Sif Muna revamp

[and into]

Sif Muna is not exactly underpowered, but is somewhat lackluster and not very fun to play, in my experience. You get lots of piety until you have every spell in the game, and channeling. That's about it. There's no real question of piety use; the forget spell ability is useful if you have been low on ?amnesia, but using it is never really a hard decision, and the no-book-burning conduct is entirely flavor (though sensible flavor).

So here would be my recommendation:

1.) Keep channeling, amnesia, and miscast protection as they work currently. Sif doesn't allow you to forget spells by destroying books.

2.) Cool it on the book giving. Instead have Sif give one unrandart book at each new level of piety. At * piety the book contains only level 1 and 2 spells, but spell level scales up for each new book as you get piety, so your last two books will likely contain level 7, 8, and 9 spells. Each book gets, say, 5 to 7 spells, about 50% random, 50% tailored to your current skill set. [EDIT: Better idea. Sif gives you one book with some random lower level spells in it upon joining. No more book gifts until **** piety at the earliest, at which point Sif will begin gifting medium and higher level spells in high quality randart book editions. However Sif will only give X total book gifts; once you receive the last one Sif gives no further spells.]

In addition Sif should get a couple of new abilities. I'd like to hear other folks' ideas, but here are a few possibilities that occurred to me. Obviously Sif wouldn't get all of these, but one or two of the following might be nice. All of these use Invocations skill for various parameters, in keeping with Sif's current MO:

a.) "Fail-safe" — Piety cost, 3 MP plus cost of spell. Cast a memorized spell with spell failure set to (current value - (5 + 2*Invocations).

b.) "Double Cast" — Piety cost, 5 MP plus cost of spells. Cast two spells at once. Only incurs hunger cost once, from whichever spell had higher hunger cost. You can only double-cast a spell that you have sufficient mastery over, based on your unmodified (no Wizardry) spell success with it. Invocations skill level determines the max spell level and minimum success rate at which a spell can be double cast.

c.) "Delayed Cast" — High piety cost; MP and hunger cost of chosen spell. Sif lets you put a spell of your choice with X% failure or less on "delay" (cf. delayed fireball). Once "charged" you can cast the spell instantaneously from your abilities menu with no MP cost, nor hunger cost. Certain spells (Revivification, Death's Door, etc.) cannot be put on delay in this manner, however. Invocations skill level determines the minimum spell level and failure % that one needs for a spell to be cast on delay.

d.) "Spell Storm" — Very high piety cost; 9 MP plus cost of chosen spell. You choose a suitable spell you know and cast it en masse. Only works for some spells, however most summons, most conjurations, and most hexes are stormable. Basically casts a single spell multiple times, with targets randomly chosen when applicable. Number of times the spell is cast will depend on Invocations skill level compared to level of the spell chosen.

[duvessa]

I strongly dislike your book gifting idea as it makes Sif much more similar to Kiku and Vehumet.

[Deep Dwarf Fighter]

Fail Safe and Delayed Cast sound cool, but oh boy, Double Cast...

From my experience in many, many other RPGs (and some card games), anything that duplicates spells is the bane of caster balancing. The devil has many names: Dualcast, Redx2, W-Magic, Double, Doublecast, X-Magic, Hades Magic, Fork, Storm, Fury...
Everybody and everyhting that can use magic will go through hell and back to get this kind of ability, or die trying. It's just that good.

[DracheReborn]

I do agree that Sif could be a bit more interesting. I like your ideas, but maybe the mechanics could be simplified a bit.

a.) "Fail-safe" — Piety cost, 3 MP plus cost of spell. Cast a memorized spell with spell failure set to (current value - (5 + 2*Invocations).

Or alternatively, get a wizardry bonus while the power is active.

b.) "Double Cast" — Piety cost, 5 MP plus cost of spells. Cast two spells at once. Only incurs hunger cost once, from whichever spell had higher hunger cost. You can only double-cast a spell that you have sufficient mastery over, based on your unmodified (no Wizardry) spell success with it. Invocations skill level determines the max spell level and minimum success rate at which a spell can be double cast.

Alternatively, get reduced spellcasting delay while the power is active, i.e. basically Finesse for spellcasting.

Spell Storm seems like something that would fit Veh or a new conjuration god more, but I guess that's just theme. Delayed Cast seems great, but potentially abusable. So you'll need to ban all sorts of spells, as you pointed out. Probably I'm more in favor of the first 2.

