God of Summoning Magic

[Nekoatl]

Why add one? Two reasons. Asthetically, there is a spellbook for Conjurations, Necromancy, Summoning, and Translocations so special that Sif Muna will not gift it, so I'd like to see a dedicated god for each of those 4 schools of magic. Mechanically, I find dedicated summoners to be extraordinarily frustrating to play due to the unreliable nature of summoning magic and the XP penalties involved in using it, to the point where I'd happily give up any other divine benefits and other magic schools to alleviate them.

Without further ado:

God of Summoning Magic "Anrita"

Appreciates
Kills performed by summoned allies
Training the Summoning skill

Deprecates
Abandoning her
Casting spells without the Summoning school (penance)
* Does not punish spells cast by Spellforged Servitor

Abilities (all passive)
[*-----] Increased XP from summoned allies' kills
* XP allocated to summoned allies is reduced by (piety / 2)% of the summoned ally's normal share
* At max piety, 100% of XP is awarded to the player
[**----] Abjuration resistance
* Abjuration spells and effects against your summoned allies have a (piety / 2)% chance of failure
* At max piety, summoned allies are immune to abjuration effects
[****--] Restore MP when a summoned ally is killed
* Random amount 0-X
* X is the spell level of the spell used to summon the ally
[*****-] Restore HP when a summoned ally kills a non-summoned enemy
* Random amount 0-X
* X is the HD of the killed enemy

Gifts
[------] Book of Callings
[***---] Book of Summonings
[******] Grand Grimoire
Beyond max piety, random spellbooks containing unknown Summoning spells on a 100 timeout

Punishments
Abjure summoned allies
Summon enemies

[VeryAngryFelid]

It looks like Trog of summoners, extremely powerful and extremely limiting conduct (no Blink spell, no RMsl, no Haste spell etc.).
I suggest to replace "Kills performed by summoned allies" with standard "Kills" like with other gods, we don't want players to melee monsters to almost dead and them summon something for final kill.

[Nekoatl]

I suggest to replace "Kills performed by summoned allies" with standard "Kills" like with other gods, we don't want players to melee monsters to almost dead and them summon something for final kill.

If that were done, I'd suggest removing the Book of Callings from the gifts section, as it's already redundant to the Summoner background and the main reason I put it there was so that devotees would have a way to start building piety.

Edit: Maybe change it to the Book of Beasts instead so it's not redundant and still gives other worshipers a level 1 spell to start training the Summonings skill with.

[ontoclasm]

Gods dedicated to one specific playstyle are sort of dull, and have been on the out for... well, pretty much the entirety of DCSS's development. A few remain from the old days, but you'll notice that all the newer ones (and by "new" I'm talking like, since Beogh) try to cater to many, if not all, different kinds of characters. Ru is great for anyone, for instance. It's okay to have the god emphasize a certain thing -- Dithmenos loves stealth, Qazlal pretty much negates it entirely -- but this proposal is tailor-made to work for pure summoners and pure summoners only.

Even putting that all aside, there are some core problems here. First, several of the powers, including piety gain itself, rely on having a summon kill stuff. Do you know how irritating it is to make sure a summon gets the last hit, over and over and over again for the whole game? It's really irritating. Really, really irritating. Beogh used to require it and it was awful.

Second, balance is not a big deal for proposals, but this god is staggeringly weak. You give up all non-Summoning spells and the ability to help your summons in melee (since you lose piety by doing so) in favor of almost nothing, since XP reduction is nigh-unto meaningless, abjuration hardly ever happens in the first place, and summon caps mean that the "spam Summon Scorpions until you're out of MP" strategy is long dead at this point. So you're left with mediocre MP regen and mediocre HP regen.

Thirdly, several gods already provide support for summoners. Sif Muna gifts summon spells and gives you MP regen. TSO directly buffs allies with things like increased duration and healing, and the halo improves their accuracy immensely. Fedhas gives you mushrooms and oklobs to support your summons. Your proposal is fighting to carve out a niche in an area already occupied by several gods, all less one-dimensional than this one.

