Telekinetic god

[pubby]

I saw the movie Chronicle yesterday and it gave me some ideas, and since god proposals got popular again I'll post one too!

Name: Pephelor the Psychic

Piety gain
Pephelor enjoys you training your psychic powers which can only be done when your physical self is not burdened.
-- You gain piety based on the amount of AUM you're carrying - less AUM carried gives more piety over time. Burdened and overloaded gives no piety.

Piety loss
Pephelor considers translocations to a fake and undisciplined form of telekinesis and so he strongly disapproves of you using it. Pephelor also prohibits any form of controlled teleports. Therefore, you lose piety doing these things:
-- Casting translocations or reading/evoking blink/tele.
-- Training translocations.

Joining
-- Permanent -cTele

* Piety
-- Telekinetic grab - high-powered apportation. Costs 1 MP.

** Piety
-- Telekinetic throw - you can fire any quivered projectile without a launcher. Power is based on invocations and int and so skills do not affect this. Any item can be fired - no "awkward throwing" effect. Never as powerful as the actual launcher with appropriate skill. Costs 1 MP.

-- Mental shield - Similiar to pain mirror, this prevents all physical damage from being done to you, but costs piety based on the amount done. Does not prevent non-physical damage. You cannot use other telekinetic abilities while this is activated. Costs nothing to activate

*** Piety
-- Telekinetic flight - grants you controlled flight when not burdened. Does not allow you to carry more as normal flight does. Gets a speed boost when you're carrying a low amount similar to Tengu. Can be toggled off and on. Costs 3 MP to start flying.

-- Mind Control - Allows you to control other beings. Enemies will resist this if their HD is too high, or they have a flag which prevents body control. You will can control higher HD enemies based on invocation and int. You can only enslave 1 enemy at a time and cannot use other telekinetic abilities while doing so. You can stop controlling at any time. Costs piety for each turn enslaved based on the HD of the monster.

**** Piety
-- Telekinetic implosion - pulls every floor items on the screen to your space. Enemies get moved a tile or two and have a chance of their wielded weapon to go flying. Does damage to enemies if it hits them. Damage is based on invocations and int. Costs a small amount of piety per item.

***** Piety
-- Telekinetic explosion - launches every item on the screen outwards dealing damage. Enemies get moved a tile or two and have a chance of their wielded weapon to go flying. Damage is based on invocations and int. Costs a small amount of piety per item.

****** Piety
No new abilities.

Wrath
-- Int drain

-- Confusion

-- Casting Telekinetic Implosion but dealing damage to you from the items

-- Casting Telekinetic Explosion on random items in your inventory

Other details
-- Int has a fairly large effect on the abilities. This is to prevent people from just putting everything into str to gain piety faster.

-- Mind Control could just be the same effect as enslavement.

[twelwe]

You need to put more effort into this. Telekinetic throw never as powerful as the actual launcher - so why use it at all? You're going to train inv and int anyway, why use this 2 star piety item when you actually have it - with low power at low piety? Carry all the ammo you want (explosive sling bullets, curare needles, frost arrows etc) and none of their respective launchers, but watch out, the more you carry, the less piety you gain. Mental shield does not really get you out of a bad situation like an early pain mirror would (tank the ogre, you will get low on HP but he is guaranteed to die; it doesn't happen with this ability). Your description of mind control is too basic. What happens to the player while this ability is active? Why is the cost of this and other abilities so expensive and confusing? You have this god also completely restrict tloc, but give no divine escape abilities. In short, I don't like it

[Bloax]

I would say even more so, because while moving around is good and all - teleporting is still one of the most important panic buttons you have "at all". (And most widely available.)

CTele & Blinking away is also a pretty early panic combo, and you lose that too.

It's also the polar opposite of Chei in terms of carrying stuff, while Chei's strength bonus allows you to carry everything you find - with this guy you have to do the exact opposite.

[pubby]

Your conduct is almost as crippling as Chei's.

You can use teleport scrolls and blink scrolls all you want - the piety hit is negligible for the number you'll find (it's not penance like Chei). But yes, cTele can be crippling.

Telekinetic throw never as powerful as the actual launcher - so why use it at all? You're going to train inv and int anyway, why use this 2 star piety item when you actually have it - with low power at low piety? Carry all the ammo you want (explosive sling bullets, curare needles, frost arrows etc) and none of their respective launchers, but watch out, the more you carry, the less piety you gain.