[DracheReborn]

Fail Safe and Delayed Cast sound cool, but oh boy, Double Cast...

From my experience in many, many other RPGs (and some card games), anything that duplicates spells is the bane of caster balancing. The devil has many names: Dualcast, Redx2, W-Magic, Double, Doublecast, X-Magic, Hades Magic, Fork, Storm, Fury...
Everybody and everyhting that can use magic will go through hell and back to get this kind of ability, or die trying. It's just that good.

I think Delayed Cast is more of a problem. Instantaneous, 0 MP cost, and guaranteed success when you need it? Double Cast is just faster spellcasting, which is similar to the effect you get from Haste, for instance. Sure it's still strong, but numbers can be tweaked.

[Amnesiac]

I don't know about your proposed abilities, but I feel that Sif is underpowered, so I would want him changed somehow. All that he gives is some books and channeling, which you can get without him, eventually. Forgetting spells is not really a problem and miscast protection is not that useful either. Basically he doesn't give anything very useful, unlike Veh, who gives wizardry and range extension which is million times more useful. I almost never take Sif.

[and into]

I strongly dislike your book gifting idea as it makes Sif much more similar to Kiku and Vehumet.

That's a good point. How about this:

Sif book giving is similar to how it is now. However, in addition, right after you choose Sif you immediately receive one randart book of 5 to 8 low level spells chosen randomly.

I think that's better than my suggestion in OP and Sif's current behavior. Backgrounds that don't start with a book might now find worshiping Sif very desirable, and you won't have to worry about piety gain. (I like that Sif gives piety in a manner different from most gods, but it can sometimes be very finicky in terms of game play. Somehow, on characters who would want to worship Sif, I always seem to stumble on an altar right at the point where I'm about to switch to training dodging.)

I'd probably still set a limit on how many books Sif will give you, though. So maybe you get one low-level book upon joining, then at **** piety Sif can give you books with medium and high-leveled spells, weighted toward spells you do not already have. After the Nth book you don't receive any more, however. I think X = 4 or 5 is probably fair.

EDIT: Oh also I agree with DracheReborn about delayed cast being the strongest and potentially OP, but there are lots of ways to balance it and certain spells can simply be impossible to cast on delay (or double cast for that matter).

[Sar]

My least favourite thing about Sif is that you need to train magic schools if you want books, but very often I do want books but want to train other things than magic skills.
I'm not sure if it's good or bad overall.

[Siegurt]

I'd do two things to Sif:

1. Give him a piety-dependent wizardry (spell success not spell power) bonus. At 200 piety, it's the equivalent of wearing a ring of wizardry.
2. Give you some extra spell slots, if you lose piety or abandon Sif, you are forced to amnesia spells until you are under your limit.

[and into]

I'd do two things to Sif:

1. Give him a piety-dependent wizardry (spell success not spell power) bonus. At 200 piety, it's the equivalent of wearing a ring of wizardry.
2. Give you some extra spell slots, if you lose piety or abandon Sif, you are forced to amnesia spells until you are under your limit.

2. Is a cool idea, but doesn't 1. overlap with Vehumet? That's why I steered away from passive wizardry in my proposal. I would want to retain (and ideally, introduce further) differentiation between Sif and Vehumet.

[Sar]

I'm not sure I like wizardry idea, because that's kind of what Veh does for your combat spells.

[twelwe]

I still want to see a magic-berserk style ability, where your spells take half as long to cast and cost half as much mana, with a swiftness-style opposite effect when the ability ends.

[Sar]

Does it also make you unable to melee?

[cerebovssquire]

Fail Safe and Delayed Cast sound cool, but oh boy, Double Cast...

From my experience in many, many other RPGs (and some card games), anything that duplicates spells is the bane of caster balancing. The devil has many names: Dualcast, Redx2, W-Magic, Double, Doublecast, X-Magic, Hades Magic, Fork, Storm, Fury...
Everybody and everyhting that can use magic will go through hell and back to get this kind of ability, or die trying. It's just that good.

So give it a sufficiently high piety cost. A lot of more powerful god abilities (Sanctuary, Brothers in Arms, Divine Vigour) are balanced this way and there's no reason why it wouldn't work for this.

[DracheReborn]

Backgrounds that don't start with a book might now find worshiping Sif very desirable

Now that you mention it, I think there's been a couple of times that I found an early Sif altar on a non-book background - but couldn't worship because I haven't found any books yet (and thus have no spells). Is this restriction on Sif important or just flavor? If it's just flavor then maybe it could go? Sif should be eager to convert the bookless - I mean that's why they want to worship her!

