Pakellas: don't think this god is a great addition.

[Bart]

I don't think this god is a great addition.

Innovation: Very low. Pakellas doesn't bring anything new to the table. His abilities only empower or duplicate effects that are already available in the game.
Usefulness: Low in the beginning (no passive boosts, meaningful activated ability comes late, early gift is unreliable and might not help in survival). Medium in the middle of the game. Low again after you get holy wand trinity - unless RNG forgot to spawn recharge scrolls and you really want to spam wand of haste every fight.
Repetitiveness: High. You just go and spam your evokables; magic is too heavily discouraged. I believe we do not need another god that basically forces player into one direction (yes, Trog, I'm talking in particular about you).
Tedium: Very high. Inventory management + constant switching + constant hunger becomes annoying after first rod-heavy game (or even during it).

From a god of inventiveness I expected way more. I'm sorry for criticizing without providing tips on how to improve the god; at the moment I don't see a way of fixing these problems.

EDIT: Well, this seems to be a complaint I should have filled in GDD and not DCA, so maybe a dev can move it

[bcadren]

Usefulness: Low in the beginning (no passive boosts, meaningful activated ability comes late, early gift is unreliable and might not help in survival).

I'll disagree with this part strongly. Having all wands fully identified to start with is a -huge- boost.

[kuniqs]

I don't think this god is a great addition.

Innovation: Very low. Pakellas doesn't bring anything new to the table. His abilities only empower or duplicate effects that are already available in the game.
Usefulness: Low in the beginning (no passive boosts, meaningful activated ability comes late, early gift is unreliable and might not help in survival). Medium in the middle of the game. Low again after you get holy wand trinity - unless RNG forgot to spawn recharge scrolls and you really want to spam wand of haste every fight.
Repetitiveness: High. You just go and spam your evokables; magic is too heavily discouraged. I believe we do not need another god that basically forces player into one direction (yes, Trog, I'm talking in particular about you).
Tedium: Very high. Inventory management + constant switching + constant hunger becomes annoying after first rod-heavy game (or even during it).

From a god of inventiveness I expected way more. I'm sorry for criticizing without providing tips on how to improve the god; at the moment I don't see a way of fixing these problems.

EDIT: Well, this seems to be a complaint I should have filled in GDD and not DCA, so maybe a dev can move it

Innovation: Pakellas makes magic a limited resource, just like DD make hp a limited resource. Of course there's Makhleb which makes it kinda moot.
Usefulness: If you have any wands in the beginning, Pakellas is very useful. I've played an Artificier of Pakellas and it worked great in the start.
Repetitiveness: You can say the same thing about Sif Muna or Vehumet & conjurations. Pakellas is great if you want to become a dedicated stabber character.
Tedium: Pakellas actually reduced the wand tedium for me because I could carry only 1 instance of every wand I needed, instead of many for characters who couldn't recharge them on demand.

I suggest reducing the mp gained on kills because I've had 0 problems keeping my wands at full charge, which is kinda too strong IMO. I haven't even used rods in my playthrough.

[Bart]

I'll disagree with this part strongly. Having all wands fully identified to start with is a -huge- boost.

How many useful wands do you usually get in early game? Two maybe? You're telling me that two scrolls of identify are a huge boost?

Pakellas makes magic a limited resource, just like DD make hp a limited resource

Making something worse than normal is not innovative

If you have any wands in the beginning, Pakellas is very useful

If you have any wands in the beggining

Repetitiveness: You can say the same thing about Sif Muna or Vehumet & conjurations

So I pointed out: another god (besides, neither Sif Muna nor Vehumet exclude particular builds even if they get little support; the list of supported skills/spells/builds is also waaaay longer than the support for evocations)

Tedium: Pakellas actually reduced the wand tedium for me because I could carry only 1 instance of every wand I needed

Playing optimally you would keep these wands anyway, because recharging costs piety

I suggest reducing the mp gained on kills

If you want to reduce recharge potential, do it at the cost of piety and not at the cost of resource allowing you to get out of evocations-only mindset

[agentgt]

I would agree that Pakellas is not terribly original. To be honest with the exception of Ru and Fedhas I really don't think any of the gods are terrible innovative. Plus I'm not sure if innovative = fun.

I would also argue that Pakellas is strong in the beginning. The exception being you don't get wand early but the same could be said for players joining vehumet or sif muna with out magic. It could easily be fixed to have Pakellas gift wands more frequently or just have a wand near his altar (like chei has with slowing).

As far as tedium goes.. he is just as tedious as Nemelex.