Carrying ammo is intended for the telekinetic explosion/implosion ability as you can just drop a stack of 50 bolts and explode them all of them at once (followed by an implosion to return them). You're absolutely right that the ability isn't very useful though - although perhaps more useful than you think as it can also fire large rocks under any species. I'm not exactly sure what would be a good change or replacement, have any ideas?

Your description of mind control is too basic. What happens to the player while this ability is active?

I left it vague as I'm not sure what is feasible to implement. Allowing you to control both you and your controlled enemy would be neat, but probably impossible. So it's probably just a guaranteed enslavement effect where they're controlled by ally AI.

Here's a quick revision of the abilities based on criticism received:

Telekinetic grab - allow this to have a chance of disarming enemies if cast on them
Telekinetic throw - give this 100% to hit for non-needles? Not really sure what to do with this.
Mental shield - have this give the reflection ego effect - projectiles are reflected back
Throw body - allows you to controlled blink 3 spaces, costs medium piety, 5 mp, and deals some damage to yourself. Not effected by -cTele.
Telekinetic Implosion - have a limit to the number of projectiles that can hit an enemy (e.g. 5) so that you can't 1-hit Cerebov with 50 large rocks
Telekinetic Explosion - Same change as implosion changes

Mind control was removed because it's too confusing and redundant. I added throw body as an escape option idea, but it's really quite similar to normal cblink and Lugonu blink which is bad. If anyone else has other ideas then post them.

[jejorda2]

Would some ability that moves walls be workable for escape? If you can move one wall piece one space at a time, it is only slightly better than conjure flame. If you remake the Tomb spell, it's too powerful. Maybe all the wall tiles that are adjacent to you blink to another random spot in LOS? Sometimes it would make choke points, and sometimes it would break them. It may be abusable with summons if it never places walls on monsters, and too powerful if it can squish monsters.

[pratamawirya]

Why don't you just let the followers use translocation spells?

Throw Body could also be used on an opponent. Deal damage to an opponent by throwing the opponent to a wall.

[pubby]

Would some ability that moves walls be workable for escape? If you can move one wall piece one space at a time, it is only slightly better than conjure flame. If you remake the Tomb spell, it's too powerful. Maybe all the wall tiles that are adjacent to you blink to another random spot in LOS? Sometimes it would make choke points, and sometimes it would break them. It may be abusable with summons if it never places walls on monsters, and too powerful if it can squish monsters.

The first idea would be worthless when not in a hallways and there's a good chance it can be abused somehow. The second idea is pretty cool, but the random effect clashes with this god as all of his powers are controlled.

Why don't you just let the followers use translocation spells?

I feel gods should have a downside to them and preventing tloc was the best thing I could think of.

Throw Body could also be used on an opponent. Deal damage to an opponent by throwing the opponent to a wall.

I like this idea and it distinguishes the ability from the cblink spell. It would be awesome when fighting near lava - perhaps too awesome. I'm thinking the amount you can move yourself and enemies should be based off of weight/HD instead of having it be always 3 spaces. So you could fling spriggans across the room while hydras would only move 1 or 2 tiles.

[mikee]

Mental abilities are largely an unexplored theme in crawl, so the premise itself isn't a bad one. To be honest, though, I don't think your proposed abilities and conducts are balanced or potentially fun. For one, consider that a god with so many active abilities requires a lot of interface juggling to use and is harder to learn.

Here is a quick suggestion:

* - Passive repel missiles.
** - Passive reflection, immunity to mechanical traps/shafts and reaching attacks.
*** - Apport all items from a tile, including under or equipped by a monster; if from under a monster, it is paralyzed for 1 turn; 0-2 piety cost.
**** - Waterwalking and Lavawalking.
***** - Push all monsters and items as far as possible from the player, stopping only at walls; very high piety cost.

Conduct: None.
Rewards: Killing 'heavy' monsters.

[sardonica]

I think using burden for piety is a clever idea, but is it taken as a percentage of your capacity or as an absolute amount?

[pubby]

Passive repel missiles. Passive reflection

This seems redundant. Having reflection be passive is a good change though.

immunity to mechanical traps/shafts and reaching attacks. Waterwalking and Lavawalking.

