Sif Muna Rework

[Realz]

Greetings!


I would love to see changes to Sif Muna.

Sif Muna has some high points, but could stand to have existing abilities adjusted. And I think it's worth at least considering adding something, perhaps a new active ability, that helps make Sif more mechanically distinct from the laser-focused and all-passive Vehumet.


I implemented a version to playtest and use as a starting point to iterate from. I also opened a wiki page on the topic that lives here for now (https://github.com/crawl/crawl/wiki/Sif-Muna-Rework-Brainstorm) which has some greater detail. Though of course, the powers that be are free to do what they will with that, so if that link doesn't work it may have gotten moved or aspects incorporated into existing pages.

DOWNLOAD (Sif_Muna_Rework) --> https://github.com/RealzHS/crawl/releases

If you want to play this version, by all means please feel free to do so, and any feedback from the experience is very welcome. Gut reactions and other discussion or ideas are also welcome.


Here's the adjustments in the version above, including an attempt at a new ability:

Sif Muna

Piety: Sif's piety gain is notoriously slow, currently about 45% that of standard "just kill things" gods like Makhleb. I increased rate of piety gain by about 40%, putting Sif now around 65% of Makhleb and friends. I don't think it's at all a problem that different gods work different ways, but the stark contrast was distracting at best and troublesome for balance at worst.


*..... - Channel Magic moved here. Divine Energy removed.

It was a decent passive but is ultimately redundant. Channel Magic can also provide a strong early power spike, is perhaps even more powerful for that purpose, and scales with Invocations such that it can be useful throughout the entirety of the game.


**.... - Miscast protection, adjusted.

Instead of cancelling miscast effects, it's now a high chance (starting at 50% and scaling up to 100% at max piety) to restore the MP lost when miscasting magic. I'm not sure I like this change, but I wanted to try it. So far it's felt powerful enough to encourage me to risk casting things at 20-40% fail chance when I wouldn't have before.


***... - Book Gifts moved here.

Influencing a character's build path sooner than the previous version could be a good thing. I had to change the math to accommodate this, so let me know how the rate feels, it's extremely likely to be either too slow or too fast... I'd be surprised if my first try was perfect.


****.. - Amnesia, no change.

This seems fine to keep, but it's also relatively low impact so I'm curious whether or not anyone has ideas for modifying or replacing it.


*****. - Divine Focus, new activated ability.

You can cast 3 spells instantaneously, but temporarily lose access to magic when the focus wanes. Costs: 3mp, instant, 200 food, and high piety cost (to get a sense of this: it costs the same piety as Qazlal's Disaster Area, but Sif still has much slower piety gain). The -Cast timeout is currently about 10-12 turns at ~10 invo skill, and 2-3 turns at 27 invo.


Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Realz

[mattlistener]

Nemelex's Deal Four is similar. Not as powerful as three Firestorms by far, though without the downside.

Would giving a players a highly-reliable "Execute Phase" ability would trivialize too much of the game?

Note that Death's Door could be the third spell, if the player were worried about danger posed by anything that survived the other two. That would obviate the danger period.

[Tumalu]

I think piety still sounds annoying as heck here. With book gifts draining your piety (you feel it because Sif's piety gain is still rather slow), and Divine Focus costing a BOATLOAD of piety, not to mention any channeling... Divine Focus sure is powerful, but I have a feeling you'll very, very rarely be able to use it. Not because of efficiency "What if I need it later?!", but because it'll take literally an entire branch worth of piety to use it -once-.

For example:Let me describe my Sif mage from yesterday. You did increase piety gain by 40%, but consider; this run (non-rework) I got Sif Muna on d2 and wore a Faith randart starting on d4~d5. It took me almost 2 Runes to hit 6 stars with NO CHANNELING. According to morgue I channelled 14 times in the game after that. I fully cleared everything before Depths except V:5, and got to Depths 4 before dying. I still died with 5/6 piety stars, despite *faith and almost never spending piety. And I was a felid caster, so like 90% of my exp was spent in magic skills.

Anyway, I'd -love- a Sif rework, just being real here. Her piety becomes glacial even with a Faith amulet on, after the book gifts start. (It's possible your reworked gifts and piety boost actually make it feasible, granted... I don't have time to playtest it today) An easy fix would just be making book gifts not impede your piety at all. Of course, this would give you -actual piety- to use Divine Focus with, which might make it too much. The ability sounds pretty extreme as-is, maybe too much so; an established caster can annihilate pretty much anything with three instant spells, but they also really don't want to be spell-less... then again, at higher invo, they should be -fine- for 5 turns and you've got wands and other consumables for that time, and at lower invo there's a high chance you're fighting things you can Just Walk Away(tm) from.

