Reproduction (Fedhas) Rework

[bcadren]

Changes suggested are mostly around using Fedhas in later game and would have minimal effect on the god's already powerful early game.

Primary Proposal:

• Switch the piety stops for Rain and Reproduction. (Rain at ****; Reproduction at *****)
  • Reproduction is the more powerful ability; it's just ungainly to use presently and these changes are trying to fix that this being above Rain makes sense.
• Give Reproduction a direct piety cost (say 6-8).
  • Currently it has no direct piety cost; but using it usually ends up violating the "don't hurt plants" conduct, and it generates 'allies' that are helpless and inevitably get destroyed by foes creating a piety cost that isn't well telegraphed to the player.
• Make ballistomycetes generated by Reproduction "Friendly" instead of "Allied".
  • This is to the correct the issue of helpless 'allies'.
• Have Fedhas protect your Plants from explosions caused by Fedhas abilities.
  • Currently it's impossible to use Reproduction with other Fedhas abilities, because if an allied Wandering Mushroom gets hurt by the explosion, it acts as if you willingly violated the 'don't hurt plants' conduct; that plant becomes hostile and you get a (rather large) piety cost.
    • This can result in a single use of the ability having an insane (50+ piety cost).
  • Additionally this would make using evolution on Ballistomycetes more reasonable (since reproduction is the only source of ballistomycetes they tend to be in large groups and evolving one ends up having it directly harm all the others with it's explosions); resulting again in VERY high piety costs for single ability use to the point of the ability being unusable.

Other Changes (possible, bit more brainstormy):

• The smattering of spells Fedhas doesn't protect your plants from seems random and isn't really told to the player well. Perhaps it'd be better if Fedhas just protected your plants from all spells. It mostly prevents being a Pure Conjurer of Fedhas, while allowing clouds (mushrooms are protected from all clouds and bolts).
  • Specific list of spells Fedhas does NOT protect from:
    • Fireball
    • Fulminant Prism
    • Static Discharge
    • Ozocubu's Refrigeration
    • Conjure Ball Lightning
    • Chain Lightning
    • Shatter
    • Fire Storm
  • Oddly enough Fedhas DOES protect from glaciate and ring of flames.
• Now that spores are unique to the Reproduction ability; maybe their HD (and resulting explosion) could scale with Invocations.
• Similarly if Mushroom and Oklob HD varied more with Invocations, it might be more reasonable to use Fedhas as 15-rune god. (Weaker mushrooms at 0 Invo, Strong enough to be good companions in Hell at 20+)

[Berder]

I do think reproduction should be made stronger and not self destructive. If it didn't hurt the player or his plants, that would be very nice. Fedhas doesn't do enough for you in the midgame.

I think having the explosions not hurt allied plants would not be enough. It should also not hurt the player.

I've tried to make Fedhas reproduction work for me many times. It's tricky to pull off. You have to kill enemies far away from you, and not have any corpses nearby you. And it still often hurts you.

As for "seeding the level" with reproduction, that's not super effective, and I wish it was. Mostly it just makes monsters wake up without killing them. I'd also like to see this use case become more effective: perhaps have spores spawn ballistomycetes, but not explode and wake enemies up unless they're in your LOS. That way you'd cover the level with mines that you can activate whenever you like. It would also be very thematic because it encourages players to overrun every level with plants.


(By the way, it does have a slight piety cost: 1 piety).

[Rast]

You make some good points but your suggestion is to make Fedhas stronger, and he's already one of the stronger gods.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

You make some good points but your suggestion is to make Fedhas stronger, and he's already one of the stronger gods.

I don't think this would be a big buff
rather a quality of life change

[duvessa]

I mean, Fedhas isn't the best god because of anything that isn't mushrooms. It would be hard to noticeably shift his balance by changing any of the other abilities.

[Siegurt]

Yeah, I think if you did something like "rain now scales with invocations, at invocation 27, it now covers your entire LOS and creates packets of deep water immediately, sunlight now instantly dries out all water deep and shallow instantly, invisible creatures are visibible, and everything gets a +10 to hit" no-one would either notice or care.

Reproduction, as it's pointed out by the OP could be less annoyingly awful.