New God / Weapon Brand - Belial or modify Makhleb

[skyspire]

Demonic God - Belial

Piety *

Imps are neutral

Piety **

activated ability - Abjuration - success depends on invocation skill. small hunger/piety cost.

Piety ***

activated ability - Summon Demon - success/quality depends on invocation skill. hunger/piety cost. Demons summoned can be hostile without good invoc skill.

Piety ****

activated ability - Summon Demonic Horde - success/quality depends on invocation skill. greater hunger/piety cost Demons summoned can be hostile without good invoc skill.


Piety *****

activated ability - Summon Greater Demon -success/quality depends on invocation skill. Can be hostile.
activated ability - Mass Abjuration - success depends on invocation skill.


Piety ******
hellfire resistance
can brand a weapon with the new "hellfire" brand (1 time), that bypasses AC and fire resistance.

Belial likes it most when you kill holy beings, and likes it when you kill anything. Belial likes it when you pacify demons. Belial dislikes it when you kill neutral or allied demons. As you gain in Piety, there is a greater chance that encountered demons are neutral.


The reason I believe this god has a place, is because we have Kiku who provides Torment resistance, but no god that provides Hellfire resistance. Also, we have no god specifically "Demonic"- well except Makhleb. The other idea is to modify Makhleb to have some of these abilities. Like remove "minor destruction" and "greater destruction" from Makhleb, and give hellfire resistance and neutral imps/pacify demon instead. This is just a quick brainstorm on the idea, but I'm sure the abilities can be tweaked further.

I like the idea of a hellfire brand, because Kiku has a pain brand. This can provide balance in a way. Of course hellfire branded weapons cannot be used by "good" gods. unlike the "pain" brand, hellfire damage would not be defined by any skill but instead be like a more damaging "lightning" brand.. in other words, it doesn't activate every hit. Alternatively, the strength of the hellfire branded damage can be directly determined by evocation skill.

[dck]

how is BLOOD AND SOULS not specifically demonic?
Regardless, pacification abilities that only apply to demons would be useless for basically the whole game so all you're left with are summons that are weaker that Makhleb's and then for some reason a hugely overpowered resistance (unless it's weird rHellfire that doesn't mean immunity to all fire, in which case it's also useless), as well as weird elec brand.

Spoiler: show

BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MAKHLEB

[skyspire]

well, i modified my original post, because this could also be a modification of Makhleb.

Pacify demon would be helpful too in case you summon hostile demons. Also, many conjurers summon demons, so it is not useless. Kobold demonologists, Elf Demonologists.. Abyss, Pan, Imps show up everywhere in the game.. frost imps, iron imps, shadow imps, etc.

The idea is that this god can also appeal to the end game.. Pan scumming, 15 rune wins. Hell, Abyss.. Also useful for Elf 3, vaults, Draconian demonologists, Liches, Ancient Liches, many uniques in the game.

Makhleb's destruction abilities i've never been too impressed with.. we have enough invocables that do the same thing with more predictable results. Chaotic destruction seems to be not purely evil but more of a xom thing. using a destruction ability against something with fire immunity, you want to have ice, for example.. not a chance of it being fire damage.


if just hellfire resistance is too weak, we can have it also give rF+.

Kiku gives torment resistance and nobody is saying kiku is overpowered. So why should hellfire resistance be overpowered?

[dck]

rHellfire means full fire immunity which is dumb and ridiculous and adds nothing to the game.
Makhleb is just fine and doesn't need to be some demonic elyvilon. There are a lot of ways (a lot) of dealing with summons that just so happen to be demonic already, the most popular ones being killing the summoner and walking away.
A god that is designed to start doing something by the time you've gone through 80% of the game's content (and 100% of the relevant one) is not a well designed god.

Kiku guarantees really strong offense and gives a million good things but since Ely and Nem exist you can't really call any other god overpowered without being just silly.