[cerebovssquire]

It's an important distinction between her and Kiku/Veh given how rare early spellbooks are. These two already fill the "non-book backgrounds who could benefit from a book will benefit from this god" niche.

[and into]

Backgrounds that don't start with a book might now find worshiping Sif very desirable

Now that you mention it, I think there's been a couple of times that I found an early Sif altar on a non-book background - but couldn't worship because I haven't found any books yet (and thus have no spells). Is this restriction on Sif important or just flavor? If it's just flavor then maybe it could go? Sif should be eager to convert the bookless - I mean that's why they want to worship her!

Ditto. I kind of like the unique piety gain mechanism, but it does sometimes turn even a spellcasting background off. (More than once I would have considered Sif, but came across the altar right when I was planning to start some melee and dodging training. )

I think Sif's weird (but unique) piety thing could be retained if Sif gave a few random spells upon joining. It would make sense thematically and her type of piety gain could continue being distinctive, without just blocking access to a lot of characters. Contra c's squire, I don't think it would overlap with Kiku or Vehumet too much.

But, at any rate, I think we are all agreed Sif could use a cool new ability or two.

[argonaut]

If you're worshiping Sif you could have two sets of spell slots, your natural ones and bonus ones based on piety. You can cast spells from either set. On joining you get one bonus slot prefilled with a low-level spell. Periodically Sif will change a spell in one of your bonus slots.

Memorization would be the key change. Instead of book gifting you sacrifice books to add them to the divine library. All spells that you've sacrificed become available for memorization (to your normal spell slots) at any time. You can also memorize a spell from a Sif-slot to keep it around. This would synchronize nicely with Amnesia since you could tailor your spell set at any time.

Another bonus is that if you abandon Sif you lose the extra spells and all the books you've donated instead of being left with a pile of god gifts.

[TeshiAlair]

What if Sif Muna let you permanently learn Unique or monster spells? That would fit in better with the God of Knowledge idea and step on Vehumet's toes less.

[Arkhan]

Banishment immediately comes to mind, which steps on Lugonu's.

[psyshvl]

For gifting spells, Sif could give you a choice of randart books to memorize from, and instead of getting the book you chose as an item, you instantly memorize those spells up until Sif chooses to gift you another selection of spells. That way you will have a variety of random spells at that change periodically. Abandoning Sif would cause you to forget those spells. If Sif did this upon joining his/her religion, it plus the casting bonuses might make Sif a more attractive option for early non-caster characters that want to branch out into spellcasting.

[DracheReborn]

It's an important distinction between her and Kiku/Veh given how rare early spellbooks are. These two already fill the "non-book backgrounds who could benefit from a book will benefit from this god" niche.

But is that distinction so important compared to their other differences? I think my decision tree goes more like this: if my character relies on spells for damage, Veh is probably better. If my character is using Necromancy, Kiku is probably better. If my character doesn't rely on spells for damage, I probably want a lot more weapon/fighting/dodging/armour skill, which as the other guys point out, could get awkward with Sif. So Sif's niche seems to be as (de facto) god of summoners, and I don't know that whether a nonbook background is able to benefit from Sif is really an important added distinction.

[monty]

Sif could give a unique spell book at ****** that contained unique spells from each school. An eclectic mix of mostly non-conjurations would go great with Sif's wizard flavor. The book would kind of mirror the books of Minor Magic and Wizardry thematically.

[nagdon]

Lots of good ideas were suggested here, I especially like the following:

• Success chance (or even spellpower boost) would be natural on a general spellcasting god (it is a bit strange that Sif doesn't grant it).
• Stealing/learning monster spells would be a great, interesting ability, but I fear that it is impossible for balance reasons (healing, hellfire, torment, blinkbolt, teleport self, versions of blink, revenant spells etc). Although I think adding all the not problematic monster-only spells to Sif gifting would be a good idea.
• God-granted extra spell knowledge slots, either pre-filled with spells or not (or some other way to access lots of spells in a better way than amnesia+carrying lots of spellbooks). Focusing on versatility instead of raw power would be a great differentiation from Vehumet/etc., and knowing lots of spells is a useful, but not overpowered ability.