Going back to innovation .. I really don't have any better ideas. Its sort of the same problem with piety gain. Its hard to come up with innovative piety gain. Piety on kill (direct or indirect ie gozag,fedhas) is pretty much the only piety system that works (aka nemelex and ely are honestly broken... even Sif's piety system is annoying).

I found Pakellas fun but I'm amused easily I suppose. I also found the wrath of not having magic interesting although to your point it completely screws over magic/melee balance.

[Lasty]

Split from the topic in DCA.
Edit: or does this belong in CYC? I'll leave that to another mod.

[Aethrus]

A bit tangential, but I found it discongruous that Pakellas is all about innovation and invention (Evo titles are *the brilliant, *the pioneer, etc.) but my character was dumb as a sack of bricks in Gold Dragon Armour waving wands around like an epileptic child in Ollivander's.

He seemed extremely strong, and I was wondering if his powers scaling with Int might make it less simple to just ignore intelligence and blast with evocable magic in heavy armor instead.

[tedric]

I've only played with Pak a bit so far, but my impression is that the mechanics feel more like species traits than god abilities. Which doesn't necessarily mean it should be turned into a species, because that would have its own set of problems.

[reaver]

I haven't tried Pekellas yet (been meaning to but I'm too busy to play much Crawl right now) but my first thought when I saw his mechanics was "wouldn't it be better to just make his abilities use a new unique resource instead of effectively banning spellcasting"

[milski]

I would agree that Pakellas is not terribly original. To be honest with the exception of Ru and Fedhas I really don't think any of the gods are terrible innovative. Plus I'm not sure if innovative = fun.

Elv, Chei, Qaz, and Gozag all limit your play in pretty significant ways as well; there's certainly more highly-innovative gods than just Ru and Fedhas.

I think there is a large difference between even the relatively boring passive gods and Pakellas in terms of uniqueness e.g. Vehumet already does MP on kill and gives you a unique range booster; he might be bland, but at least he adds to the design space. I think every god adds to the design space except Pakellas and *maybe* Sif, and Sif probably needs some rework if we judge based on the forum suggestions.

I agree with you that innovation doesn't necessarily equal fun, but if a god adds absolutely nothing new to the game, I don't think they are a good fit with Crawl's design philosophy. In that sense things need to be fun and at least slightly innovative to fit with Crawl's design.

[chequers]

Pakellas does add evo enhancers which are cool, I'd hate to see them go if the God doesn't work out. They could be another armour ego perhaps.

[dpeg]

Of the complaints in the OP, the one I can get behind is narrowness. I hope that removing the -Cast conduct addresses that, but we will see.

I would agree that Pakellas is not terribly original. To be honest with the exception of Ru and Fedhas I really don't think any of the gods are terrible innovative. Plus I'm not sure if innovative = fun.

I fully agree on that last equation. (For example, if Makhleb did not exist and would be invented now, that god would get exactly zero innovation points. But still be fun to many!)

However, I wonder: how do you actually measure innovation? I can say for sure that a number of gods have tried to push the envelope. Whether they succeeded and/or whether they're fun, these are separate questions. But is, for example, Cheibriados, dull now that he's old?

[milski]

Of the complaints in the OP, the one I can get behind is narrowness. I hope that removing the -Cast conduct addresses that, but we will see.

I would agree that Pakellas is not terribly original. To be honest with the exception of Ru and Fedhas I really don't think any of the gods are terrible innovative. Plus I'm not sure if innovative = fun.

I fully agree on that last equation. (For example, if Makhleb did not exist and would be invented now, that god would get exactly zero innovation points. But still be fun to many!)

However, I wonder: how do you actually measure innovation? I can say for sure that a number of gods have tried to push the envelope. Whether they succeeded and/or whether they're fun, these are separate questions. But is, for example, Cheibriados, dull now that he's old?

How is Mahkleb not unique? Instant health on kills, infinitely spammable invocations damage, and HP based invocations are all unique to him, correct? I find him kind of a "boring" god but he certainly expands the design space.

For what my opinion is worth, I like it when a god adds something unique to the game that can modify your playstyle. Almost every god that currently exists (aside from Pak and questionably Sif) succeeds by this definition, even if e.g. Vehu or Okawaru do so pretty marginally.

[Siegurt]

For what my opinion is worth, I like it when a god adds something unique to the game that can modify your playstyle. Almost every god that currently exists (aside from Pak and questionably Sif) succeeds by this definition, even if e.g. Vehu or Okawaru do so pretty marginally.