I'll also miss Divine Energy if it's removed, but I can understand some abilities need to get cut to make room for other ones. Unlike Channel Magic, it was -interesting-; it did something unusual, plus it was free on a god with glacial piety discouraging use of channelling. It was also better than I expected. Divine Energy refreshes VASTLY faster than mp regenerates. If I have 4 mp it takes fairly little time to lob out two more OoDs, or Summon Horrible Things->whatever else. Still, if piety is reworked for Channel Energy to not be an ability for dire emergencies only, then Divine Energy would mostly become redundant; it's true.

Also, can confirm new miscast protection sounds nicer. I would definitely try to cast Fireball a lot earlier if I wasn't worried about having no mp on a fail.

All in all, I like where the concept is going, just needs some tweaking. Sif's granting of extra mp and almost all spells is really good for a caster, it's just that the lack of anything else generally makes Vehumet superior, outside of like, FeSu who desperately wants a lot of particular non-conjuration spells. Something that actually makes them BETTER at casting than your average mage is what Sif really needs, e.g. Divine Focus... it just might not be Divine Focus.

Maybe take Divine Focus down to two spells but make it somewhat less piety-intensive? Having 2 spell casts in 0 auts is still a pretty strong emergency ability! Since it's instant, you still get ANOTHER turn after those spells before the enemies can move, if they're still a problem! You can still burn consumables whilst -cast is wearing off, so it's not the end of the world even on a mage. I think this takes it into the range of "strong, but not ridiculous, with a drawback you've really gotta think about". 3 casts lets you just lulz-blast your way out of many situations, and also warrants such a high cost you almost never get to use it, which sounds like... double negatives.

Plus it makes it less stupid for extended where you probably only suffer from -cast for like 4 turns, and have a lot more piety to burn because you already have every spell in the game. ...Sif doesn't keep gifting after you know every spell, right? Right?? With the new library system there is -literally no point- for her to continue. It wouldn't really matter if her gifts stopped costing piety, but it'd be weird even then.

[advil]

Sif's piety gain is notoriously slow, currently about 45% that of standard "just kill things" gods like Makhleb. I increased rate of piety gain by about 40%, putting Sif now around 65% of Makhleb and friends.

FYI there are those on the devteam who think that the solution here is to slow piety growth for other gods to be more like sif, not to buff sif.

[Tumalu]

A little slower piety on many gods wouldn't be bad, but the problem with Sif is that, in her current version, piety gain almost completely stops once book gifting begins. It sure is neat I have Channel Magic, but it does fuck all if using it more than once or twice per branch disables my book gifts; it's a little mp, not Slouch! And it really says something that even wearing *Faith meant I still barely made any headway in piety.

Slower piety is fine. Piety gain that almost can't outpace the loss over time is not.

Edit:I looked at my morgue. I hit 5-star piety at turn 12829. Between 5 and 6 stars, I used channelling 0 times, and had *Faith on the entire time. I hit 6 star at 38969. It took me about 26,000 turns to gain 40 piety with *Faith on and while using no piety abilities, and putting probably over 90% of my exp into magic (sif). If every god was like this I'd stick purely to ones with good passive abilities, because fuck that noise.

I mean, it's OK if you consider it from the viewpoint of "Once you have the spells you want, you can channel to your hearts content because you don't really need more than 3 stars and piety gain is fine under 5 stars", and Divine Energy covers you until you can afford to channel... but once a rework talks about adding more piety cost abilities, lowering the gift breakpoint, and removing the free mp, something has to be done.

[sanka]

Maybe I am not very familiar with Sif, but why do you want 6* piety? Why it matters if it is slow to go from 5* to 6*? You do not get any new ability.

The main problem with Sif is that she is supposed to give you a lot of spells but in my experience she gifts them way too late, when they do not matter too much anymore.

[Tumalu]

You're missing the point; the point is piety gain is glacial after gifts kick in. This rework proposes bumping gifts down to three stars, removing the free ability, and adding another expensive piety ability. While it's true that I haven't had time to playtest it, it doesn't sound like it will work well even with 40% piety when 25% piety bonus barely did a thing. Sif still gains 2/3rds the piety of a normal god after this, and the gift timeout cost cuts a lot of that off, and you don't even have the free ability to use in the meanwhile anymore. It was also a rebuke to the suggestion that Sif's piety gain is currently fine and doesn't need a tweak.

