ontoclasm wrote:Gods dedicated to one specific playstyle are sort of dull, and have been on the out for... well, pretty much the entirety of DCSS's development. A few remain from the old days, but you'll notice that all the newer ones (and by "new" I'm talking like, since Beogh) try to cater to many, if not all, different kinds of characters. Ru is great for anyone, for instance. It's okay to have the god emphasize a certain thing -- Dithmenos loves stealth, Qazlal pretty much negates it entirely -- but this proposal is tailor-made to work for pure summoners and pure summoners only.
You're right, it's a very focused god that would only appeal to characters specifically focusing on Summoning. If similar gods like Kiku and Vehumet are being phased out, then I would say a god isn't a good way to address summoners' issues. But really, the way summoners are right now, when I want to focus on Summoning magic, I usually pick a wizard and use Call Imp to encourage Sif Muna to give me Summoning spells because the summoner background is so frustrating to deal with whether I try to go for pure Summoning or a Summoning/melee hybrid.
ontoclasm wrote:Even putting that all aside, there are some core problems here. First, several of the powers, including piety gain itself, rely on having a summon kill stuff. Do you know how irritating it is to make sure a summon gets the last hit, over and over and over again for the whole game? It's really irritating. Really, really irritating. Beogh used to require it and it was awful.
My first attempts to play a summoner focused on training Summoning magic as my primary kill method, and doing that meant that most enemies were killed by summons. This left me underlevelled in the midgame, but when I suggested removing the XP penalty, people complained that Summoning magic would be too powerful without it. So, I tried to create penalties to non-summoning play as a compromise between these concerns. It's not something I'm attached to, but just seemed like a thematically appropriate way to address concerns of Summoning magic being overpowered without the XP penalty.
ontoclasm wrote:Second, balance is not a big deal for proposals, but this god is staggeringly weak. You give up all non-Summoning spells and the ability to help your summons in melee (since you lose piety by doing so) in favor of almost nothing, since XP reduction is nigh-unto meaningless, abjuration hardly ever happens in the first place, and summon caps mean that the "spam Summon Scorpions until you're out of MP" strategy is long dead at this point. So you're left with mediocre MP regen and mediocre HP regen.
I haven't play tested this, because I'd have to learn C++ to implement it, and I didn't want to invest the time to do that without first confirming that there's a chance a suggestion like this might eventually be accepted. But, I don't intend that devotees should have to give up melee combat at all. I thought it would be nice to reward devotees for using Summoning magic, and that not getting piety or HP recovery for kills by the player wouldn't be a big deal without piety costs and on the assumption that much of incoming damage would be soaked by summons. If it ends up making players feel like they can't melee, however, then I'd want to change that.
The first 2 abilities aren't intended to make characters appreciably stronger, but just to make the summoning playstyle more robust. The real perk is meant to be the HP and MP recovery. I considered having the HP and MP recovery scale with Invocations skill, but worried they might be OP if they proc'd at full power each time. If every time a summoned monster is killed, you get an MP refund equal to the cost to cast it, then you could literally just keep spamming summons without regard for MP... and that's before even considering spells that summon multiple allies like Summon Butterflies or Dragon's Call. I do want to alleviate the problem of summons just getting mowed down by strong enemies before they actually contribute to the fight, potentially leaving a summoner with no MP and little to no progress against the enemy, but I want to preserve the importance of choosing how and when to fight.
ontoclasm wrote:Thirdly, several gods already provide support for summoners. Sif Muna gifts summon spells and gives you MP regen. TSO directly buffs allies with things like increased duration and healing, and the halo improves their accuracy immensely. Fedhas gives you mushrooms and oklobs to support your summons. Your proposal is fighting to carve out a niche in an area already occupied by several gods, all less one-dimensional than this one.
Sif Muna is good for all types of magic, including Conjurations and Necromancy, but she's not as good for dedicated Conjurers or Necromancers characters. I don't think it's wrong to have both specialist gods and generalist gods to choose from, but that's just my opinion.
TSO is my current god of choice for dedicated summoners, but I don't consider him an ideal choice for several reasons:
* He forbids access to evil Summoning magic.
* The removal of invisibility as a concern reduces the "choose the right tool for the job" aspect of play.
* He disapproves of sneak attacks, meaning you can't attack distracted intelligent monsters.