I suggest the following system instead of book gifting:
Sif followers have access to a divine library containing lots of spells. Spells can be added to the library either as divine gifts (this replaces book gifts) or book sacrafice (destroys book, adds all spells in the book to the library). The library can be accessed by a "Divine Knowledge" ability (instant, 1 MP, small piety?), which allows the player to select a spell from the library. The selected spell is castable with a success chance boost, but doesn't occupy place in the player's Spells Known list. Using the ability again replaces the selected spell with the new one (so there is always exactly one directly castable spell in the library).

Having a spell in the library makes all its schools trainable. Of course if you leave Sif, access to the library is lost (I don't know how it should be regained on rejoining). The "have spells to join" requirement could be optionally replaced with putting some first level spells into the library and making the library accessible upon joining. Ohterwise I would suggest to make "Divine Knowledge" a ** (moving amnesia to ***) or *** ability.

[TeshiAlair]

Banishment immediately comes to mind, which steps on Lugonu's.

Right, but if you had Banishment, say, as a level 8 or 9 Translocations spell, it would be hard enough to spec for that you'd only end up doing it if you set out to learn banishment, which would be kind of cool as a self-imposed quest.

[dpeg]

Alright, I also have an opinion on Sif Muna. I believe that the flavour should change from "raining books" to "library". A simple take on that theme: you get books as now (perhaps starting a bit earlier), all of them are randart books with "Sif" in the title. You can keep a book as long as you like, but then you won't get a new one. You have no control over what you get, but the librarian tries to avoid duplicate spells, especially with what you already saw (excluding shops) and somewhat less with what you borrowed so far.
At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.

Furthermore, I believe that the miscast protection can be strengthened. There are several ways to do this, I want players to be able to go for otherwise risky spells reliably. A random idea: an active Wild Magic-style power. I think Sif can understand the daring and ambitious.

[Amnesiac]

If he would at least give some boost to spells that would be as interesting for a blaster caster as Veh's then I would consider taking him, but until then, he really is dull and underwhelming. Channeling can be found on evocable items and the rest is not important enough.

[monty]

At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.

What if Sif actually let you visit a physical library? Like you get an active ability that will teleport you to a cool extra-dimensional library after 10-20 turns of uninterrupted channeling? That would just be so cool, and it would allow Sif to use physical spellbooks, but prevent you from having to schlep them around. The portal would return you to wear you came from so you couldn't use it to get out of the abyss or Pan.

[Deep Dwarf Fighter]

Lots of good ideas were suggested here, I especially like the following:

Stealing/learning monster spells would be a great, interesting ability, but I fear that it is impossible for balance reasons (healing, hellfire, torment, blinkbolt, teleport self, versions of blink, revenant spells etc). Although I think adding all the not problematic monster-only spells to Sif gifting would be a good idea.

This has to happen! It makes for an interesting ability and fits Sif Muna's theme perfectly.

[nicolae]

At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.

What if Sif actually let you visit a physical library? Like you get an active ability that will teleport you to a cool extra-dimensional library after 10-20 turns of uninterrupted channeling? That would just be so cool, and it would allow Sif to use physical spellbooks, but prevent you from having to schlep them around. The portal would return you to wear you came from so you couldn't use it to get out of the abyss or Pan.

I think this would just turn out to be "permanent easy-access stash + a few books too" in practice. At least having a delay (though 10 is a bit much) would make it infeasible as an escape option.

[dpeg]

Yes, whenever talk comes to a library (and such talk is old, trust me ), there are elaborate ideas for how to present such a library in the game. This is not necessarily bad, but I was concerned with the mechanics. The way I proposed the library, Sif spell access would be different than now, but also different from Vehumet.

[nicolae]

Yes, whenever talk comes to a library (and such talk is old, trust me ), there are elaborate ideas for how to present such a library in the game.

An indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.

[Leafsnail]

I think we need to ask a more fundamental question about Sif Muna: what purpose is she supposed to fulfill? How exactly is she different from Vehumet, or to a lesser extent Kiku?

My thought: Sif Muna is about breadth of knowledge. She doesn't give boosts to any one part of magic, but she helps you amass a vast array of options. That theme fits well with her book gifts, which can give you all kinds of spells. So, here are two possible ability ideas for her that go with this theme and make her random-seeming gifts more useful.

1. Mental Library (zero stars): You can memorize any spell you've seen in a book (unless it's a shop item which you haven't purchased). This isn't really a power boost at all since Sif worshippers can't destroy books anyway, but it does fit the theme and makes the next ability work a little more smoothly.