I think having another active costing piety is a good idea for Sif to contrast to passive Veh, it's just that Sif needs some reworking to actually have piety to cast abilities with while still being able to have books. Even on non-reworked Sif you can either Channel OR have book gifts. Not both. The simplest way is really just cutting out the piety cost of books altogether, then it doesn't matter if Sif has 40% the normal piety gain speed.

[Realz]

FYI there are those on the devteam who think that the solution here is to slow piety growth for other gods to be more like sif, not to buff sif.

I'm not opposed to nerfing other gods if it's deemed necessary, but I imagine the intent is not to take them all the way down to Sif's nearly one-third standard rate (it's situational, but I think even the 45% estimate I mentioned is overly generous, especially through 2 runes). I'd like to think there's enough room that these two things are not mutually exclusive.

[duvessa]

Maybe I am not very familiar with Sif, but why do you want 6* piety? Why it matters if it is slow to go from 5* to 6*? You do not get any new ability.

Miscast protection is only guaranteed at 160 piety and above, which is 6*.

Nemelex's Deal Four is similar. Not as powerful as three Firestorms by far, though without the downside.

Getting three Fire Storms requires being able to cast Fire Storm, deal four does not

[Stairdancer]

Maybe I am not very familiar with Sif, but why do you want 6* piety? Why it matters if it is slow to go from 5* to 6*? You do not get any new ability.

15 out of 21 gods using conventional piety system (not Ru, Gozag, Xom or Uska) already have no 6* abilities. You still want piety after hitting 5* because you have abilities that cost piety and getting more puts you further away from losing access to these abilities. I mean, why would one want 2* piety with Fedhas is a question

[cliffracer]

I like Sif. In some contexts I think she's even better than Vehumet.

Sif is more of a generalist, but the less obvious difference is that while Vehumet rewards momentum by allowing the player to spend MP to gain MP, Sif offers more options for dealing with running out, both by giving MP (divine energy and channeling) and offering utility/escape spells. Vehumet might be slightly stronger overall, but for most players help in a bad situation contributes more to winrate than maximizing momentum.

Sif's help also comes online much earlier than Vehumet's. By ***... the player have both divine energy and channel magic. Veh's power from killing is (the number of monsters killed) * (piety based chance) * (1d(HD/2)). As HD, piety, and the number of monsters killed per spell increase through the game, MP returned scales with n^3 while spell cost scales linearly. Tornado and firestorm pay for themselves but it's hard to stay profitable casting iron shot. Veh gifts spells earlier, but unless the player didn't start as a spellcasting class there's not much use in things like magic dart and throw flame. It gets good at ***... where things like conjure flame and meph cloud are added to the pool, but by *****. Sif is also gifting spells and is doing so more comprehensively and at a faster rate.

I like playing Veh on species that have focused conjuration apts and decent melee (Gr, Dr, Te, HO) and Sif on species that have general magic apts but suffer more from running out of MP (DE).


I agree Sif can be improved in a lot of the ways you suggested.

Piety Gain
1. All of Sif's abilities require casting spells to be useful, so Sif piety is useless to anyone not training spell schools
2. Apart from the extremely rare manuals and potions of experience, all XP comes from killing monsters
This means that for Sif getting piety for training spell schools is effectively the standard piety-for-kills, and could be simplified to piety-for-kills. I'd personally change it to piety-for-exploration similar to Ely and Hep to fit with Sif's theme of knowledge and contrast with Veh's theme of destruction.

Miscast Protection
Most players tend to underestimate this. It's not as good as Veh's destruction enhancement, but being able to pay an average of 2 turns and double MP to cast 50% fireball or firestorm out-of-depth is a huge advantage given it only takes one successful cast to turn the tide of a battle. If there's one thing I'd change it would be to make it all at once instead of piety scaled because a player comprehends 100% miscast protection much more than 80% miscast protection. I like playing Sif so I wouldn't say no to having an MP refund added on though. Alternatively, there could be a "Turbo Magic" toggle that eliminates miscasts, refunds miscast MP, and increases spellpower at the expense of increased MP cost.

Amnesia
I don't use it often (scrolls are abundant) but it's nice to have. It doesn't increase the power ceiling but encourages experimentation and lowers the strategic gameplay floor for new players.

