The Tavern

it's a fiddly little ability whose tactical application requires inventorying books and often goes underutilized for being so annoying
deciding between an immediate piety gain and landmine on one hand, and saving books in case one abandons Trog on the other, is poor flavor (what kind of berserker are ya?) and causes consternation despite having ultimately little impact if you decide to never burn books at all
Trog's piety gain is smooth enough that it does not need to be boosted by books
removing any player ability is a strict nerf, book burning is strong, and this is a fine way to nerf Trog
the tutorial misleadingly creates the impression that book mines are a major reason to take Trog
Burn Book be invoked directly onto monsters; taking this advantageous versatility for granted leads players to underestimate Conjure Flame
Trog's book-burning vault can be kept and makes just as much sense when it's the only instance of book-burning in the game
books can be thrown, not just dropped, which was never intended
Burn Book always gets in the way of proposals to streamline book collection, because Burn Book is the only way to interact with books in the game, other than memorizing from them and using them to forget a spell
having Trog allow you to collect books would not really be strange, since Trog allows you to do many spell-related things so long as you refrain from actually casting, such as using magic staves and pain weapons, quaffing magic/brilliance, reading amnesia, wearing Archmagi, etc.

it's cool

Sar wrote:
it's cool

What a bulletproof counterargument. Every time someone suggests changing or removing a feature, someone else shows up to say "but someone likes it the way it is!" Everyone knows that. Everyone obviously knows that. Why even bring it up?

easy thanks

I'll defend Trog's book power with a burning passion. You should all go at the stake. Stop the crucible on flavour!

I don't suppose you have an actual defence of it, instead of just a statement that you'll defend it?

Book burning is cool and basically irrelevant to gameplay, and sometimes it feels cool when you cheese an enemy with it. You may as well keep it.

ok Tabs, but even from that POV, why not change to something less irritating, like pizzas?

If you like book burning so much, you can give it to Sif Muna when you virtualize collected books. What does Sif keep saying to you? "I know many secrets." Doesn't it want to keep those secrets secret? Fat chance, with all those tomes lying around. Make books explode in a cloud of flame when they come into view, and have their spells automatically inscribed into your master-book. This can even be relevant, in book-on-an-island scenarios, like with the two orc wizards behind a moat, and Sif Muna's altar, taunting you. Yay book burning.

Now, is that good enough to defend with a burning passion?

Well, removing books as physical items that take up inv space altogether would be better. but I'm not counting on that happening.

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:Now, is that good enough to defend with a burning passion?

no, because the flavor's not quite as good. either way it's not a big deal really. there's no pressing need to remove book burning. I usually just turn books off autopickup on trog and burn them on sight instead of carrying them, and it doesn't really fuck up my survival chances or anything because I'm trog follower so I'm good

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:
it's a fiddly little ability whose tactical application requires inventorying books and often goes underutilized for being so annoying
deciding between an immediate piety gain and landmine on one hand, and saving books in case one abandons Trog on the other, is poor flavor (what kind of berserker are ya?) and causes consternation despite having ultimately little impact if you decide to never burn books at all
Trog's piety gain is smooth enough that it does not need to be boosted by books
removing any player ability is a strict nerf, book burning is strong, and this is a fine way to nerf Trog
the tutorial misleadingly creates the impression that book mines are a major reason to take Trog
Burn Book be invoked directly onto monsters; taking this advantageous versatility for granted leads players to underestimate Conjure Flame
Trog's book-burning vault can be kept and makes just as much sense when it's the only instance of book-burning in the game
books can be thrown, not just dropped, which was never intended
Burn Book always gets in the way of proposals to streamline book collection, because Burn Book is the only way to interact with books in the game, other than memorizing from them and using them to forget a spell
having Trog allow you to collect books would not really be strange, since Trog allows you to do many spell-related things so long as you refrain from actually casting, such as using magic staves and pain weapons, quaffing magic/brilliance, reading amnesia, wearing Archmagi, etc.

the thing with making a huge list like this is that it's impossible to reply to. i could try to answer point-by-point, but that quickly becomes unreadable. if you have an argument to make, you shouldn't need more than a couple of points to make it; somewhere north of nine different disconnected bullets is just you tossing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. it's a waste of readers' time. who benefits from seeing discussion about "book burning makes cflame look bad"? decide what your strong arguments are, and post those.

here would be my own shortlist:

The UI for throwing and burning books is significantly more complex than we try to make our abilities. (Since it involves (F)iring, selecting a book, targeting a square, then choosing the burn books ability.)
Book burning gets in the way of streamlining book mechanics.

my counterarguments:

Book throwing isn't used nearly as often as most abilities; you're not going to toss and burn books as many times as e.g. you cast conjure flame in a given game, because you've got a pretty limited supply of books. That means it's okay - not ideal, but okay - to have a clunkier interface.
I've yet to see a super compelling book reform that would require removing book burning.

I think that's generally good advise, however
I intended for the OP to act as a compendium of reasons to remove Burn Book.
It even points out why the flavor, while compelling in theory, is poor in practice.
I believe it is necessary because hoops are jumped to preserve Burn Book, and we easily forget how unworthy of preservation it is. It even deserves to be removed unnecessarily, let alone to enable other changes.
A mass of disadvantages helps that cause. It reminds us of the sparsity of advantages Burn Book has going for it, however little.

PleasingFungus wrote:I've yet to see a super compelling book reform that would require removing book burning.

You pick up a book, its spells are moved to a non-inventory master-book, and the book disappears. No "telepathic memorization from anywhere" required, no pointless spell-book persistence. But books can't be used tactically.

i'd be alright with trog burning all books immediately, even after you abandon him.

duvessa wrote:
Sar wrote:
it's cool
What a bulletproof counterargument. Every time someone suggests changing or removing a feature, someone else shows up to say "but someone likes it the way it is!" Everyone knows that. Everyone obviously knows that. Why even bring it up?

Because some features breaks game while other don't. There is no point to remove book burning if this feature doesn't do any harm.
And I don't understand why things like decks and hammers was axed.

all before wrote:i'd be alright with trog burning all books immediately, even after you abandon him.

Umm...

it would end after wrath, right?

no way in hell the devs/players would let worshipping a god have permanent ramifications

except ru, because ru

By the way, when we (jpeg and I brought this up, on two different occasions) suggested this, the tactical application we had in mind was dropping books and setting them alight. We didn't think of throwing books, to be honest. So I wouldn't mind making books items that cannot be thrown.

Some features sit between flavour, humour and tactical gadget. Aside Trog's book burning, I could mention Beogh's water walking. It is not so easy to come up with powers that are strong in flavour and good for something. I am hopelessly biased because book burning was my idea, but I really think it helps shape Trog in the eyes of a (new) player. I want my gods to have strong personalities, and not just slot machines.

Thrown books and scrolls automatically catch fire when worshipping ()

dpeg wrote:throwing books

My eyes are now open. My hand will soon wield the Book Of Molotov.

The Tavern

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