Do you have any flavor for this? It's a good idea as a replacement for flying, but needs some flavor to explain how the effect works.

Apport all items from a tile, including under or equipped by a monster; if from under a monster, it is paralyzed for 1 turn

Why paralyze instead of dealing damage? I agree that an apport ability should grab all items instead of just one.

I'm skeptical to your changes of the explosion and removal of the implosion effects. The way I see it there are 4 uses for them:
- Mass destruction
- Escape by pushing enemies away
- Bringing ranged enemies to melee range
- Retrieving items like ammo
Your change really only makes it useful for pushing enemies away which seems less fun to me.

Rewards: Killing 'heavy' monsters.

I strongly disagree that the game needs more killdudes gods. Any other ideas for piety gain?

[dassem]

I had a couple of beers, so this is not an entirely serious suggestion, but:
If this is a telekinetic god, wouldn’t he/she/it shun the use of physical objects? As well as not being burdened, perhaps you could gain piety by not wielding a weapon, not wearing jewelry, and most important by not wearing clothes.
So, you’d have to have passive abilities to make up for that: repel missiles, +EV and +AC, possibly even resists depending on piety. – “The material world begins to affect you less”. (Mikee's caution about too many active abilities is relevant here, I think).
There could be some kind of bonus provided: either skills (but then it sounds too much like an inversion of Ash), or stats, or perhaps something original (?) to make up for the loss of slots.

My answer to the 'duplicating already existing spells' problem would be to remove apportation as a spell, so if you want to apport runes, then you need this god; but I can’t really see that being popular or balanced.

Ok, I admit it: I just want a god who insists you crawl naked.

[varsovie]

**** piety
can disarm traps from a distance

Should be passive, why not auto-disable discovered traps instead.

[XuaXua]

Where is the open/close doors from a distance ability?

[jejorda2]

Just mentally open (and re-close) doors while walking or firing through them without taking a turn.

[mumra]

This to me is one of the more interesting new god proposals I've seen in a while. A "carry as little as possible" conduct hasn't been used and it could force the player to make difficult decisions about what they really need. And restricting cTele will have some serious ramifications for a lot of playstyles (although cTele can be quite broken in any case). Of course, the abilities have to be good enough to make up for these losses.

I think the piety gain should be tied to total AUM carried and based on the same scale whatever the player's strength - otherwise it brutally punishes weak characters who are struggling with their inventory anyway. I kind of feel this god should benefit weak characters more than strong ones (and it's perfectly ok for a god to not appeal to all builds).

Some of the abilities are quite similar to some ideas I had a while back when I was trying to come up with higher level translocation spells. But I like the distinction of telepathic powers vs. translocation and it creates some interesting possibilities.

I agree with twelwe that the costs of the abilities look a bit confusing should just be flat costs instead of variable.

I'm going to throw out some new ideas for abilities and some variations on what's been said already:

- Remote Control. In order to help the player manage their low carrying weight, this ability lets you select an item from the stash screen, and that item will travel to your current square at a decently high speed, it has to be significantly faster than just travelling back to get the item. Of course, it still takes quite a few turns for the item to arrive, and it must have a clear path. So this isn't much use in an emergency or if you're somehow cut off from the rest if the level. But it allows you to stock up before or after a battle and doesn't use a lot of piety. It means you can get items you need for specific situations without draining piety on a stash trip. You can only have one item at a time travelling like this, and the item can be picked up or destroyed by monsters or slimes whilst in transit.

- Ammo Swarm. Takes a number of items (say between 5-15 depending on invo) from an ammo stack and they fly around you for a while. Anything they hit takes appropriate damage and that item drops to the ground or is mulched. Good for dealing with groups of close-up enemies. Sort of tornado-y, but more limited as it won't affect every square and it doesn't move everything else around. Some variations are possible - could be limited to specific types of ammo, e.g. stones.

- Water / Lava Walking as proposed by mikee - I think the flavour that works for this is that you are telekinetically pushing the water / lava out of the way. So you're not walking on top, instead you're creating a path through and walking along the bottom.

- Disarm. This definitely came up somewhere before; but I think being able to rip weapons out of the enemies hands, or even remove their armour, is great for tipping things in the favour of the player (especially if the carrying restrictions are pushing them to avoid armour / shields).