Having just played though my third pak game, he definitely modifies my play style. I won't say it is either amazing or terrible, but there is a definite and noticeable change, more so even than oka, sif, or veh. This is probably more as a result of his conduct than his powers though. (I like his conduct a lot, MP as a limited resource I feel works even better than hp as a limited resource)

I actually find oka to be the least "change your playstyle" god in the current pantheon, that isnt to say he isn't good, or powerful, or even fun, but he is almost exclusively "be better at what you were going to do anyway"

[tedric]

Just won a SpWr of Pak. I agree with Siegurt that the MP limitations did create some interesting changes in my playstyle, especially around making me think hard about when it was worth casting support spells. And of course having plenty of rods and wands meant I was willing to spam them (I'm way too conservative normally, especially with wands). I ended up with a well-enchanted rod of inaccuracy before I reached 6*, then got a second one that was the obvious target for Supercharging. Between the two of them I could snap off about a dozen bolts, which was a pretty reliable way to kill almost anything. But I spent much of the game using rod of Swarm, and later Shadows, to create meat-shields and land distraction stabs. I felt like I had a variety of tools to deal with things, but it was a somewhat different set than I would normally have, so I guess that's good. I felt like I was using relatively careful and thoughtful tactics right up to the end (when I narrowly survived ninja-ing the Orb by random teleports, which I'm not usually brave enough to do, but I had rF+++ and well-rounded defenses).

It will be interesting to see how other combos play, and in general I really like the mechanics around MP limitation and deciding how to spend it. But I still think Pak doesn't feel especially god-like. I'd expect a god of evokables to have a few special gadgets of its own that only followers get access to, or some ability to use evokables in ways that players normally can't (beyond "make them work better"). As it is, the abilities feel like things I'd expect to find on a species, probably in a more limited form.

[Sprucery]

The god of evokables could provide some use for all the extra fans, lamps, phials and stones of tremor you find. Perhaps some effect that would affect large parts of the level. The effect should be pretty strong, as the evokable should be destroyed in the process, I think.

I'm thinking something like a watery, fiery, windy and earthy versions of Lugonu's corruption, but then again it shouldn't be too much like corruption... just a thought.

[snow]

i played a game with this god. it was inventory management hell though and the god wasn't very strong. yeah the abilities were helpful but the opportunity cost wasn't worth it.
the god should be more passive. something like adding a flat 10% for status effect wands to work, and passive wand charges on exploration/faster recharging of stuff like sack of spiders.
the mp mechanic is lame and makes the god simply not fun.

[Kolbur]

My main issue with this god is that one of his 3 abilities he gives is scroll of recharging and another of his 3 abilities is super scroll of recharging. The god of scrolls of recharging, really?

I read the suggestion in chat that he could gift artefact rods. That would make him at least somewhat unique.

[Celerity]

My main issue with this god is that one of his 3 abilities he gives is scroll of recharging and another of his 3 abilities is super scroll of recharging. The god of scrolls of recharging, really?

This was my main gripe as well, and my suggestion was to give Surge some more unique effects when you use it with wands, i.e.:

Surge a Wand of Cold? Freezing Cloud.
Surge a Wand of Confusion? Mass Confusion.
Surge a Wand of Teleport? Controlled Teleport.

These might be OP at the current piety cost, but it could be adjusted to compensate.

I also think Supercharge is just not a good ability, flavor-wise. It doesn't feel epic enough to be 6*, it's not appropriately game-changing, and the decision about what to use it on is generally pretty simple. Instead, I might prefer to see a one-time prayer for an artifact rod with a uniquely randomized spellset. Current Supercharge could be moved to a repeatable ability that permanently adds 10% max charge to a wand or rod.

[o_O]

Pakellas is unique because otherwise you will not have rods. I found pak to be rather strong because of the unlimited wand of haste and tele. Being able to soften up enemies and make everyone stand in clouds was useful as well, considering it only required moderate investment in a single skill. Mana not recharging is more or less made up for by mana for kills ( although I was a vs so it was mana on melee). At no time did I have any issues using low level buffs and utility spells.

Inventory management was annoying, but not too bad because I could drop the redundant potions and scrolls.

Supercharged rods of iron or lightening are lots of fun, and reasonably strong.

[Lacuenta]

After playing a bit with Pak I found him rather weak and boring. Althugh the concept of a god which lets you use rods and evocables as a main weapon really appeals to me, the only thing I really got out of him is a free rod and some recharging I didn't really need all that much. If I wanted to win I'd only choose him if I found an early wand of hw.

Gozag does a better job as rodgod, since a single gadget shop nets you about all the evocables Pak will gift you during a 3 runer.
Pak needs something extra, maybe he can gift you melded rods, like; the rod of igniting clouds, which will fire as ignition and clouds simultanously.
Or you know, give him a passive that lets you use rods from inventory, bit like old nemelex circumvented deck wielding.