2. Flash of Inspiration (four stars, piety, MP?): You can cast any spell which you could currently memorize (you still pay the MP/food costs associated with that spell, and it has the same failure chance as usual). There could be an additional failure/power penalty when casting the spell which would be defrayed with invocations. e: Or maybe Sif shouldn't use invocations at all, like Trog? It seems a bit odd that someone who wants you to learn magic also expects you to invest XP in a non-magic skill.

So in other words, Sif Muna gives you a rapidly expanding Swiss Army Knife-type ability. I think this would fit her theme pretty well - she grants you some of her vast reserves of knowledge to give you a huge number of additional options on demand. It might also allow some of the more situational spells to see more use, which would be cool.

[Amnesiac]

^this might be interesting. I mean, you can forget and learn spells with sif anyway. But those abilities will allow using any spells without preparation during the combat. Its not OP'ed since you could have a set of the most useful spells anyway, so this will allow using some spells that are in rarer demand, but could be used in some special cases.

The only problem I see is choosing from the huge list, so we would need to split it up somehow, by categories, levels or schools.

[BountyHunterSAx]

As an avid sif-player (despite the fact that Vehumet is often the better choice) I gotta say flash-of-inspiration would be a VERY welcome addition to her spell list.

-AHMAD

[Leafsnail]

Some comments on the other proposals in this thread:

a.) "Fail-safe" — Piety cost, 3 MP plus cost of spell. Cast a memorized spell with spell failure set to (current value - (5 + 2*Invocations).

"Reduce your spell failure rate" seems way too close to Vehumet. Making it active instead of passive isn't enough of a distinction IMO.

b.) "Double Cast" — Piety cost, 5 MP plus cost of spells. Cast two spells at once. Only incurs hunger cost once, from whichever spell had higher hunger cost. You can only double-cast a spell that you have sufficient mastery over, based on your unmodified (no Wizardry) spell success with it. Invocations skill level determines the max spell level and minimum success rate at which a spell can be double cast.

d.) "Spell Storm" — Very high piety cost; 9 MP plus cost of chosen spell. You choose a suitable spell you know and cast it en masse. Only works for some spells, however most summons, most conjurations, and most hexes are stormable. Basically casts a single spell multiple times, with targets randomly chosen when applicable. Number of times the spell is cast will depend on Invocations skill level compared to level of the spell chosen.

I'm not really sure how this fits Sif Muna's theme. Being able to go crazy with a single offensive spell seems to fit Vehumet's flavour better - I don't see how it fits "god of knowledge".

c.) "Delayed Cast" — High piety cost; MP and hunger cost of chosen spell. Sif lets you put a spell of your choice with X% failure or less on "delay" (cf. delayed fireball). Once "charged" you can cast the spell instantaneously from your abilities menu with no MP cost, nor hunger cost. Certain spells (Revivification, Death's Door, etc.) cannot be put on delay in this manner, however. Invocations skill level determines the minimum spell level and failure % that one needs for a spell to be cast on delay.

This one seems pretty appropriate though, I guess you could imagine that you "super-learn" a spell.

Sif book giving is similar to how it is now. However, in addition, right after you choose Sif you immediately receive one randart book of 5 to 8 low level spells chosen randomly.

I don't really like this, it potentially encourages scumming and maybe abandoning Sif immediately. It also sortof moves Sif closer to Kiku/Vehumet, which doesn't seem desirable.

I'd do two things to Sif:

1. Give him a piety-dependent wizardry (spell success not spell power) bonus. At 200 piety, it's the equivalent of wearing a ring of wizardry.
2. Give you some extra spell slots, if you lose piety or abandon Sif, you are forced to amnesia spells until you are under your limit.

1. is, as said before, too much like Vehumet. 2. is a good idea (but it doesn't mesh well with my proposal).

I still want to see a magic-berserk style ability, where your spells take half as long to cast and cost half as much mana, with a swiftness-style opposite effect when the ability ends.

Again not a bad idea, but the ability to go nuts with destructive magic screams "Vehumet" at me far more than it says "Sif".

If you're worshiping Sif you could have two sets of spell slots, your natural ones and bonus ones based on piety. You can cast spells from either set. On joining you get one bonus slot prefilled with a low-level spell. Periodically Sif will change a spell in one of your bonus slots.

Memorization would be the key change. Instead of book gifting you sacrifice books to add them to the divine library. All spells that you've sacrificed become available for memorization (to your normal spell slots) at any time. You can also memorize a spell from a Sif-slot to keep it around. This would synchronize nicely with Amnesia since you could tailor your spell set at any time.

