Remove MP Cost of Deity-Given Abilities

[jwoodward48ss]

Thematically and Flavour-Wise: You're calling upon a God. You aren't using any of your magic to do so. You're just asking Chei to smite the unnaturally quick. Why do I use magic to do so? (An argument could be made for Yred's "Animate Whatever" ability to be "Yred guiding your own magic," except it uses Invocations, NOT Necromancy.

Stuff that the Devs Actually Care About-Wise: It's kind of edging in on magic's thing to have Invo use MP. I get why it's used - to prevent spamming. But spamming isn't sustainable. It just won't work. With this change, if I have a tough battle, sure I can spam. But I can't spam Slouch on every group of rats. A spam-limiter already exists - it's called piety.

And besides, spamming a-x a-x a-x isn't more tedious or different from spamming z-a z-a z-a z-a z-a.

(also remove piety rot - we already have a clock - it's called food)

[Brannock]

Thematically and Flavour-Wise: You're calling upon a God. You aren't using any of your magic to do so. You're just asking Chei to smite the unnaturally quick. Why do I use magic to do so? (An argument could be made for Yred's "Animate Whatever" ability to be "Yred guiding your own magic," except it uses Invocations, NOT Necromancy.

And if "Magic" was instead renamed "Energy", absolutely nothing else was changed, would this argument still hold up?

[PowerOfKaishin]

Magic is actually already energy a la flavor messages for high or low mp mutations. And you could easily argue energy as being separate from simply being a spirited God connected person

[Shard1697]

You're calling upon a God. You aren't using any of your magic to do so.

Well, you are, though. It's not a crazy idea that you would use magic to call upon your god.

[and into]

Flavor argument goes whatever way. Evocable abilities +invis, +flight, +blink also take MP, so in terms of consistency it doesn't seem so strange that most invocations would require MP.

No MP cost would actually be a big buff to invocations (and indirectly to spells), which frankly doesn't seem necessary, and would make MP draining attacks matter even less than they already do.

The only upshot that I see is that the rare antimagic ego might be slightly less niche, which I would welcome. But doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to be honest.

[bcadren]

If you want a weird one. the 3 MP to fly...with your own wings.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Other reasons to get rid of invo MP costs:

It is generally irrelevant, especially if you're not playing a char that casts much. MP costs for invos are pretty low and you generally don't want to invoke a lot in a row, so there's usually enough MP. To the point that it's very easy to forget that the MP cost even exists! So that when you end up trying to invoke with insufficient MP, it's like the game is going "lol you forgot there's an MP cost". Prob the god most heavily impacted is Chei because its invos cost a lot of MP and you can realistically want to use several in a row, but Chei could use a buff, right?

MP costs artificially bias most gods against spellcasting. God abilities are supposed to help you when your primary abilities are not good enough. This works fine enough if you're a meleedude, but you can find yourself unable to invoke if you've been casting. Imagine that using too much invo shut off melee, or too much melee shut off invo - that would be terrible! But that's what happens if you switch 'melee' to 'spellcasting', for most gods. This is part of what leads people to excessively choose Sif/Veh for their spellcasters - so that their god can act like a god instead of having a competing school of magic.

There's also guardian spirit and ghost moths.

[yesno]

Other reasons to get rid of invo MP costs:

It is generally irrelevant, especially if you're not playing a char that casts much. MP costs for invos are pretty low and you generally don't want to invoke a lot in a row, so there's usually enough MP. To the point that it's very easy to forget that the MP cost even exists! So that when you end up trying to invoke with insufficient MP, it's like the game is going "lol you forgot there's an MP cost". Prob the god most heavily impacted is Chei because its invos cost a lot of MP and you can realistically want to use several in a row, but Chei could use a buff, right?

MP costs artificially bias most gods against spellcasting. God abilities are supposed to help you when your primary abilities are not good enough. This works fine enough if you're a meleedude, but you can find yourself unable to invoke if you've been casting. Imagine that using too much invo shut off melee, or too much melee shut off invo - that would be terrible! But that's what happens if you switch 'melee' to 'spellcasting', for most gods. This is part of what leads people to excessively choose Sif/Veh for their spellcasters - so that their god can act like a god instead of having a competing school of magic.

There's also guardian spirit and ghost moths.

i don't really get this problem. a divine ability adds another option that i can use when i choose to spend mp. if i'm a spellcaster with divine abilities, i just regard invocations as covering for a spell school that i don't have to train. like if i do a lot of spellcasting and i worship yred, i train invo instead of necro, get a cheap animate dead, plus drain life, and then just regard those as additional spellcasting options whose value per mp i evaluate alongside my other options.