- Telekinetic Throw. To me this is the thing that most defines telekinetic ability, but rather than throwing projectiles from your inventory (which is basically a modified version of portal protectile, sandblast, etc.) instead I'd love to see floor items getting thrown around, more like a Jedi fight. This can synergise nicely with other abilities like disarm or remote control which can provide you with ammo. If no ammo is available you can use it on a wall and throw a chunk of rock at an enemy. Smite targetted.

- Implosion / Explosion. I side with mikee here in that pushing monsters away seems more useful and natural as a telekinetic ability. Generally you don't want to get monsters nearer to you, especially not as the highest piety ability, and especially not in an emergency. Moving items towards or away from you isn't particularly useful when you already have apportation, so it seems the main function of both abilities as proposed is just to situationally damage enemies, and even then it'll be kind of hard to micro-manage a situation where the damage output is worth the piety unless you can exactly predict which direction the items will fly in ... whereas Ammo Swarm could be very effective in a lot of situations and look really cool at the same time

- Mind Control. Another idea I had a while back was being able to directly control an enemy, which would strongly distinguish this from Charm. The idea is that you can't move your character at all while doing this and you see things from the POV of the controlled enemy. Two balancing knobs are available - you would take a small % hit of any damage the monster received ("your mind makes it real"). And if the monster dies while you control it you could get stunned for a turn or two. However this would all be very hard to implement, especially if you wanted access to the monster's spells and abilities (in which case maybe they should use your own MP since monsters don't have any, and be somewhat unreliable).

- Remote door opening / closing and trap triggering should definitely be in there.

[njvack]

- Mind Control. Another idea I had a while back was being able to directly control an enemy

I think this has all the (near-intractable) problems of player polymorph.

[mumra]

- Mind Control. Another idea I had a while back was being able to directly control an enemy

I think this has all the (near-intractable) problems of player polymorph.

Yeah, that's why I said "this would all be very hard to implement" - and I've seen the code, I know the scale of the problem, and I realise that was somewhat of an understatement

[danr]

At the very least, there's some interesting fodder for potential new Translocations spells here. This could make Warpers as interesting as I've always thought they should be but never found them to be.

[pubby]

I think the piety gain should be tied to total AUM carried and based on the same scale whatever the player's strength - otherwise it brutally punishes weak characters who are struggling with their inventory anyway. I kind of feel this god should benefit weak characters more than strong ones (and it's perfectly ok for a god to not appeal to all builds).

I agree.

- Ammo Swarm. Takes a number of items (say between 5-15 depending on invo) from an ammo stack and they fly around you for a while. Anything they hit takes appropriate damage and that item drops to the ground or is mulched. Good for dealing with groups of close-up enemies. Sort of tornado-y, but more limited as it won't affect every square and it doesn't move everything else around. Some variations are possible - could be limited to specific types of ammo, e.g. stones.

Neat idea, although I feel like it wouldn't be good against groups as it deals a fixed amount of damage and would stop before it could hit more enemies.

- Telekinetic Throw. To me this is the thing that most defines telekinetic ability, but rather than throwing projectiles from your inventory (which is basically a modified version of portal protectile, sandblast, etc.) instead I'd love to see floor items getting thrown around, more like a Jedi fight. This can synergise nicely with other abilities like disarm or remote control which can provide you with ammo. If no ammo is available you can use it on a wall and throw a chunk of rock at an enemy. Smite targetted.

This was my original idea but I felt like requiring 2 targets per use would make it too tedious and so I split it into 2 abilities instead as this should not act as an apportation. It is certainly a more interesting effect than just firing from inventory though, and I agree it is a good replacement.

it'll be kind of hard to micro-manage a situation where the damage output is worth the piety unless you can exactly predict which direction the items will fly in

You can just drop a stack of ammo and then take one step in the opposite direction to have a directed explosion which is essentially a shotgun effect. I don't consider this any more micro-manage-y than spells like LRD.

Generally you don't want to get monsters nearer to you, especially not as the highest piety ability, and especially not in an emergency.

I disagree. If you're a melee fighter you want to get close to ranged enemies ASAP unless you want to get pelted with arrows.

[mikee]

I don't actually want feedback on the quick suggestion I made, nor do I plan on lobbying for it in any way... it was just an example to attempt to show you some principles to follow. Another piece of advice, which I really hope you will take, is: imagine that your proposal was *not your idea*; someone else came up with it. Then, ask yourself if playing with this feature would be fun for you and balanced with the rest of the game.

