Extending Trog's berserker rage by corpse sacrifice

[Rep Henry Clay]

I can think of two ways this might work.

One is that corpse sacrifice would be done automatically by advancing over bodies while enraged. I love the idea of a berserking warrior wading through dead bodies that burst into flame as he walks by them, his rage fueled by a terrible God craving blood.

Two is that you can take a turn while berserked to pray over a corpse. Rage would be extended by two turns afterwards. This would be balanced by enemies having a free turn in which to hit you.

Both these ideas would be balanced by the fact that you would not be able to eat the corpse(s) afterwards and perhaps the post-rage hunger penalty, slow, and exhaustion could be increased for every corpse sacrificed. Another idea is that you become overzealous in your prayers while berserked so that any prayer offered would cause corpses to go up in a huge column of flame. This would lead to fire damage so that extending the rage would require sacrificing health. Another possible consequence is that you are "overwhelmed by the power of Trog" causing an even greater chance to faint.

I feel that this idea fits very well with the idea of a berserker and it forces the player to make a choice: do I want to go all in and try to kill everything (with an even greater penalty if I fail to do so), or do I want to berserk on just this one enemy and attempt a retreat afterwards?

[Sar]

Trog extends your rage on kills, which IMO is both more convenient and more thematic.

[Hirsch I]

yeah, trog is in desperate need of a buff.

[nicolae]

Additionally, I don't think there's much demand to make even more of a reason to do corpse sacrifices. They're already considered kind of annoying.

[Arrhythmia]

One of the things I do like about this is that, given that you're berserk, corpses will only be dropping on tiles immediately adjacent to you, in the direction of enemies. Meaning that, if you want to extend the duration of the berserk, you're going to need to push yourself closer to enemies and further into danger. I think that's kind of an interesting decision.

That being said, ffuuuucckkk corpses sacrifices.

[wheals]

Maybe "p"raying while berserk could sacrifice all corpses in LOS to extend the berserk, which would obviously come at an implicit food cost, and a LOS thing might help some of the problems with blood sacrifices.

That said, food costs don't matter much and Trog is already extremely powerful, as Hirsch said.

[and into]

Maybe "p"raying while berserk could sacrifice all corpses in LOS to extend the berserk, which would obviously come at an implicit food cost, and a LOS thing might help some of the problems with blood sacrifices.

That said, food costs don't matter much and Trog is already extremely powerful, as Hirsch said.

I think I remember reading somewhere an idea to have Trog "autosacrifice" enemies you kill while berserk, maybe with a chance to extend berserk further... If you wanted you could also give chance for extension whenever you get some really good blood splatter or something. No change is necessary here, and Trog doesn't need a buff; the only reason to do something here would be to further differentiate Trog-zerk from other forms of Berserk, while adding a bit of flavor. That may be worth some tweaking, but it is very low priority. Trog is an extremely well designed god as it stands.

OP: There have been lots of posts in GDD lately (more than usual it seems) in which people state some change then immediately launch into "Here's how this could work" without saying *why* they think the change would be an improvement. Would game play with Trog improve from this? If so, how?

[Rep Henry Clay]

Maybe "p"raying while berserk could sacrifice all corpses in LOS to extend the berserk, which would obviously come at an implicit food cost, and a LOS thing might help some of the problems with blood sacrifices.

That said, food costs don't matter much and Trog is already extremely powerful, as Hirsch said.

I think I remember reading somewhere an idea to have Trog "autosacrifice" enemies you kill while berserk, maybe with a chance to extend berserk further... If you wanted you could also give chance for extension whenever you get some really good blood splatter or something. No change is necessary here, and Trog doesn't need a buff; the only reason to do something here would be to further differentiate Trog-zerk from other forms of Berserk, while adding a bit of flavor. That may be worth some tweaking, but it is very low priority. Trog is an extremely well designed god as it stands.

OP: There have been lots of posts in GDD lately (more than usual it seems) in which people state some change then immediately launch into "Here's how this could work" without saying *why* they think the change would be an improvement. Would game play with Trog improve from this? If so, how?

I guess I think of berserkers as a KILL EVERYTHING NOW type of character and it would be nice if they had the option to deviate from the traditional cautious approach of luring small groups of enemies away. I don't see Trog advocating for a safe reasoned approach to killing enemies. A berserker should be able to risk everything and go all in.

[Sar]

And how is berserk extension on kills worse than your proposal?

[dck]

It would definitely not call an improvement the fact you can reliably make berserk last more than it should by say, spotting a dangerous thing you want to berserk on and then going on a thrilling voyage around the neighborhood collecting corpses which you then drop wherever you decide to fight and maybe press p on if you miss a lot of hits and your berserk starts to fade away.
Except nobody sensible would ever do that because ac exists, but you wouldn't believe the amount of people who are allergic to the keys ac.

So adding this does two things: It adds another "wield bread against mara" strategy to the game and it makes berserking in a bad spot less punishing since if you press p over a corpse the very idea of corpse saccing fills you with renewed rage.