So that when you end up trying to invoke with insufficient MP, it's like the game is going "lol you forgot there's an MP cost".

i mean why would you forget there's an mp cost. you deserve to be lold at in this situation imo.

[jwoodward48ss]

But gods should be distinct from "do what they want, get special spells"!

[HardboiledGargoyle]

i don't really get this problem.

I don't understand how you don't see a problem in "most gods are anti-magic", how do I even respond to that? I insist that the game is more interesting if most gods don't interfere with your spellcasting.

a divine ability adds another option that i can use when i choose to spend mp.

wow, if you think of spells (and abilities) as "something to spend mp on" first and foremost, you may be the first person in the world to do so. Magic comes first, and MP exists because spells exist. It would be pretty absurd for a Crawl that has no player-castable spells to still have MP.

i mean why would you forget there's an mp cost. you deserve to be lold at in this situation imo.

The reason you can easily forget is this: the MP cost may matter only once every other game or so, if you're an armordude without guardian spirit, and even then you can often just quaff !magic, assuming that you bother carrying it.

A good question to ask: what does the MP cost for divine abilities add to the game? Why is it a good idea? This must have been deliberated by the devs when they made the last few gods, since they had to settle on a definite MP cost.

[Shard1697]

A good question to ask: what does the MP cost for divine abilities add to the game? Why is it a good idea? This must have been deliberated by the devs when they made the last few gods, since they had to settle on a definite MP cost.

It can put you in a situation where you must choose between using a god power or casting a spell. It's not exactly common, but it's not like it doesn't ever happen.

[Brannock]

If anything I think most god abilities are severely undercosted magic-wise.

[lethediver]

If this happens then raising invocations should no longer raise your MP.

Personally, the only time I've ever had MP cost on abilities be relevant is when something with an antimagic attack is attacking me. Not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

[jwoodward48ss]

Sure. It won't affect Trog anyway, he only lets you train Evo.

Have you ever played Chei, lethediver?

[PleasingFungus]

If you want a weird one. the 3 MP to fly...with your own wings.

but the flight keeps working even if you're paralysed, turned to stone, or porkalated, so really it all balances out.

[lethediver]

Sure. It won't affect Trog anyway, he only lets you train Evo.

Have you ever played Chei, lethediver?

Yes, but the mp cost didnt rly effect me because i was a transmuter. I only had to spend like 6 mp every 40 turns on spells.

[dpeg]

(also remove piety rot - we already have a clock - it's called food)

I think the whole original posting is off the mark, but I'll have to comment on this one.

It's a core belief of this forum that the food clock is mostly dysfunctional (it does matter a bit for Spriggan casters, or if you're berserking a lot on a non-carnivore, or perhaps with Gozag). By contrast, the piety clock is much more functional. It is not so easy to properly address food (because it is involved with many things), but getting rid of a better clock is definitely not a solution (to a non-existing problem no less).

[jwoodward48ss]

but then atheists would all scum!

also, we have ood clock, after which nothing happens. What "scumming" can you do without monsters?

if you want to prevent scumming even more

JUST REMOVE SPAWNING AFTER LEVELGEN

[genericpseudonym]

but then atheists would all scum!

also, we have ood clock, after which nothing happens. What "scumming" can you do without monsters?

if you want to prevent scumming even more

JUST REMOVE SPAWNING AFTER LEVELGEN

this would lead to mummies mashing 5 for thousands of turns while standing on the upstair, waiting for a single enemy at a time to wander over to them

bonus points if they worship gozag/ru to avoid piety decay

[Arrhythmia]

but then atheists would all scum!

also, we have ood clock, after which nothing happens. What "scumming" can you do without monsters?

if you want to prevent scumming even more

JUST REMOVE SPAWNING AFTER LEVELGEN

this would lead to mummies mashing 5 for thousands of turns while standing on the upstair, waiting for a single enemy at a time to wander over to them

bonus points if they worship gozag/ru to avoid piety decay

They could also worship Chei!

[HardboiledGargoyle]

If anything I think most god abilities are severely undercosted magic-wise.

For what reason is this? Maybe for making existing MP costs meaningful, assuming they must exist?
Piety-costing abilities are generally so powerful that you're quite unlikely to be using them lots of times within one combat, therefore there is no simple way (that I see) to make them both available to most chars, at all, and meaningfully restricted by MP.
In giving heavy magic costs to divine abilities, you give brawler-type chars emergency buttons that mage-type chars can't have. You virtually force players to go melee if they want to experience gods in their full capacity. (I'm speaking broadly.)
This alone is a compelling reason to strip MP cost from divine abilities.