Another bonus is that if you abandon Sif you lose the extra spells and all the books you've donated instead of being left with a pile of god gifts.

As far as I can tell there are two elements to this:
1. A gift system that is a lot like Vehumet's
2. A minor convenience gain that potentially screws you up if you ever leave Sif. I can't see it giving you any actual utility - it just means you don't have to cart books around/go back to floor books, so if I was planning to abandon Sif I wouldn't use it at all.

For gifting spells, Sif could give you a choice of randart books to memorize from, and instead of getting the book you chose as an item, you instantly memorize those spells up until Sif chooses to gift you another selection of spells. That way you will have a variety of random spells at that change periodically. Abandoning Sif would cause you to forget those spells. If Sif did this upon joining his/her religion, it plus the casting bonuses might make Sif a more attractive option for early non-caster characters that want to branch out into spellcasting.

So wait, you could suddenly lose the spells you're relying on in the middle of a battle? That seems more like a Xom or Jiyva thing.

Sif followers have access to a divine library containing lots of spells. Spells can be added to the library either as divine gifts (this replaces book gifts) or book sacrafice (destroys book, adds all spells in the book to the library). The library can be accessed by a "Divine Knowledge" ability (instant, 1 MP, small piety?), which allows the player to select a spell from the library. The selected spell is castable with a success chance boost, but doesn't occupy place in the player's Spells Known list. Using the ability again replaces the selected spell with the new one (so there is always exactly one directly castable spell in the library).

I guess this is pretty similar to my proposal, but I don't really like the idea of boosting the success of library spells (which I presume include the spells you have memorized, otherwise you'd be introducing a weird incentive). That is once again stepping into Vehumet territory. I guess sacrificing books would work fine as a mechanic too, I don't think many players plan to abandon Sif anyway.

Alright, I also have an opinion on Sif Muna. I believe that the flavour should change from "raining books" to "library". A simple take on that theme: you get books as now (perhaps starting a bit earlier), all of them are randart books with "Sif" in the title. You can keep a book as long as you like, but then you won't get a new one. You have no control over what you get, but the librarian tries to avoid duplicate spells, especially with what you already saw (excluding shops) and somewhat less with what you borrowed so far.

At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.

"You get access to one spell at a time, then you lose it" seems again to be moving more towards Vehumet, even if Sif were to give you more a bit more control over it.

I guess the ability to request specific spells might make sense though.

Furthermore, I believe that the miscast protection can be strengthened. There are several ways to do this, I want players to be able to go for otherwise risky spells reliably. A random idea: an active Wild Magic-style power. I think Sif can understand the daring and ambitious.

I don't see how Sif is daring or ambitious? Being able to cast a spell more powerfully seems more like a Vehumet thing again.

What if Sif actually let you visit a physical library? Like you get an active ability that will teleport you to a cool extra-dimensional library after 10-20 turns of uninterrupted channeling? That would just be so cool, and it would allow Sif to use physical spellbooks, but prevent you from having to schlep them around. The portal would return you to wear you came from so you couldn't use it to get out of the abyss or Pan.

Seems like a weirdly flavoured and channely version of Step from Time

[Arkhan]

If Sif Muna becomes the celestial librarian, as a flavor thing, they should hate (or at least shush) you making lots of noise (scroll of noise, TT, etc.) Just some pennies.

[dck]

Why? You're in a dungeon not in a library and the very spells sif is giving you are normally loud as all hell.

Regarding a sif revamp I'm not sure she needs one or needs more abilities as she's already a useful god but what I would like is a way to gain piety that doesn't involve just training magical skills since I find this the most intrusive way of gaining piety of all gods short of elyvilon.

[Psiweapon]

Yes, whenever talk comes to a library (and such talk is old, trust me ), there are elaborate ideas for how to present such a library in the game. This is not necessarily bad, but I was concerned with the mechanics. The way I proposed the library, Sif spell access would be different than now, but also different from Vehumet.

An indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.

At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.

What if Sif actually let you visit a physical library? Like you get an active ability that will teleport you to a cool extra-dimensional library after 10-20 turns of uninterrupted channeling? That would just be so cool, and it would allow Sif to use physical spellbooks, but prevent you from having to schlep them around. The portal would return you to wear you came from so you couldn't use it to get out of the abyss or Pan.

Visiting a physical library would be incredibly awesome. It would be a pocket peaceful plane under Sif Muna's jurisdiction.