[mumra]

- Ammo Swarm. Takes a number of items (say between 5-15 depending on invo) from an ammo stack and they fly around you for a while. Anything they hit takes appropriate damage and that item drops to the ground or is mulched. Good for dealing with groups of close-up enemies. Sort of tornado-y, but more limited as it won't affect every square and it doesn't move everything else around. Some variations are possible - could be limited to specific types of ammo, e.g. stones.

Neat idea, although I feel like it wouldn't be good against groups as it deals a fixed amount of damage and would stop before it could hit more enemies.

This can be tweaked by a) increasing the number of projectiles it uses, b) adjusting the damage output, and c) giving each projectile a chance to carry on swarming if it doesn't mulch. Remember as well that you could used branded projectiles e.g. poison. Of course, this ability shouldn't be anything like as powerful as Tornado

- Telekinetic Throw. To me this is the thing that most defines telekinetic ability, but rather than throwing projectiles from your inventory (which is basically a modified version of portal protectile, sandblast, etc.) instead I'd love to see floor items getting thrown around, more like a Jedi fight. This can synergise nicely with other abilities like disarm or remote control which can provide you with ammo. If no ammo is available you can use it on a wall and throw a chunk of rock at an enemy. Smite targetted.

This was my original idea but I felt like requiring 2 targets per use would make it too tedious and so I split it into 2 abilities instead as this should not act as an apportation. It is certainly a more interesting effect than just firing from inventory though, and I agree it is a good replacement.

If you're firing from inventory, you still have to select an item stack to use; so really the UI is just as complicated either way. Other reagent spells (e.g. Evaporate) are well known for having a really clunky interface. Personally I actually think aiming at two tiles actually sounds simpler, it's repeating the same mechanic rather than jarringly switching from one interface to a completely different one.

The aiming mechanism could autoselect a nearby item (this could be tuned to automatically pick the most damaging one), so firing could be as simple as RETURN-RETURN.

it'll be kind of hard to micro-manage a situation where the damage output is worth the piety unless you can exactly predict which direction the items will fly in

You can just drop a stack of ammo and then take one step in the opposite direction to have a directed explosion which is essentially a shotgun effect. I don't consider this any more micro-manage-y than spells like LRD.

Hmm, I hadn't really thought of it like a shotgun blast; but if that's the idea, then really it'd be more fun to just fire the stack directly from your inventory rather than fiddling around dropping items and moving (and requiring at least a 2 tile gap between you and the enemy to begin with). It might also encourage an optimal play of dropping a stack in some convenient territory (such as a corridor), then going around luring monsters back to it, which will probably be really effective but kinda tedious after a while.

Generally you don't want to get monsters nearer to you, especially not as the highest piety ability, and especially not in an emergency.

I disagree. If you're a melee fighter you want to get close to ranged enemies ASAP unless you want to get pelted with arrows.

True, but it seems telekinesis is more about ranged playstyle. Basically I don't think melee builds at all suit this god, mainly because you don't want to be carrying heavy armour or weaponry. So why have a high piety ability geared mainly for melee?

For a second, just imagine yourself as someone with telekinetic powers. A centaur is firing arrows at you from the other end of a hallway. Do you:

a) Use your powers to deflect the arrows and send them right back at him
b) Use your powers to yoink the bow right out of his hands. Then slam a door in his face
c) Telekinetically drag the (massively heavy) centaur all the way down the hall until it's close enough to punch in the face

I hope it's obvious that a) and b) would be the smartest and easiest moves. Moving an entire creature sounds like a huge mental effort whereas removing a bow or deflecting arrows requires far less exertion and is just as effective if not more at achieving the simple purpose of shutting down the threat.

Essentially you have already given the player the tools to deal with ranged threats when they get Telekinetic Throw at ** Piety. Basically I think Explosion is just way more relevant than Implosion: it lets you get stuff away from you (it should move enemies more than a tile or two if they're directly adjacent) so you can then start using the ranged abilities which your god has seen fit to grant you!