Divine Energy
Currently, it defines the entire early and midgame experience for Sif. It's a little benefit that smooths out the spellcaster experience, and the lack of a piety cost removes the normal hoarding problem. There is a problem in that it encourages kiting, but that could be fixed by putting it on a short XP timer. It would also remove the sillyness of having -Cast on an ability that can only be used when out of MP.

Divine Focus
It seems situational for a caster, especially for its cost. HP can be thought of as a timer, and increased action economy extends it (for instance, haste is like having 50% more HP). Heavy melee characters are entirely HP limited, so action economy has a huge effect on them. At the opposite end pure casters are usually MP limited--apart from extremely dangerous situations (ogre in melee on D:4, hydra in melee on L:1, a screen full of greater mummies, multiple OoFs at once) they aren't threatened as long as they have MP. In most cases it'd be effective to firestorm three times over three turns (allowing enemies to regroup and be damaged by clouds/vortices) than three times in parallel even before considering the MP/piety cost and the vulnerability of -Cast.

Books
I like both of these changes (gifting books earlier and not consuming piety). If I could think of a good way to implement it I'd suggest offering spells at *..... and **.... as well, letting Sif act like Kiku or Veh do for non-caster starts.

Alternative Turbo Magic (passive) Idea
Sif worshippers can't miscast, but spell cost is floor(cost * (100 / %success)). So casting firestorm at 90% failure would cost 90 MP, at 50% -> 18 MP, at 25% -> 12 MP, <10% -> 9 MP. It makes it immediately apparant how miscast protection can be used to punch above your weight, makes it more reliable to do so, and synergizes with channeling. Divine Energy would have to be removed to prevent dumb things like deficit casting 900 MP firestorms in Lair though.

[Tumalu]

I realllly like that Turbo Magic idea, but I think it's also way too strong. 25% failure rate is enough to cast Fire Storm at perfect success for 12 mp- this VASTLY cuts down on the experience normally needed to really cast it, as it takes a lot of levels to get from ~30% fail to single digit fail, and 12mp fire storm on someone with Channel Magic... yeah. This would need to be more like an active ability that costs piety.

Although it does also put into perspective that miscast failure protection on normal Sif actually makes 25% fire storm pretty usable if you can afford losing the mp- and you've got channeling, so... you can. Which makes normal sif a bit stronger than I originally considered.

But it did inspire a similar, but very different skill; a Divine Focus that instead "Grants an extremely low duration buff that adds your Invocation to your Spellcasting skill. Duration increases with invocation." At 10 invo this is effectively expensive Heroism for spells that only lasts a couple turns, letting you cast magic multiple levels higher than normal with more spellpower and less spell hunger. But if you -really- level up invocation, it lasts a decent hunk of time for a great power boost; get 18 invo and enough magic schools to cast bolt of fire and OoD for normal situations, then turn on Divine Focus and blast uniques and rune vaults with Fire Storm, while you've got some other utility lv8 spells online if necessary. (Cblink with only 7 transloc, summons, etc; at this point your spell levels are a huge limitation, not your magic schools)

It creates an interesting decision between how high you should raise magic schools and how high you should raise invocations. Invo will let you cast high level spells of many schools easily, but ONLY when you're willing to burn piety, and you could have spent that EXP in magic schools instead for always-available great spells. However, it's a very EXP efficient way to reach lv8~9 spells on species with high invo or bad spell schools (Spriggans and Demonspawns!), and the buff lasts an appreciable amount of time with sufficient investment instead of just a few turns! Towards the end of a game or in extended, the buff is very strong, but you also have enough EXP you could be casting high level magic without it ANYWAY; instead it's now a decent-duration buff to your spellpower that also minimizes failure rates.

And, well, your channelling will enjoy the extra invocations investment.

[gameguard]

Sif is basically a "have all spells" god right (i now its not the main selling point)? Since we have spell library now, Sif could just open up different levels of magic as you gain piety. That would alleviate the piety issue and make gifts not random or too late to matter.

[orbisvicis]

Sif is basically a "have all spells" god right (i now its not the main selling point)? Since we have spell library now, Sif could just open up different levels of magic as you gain piety. That would alleviate the piety issue and make gifts not random or too late to matter.

This is the main issue. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, though - automatically unlock all spells of a certain level at a given piety?

I'd propose switching book gifts to * and channel magic to *** and having the book skills strongly tied to skills. But not too much or you wouldn't be able to branch out in the first place. The whole point of Sif is to allow you to develop a character however you want and not remain stuck in a specific background, even the generalist wizard background.