Maybe you could send books there by "sacrificing" (or not), and every once in a while you can visit (gift-like timer? Very high cost piety ability? Max MP cost ability?). The more spells you have memorized from a book, the higher chance it gets to be replaced by a different one the next time you visit. You can drop books inside, but you can only lease out one book per piety star (You're not allowed to leave this place with that many books)

Flash of inspiration sounds pretty cool too, and it would go hand in hand nicely with a physical library, because it would give you a reason to carry books around. The cost for casting from a book could be, well, that it's sent back to the library!

[and into]

I like a lot of the ideas and I agree with most of the criticisms of my ideas in the OP; I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thinks Sif could benefit from being toyed with a bit. Leafsnail's feedback in particular is comprehensive and incisive.

Having Sif focus more on tactical and generalist spell casting seems like a move in the right direction. If I can summarize and clarify what I take to the consensus, in light of everyone's contributions, the following seem to be the problems with Sif that, while not critical issues, could stand to be improved:

Bigger Issues — Things that should change

1.) Current piety mechanic needlessly discourages a lot of characters from joining.
My original idea for how to improve this (spell book upon joining) would introduce other problems, so probably best to forget it. An easy option is to have Sif give piety for killing stuff like everyone else, but I think it would be better if Sif retained some kind of distinctive piety gain. So how about this: As the god associated with Lore, Sif gives piety for discovering new items. This could either be in addition to, or as a replacement for, Sif's current piety mechanisms. (Obviously numbers would have to be tweaked here for balance.)

2.) Book gifting mechanism is not too exciting and overlaps with other gods.
Again, book gifting idea in OP was problematic. Exactly how it would work mechanically seems up for grabs, but the idea dpeg offered about some sort of "library-like" system is very intriguing. Getting one book at a time, and having to give it up before you get another, would be good. A single trip to an actual library area could maybe be fit in as a ****** ability: Sif lets you into the stacks, so to speak, to grab one book of 5 or 6 with high level spells that you get to permanently keep. (If you reject your religion, however, Sif takes it back.)

Minor Stuff — Possible improvement if added

3.) Some way to better take advantage of the whole selective amnesia spell slot mechanism.
Siegurt's idea of "virtual" spell slots to help you branch out into new stuff is good, and that could be supplemented with a more robust miscast protection system as per what dpeg recommends. This would encourage branching out into new forms of magic earlier. With channeling and robust miscast protection, you can get away with much higher spell failures and thus with less spell training, but in a way that is totally distinct from Vehumet both in game play and in flavor.

4.) Sif could stand one strong tactical ability with a non-negligible piety cost.
As it stands you basically just get piety and... more piety. And books rain on you all game. Not to toot my own horn, but I think something like the "delayed cast" ability I proposed in OP fits with Sif's focus on a strategic approach to spell casting. This would be a high-piety ability with a significant piety cost.

[nicolae]

1.) Current piety mechanic needlessly discourages a lot of characters from joining.
My original idea for how to improve this (spell book upon joining) would introduce other problems, so probably best to forget it. An easy option is to have Sif give piety for killing stuff like everyone else, but I think it would be better if Sif retained some kind of distinctive piety gain. So how about this: As the god associated with Lore, Sif gives piety for discovering new items. This could either be in addition to, or as a replacement for, Sif's current piety mechanisms. (Obviously numbers would have to be tweaked here for balance.)

One idea I had, initially suggested for dpeg's Random Gods initiative, was a god who rewarded you for hoarding books; i.e., exploring the dungeon while carrying spellbooks, with piety gain increasing with more spellbooks in your inventory. This would fit the flavor of Sif Muna as a god of storing and accumulating knowledge. The obvious problems would be that it would be hard to get piety rolling with one or fewer spellbooks, if this were the only mechanic for piety gain, and of course the inventory management issues involved.

A single trip to an actual library area could maybe be fit in as a ****** ability: Sif lets you into the stacks, so to speak, to grab one book of 5 or 6 with high level spells that you get to permanently keep. (If you reject your religion, however, Sif takes it back.)

The flavor of visiting an actual library portal would be super cool but for gameplay purposes it might simply be much easier to have a list to pick from, shop-style. One idea, that I've seen suggested from time to time in regards to various gods, would be some spells that you can only get from high-tier Sif Muna book gifts.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think something like the "delayed cast" ability I proposed in OP fits with Sif's focus on a strategic approach to spell casting. This would be a high-piety ability with a significant piety cost.

Delayed casting is a cool idea, though does it really work with many things that aren't conjurations?

