God brainstorm: permahaste w/ penalties for killing

[Lasty]

I already have a god proposal in the works, and I'm currently in the process of coding it up, but I had a thought while reading a thread that degenerated into a discussion of Chei for the umpteenth time: a possible design for a god that gives perma-haste instead of perma-slow.

God of Wind

This god wants you to bring the wind into all the claustrophobic and airless spaces of the dungeon.

Piety: you gain piety by exploration, and receive a flat piety bonus (10-ish) every time you enter a new, non-infinite floor. You may also receive a smaller piety bonus for enter a new Pan floor. Your piety decays over time, and you lose 1 piety every time you or an ally kills a monster.

Abilities:
0: your movespeed is increased by 1. Any time you would receive a Breath timer from something other than this god, that timer is cut to 1/3rd.
*: Gust (activated ability, costs 5-10 Breath timer) pushes monsters at least 1 tile w/ shotgun targeting. At high invo can push more tiles and add "dazed" status.
**: your movespeed is increased by an additional 1.
***: Meld with Wind (activated ability, costs low piety) cTele with range 4, no contam, but adds 15-25 turn Breath timer.
****: Permanent Haste status w/o contamination.
*****: Localized Twister (activated ability, costs high piety): target creature is paralysed for 2-6 turns without a chance to resist. Their equipment is randomly flung into nearby tiles.

The design of this god is to give players the tools to avoid encounters, and to encourage them to resolve encounters without killing their foes. If the player can keep exploring and keep moving to new dungeon levels, their piety will stay high and they'll get permahaste, a powerful escape ability, and be able to get equipment from monsters w/o killing them. However, they'll need to kill some foes, or they'll end up dramatically under-leveled.

possibly extra-crazy extra proposal: Leaving a floor after exploring at least 60% of it gives you 30% XP for all seen monsters on the floor; those monsters are no longer worth any XP if killed.

Edit: changed title to reflect how tentative this is. Also, here's the piece of this that I think is interesting and worth some consideration: the god gives permahaste, but it penalizes killing any enemy; the penalty isn't huge (penance, for example), so you can still kill some enemies, but if you kill too many you'll lose your fancy permahaste and your fancy god abilities.

[sgrunt]

you gain piety by exploration

Ashenzari already does this, and I'm not sure it fits here.

your movespeed is increased by 1

Boots of running, swiftness, etc.

Gust (activated ability, costs 5-10 Breath timer) pushes monsters at least 1 tile

Force Lance / fan of gales / the wind blast ability of some enemies.

Meld with Wind (activated ability, costs low piety) cTele with range 4

I'm assuming you meant to write cBlink here, which is available through a variety of means.

Localized Twister (activated ability, costs high piety): target creature is paralysed for 2-6 turns

Wand of paralysis (less the MR check).

Permanent Haste status w/o contamination

Considering that an active god ability used to exists that granted Haste (Okawaru) was considered extremely overpowered (and replaced by Finesse), this just isn't happening, and is based on a false premise anyway:

a possible design for a god that gives perma-haste instead of perma-slow.

Chei's delay applies only to movement; it's closer to a permanent -Swift with a greater effect than a perma-Slow. Even with that in mind, movement speed bonuses are considered sufficiently powerful that two of the races that provide them (spriggans and centaurs) are already considered among the most powerful in the game.

I'm sorry, but a pile of not especially unique mechanics coupled to an overpowered passive ability isn't a very good design. You at least need to provide very large drawbacks somehow if you're keen on creating a deity with movespeed bonuses as the central premise.

[Lasty]

It's true that a lot of the mechanics here are similar or identical to existing effects. I'm pitching this more as a brainstorm than as a completed design, and I should have made that more clear.

Here's the piece of this that I think is interesting and worth some consideration: the god gives permahaste, but it penalizes killing any enemy; the penalty isn't huge (penance, for example), so you can still kill some enemies, but if you kill too many you'll lose your fancy permahaste and your fancy god abilities.

[and into]

Here's a stab at the basic concept:

God of Wind

Not sure about piety gain. Maybe no piety decay, and you get a decent lump of piety by going to a new floor, however the actual piety gain is spread out as you explore? (So you can't dive and get a bunch, but you aren't just getting piety by exploring; maybe that is different enough from Ash.)

