New items: potions of <god>


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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th August 2015, 19:41

New items: potions of <god>

Goal of the items is to make new players more familiar with abilities given by other gods.
So even when you are trying to win your first character (like MiBe) you can have fun with abilities of other gods.
The potions are extremely rare items, you are expected to find 1-3 potions of god total during 3 rune game. I mean you can find a potion of Trog, a potion of Okawaru and a potion of Vehumet, not 3 of each possible potion of god.
Every potion works exactly like corresponding god ability with max piety and max invocation/evocation/necromancy where applicable unless noted otherwise.
Potion of:
Ashenzari - Scry
Beough - Smiting
Cheibriados - Step from Time
Dithmenos - Shadow Form
Elyvilon - Divine Vigour
Fedhas Madash - Reproduction
Gozag - Potion Petition
Jiyva - Slimify
Kiku - Receive Corpse and Animate Dead, takes 2 turns
Lugonu - Corruption
Makhleb - Summon Greater Demon, never hostile
Nemelex - Get a legendary deck and Triple Draw from it, the deck is destroyed after that
Oka - Finesse
Qazlal - Disaster
Ru - Apocalypse
Sif Muna - Miscast protection during 50+d50 turns
Vehumet - Increased range, wizardry bonus and MP restore on kill during 20+d20 turns
TSO - Summon Divine Warrior
Trog - Brother in Arms
Xom - Treat the potion as a potion of another god. If you are unlucky to roll "Xom" as that god, you get hostile Executioner as temporary summon
Yred - Drain Life
Zin - Sanctuary

Edit. Also probably quaffing the potion should cost some piety of your current god.

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Post Monday, 17th August 2015, 19:58

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Why the diverse power levels? Step of Time and Scrying are 5* and 1* abilities etc. Make it consistent at least so you actually want to use all potions about equally.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th August 2015, 20:03

Re: New items: potions of <god>

le_nerd wrote:Why the diverse power levels? Step of Time and Scrying are 5* and 1* abilities etc. Make it consistent at least so you actually want to use all potions about equally.


It's hard to have equal power when gods are so diverse in power. Sif is almost useless for example. Also I don't want to give strategic benefits like Knowledge Transfer or blessing/granting a weapon. Maybe these should be unrandart potions, I can imagine scumming zigs for potions of Zin or Lugonu.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th August 2015, 20:46

Re: New items: potions of <god>

I agree, the best way to make crawl easier for new players to learn is to add 22 new items.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th August 2015, 22:27

Re: New items: potions of <god>

duvessa wrote:I agree, the best way to make crawl easier for new players to learn is to add 22 new items.


It is not about making crawl easier, it is about more fun and some introduction to gods, something like we have early unique to introduce torment or almost harmless early monster to introduce constriction.
There are many gods in crawl, I remember it took me almost 2 years to try them all. Here new players can find a potion and just check its description (which can be reused from existing ability I think).
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Post Tuesday, 18th August 2015, 03:18

Re: New items: potions of <god>

No. Just no. Over-complicated, stupid, adds nothing of value.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Tuesday, 18th August 2015, 05:08

Re: New items: potions of <god>

bcadren wrote:adds nothing of value.

That's clearly not true.

Whether or not the value is sufficient to justify the added complexity is a different question.

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Post Tuesday, 18th August 2015, 08:45

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Hurkyl wrote:
bcadren wrote:adds nothing of value.

That's clearly not true.

Whether or not the value is sufficient to justify the added complexity is a different question.
Adding something and adding something of value are very different things. This is talking like Deck of Wonders rarity items...which would have virtually no gameplay impact due to rarity...and 22 of them. De Facto if they existed they'd be EVEN MORE panick buttons because of the rarity and most the times they spawn the person who gets them wouldn't use them since it'd be a panick only item to use up something THAT rare.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Thursday, 20th August 2015, 04:33

Re: New items: potions of <god>

I think having some of these would be a neat introduction to some of the gods without having to play a whole game with them. Like I play crawl a lot but I don't know what chei's step from time is like because I've simply never played chei. But yeah 22 is overkill, nor do I see why it has to be potions especially since a lot of this make no sense as a potion. I would say especially any item that already is reminicent of a god would preclude a need for an item of said god. E.g.

Trog -> berserker items
Ely -> healing pots
Oka -> haste
Sif Muna -> channeling/scroll of amnesia/books
Zin -> cure mutation/scroll of holy word
Vehumet -> staves of conjuration
Nemelex -> deck
Jiyva -> potion of mutation
Xom -> weapon of chaos
Lugonu -> distortion
TSO -> holy wrath

Some without any relevant item might be like chei/qaz/ash/etc

Total tangent, but along this line of reason I think it'd be awesome if there were a xom-like god that was a combination of all the gods.

Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 21st August 2015, 08:51

Re: New items: potions of <god>

It doesn't need to be 22 items. It can be one item with 22 possible effects, and an appropriate message to make it clear what god you just got. Just call it the potion of invocation: the name makes it fairly clear what it does, and it's easy to write a good description:

"This wonderful item calls upon the most powerful ability of a random deity. While unpredictable, the effect will never be directly harmful to the invoker."

I agree it's weird as a potion though, and from a thematic standpoint might make more sense as a scroll. Though I will say: the item being a potion makes it more likely that players will identify it before using it (not certain, but potions are a frequent target of ID scrolls), which is important because a player isn't going to get a good sense of how powerful Smite or Summon Divine Warrior is if there isn't anything around to kill. I'd almost suggest just ID'ing the things on pickup ("You feel a brief surge of divine power").

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Post Friday, 21st August 2015, 14:43

Re: New items: potions of <god>

One way to make consumables get ID'd more often is to make more of them you don't want to waste. (I usually scroll-ID my scrolls once I can unless there's an emergency -- wasting summoning or blink or fear or enchant make me sad.)

I like the idea of this item, and agree that it's better as a scroll than a potion. I don't think it would make the game easier to learn, but it's an item I'd enjoy using if it were rare enough. OK, I would never use Reproduction, but summoning a long-duration friendly Oklob, maybe with a cast of Sunlight, would be thematic and useful. You might make something like 1d3 + 1 smites available for the Beogh case, too; a single smite can be underwhelming.

I wouldn't make it a random effect; you would use Corruption in a totally different set of cases than you would use Step From Time.

I don't know that this would need to reduce piety (should it be usable by Demigods? I'd say yes?) but it is worth thinking about what happens if the item's god and your god don't get along (worship Zin, read Kiku), or if the item's god hates you (Mu reads Ely). If it reduces piety, what if you read it while atheist?
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 21st August 2015, 14:50

Re: New items: potions of <god>

I wanted it as potion to allow use under Silence and to avoid wasting while read-ID. Otherwise there is a tiny chance that you are unlucky to find this scroll before finding first ID.
Maybe smiting can be replaced with orcs becoming friendly for some time (though it would not work for a single potion with random effect).
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Post Friday, 21st August 2015, 14:55

Re: New items: potions of <god>

My feeling for the "Zin-ite reads Kiku" case: You get Zin penance. Item works as per normal.

For the "Mu reads Ely" case: You anger Ely such that a single wrath event will mollify. Item does nothing.

At least, those were my initial thoughts; the problem is that this makes the Trog item worthless for basically any non-berserker. So maybe undead PCs should be able to read Good Gods' scrolls and get vigor or sanctuary or an Angel buddy. Hm. I mean, Mennas and Khufu will tag-team you, so it's not like angels and mummies never work together...

Smiting is good, just getting a single smite is not super fun, I think. A few (especially at high Invo) will hurt a unique pretty badly, though.

Why would you care about the silence case? That's pretty rare.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 22nd August 2015, 06:50

Re: New items: potions of <god>

njvack wrote:I wouldn't make it a random effect; you would use Corruption in a totally different set of cases than you would use Step From Time.


Adding 22 new items to the game is bad, far worse than some of the effects not being optimal - duvessa is quite right there. Having to add a new UI feature, like a menu, is also bad.

I do think it's good to try and avoid the read/quaff-ID issue, because *most* of the effects will do nothing outside of combat, where it's otherwise optimal to use-ID items. The problem isn't that the effects are useless outside of combat, it's that the player won't get any impression of what/how much they do: just having a daeva chill out with you for a few turns doesn't give you any idea of how much damage said daeva can inflict.

The idea of this proposal, I gather, is to give players a sampling of what all the gods can do. I don't get the impression that it's really meant to be a panic button - the use case I see for it is that you would try it at the beginning of a non-trivial battle: you'd just get a random effect that ranges from useless to helpful (personally I'd change the Xom case to just be a random non-negative Xom effect).

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Post Sunday, 23rd August 2015, 00:46

Re: New items: potions of <god>

this would be more appropriately flavored as a scroll
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 23rd August 2015, 00:58

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Or new single use evocable to avoid any problems with use-id.

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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 23rd August 2015, 02:04

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Evocable runs into the issue of whether or not its power depends on evocations skill - I don't know if the devs are averse to adding evocables that aren't.

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Post Sunday, 23rd August 2015, 22:57

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Alright; since this is being taken seriously. Single use evocable or Scroll. Regardless use Evocations as Invocations skill and have a default Piety Value for Invos that use Piety (say 150). I still don't think it's a good idea though. It's about as more random than Tome of Destruction except no chance of blowing yourself up, and it represents ANOTHER super rare panic button; which we have enough of.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Monday, 24th August 2015, 01:27

Re: New items: potions of <god>

bcadren wrote:Alright; since this is being taken seriously.
uh

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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 24th August 2015, 01:29

Re: New items: potions of <god>

Yeah, the 'Crawl has enough panic buttons already' argument is fairly compelling.
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

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