The Tavern

I doubt this will make it in, but I thought it would be a fun background and I would definitely play it.

Basically, a ranged class that worships Fedhas. Starting skills would be a small amount of invocations, a small amount of whatever ranged weapon skill that race specializes in (Bows for Centaurs, Slings for Halflings, etc) and maybe a level in dodging. They could start the game with some sultanas/grapes, their ranged weapon of choice (and a small amount of ammo), and a robe.

Nothing fancy, basically a hunter with lower starting skills, but with the ability to worship Fedhas right out of the gate.

No one else thinks this would be a fun starting background? It's flavorful, and it's more interesting than some of the other ones...(looking at you Healer aka background that could be rolled into Priest)

It's definitely a fun, unique playstyle. Use sunlight to increase the accuracy of your ranged attacks, set up deep water or plants as a barrier between you and the enemy while you pelt them sling bullets/arrows/spores/oklob blasts.

I've never played Fedhas so I can't comment.

I wouldn't mind being able to start with -any- god. Here's an idea - let the Priest class choose any god they want from the entire pantheon. You get crappy equipment, some generic skills, but can start with the god of your choice.

I'd play one. I almost always convert to Fedhas as soon as I get to the Temple anyway.

I think it's a bad Idea to make druid as a Hunter with Fedhas, current religious classes are not like that. Paladin is the only way to start with long blades, Berserkers is the only way to start no shield\no unarmed combat fighter. Priests is the only way to start with staves. Healers is the only fighting but no weapon skill start

What should be good is Druid worshiping Fedhas and starting with new spellbook. Something like

Sting
Summon small mammals
Swiftness
Sticks to Snakes
Spider Form
Enslavement


Balanced stats. Starting skills - Fighting, unarmed, dodge, stealth, spellcasting , invocations and I like it. Equipment Robe, fruits, Bow\sling\crossbow\rocks\javelins (no\little skill in it so you can choose between that and Sting). It will be the only spellcasting religious class and it's good. Also it'll have tons of ways to develop

There's a "tame beasts" spell that's a bit more thematic than enslavement.

However, I'm guessing a class that starts with a god AND spellcasting is a non-starter.

tame beasts was removed

And as far as I know, the plan is actually to reduce the number of classes that start with a god. It makes Crawl's first big milestone (making it to the Temple) rather meaningless if you can just start with any god. There's some proposals on the wiki, anyway.

Interesting. I think in that case it would almost make sense to not have ANY starting gods.

No; see the wiki page for details (I do not feel like writing them out).

Ah, I did not know about the plan to reduce starting gods for classes. Oh well.