I'd also suggest that Channel Magic only drain as much piety as MP was used. Right now everyone avoids it because it drains enough piety to interfere with the other abilities, but it's a good idea to cast it before large fights just in case. So it can gradually increase both MP and max MP, almost like a ring of magical power. If you don't use this extra MP, then the cost is minimal piety. If you use it all, then the piety cost is the same as it's always been. Once the channelling concludes, this extra pool vanishes.

[gameguard]

I must have been high when I wrote that or something. It makes little sense lol. I guess I meant making all spells up to a given spell level available to learn at certain piety levels. Its a terrible idea actually. Ignore it

[Nekoatl]

Replacing book gifts with the ability to memorize unknown spells ("Sif Muna grants you access to her spell library.") seems like a huge quality of life improvement in some ways, but also would massively hurt Sif's replay value, as you'd be able to select the same exact spells each game, and it would be harder to switch to a different god after learning all spells, in case that's desired. I think starting gifts earlier would work better (though I would go further and have them always active regardless of piety level), as one of Sif's problems right now is the contradiction where you need to spend your skill xp on magic skills to train piety, but you may not be able to get any practical benefit from that investment until significantly later in the game, leading to a period of unknown length (maybe you find a useful book randomly generated, or maybe your first 1 or 2 gifts are particularly unhelpful) where your character is unusually weak.

Divine Energy helps to mitigate this problem somewhat, as it means when your weak early-game spells aren't enough to get the job done, you're not completely shut down, so I strongly advise against removing Divine Energy unless and until this balance issue is resolved. Like, on top of moving gifts to 0 piety, also give a free gift upon joining, because sometimes Sif's altar generates stupidly late like D:9. Also, Divine Energy is strictly superior than Channel Magic when facing enemies that drain your MP, so I don't consider Divine Energy and Channel Magic to be redundant. Also, the 2 abilities can be well used in conjunction: burn through your MP, use Divine Energy to pop a big spell that buys you some time, then start a channel so that when -Cast wears off, you're ready to unload again. To me, at least, this play pattern leads to some interesting tactical decisions that I would be disappointed to lose.

Moving Channel Magic earlier might be okay if Sif's piety gain were divorced from allocation of skill xp to magic skills, if Invocations were considered a magic skill for purposes of piety gain, and/or if the piety cost on Channel Magic were removed. Otherwise, the piety cost of channeling (especially with low Invocations) exacerbates the delay in obtaining mid-game spells from gifts, as does the cost of investing skill xp into Invocations to make channeling efficient enough to be worth using. As such, it's generally better not to use channeling at all until a decent set of spells has been secured (which usually happens significantly later than ***, more so *), instead relying on tactics like stair camping and retreating from any fight that can't reliably be won with the available MP supply (or, barring its removal, with clever use of Divine Energy, e.g. lure enemies to a choke point, drop a Conjure Flame, the pelt enemies repeatedly with Magic Dart or pull enemies into the fire with Mephitic Cloud).

Regarding Divine Focus, the ability to cast instantly is somewhat interesting, but I generally wouldn't want to use this ability in its current form. That -Cast means that you'd want to end the fight with those 3 spells, and hope that the spell noise doesn't attract any more enemies. But, generally if a fight is 3 spells or less from victory, it can probably be won without spending that big chunk of piety. Plus, there are a number of spells that can be used to buy additional turns, and making use of those seems more interesting and appropriate for a god of all magic. If I could choose a high-end ability for Sif, I'd rather have something that lets me cast spells when I otherwise wouldn't be able to, e.g. being able to cast a spell that's not memorized, being able to cast while silenced/confused, being able to memorize more spells than other characters, being able to cast without MP, etc. etc.

[Nekoatl]

With book gifts draining your piety ...

I'm pretty sure receiving gifts doesn't actually take piety away, it just sets a certain amount of piety that needs to be gained before you receive another gift.

[byrel]

With book gifts draining your piety ...

I'm pretty sure receiving gifts doesn't actually take piety away, it just sets a certain amount of piety that needs to be gained before you receive another gift.

God gifts prevent you from gaining piety you otherwise would gain over the next while. It's equivalent to taking piety away, given that piety decays.

[sdynet]

*..... - Channel Magic moved here. Divine Energy removed.

It was a decent passive but is ultimately redundant. Channel Magic can also provide a strong early power spike, is perhaps even more powerful for that purpose, and scales with Invocations such that it can be useful throughout the entirety of the game.

*****. - Divine Focus, new activated ability.

You can cast 3 spells instantaneously, but temporarily lose access to magic when the focus wanes.