[skyspire]

rHellfire is not full fire immunity, what are you smoking dck? .. only Hellfire resistance. Hellfire and Torment are the only damage that cannot be prevented in the game.. Kiku provides some Torment resistance. What's wrong with a god that provides some Hellfire resistance? Seems like common sense to me. We even have sticky flame resistance in the form of MDA (mottled dragon armour).. and no , sticky flame resistance is not full fire immunity.

If from a coding perspective it is easier to make mobs less likely to use hellfire against you, then that also is a form of hellfire resistance.

Sounds like you think TSO is a worthless god since it is only useful for tomb /crypt / abyss / pan. There is a place for TSO as a good god for the end game, whats wrong with having an evil god thats useful for the end game? That's assuming this god idea is only good for the end game, (which it is not)

Ability to summon demons as allies is a useful skill throughout early, mid and late game, neutral imps also help the early game. Hellfire brand gives a brand that's useful for the end game, unlike kiku's pain brand which is only good in beginning/mid-game.

So we have only 1 god that gives a good brand for late game.. TSO. For balance, it would be good to have an evil god that also gives a good weapon brand for late game. Make sense??

[dck]

The only comment I will make on this is that antimagic exists.

[Sar]

So it's Makhleb but instead of HURLING DESTRUCTION at your foes you get some weird not-Ely ability that is also mostly useless and instead of health on kills you get... neutral imps? Doesn't even sound thematic to me, and let's not even talk about gameplay.

Spoiler: show

BLOOD AND SOULS

[nago]

The only comment I will make on this is that antimagic exists.

And distortion

[TwilightPhoenix]

This god feels like the foul offspring of a coupling between Makhleb and Elyvilon.

Makhleb already summons demons. Elyvilon already does pacification. This basically leaves Belial with rHellfire and a Hellfire brand, neither of which are interesting enough in their own right for a whole god. Oh, and neutral imps.

Turning Makhleb into this is also unacceptable. Makhleb is purposefully one of the more simple and straight forward gods. Summon stuff and fling destruction at the cost of HP. Get the HP back by killing stuff. Simple, yet interesting.

[Hurkyl]

rHellfire is not full fire immunity, what are you smoking dck? .. only Hellfire resistance.

Actually, it is. See the wiki: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Hellfire . The mechanics would need to be changed if you wanted to provide rHellfire without fire immunity.

Being able to resist hellfire but not ordinary fire has weird flavor anyways.

[Siegurt]

If anything, the ability should probably be something like "Convert hellfire damage into normal fire damage"

However that strikes me more as a "soul protecting" ability, which sounds like it should go on a good god to me (But that's only because I picture hellfire as unresistable, because the hellfire is actually burning your soul directly, which your equipment doesn't protect against, feel free to ignore my imposed imaginary flavor

If Ely and Mak didn't exist, this sort of theme might make an interesting take on a god, but would need a lot more fleshing out, but rHellFire is definitely not particularly interesting as an anchor point for a god.

[Hirsch I]

Sounds like you think TSO is a worthless god since it is only useful for tomb /crypt / abyss / pan.

TSO is only useful for tomb /crypt / abyss / pan? I really can't see why would someone say that.

[skyspire]

my point about TSO is that you mostly gain piety by killing undead/demonic, which can be slow before you reach crypt/tomb/abyss. Also, rN+ that you get with TSO is most useful in mid-late game.


Alternatively, instead of pacify demon, the activated ability can be Abjuration and Mass Abjuration. No God does that.

As a passive effect, as you gain in piety, there is a chance that encountered demons are neutral.

Regarding Hellfire, it can be treated so that mobs are 25% less likely to use Hellfire against you. Or provide them with a damage-shaving ability similar to Deep Dwarves, but only against Hellfire.

[Hirsch I]

my point about TSO is that you only gain piety killing undead, which can be slow before you reach crypt/tomb/abyss. Also, rN+ that you get with TSO is most useful in mid-late game.

oh, so it does not gain piety by spotting non evil monsters anymore?

EDIT: or killing demons, or killing herectics

[dck]

(in case there was any doubt I do find TSO a worthless god with crazy demands that gives nothing in return for the most important part of the game and very little for most of the rest but this is OT)