[Parzival]

I think that rather than having an ability to recharge your evocables, Pakellas should tie wand usage to MP directly. Reduces micro and gives more space to design.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Of the complaints in the OP, the one I can get behind is narrowness. I hope that removing the -Cast conduct addresses that, but we will see.

Out of curiosity, why is it considered bad for one god that supports alternatives to spellcasting to have a hard -Cast conduct, but great (indeed, non-negotiable) for another god that supports alternatives to spellcasting to have a hard -Cast conduct?

[Blink Frog]

I like Pakellas. She's fun.

Basically, in exchange for casting magic normally, I get infinite bolts of my choice, enslavement, paralysis, terrain alteration, haste, invisibility, teleportation, and healing. All my recharge scrolls give me the option to max out a second rod too. That's pretty sweet.

Granted, Pak's not as exotic as some of her brethren, but I like playing with her. Good job.

[tasonir]

Of the complaints in the OP, the one I can get behind is narrowness. I hope that removing the -Cast conduct addresses that, but we will see.

Out of curiosity, why is it considered bad for one god that supports alternatives to spellcasting to have a hard -Cast conduct, but great (indeed, non-negotiable) for another god that supports alternatives to spellcasting to have a hard -Cast conduct?

To be fair, OP said that one -Cast god was enough, and was mostly against adding another one. I'd think it should come down to the power level argument - Trog is so powerful that being able to cast as well would be too strong, as well as unflavorful. Is Pakellas strong enough to need -Cast to adjust the power level? While most damage effects, haste, and heal wounds can come from wands/rods, you're missing blinking, regeneration, swiftness, level 9 spells, DDoor, etc. Does Pak need those to be strong enough? I don't have any Pak experience to draw on but it seems like it's considered strong enough as it stands now?

If you really wanted to enable spellcasting you'd probably have to allow mana regeneration and move wand recharging to a unique resource of some sort...might be possible to make it work off piety alone, but I haven't thought that through, no promises.

[wheals]

To be clear, the -Cast conduct was removed shortly before (or perhaps a bit after) merging.

[torus]

Hi, first post, and sorry for the thread resurrection, but:

I think Pakellas is quite broken when playing in combo with a Deep Dwarfs.

As an deep dwarf you get your starting wand of healing. Once you get Paks recharge capability going you effectively negate the deep dwarfs biggest drawback: The inability to regenerate health.

This turns turns deep dwarf artificers into a nearly immortal machine of doom, often before finding lair.

Some other observations I've made:

The wand recharge ability could need some work. In practice it is not an advantage to save up magic points and do a big recharge because you get at least one charge even if you're down on 1MP. That makes "kill a rat then recharge, kill a rat then recharge, repeat until all wands are maxed out" a fool proof yet tedious strategy. Piety loss in my test game was not an issue.

Suggestion: Somewhat limit how often you can recharge. There could be an enforced delay between recharges based on how many tiles you have explored. This would be better than a turn based delay because you can't just wait it out.

His second ability doesn't seem to do much. In my opinion it could just be replaced with something unique. One idea that I have would be the ability to lend a very powerful evocable rod from Pak for one time use, somewhat similar to delayed fireball, another one would be to remove the inert status from all carried evocable items like stone of tremors.

I like the idea about this god in general, and I enjoyed my test game but in the deep dwarf combo he seems to strong.

[edgefigaro]

My Felid of Pak was the only cat I have ever run that felt broken-strong. I also ran a VPAM^pakellas recently and he was stupid powerful. Infinite bolts of everything wrecks the mid-lategame.

I think his * ability needs rethought. I really don't understand or like it tbh, but it is quite powerful. His second ability is meh.

I abandoned pakellas for shits and giggles on the vampire, switch to dith, and wrath was a bitch. No MP regen. Reminded me of how ash wrath plays.

[Sar]

So apparently Pakellas wrath drains you or your wand charges, and if you don't carry wands you get drained more often. Seems like it encourages carrying junk wands, which doesn't seem very good. Or am I misunderstanding the mechanics?

[le_nerd]

Yes, and also dropping valuable wands until the wrath is over. Bad design.

[edgefigaro]

Yah, I dunno. Endgame all you want is heal, and maybe tele, haste, or invis. You should have a ton of ?recharging. I used a ?recharging during the wrath on my heal wand, but the rest I just waited out.

The reason wrath is troublesome is because you abandon pak for spellcasting, but can't take advantage of it til you mollify him. The wand draining is rather trivial.

[Sprucery]

So maybe Pakellas wrath should just drain all wands in the game?

[Sar]

Yes, and also dropping valuable wands until the wrath is over.

I thought about it too, but really, you only can get rid of wrath by gaining XP and if you don't need those wands to help you gain XP (kill monsters) they're not that valuable, are they?