I think the characteristic Sif is 'diversity of choice' and 'flexible situation response'. I think Channel Magic is fine and I like Divine Energy too. If it's hard to throw away either power, why don't you let the player choose the power you want?
Here's my opinion: When you reach *....., you can choose between Channel Magic and Divine Energy. The outcome of a choice is irrevocable.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/wiki/Sif-Muna-Brainstorm

I think the same about Power Squat in Sif Muna Brainstorm. When you reach *****., you can choose between Divine Focus and Power Squat. The outcome of a choice is irrevocable. This abilities is subject to change, but the mechanism is the same.
Select the abilities you want.

[duvessa]

nobody would choose divine energy over channel magic

[sdynet]

nobody would choose divine energy over channel magic

Haha, it's fun. Korean dcss forum think the opposite. Especially this person.
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/playe ... yuuki.html
He says Divine energy is Sif's most important ability. I think Divine energy is good too.

[Rast]

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/wiki/Sif-Muna-Brainstorm

Where is the "spend piety to cast from spellbook" activated ability?

[byrel]

nobody would choose divine energy over channel magic

I rarely play Sif (just finished my first game of her since she got divine energy, in fact.) But I think you're underrating divine energy. It was effectively ~+1 MP/s when I was out of mana.

[Siegurt]

My problem with divine energy is that I would want to use it when: I'm out of mana, and need to use some kind of "save my ass spell" that will definitely get me out of a sticky situation.

But when I get the ability I don't have any such spells, level 1-2 spells aren't "get out of this combat for free" (Maybe Blink, but that is still only maybe) By the time I have the spells I would want to cast to save my bacon when I overestimated myself (DDoor, CBlink) I have more than enough mana to manage keeping a get out of jail free card on tap, and being able to "run myself down to the wire" isn't especially appealing (particularly since at that point, I have sources of channeling, including sif, and never need to get myself to the point where I'm out of mana), so I would flee long before it became necessary to use divine energy.

So it's not that it's useless, it's just very very very situational, and the better player you are, the less frequently you're going to get into those situations, and the later in the game it is, the more useful it would be, but paradoxically, the less frequently you would need to use it.

Channeling, on the other hand, is useful all the time pretty much the whole game. My only real problem with Channeling is that I have to train invocations to make it worthwhile, and that reduces the amount of piety I gain, which is annoying, having to choose between having an effective ability, and being able to use said ability when I want to isn't the best. (I feel like sif's piety gain is one of the worst out there)

[duvessa]

But I think you're underrating divine energy. It was effectively ~+1 MP/s when I was out of mana.

How much MP/s is channel magic? (Spoiler: it's more than 1)

[Nekoatl]

Several backgrounds start with good escape or fight-ending spells, and Wizards start with a few. If you're choosing to worship Sif Muna, there's a decent chance you picked one of those backgrounds. Even if you didn't, you can usually still use Divine Energy to bring a drawn-out fight to conclusion much more quickly than you could by waiting for your MP to recover naturally (kiting during the -Cast if necessary), which not only reduces piety loss to decay, but also reduces the amount of time the enemy has to regenerate MP. Sure, Channel Magic is more potent if you've invested in Invocations and so can help finish the fight even faster, but that's a bad long-term strategy in terms of piety growth and spell acquisition. Channel Magic is best saved for emergencies, at least until you've grown your spell library enough that further growth is not likely to improve your ability to make more efficient use of your MP.

[orbisvicis]

I did a little brainstorm of possible Sif Muna abilities:

Spell Shield
Extended spellcasting builds a magical shield that provides: extra EV, extra AC, 1-3 turn hast, irradiate, blink, etc. Only one effect per turn. Each effect drains the shield, spell-casting builds it up. On the fence: half of magical contamination powers the spell. Neat because it provides a unique Sif protection. Not so because it might drive sub-optimal play towards high-contamination spells (invisibility, silence, etc).

Spell Chain
The specified next random spell from inventory is cast at 2-3x power.