[TwilightPhoenix]

I can't help but feel that this doesn't really cover all a telekinetic could do. But then again, a full powered telekinetic who could manipulate matter on the microscopic level would be a wee bit overpowered for Crawl. I mean, once you get there, what you could do would be limited by creativity. Manipulate electrons to create blasts of electricity, rip the air out of someone's lungs, pull poisons and toxins out of their body, sever multiple arteries, animate multiple weapons, add a ridiculous amount of force to any attack they made, reverse any injuries they receive, and more.

Real quick, in the above proposal, I'd suggest removal of mind control (how is that even telekinesis related?) and add in the ability to animate multiple weapons. Yanking a foe's sword out of their hands and then having it turn on them would be rather fun.


Honestly though, mental powers are too broad to be covered by one god. I could much better see two gods covering it. One focused more on telekinetic ability and the other more on mental, such as telepathy and such. They could even be similar but opposed. Both want their followers to use their minds, but disagree so much as to how they're used that they hate each other. I might work up a proposal for such a pair, though figuring out the conducts would be tricky.

[nicolae]

Yeah, that's why I said "this would all be very hard to implement" - and I've seen the code, I know the scale of the problem, and I realise that was somewhat of an understatement

It's not even the implementation. It's the balance issues that have to be considered every time a new monster or monster ability gets added, because then you have to think "What would happen if a player became this monster and had that power?"

[pratamawirya]

Yeah, Tukima's Ball could return as an ability from this god.

[twelwe]

I found something!

I wrote up a -cTele conduct God a long time ago, and found the notepad it was in. Feel free to use any of this, I have no attachment to it anymore:

God of Spatial Due (So and So)


Upon joining, the character gains –cTele and a divine shackled instrument called the Soul Anchor, which at first burdens the player, slowing their movement speed by 20%. The character drags this ethereal device behind them like a ball and chain, with the length of the “chain” increasing with piety. All player and monster teleports and blinks gravitate to the Soul Anchor, and no translocation can move the player further than the length of the chain. The chain begins at one tile in length upon worship. The player also gains an ‘a’bility upon worship that brings the chain to the player’s position (pull chain, takes one turn). This is useful for counteracting translocation spells used against you if moving would put you on more danger than you’re already in.

* Impose
Moves the character to the exact location of the Soul Anchor. The next three actions the character makes are instant – whether used on movement, consumables, or attacks - after which the monster action turn begins.

The Soul Anchor’s chain is now two tiles long.

** Ebb
What began as a burden serves to empower you. Your movement speed is increased by 33% while moving in a manner that does not move the Soul Anchor. You are no longer slowed during travel - you move at normal speed if you cause the Soul Anchor to travel.

The Soul Anchor’s chain is now three tiles long.

*** No new abilities
Impose - Now gives you five instant actions

The Soul Anchor’s chain is now four tiles long.


**** Revert
Returns any one creature to the exact same position they were five turns (or more practical, five player actions) ago, restoring all physical and magical conditions they carried at that time. If the monster was confused at that time, for example, it regains confusion - buffs fade in the same amount of turns they would have five turns ago. Damage the monster inflicted is not reversed, nor will a fireball that hit the player materialize again, flying back at the caster. Creatures summoned and slow spells like OOD used by the monster that are active when Revert is used remain active. In effect, nothing the monster did during those turns are reversed; it is as if the monster itself was uninvolved. Some example uses: Revert after a monster heals (potions do not come back if they are used, neither do wand charges) Revert a powerful creature that has you cornered, Revert a unique like Nessos after standing next to his former position so you can get a hit off (if for some reason you must melee him), Revert Rupert after berserk (he will not be inflicted with exhaustion and can berserk again though)

The Soul Anchor’s chain is now five tiles long.

***** No new abilities
Impose – now gives you seven instant actions

The Soul Anchor’s chain is now six tiles long.

Ebb now increases your movement speed by 50% while moving in a manner that does not move the Soul Anchor.

****** No new abilities
The Soul Anchor’s chain is now seven tiles long.


Abandonment and penance

Upon leaving So and So, the Soul Anchor remains, but the movement penalties return and all translocation spells are still as affected as they were under worship. The –cTele restriction is lifted, which only allows a somewhat better choice of where to land next to the Soul Anchor. Punishments follow:

So and So can teleport dangerous enemies and uniques on the level to your Soul Anchor
So and So can delay the time for a translocation to kick in
So and So can reduce the spellpower of translocation spells and abilities
So and So can increase the amount of glow you receive from translocation spells
So and So can slow you
So and So can move you to the position of your Soul Anchor during high tension


edit: clarified speed vs movement speed

[TwilightPhoenix]

I see one major problem with that god.

