted to do a sif -> free books -> someone else run.

TheArcanist wrote:

tasonir wrote:To be fair, firestorm being 8d20 is only 80 average damage. If we assume you have rF+, and I'm remembering correctly that firestorm was 45% unresistable, you would take 67.5% damage, or 54 damage, with 0 ac. With 20 ac you'd take 40.5 damage. Granted this is an average so it could go up to 80, But overall it's only about 50%-100% stronger than a hellfire. With 8 dice roll you're going to be strongly averaged anyways. Double hellfire hurts, but if you've finished the game and are preparing for a zig, I think double hellfire would be survivable.

I still very rarely switch gods, but it's doable. Maybe I'll try another run where I switch gods; I've kind of always wanted to do a sif -> free books -> someone else run.

God wrath is tied to XP gain now though, meaning the wrath is likely to go off just as you finish a fight - just when you're most likely to die from it.