Architect
Meet conditions to grant effects.
* conditions:
- sacred shapes (prime #'d polygons, repeated tiles, etc)
- leylines (lines of power along dungeon features, living and inanimate)
- runes (specific effects tied to logograms)
- pacifist (summonings don't count)
- achievements (cast X spells, cast X spells of type Y, X kills/turn, X kills of species Y, etc)
- challenges (defeat an additional high-level monster boxed within a rune during combat to unlock a special effect)
- conditions (<50% health, 100%health, slow, invisible, marked, etc)

* Effects:
- next spell(s) 2x power
- unlock fast-travel paths, like conveyor belts. Usable by monsters.
- summon allies or portals
- elemental effect along shape: polygon, line, or the caster's path (think of that annoying webtiles "feature")
- re-layout dungeon, like the "grinding gears" effect of the labyrinth. Cut the dungeon into jigsaw pieces. At least one cut is within LoS.
- shift to a hyperbolic (**wishlist**) tiling - think of HyperRogue
- enslavement, i.e. achieving X kills of species Y enslaves all remaining monsters. Or resurrects all slain monsters. Either or.
- controlled blink to next shape location. Higher probability effect to help completing conditions. Sometimes warps adjacent monsters.

Shifter
Shift XP across magic skills based on recently cast spells. This is a slow process and it, to some degree, preserves the relative ratio of skill training, +- 25%. So it gives you leeway to switch schools if you've only invested 4-5 levels but also the ability to adapt to the dungeon's spellbooks or themed branches by completely shifting schools. Would render venom mage less of a dead-end.

Also I really like Divine Squat. Horrible name though, whoever thought it up must be smirking. Anyway there are lots of abilities. Some might make sense to split out into a separate god, but I like the idea that some of these are either-or: once you reach piety, Sif Muna allows you to select only one.

And then I decided to make the Teleportation school useful, because only blink is of real utility. Shroud might be worthwhile in the very early game. Passage has situational usefulness but as an escape it on average only saves 1-2 tiles.

Controlled Teleportation
Random (1-10?) free teleportations. High MP cost, lowers maxMP till effect ends. While effect lasts, gain free ability to trigger next teleportation. On the fence: last teleportation attempts to land in a safer area.

Environmental Teleportation
Teleports features from other environments:
- ice blocks (freeze intersecting monsters)
- stalagmites (impale monsters)
- lava (shift and set fire to monsters)
- vegetation (heh, Fedhas)
- stone/glass/crystal walls, fences, doors, etc
- clouds (rare)
- teleport portals
Just note that the chance of intersection is low. This is a positioning-oriented spell, not a damage-oriented spell.

Teleport Weapons
Inspired by the original Leoh Jian / Wu Jian.Scatter weapons across LoS, damaging intersecting monsters. Then ... <unfinished>.

Swap
All creatures in LoS are swapped amongst each other randomly. To be clear, monsters are only placed on the tile of a random previous monsters. Does not check MR. On the fence: swap is guaranteed, but swap distance depends on HD. If the spell is too powerful, yes, though I think this'll neuter the fun right out.

Haunt
Status effect. Increases EV. On hit (to you) blinks (adjacent) to a random monster in LoS. Effect ends after random X hits (5-20?). Player version of that other spell

[sdynet]

I did a little brainstorm of possible Sif Muna abilities:

Spell Shield
Extended spellcasting builds a magical shield that provides: extra EV, extra AC, 1-3 turn hast, irradiate, blink, etc. Only one effect per turn. Each effect drains the shield, spell-casting builds it up. On the fence: half of magical contamination powers the spell. Neat because it provides a unique Sif protection. Not so because it might drive sub-optimal play towards high-contamination spells (invisibility, silence, etc).

Spell Chain
The specified next random spell from inventory is cast at 2-3x power.

Architect
Meet conditions to grant effects.
* conditions:
- sacred shapes (prime #'d polygons, repeated tiles, etc)
- leylines (lines of power along dungeon features, living and inanimate)
- runes (specific effects tied to logograms)
- pacifist (summonings don't count)
- achievements (cast X spells, cast X spells of type Y, X kills/turn, X kills of species Y, etc)
- challenges (defeat an additional high-level monster boxed within a rune during combat to unlock a special effect)
- conditions (<50% health, 100%health, slow, invisible, marked, etc)

* Effects:
- next spell(s) 2x power
- unlock fast-travel paths, like conveyor belts. Usable by monsters.
- summon allies or portals
- elemental effect along shape: polygon, line, or the caster's path (think of that annoying webtiles "feature")
- re-layout dungeon, like the "grinding gears" effect of the labyrinth. Cut the dungeon into jigsaw pieces. At least one cut is within LoS.
- shift to a hyperbolic (**wishlist**) tiling - think of HyperRogue
- enslavement, i.e. achieving X kills of species Y enslaves all remaining monsters. Or resurrects all slain monsters. Either or.
- controlled blink to next shape location. Higher probability effect to help completing conditions. Sometimes warps adjacent monsters.