Impose > Fire Storm > Channel > Channel > Channel > Channel > Channel > Channel > Repeat

[twelwe]

Yeah, that is a huge problem! I never even got to the cost of the ability, to show you how polished that god idea is. There is good reason I haven't posted it until this thread. It is not a serious or balanced proposal; in fact, it is not even a proposal, though I really like Revert and wish it would find a home somewhere.

[pubby]

Another piece of advice, which I really hope you will take, is: imagine that your proposal was *not your idea*; someone else came up with it. Then, ask yourself if playing with this feature would be fun for you and balanced with the rest of the game.

I try not to be unfairly biased or blind but to some degree this is unavoidable.

If you're firing from inventory, you still have to select an item stack to use; so really the UI is just as complicated either way.

It would use the quivered ammo by default.

The aiming mechanism could autoselect a nearby item (this could be tuned to automatically pick the most damaging one), so firing could be as simple as RETURN-RETURN.

Auto-aim is problematic as it's usually not optimal or predictable, but it's certainly less tedious than manual aim.

It might also encourage an optimal play of dropping a stack in some convenient territory (such as a corridor), then going around luring monsters back to it, which will probably be really effective but kinda tedious after a while.

Since the high piety cost prevents you from using it often I doubt it would get tedious. Setting a trap every now and then seems fun.

Basically I think Explosion is just way more relevant than Implosion

What if implosion was combined with your ammo swarm to have an ability which cause floor items to spiral inwards over for a few turns until they reached your square? Just an idea.

it should move enemies more than a tile or two if they're directly adjacent

Inverse square would work well for explosion.

I can't help but feel that this doesn't really cover all a telekinetic could do.

We can assume Pephelor prohibits certain types of psychic abilities so that its worshipers don't go insane or have their brain turn to mush.

@twelve:
I like the concept of the soul anchor a lot but I can't think of a way to integrate into the telekinetic god as it needs several abilities to be based around it to be worthwhile.

[mumra]

I can't help but feel that this doesn't really cover all a telekinetic could do. But then again, a full powered telekinetic who could manipulate matter on the microscopic level would be a wee bit overpowered for Crawl. I mean, once you get there, what you could do would be limited by creativity. Manipulate electrons to create blasts of electricity, rip the air out of someone's lungs, pull poisons and toxins out of their body, sever multiple arteries, animate multiple weapons, add a ridiculous amount of force to any attack they made, reverse any injuries they receive, and more.

Many of which effects are already covered by other schools / gods / abilities. I like the "force added attack" (could be a passive ability).

Real quick, in the above proposal, I'd suggest removal of mind control (how is that even telekinesis related?) and add in the ability to animate multiple weapons. Yanking a foe's sword out of their hands and then having it turn on them would be rather fun.

Mind Control is still a psychic power and I don't see a problem with reflavouring the god that way, if it was a feasible ability (which it probably isn't).

Tukima's Ball was removed because it encouraged degenerate gameplay (pile up a load of weapons in a strategic position, lure everything on the level to that place, repeat). What I was trying to go for with Ammo Storm was a similarly fun idea but without the inherent problems of Tukima's Ball.

Honestly though, mental powers are too broad to be covered by one god. I could much better see two gods covering it. One focused more on telekinetic ability and the other more on mental, such as telepathy and such. They could even be similar but opposed. Both want their followers to use their minds, but disagree so much as to how they're used that they hate each other. I might work up a proposal for such a pair, though figuring out the conducts would be tricky.

I don't think there's enough good content here to spread out on two gods. Much better to hone just the best ideas of this thread and ditch the rest.

[mumra]

Another piece of advice, which I really hope you will take, is: imagine that your proposal was *not your idea*; someone else came up with it. Then, ask yourself if playing with this feature would be fun for you and balanced with the rest of the game.

I try not to be unfairly biased or blind but to some degree this is unavoidable.

Yeah, to be honest I think it's pretty much impossible to do what mikee is saying. When you've nurtured an idea you see it completely differently to anyone else. But it's a very valid point that this of course affects judgement!

If you're firing from inventory, you still have to select an item stack to use; so really the UI is just as complicated either way.

