God Idea: Eel'Nodnarb, god of Unarmed Combat

[infinitevox]

Eel'Nodnarb, god of unarmed combat:
takes a slightly different approach to rewarding worshippers. Instead of just granting abilities, Eel'Nodnarb instills information and training, to both body and mind. This information and training allows worshippers to achieve new levels of combat prowess, unreachable by any other means.

Appreciates:
- Defeating enemies without the use of weapons
- Defeating a large number of foes in a short period of time

Does not appreciate:
- Wielding a weapon (Rods do not count)
- Inactivity

Abandonment:
- An exact duplicate of you appears nearby, you then lose all god given abilities, training, and information. This duplicate follows you until defeated.

God Abilities:
(......) Yellow Belt - Armour Training (passive): Encumbrance Rating reduced by 2
(*.....) Red Belt: - Fast Hands (passive): 33% chance to make an additional melee attack
(**....) Green Belt: - Overextend: Permanently sacrifice a stat point of your choosing, gain a temporary Slay bonus. Costs small piety, mana, stat point (Invo increases duration, bonus = piety level)
(***...) Brown Belt: - No Additional Abilities
(****..) Blue Belt: - Fists of Fury (passive): Choose a brand from a list, that brand is now applied to all of your unarmed attacks
(*****.) Purple Belt: - After Image (passive): If incoming damage >25% of your max hp, 20% chance to avoid that damage completely
(******) Black Belt: - Change Brand: Allows you to change the brand of your Fists of Fury. Costs large piety, hunger


Currently, there is no way for unarmed attacks to apply brands, and no way to gain enhancement bonuses from a weapon - This god helps with that, in a way that doesn't tread on Trog or Okawaru.
This god could also help out spellcasters, as the reduced ER allows them to bump up to the next armor type without sacrificing casting ability.


Other Thoughts:
- Overextend could give both Slay & Spellpower, but I don't know if that broadens the theme of the god too much
- After Image damage avoidance % could be based off of Invo, to allow scaling and require skill investment to be of good use
- Damage bonus from Fists of Fury could also scale off of Invo
- Change Brand could be removed completely, which would require a lot more thought into the brand a player acquires, but I thought the keystone ability to change it would allow transition into extended with this god
- Fists of Fury could be changed to an active ability, duration scaling off of invo, which would allow flexibility in the brand, but require the player to activate it. I put it as passive for now to avoid the tedious UI interaction there
- Fists of Fury remains even if you fall below its piety threshold, once you have gained that ability, you don't lose it unless you abandon the god

[duvessa]

I don't think "God of [weapon skill]" is a good starting point for design.

[infinitevox]

I've thought about that too.
Having the conduct actually be "God of [weapon skill]", where all the abilities only apply if you're wielding your weapon of choice... but that did seem tedious and not really all that fun.
I really would like to see unarmed branding in the game, this is just another one of the ways I think it would be good to implement it.

Any thoughts on what kind of god would grant that kind of ability? I still like the elemental god idea I posted, but there were some design flaws there that I haven't thought of an elegant solution to yet.

*edit*
On a further note, I realize god of UC has been suggested a lot before, and it is always shot down, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.
I understand what you're saying though, it could come off as a bit gimmicky or something to some people.

[Shtopit]

Quatzal or whatever his name would have been a good candidate to adding elemental flavour to unarmed attacks. A conjuration/charms spell could do the same for a small amount of time, however. Maybe it would be better to work in this direction. Adding some artefacts with flavours would also be nice.

[crate]

okawaru already gives UC double damage once you get to 1*, so I don't think creating a different UC god has much space to work

[HANFGEIST]

Recneps D'Ub

[Quazifuji]

Personally, I think Dithmenos is an example of a good design for a god designed with a specific playstyle in mind. Dithmenos was designed with stealth in mind, but the reason Dithmenos made it into the game after many, many stealth god proposals before it failed, and the reason I think he's a good god design, is that he's not exclusively or explicitly a stealth god. He has no conduct regarding stealth and no abilities that are useless for non-stealthy characters. Instead, he has an assortment of useful abilities, all of which have at least some form of synergy with a stabber playstyle, but all of which can also benefit any other character.

If you want to make a god of unarmed combat, I think this is the approach to take. Don't make a god with abilities or conduct that just straight up say "this god is for unarmed characters only." Instead, find ways to create abilities that are generally useful, but have particularly strong synergy with unarmed. Calling the god "god of unarmed combat" instantly turns people away because that's a boring concept.

Of course, you also have to consider the issue Crate brings up, which is that Okawaru essentially already fits this description.

[dowan]

It's hard to imagine using overextend unless it gives a hell of a slaying bonus. Losing a few stat points isn't crippling, of course, but it is a pretty high cost.