God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent


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Halls Hopper

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Post Monday, 27th April 2015, 21:22

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

Hmm... I feel I have little to add other than seconding the views of others. This is an interesting idea. Though there'd probably need to be some divine ability to stop players from dying of their own poison. Possibly at the cost of piety, or just an ability that players may take for granted.

Err... also, I get the feeling that this isn't that great an option for those who lean more towards physical fighting. Sure, an early branded weapon and the potions come in handy (especially considering they have a lot more health to spare than squishy wizards), but the rest isn't that helpful. They'll likely be attacking one enemy at a time for the most part, which means only one creature will be poisoned, which in turn means that the active abilities will only work on one creature at a time.

Admittedly, the ability to summon snakes might help with this. Also, as I said, the self-poisoning thing is less harmful to meaty characters so maybe it'd self-balance? Or just encourage players more towards hybrid play? So not necessarily a problem, but it seems like it wouldn't hurt to add some more passive poison-bolstering abilities. Or more active abilities to directly poison others. Perhaps utilising the poison already within one's system? I don't know. These suggestions are likely just complicating things more.

Hmm... another thing I wished to mention was the regeneration thing. This is purely a curiosity thing and shouldn't be taken as a suggestion, but why did you opt to make Jorjor increase regeneration instead of simply slowing the effects of poison? The two seem virtually equivalent to each other unless I'm missing something huge (which I probably am), so I was wondering why you decided to lean one way over the other.

(Oh! And a final thing, I feel like I'm the only one who didn't have a problem with the name right away. Then again, I'm greatly pleased by both references to Norse mythology and silly animal puns, so this god name was pretty much designed just for me. Well done.)
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Monday, 27th April 2015, 21:29

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

Just because Jor wants you to stay poisoned doesn't mean Jor wants you to suffer from the poison's effects. Maybe Jor reveals to you the flipside of poison.

Edit: No mention of Jor giving you offensive poison spells? There's a mere handful of those. Also I see how a Spriggan would have an breezy time with this god.
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Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 03:54

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

BobIsDead wrote:Hmm... I feel I have little to add other than seconding the views of others. This is an interesting idea. Though there'd probably need to be some divine ability to stop players from dying of their own poison. Possibly at the cost of piety, or just an ability that players may take for granted.


I'd figure poison can drop you to 1 hp, but won't directly kill you.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 06:48

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

floatRand wrote:
BobIsDead wrote:Hmm... I feel I have little to add other than seconding the views of others. This is an interesting idea. Though there'd probably need to be some divine ability to stop players from dying of their own poison. Possibly at the cost of piety, or just an ability that players may take for granted.


I'd figure poison can drop you to 1 hp, but won't directly kill you.

This might be a good idea in general, rather than just for one god.

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 06:54

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

keep in mind that killing things with damage-over-time might work well in low level areas but once you get to the late game i don't really see anyone spending several turns to poison an OOF and then taking the time to wait for the poison to chew through 150 hp, that's at least 20-30 turns which is an awfully long time to endure a big scary monster's attacks.

you could probably make it work but you'd be more likely (i think) to just use the poison damage as an extra at that stage to setup your other god abilities or, possibly, use poison magic damaging spell which would certainly be a strong option but iron shot also is and doesn't "consume" your god slot to use.

imho it would be a suboptimal god for a pure spellcaster as it doesn't really offer you as much as other gods do (it gives you consumable-based mp regen that poisons you and the possibility to use venom spells on anything *if* you have the good ones but no gifts, no boosts, no true panic button).

it would also be suboptimal but likely better to pure melee as it would give a large stack of potion of might (that poisons you), some summons and some status effects which you'd need magic to access otherwise, the brand really wouldn't be optimal in the endgame (do i give that oof 1 stack of poison or do i just hit it with freeze brand? not to mention artifacts exist).

where it *should* shine is hybrids, as a magic oriented character can make good use of might+poison brand and a more physically oriented character could make use of the MP replenish and take advantage of the fact that poison spells cap at level6 but would be viable.

I'm sure there is a lot of tweaking to do before it can be considered seriously but i think it really needs to be tested first to get an actual idea, i'm working on it but i'm slow because a) never touched crawl-code before b) job doesn't leave lots of free time c) my current FeSu hasn't died yet (well, not permanently).

Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 15:14

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

This is a minor point, but why is !poison {!might + !magic}? Unless you're going for a reference to the game franchise, {!might + !brilliance} would make more sense if the idea is that drinking the poison buffs your offense, or {!heal wounds + !magic} if the idea is recovery.

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 15:59

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

well heal wouldn't make much sense coupled with poison and i feel like brilliance as a potion is either very unremarkable on characters with already high spell success and power or way too good to have a stack of on characters that can gain access to +1 spell level with it.

magic on the other way anyone can make use of so i imagined it would make more sense. (invocations use mp too, i thought of the reference afterwards actually)

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 28th April 2015, 16:48

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

Brilliance might not be as good as might for chars with all the spells at lowest failure and near-maxed spellpower, but those chars are a minority.

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dck

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Post Wednesday, 29th April 2015, 04:18

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

I thought the entire point of quaffing poison for superpowers was that they opened opportunities for everybody. People who do damage with spells benefit from might as much or more than everyone else and the MP is still welcome, for everyone else might is might and MP is relevant for fueling god abilities at the very least, which I assume this invo-heavy god would see people using a ton.

Plus brilliance does literally nothing for folks who haven't gotten any proper spells to actually show up, which seems uncalled for.
Plus brilliance is honestly a nasty effect when made cheaply available, it makes people go through lists of spells they don't really care about or invest in relevantly because having access to them post-quaffing might be actually useful at some point. Generally the interface for that is obtuse enough people won't bother out of certain things like brog's, but wildly available !brill would change that.

All in all, brilliance is a worse idea since it capitalizes on the notion of doing things that are not getting yourself straight into danger and thus has less chances of having the player miscalculate his strengths, besides doing so with the type of tools brilliance encourages is by default a lot less punishing than with might. And has far narrower applications. And has worse flavor than sipping poison a quickie so you can use snakeman's invocs. And encourages awful juggling with fail rates. And quaffing prior to buffs in situations where abilities are not chosen as the course to follow becomes a thing to consider.
Horrible stuff, this brilliance.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Wednesday, 29th April 2015, 05:33

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

dck wrote:Plus brilliance does literally nothing for folks who haven't gotten any proper spells to actually show up, which seems uncalled for. Plus...


Same thing can be said about Chei's intelligence boost.

Barkeep

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Post Thursday, 30th April 2015, 01:44

Re: God idea: Jorgrhiss, demonic serpent

Pollen_Golem wrote:
dck wrote:Plus brilliance does literally nothing for folks who haven't gotten any proper spells to actually show up, which seems uncalled for. Plus...


Same thing can be said about Chei's intelligence boost.


Chei boosts all stats equally, by an amount dependent on your piety. Chei's boost is also passive, so it doesn't (for the most part) run into the possibly annoying issues that dck raises about having more of a consumable that makes spellcasting easier.

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