It would use the quivered ammo by default.

Aw, but I want to throw other stuff, like books or corpses or potions (Yeah, I know potion throwing is on the won't-do-list...)

It might also encourage an optimal play of dropping a stack in some convenient territory (such as a corridor), then going around luring monsters back to it, which will probably be really effective but kinda tedious after a while.

Since the high piety cost prevents you from using it often I doubt it would get tedious. Setting a trap every now and then seems fun.

It just sounds kind of ... contrived. When you're already proposing being able to fire a single item from an inventory stack, why couldn't you shotgun fire a larger stack at higher piety? (Also I realise I'm sounding a bit contradictory, suggesting that Throw should use floor items but Explosion should use inventory. But bear with me, I'm working on a slight rethinking of the ability progression that might reconcile this and some other problems, this will be in a follow-up post.)

Basically I think Explosion is just way more relevant than Implosion

What if implosion was combined with your ammo swarm to have an ability which cause floor items to spiral inwards over for a few turns until they reached your square? Just an idea.

That does sound pretty cool. I think the problem (as someone said earlier) is that with too many active abilities it gets quite confusing, the player has to have a good understanding of what the different abilities are for and what situations they're appropriate for ... Implosion and Explosion were in a way too similar (being basically the exact same effect, just opposite). This does make it different. It does rely on having lots of items scattered around you on the floor, which creates the kind of problem for which Tukima's Ball was removed (see my previous post).

[mumra]

Final post - sorry for multiple posts, it was just easier to keep individual replies separate.

I started thinking about this as a progression of power. So with each piety level your ability to telekinetically manipulate things grows. This progression looks something like this:

1 piety: You can slightly influence small objects
2 piety: You can move and control a single small objects
3 piety: You can move medium sized objects
4 piety: You can control multiple small objects
5 piety: You can move large objects and volumes
6 piety: You can move multiple large objects

This leads to a fairly logical allocation of different powers at different pieties:

1 piety: Passive deflect missile (the missile carries on past you on a slightly changed course and can strike monsters)
2 piety: Apportation (straight into your inventory so it's better than the spell)
3 piety: Throw (from your inventory)
4 piety: Ammo Storm
5 piety: Throw (floor items and chunks of wall). Has a shotgun effect when used on ammo stacks. Water/Lava passage.
6 piety: Explosion (for throwing monsters away from you rather than items) and passive Force Push when you hit things.

It should be noted that lower piety abilities could all improve at higher piety. So you can apport larger items and further, etc. The passive Deflect could actually turn into Ammo Storm at high piety; so any deflected missiles actually go into orbit around you.

This is just an attempt to apply some structure to the power progression, make of it what you will

However, something else occurred to me in all of this: religion is not the only game mechanic where this overall concept could be used. In fact the idea of telekinetic power should be that it's your brain doing it, but with this proposal you just have a god doing it for you.

My thought is that we could envisage a new race that is famed for its telekinetic powers. Similar to other racial progressions, as you level up you will gradually acquire all the levels of ability. This race would be physically weak with mostly low aptitudes, quite challenging to start but eventually making up for it with powers. And of course it can be combined with all different backgrounds and other deities. Just an idea.

[TwilightPhoenix]

It could also be an unusual school of magic. The idea of it being a "magic school" that drains Int instead of using MP to cast spells sounded interesting, but not sure on the feasibility of that.

I don't think there's enough good content here to spread out on two gods. Much better to hone just the best ideas of this thread and ditch the rest.

You underestimate my creativity!

[dpeg]

Re: magic school with Int rather than MP cost.
I wouldn't call that a "magic schoo". Also, Necromancy is the school with self-damaging spells, and I'd rather see that strengthened. In my opinion, every necromantic spell could have some negative effect on the caster, as so many spells already have (HP loss, Int drain; there could be curses, noises and what not).

Re: god with "send enemies away" power.
This is only tangentially related to your proposals, but back in the day, there was talk about a god who shuns melee and supports casting. We discusses various ways of doing that, but all of them were inelegant and certainly not fun. What might be fun is a god with the following passive power:
Enemies in your vicinity *may* be sent away. Higher chance from your impact (any attack on a single target).
This would make melee less attractive, while being a useful, if double-edged and unreliable power for casters (and ranged attackers in general).