Piety loss on killing stuff seems bad, so I propose a different way to "punish" killing stuff (by taking away a carrot rather than using a stick).

Upon Joining:
True permaflight upon joining (you won't stop flying unless under penance/wrath). Immunity to airstrike and tornado.
+ Wind whisper. Free. range 8 projectile-targeted. Get the attention of the target enemy. (So you can get attention without throwing darts/stones).

*----- "You call the wind to your aid." A pocket of wind envelops you. This gives several passive bonuses scaling up with piety, however the pocket ruptures (and you lose all beneficial effects) whenever you take any offensive action. After rupturing it takes a certain amount of exploring new areas before you can "find" the wind yet again and coax it to aid you. Maybe starts as rMsl, but eventually scales up to +1 movement speed and dMsl then +2 movement speed. Again, all these effects end whenever you attack something. (And won't come back until you have explored some new territory.)
**---- Gust: Costs breath and small piety. Target enemy loses its turn and is pushed backwards. If you do not move, will continue pushing enemy back, up to four times. (cf. searing ray). Cannot be used unless you've caught your breath again.
***--- Cloud-rider: Causes exhaustion and costs moderate piety. Cannot be used while exhausted. Does 3 to 5 semi-controlled blinks in the direction you choose. Each blink takes 1 turn and this ability cannot be canceled while underway. "Ride a cloud. Move with great speed—control is a bit of a problem, however, and you cannot get off once the ride has started." Yes, if you hit a wall you will just be stuck there for a couple of turns, gotta be careful with it.
****-- One-With-Wind: Considerable piety cost. Causes exhaustion and costs breath. Cannot be used while exhausted or while on breath cool down. Instantaneous. Your next action is instantaneous; divine abilities cannot be selected for your instant action, however.
*****- Magic Vacuum: Very high piety cost. Creates an immobile temporary radius of "true" silence centered on your current location—all scrolls, speaking, and spell-like abilities are blocked while within the vacuum. ("Immobile" meaning, unlike silence spell, this does not move with you.)

Probably could use invocations on this god as a way to mediate the power of these abilities. Invocations could even be used to factor in to the passive ability—how quickly your protective wind comes back to you could depend on invocations. You can flavor the abilities as "calling the wind," or something, works thematically for all of the abilities as well as for making those abilities rely on invocations. It would also be cool if there were more gods that rewarded training your invocations higher than 14 and this god could easily fit that bill.

[Lasty]

and_into's version is a much better proposal for a wind god than mine, and I like the pocket of wind concept. I still think there's interesting territory to explore in piety-loss-on-kills, but I'll have to think about it.

[dpeg]

I think this can certainly work on a god. The appeal seems a little limited, depending on how harshly kills are punished. I think of this as a speedrun god. The limited scope is not a killing blow, however: could simply make this an extra (i.e. non-Temple) god.

On exploration: one of my suggestions for random god piety gain is "finding new downstairs". Obviously, this is just a take on piety for exploration. However, it's not quite the same as that, and also not tantamount with piety for entering new levels. Just a thought.

On punishment for kills: A simple idea would be loss of haste/swiftness.

Some more ideas: under this god, the opposition could be quicker, too. Or get quicker over time (so that if you decide to fight, you want to get over with it fast.)

[n1000]

After rupturing it takes a certain amount of exploring new areas before you can "find" the wind yet again and coax it to aid you. Maybe starts as rMsl, but eventually scales up to +1 movement speed and dMsl then +2 movement speed. Again, all these effects end whenever you attack something. (And won't come back until you have explored some new territory.)

Hm this worries me: I just cleared z:5 and am ready to pick up the orb, time to go wander around the pockets I left unexplored to regain the buffs. Maybe make this a short-term boost that increases as monsters are in your LOS (or with tension) but is removed on attacking?

e: on second thought that idea doesn't sound great either...the huge tactical bonus of fast move/dmsl means you pretty much want to start every tough fight with this. It shouldn't require anything boring or scummy to attain but it also can't just be free (as it pretty much is in the idea I propose above).