[crate]

I've only skimmed the topic (not going to comment on anything proposed here) but here is why I like Sif: A lot of the time I don't really want a god that much, but I don't feel like going godless for no reason. Sif is a nice god to just add to your character in that case. Better than any of the other god choices, currently, except maybe Okawaru ... but I think Oka is more of a hassle and obviously for a different type of character. Having more spellbooks is fun, and since I didn't want a god anyway if I don't get piety (by training non-magic skills) I don't even care.

I guess Vehumet is kind of the same way but personally I find Veh more boring than Sif so...

[and into]

Delayed casting is a cool idea, though does it really work with many things that aren't conjurations?

Well, where delayed casting would potentially be the most powerful I think are with things like controlled blink. If revivification and/or death's door were allowed on a delayed cast, those would clearly be the most powerful. Haste, Discord, Mass Confusion, Darkness, Phase Shift, Control Teleport could all potentially be very strong. Many high leveled summoning spells, like Haunt, Demonic Horde, Summon Horrible Things. And, of course, just about any powerful conjuration spell. You could either use delayed casting as a strong offensive option to save for a tough enemy or group of enemies, or you could put a good defense-oriented spell in the slot. Or a spell that can potentially cover either option (like Haste).

[1010011010]

Grand Casting

Cost: 3MP, moderate-large piety, breath.

Cast a spell from a book in inventory. This spell gains (Invo*900)/(27*spell level) to spell power (ie +100 for lvl9 spells at invo 27.0). If the spell reaches max spell power (or perhaps another criteria), the remainder is used in a recast of the spell (with no added cost).

Description:
You deliver a spell straight from it's text for increased power and possibly successive casting.

[Leafsnail]

I've realized what my core problem with a lot of the proposals is - Sif should reward you learning more about magic. This is the problem with spell success/power boosts - they just make it so you don't have to put as much XP into magic.

[Psiweapon]

What if Sif gave you piety for successfully using spells? Does that make any sense? Probably not, might lead to victory dancing 2.0.

I think the "gain piety for training magic skills* fits Sif Muna damn well, an it's also unique, but maybe it's insufficient?

What if Sif gave you piety *for training skills* ? Not just magic skills? Or at least Invocations, Evocations and Stealth too, excluding pure combat skills? These skills could be to the taste of Sif Muna, even if not directly useful, and provide more options for gaining piety without going outside of the "loreminder" epithet. Sif Muna likes you LEARNING stuff. Of course, s/he prefers magic stuff, but knowledge in a more wide sense could be okay in his/her book. Invocations and Evocations actually deal with magic, just different sorts of magic, and making little noise fits with the librarian aspect.

Invocations with Sif Muna would work as a metamagic skill, powering advanced casting supported by Sif Muna, which would be extending on the current use of invocations with this god. Alternatively, off the use of Invocations and tie Sif abilities to spellcasting skill, but this would be more restrictive rather than less so.

[Senban]

How about some kind of spell editing ability? Say fireballs aren't big enough for you so you go up a size in blast template, for a corresponding increase in MP and difficulty. Or you have magma bolt but need to switch it from fire to ice for very import reasons, or like Haste but don't like contamination: No problem one LVL 9 Haste coming right up. Obviously balance is a bit of nightmare but even in a limited form with very few options this kind of thing could be a lot of fun.
Having the player be able to learn (player learn-able) spells just by seeing them cast would also be very cool if the variety of spells monsters are actually using which a player is likely to benefit from is high enough to merit it.

EDIT: On the training dodging front, Zin has a mechanic where gold donated becomes a chunk of piety which is held back and divvied out later to boost later piety gains. Perhaps this could be adopted so that on joining all of your present skills are accounted for so that you'll be less put off training non-magical skills if you already have the knowledge Sif appreciates in the bank.

[Hirsch I]

like an archmage form DnD? seems fun.

[TeshiAlair]

Here's an idea: Sif gives you an Spellcasting-only exp shot when you fight a magic user, in an attempt to bring new followers "up to snuff" so to speak.

[dpeg]

I've realized what my core problem with a lot of the proposals is - Sif should reward you learning more about magic. This is the problem with spell success/power boosts - they just make it so you don't have to put as much XP into magic.

Indeed, and that's why I offered Wild Magic. Still not sure whether it would be worthwhile, but I had three reasons: (1) there are cases where spellpower is king. (2) You can counteract the success loss in several ways, and Sif's miscast protection could be one of them. (3) Because it's more like taking a debt, this power does not go against Sif's piety style like you describe.