Shifter
Shift XP across magic skills based on recently cast spells. This is a slow process and it, to some degree, preserves the relative ratio of skill training, +- 25%. So it gives you leeway to switch schools if you've only invested 4-5 levels but also the ability to adapt to the dungeon's spellbooks or themed branches by completely shifting schools. Would render venom mage less of a dead-end.

Also I really like Divine Squat. Horrible name though, whoever thought it up must be smirking. Anyway there are lots of abilities. Some might make sense to split out into a separate god, but I like the idea that some of these are either-or: once you reach piety, Sif Muna allows you to select only one.

And then I decided to make the Teleportation school useful, because only blink is of real utility. Shroud might be worthwhile in the very early game. Passage has situational usefulness but as an escape it on average only saves 1-2 tiles.

Controlled Teleportation
Random (1-10?) free teleportations. High MP cost, lowers maxMP till effect ends. While effect lasts, gain free ability to trigger next teleportation. On the fence: last teleportation attempts to land in a safer area.

Environmental Teleportation
Teleports features from other environments:
- ice blocks (freeze intersecting monsters)
- stalagmites (impale monsters)
- lava (shift and set fire to monsters)
- vegetation (heh, Fedhas)
- stone/glass/crystal walls, fences, doors, etc
- clouds (rare)
- teleport portals
Just note that the chance of intersection is low. This is a positioning-oriented spell, not a damage-oriented spell.

Teleport Weapons
Inspired by the original Leoh Jian / Wu Jian.Scatter weapons across LoS, damaging intersecting monsters. Then ... <unfinished>.

Swap
All creatures in LoS are swapped amongst each other randomly. To be clear, monsters are only placed on the tile of a random previous monsters. Does not check MR. On the fence: swap is guaranteed, but swap distance depends on HD. If the spell is too powerful, yes, though I think this'll neuter the fun right out.

Haunt
Status effect. Increases EV. On hit (to you) blinks (adjacent) to a random monster in LoS. Effect ends after random X hits (5-20?). Player version of that other spell

well, hey guy?
First of all, we're talking about Sif right now. Talking about teleportation is off topic. If you want to talk about magic school, create a new post.
Shall we talk about Spell Shield? Sif is the magic god. For example, the ability to strengthen Charm school(etc. Ozocubu's Armour) is the right opinion for the topic. But provides: extra EV, extra AC... It's a completely different opinion from the topic.
And the way to use them is too difficult. Do you want a exciting battle of magic? Sorry but, dcss is not Devil May Cry. I think Qaz or Wu would be a good fit for the exciting battle you're looking for. If you still want an exciting magic God, why don't you try designing a new one instead of changing Sif?

[orbisvicis]

I don't know Devil May Cry but I'm not trying to turn DCSS into a roguelite. Most proposals revolve around "more MP" but it is possible to both promote spellcasting and fit with Sif's theme of knowledge through more interesting and unique abilities. Spellshield promotes extended spellslinging by providing melee protection (+AC, +EV, irradiate) and repositioning options (haste, blink). You don't immediately get the shield after casting just a single spell so it can't be punted into the Charms school. Thematically you use your arcane acumen to make spellcasting more efficient and put the extra energy to good use, unlike "average" spellcasters. It complements Divine Squat nicely.

> ... too difficult ...

Don't you think optimal Divine Energy playstyle is too difficult? The idea to cast it during combat to minmax mp regen / piety loss seems less like fun and more like a hybrid spellcasting/melee playstyle.

[Nekoatl]

There are lots of ways to use Divine Energy effectively, and often using it well isn't difficult at all and doesn't require resorting to melee. I don't really recommend jumping from one fight to the next without resting MP, though. You could get some marginally more efficient piety growth, but not enough to justify the risk of encountering something nasty without MP.

I have to agree that those proposed abilities are a bit out there. I mean, points for creativity, but Sif's always been about helping players acquire and utilize magic, and I'm happy with that identity. IMO, any practical effects should come from the spells themselves, and Sif should only facilitate the casting of spells in various ways.

Edit: Having played a number of runs with the new design, I consider it a major improvement. While I do miss the crazy efficiency Divine Energy offered, and I definitely notice a decease in my rate of spell acquisition as a result, this hasn't bothered me as much as I'd expected. And, while I hardly ever actually use Divine Exegesis, just knowing it's there is very reassuring and relieves a lot of pressure to tediously micromanage memorized spells. Thanks for the update!