[Nekoatl]

Gods dedicated to one specific playstyle are sort of dull, and have been on the out for... well, pretty much the entirety of DCSS's development. A few remain from the old days, but you'll notice that all the newer ones (and by "new" I'm talking like, since Beogh) try to cater to many, if not all, different kinds of characters. Ru is great for anyone, for instance. It's okay to have the god emphasize a certain thing -- Dithmenos loves stealth, Qazlal pretty much negates it entirely -- but this proposal is tailor-made to work for pure summoners and pure summoners only.

You're right, it's a very focused god that would only appeal to characters specifically focusing on Summoning. If similar gods like Kiku and Vehumet are being phased out, then I would say a god isn't a good way to address summoners' issues. But really, the way summoners are right now, when I want to focus on Summoning magic, I usually pick a wizard and use Call Imp to encourage Sif Muna to give me Summoning spells because the summoner background is so frustrating to deal with whether I try to go for pure Summoning or a Summoning/melee hybrid.

Even putting that all aside, there are some core problems here. First, several of the powers, including piety gain itself, rely on having a summon kill stuff. Do you know how irritating it is to make sure a summon gets the last hit, over and over and over again for the whole game? It's really irritating. Really, really irritating. Beogh used to require it and it was awful.

My first attempts to play a summoner focused on training Summoning magic as my primary kill method, and doing that meant that most enemies were killed by summons. This left me underlevelled in the midgame, but when I suggested removing the XP penalty, people complained that Summoning magic would be too powerful without it. So, I tried to create penalties to non-summoning play as a compromise between these concerns. It's not something I'm attached to, but just seemed like a thematically appropriate way to address concerns of Summoning magic being overpowered without the XP penalty.

Second, balance is not a big deal for proposals, but this god is staggeringly weak. You give up all non-Summoning spells and the ability to help your summons in melee (since you lose piety by doing so) in favor of almost nothing, since XP reduction is nigh-unto meaningless, abjuration hardly ever happens in the first place, and summon caps mean that the "spam Summon Scorpions until you're out of MP" strategy is long dead at this point. So you're left with mediocre MP regen and mediocre HP regen.

I haven't play tested this, because I'd have to learn C++ to implement it, and I didn't want to invest the time to do that without first confirming that there's a chance a suggestion like this might eventually be accepted. But, I don't intend that devotees should have to give up melee combat at all. I thought it would be nice to reward devotees for using Summoning magic, and that not getting piety or HP recovery for kills by the player wouldn't be a big deal without piety costs and on the assumption that much of incoming damage would be soaked by summons. If it ends up making players feel like they can't melee, however, then I'd want to change that.

The first 2 abilities aren't intended to make characters appreciably stronger, but just to make the summoning playstyle more robust. The real perk is meant to be the HP and MP recovery. I considered having the HP and MP recovery scale with Invocations skill, but worried they might be OP if they proc'd at full power each time. If every time a summoned monster is killed, you get an MP refund equal to the cost to cast it, then you could literally just keep spamming summons without regard for MP... and that's before even considering spells that summon multiple allies like Summon Butterflies or Dragon's Call. I do want to alleviate the problem of summons just getting mowed down by strong enemies before they actually contribute to the fight, potentially leaving a summoner with no MP and little to no progress against the enemy, but I want to preserve the importance of choosing how and when to fight.

Thirdly, several gods already provide support for summoners. Sif Muna gifts summon spells and gives you MP regen. TSO directly buffs allies with things like increased duration and healing, and the halo improves their accuracy immensely. Fedhas gives you mushrooms and oklobs to support your summons. Your proposal is fighting to carve out a niche in an area already occupied by several gods, all less one-dimensional than this one.

Sif Muna is good for all types of magic, including Conjurations and Necromancy, but she's not as good for dedicated Conjurers or Necromancers characters. I don't think it's wrong to have both specialist gods and generalist gods to choose from, but that's just my opinion.

TSO is my current god of choice for dedicated summoners, but I don't consider him an ideal choice for several reasons:
* He forbids access to evil Summoning magic.
* The removal of invisibility as a concern reduces the "choose the right tool for the job" aspect of play.
* He disapproves of sneak attacks, meaning you can't attack distracted intelligent monsters.

[Shard1697]

I do think it would be really good if TSO just suppressed the damage/accuracy bonus from stabs but didn't prevent you from hitting distracted monsters, it's pretty annoying

[Shtopit]

  Code:

As The Shining One warns the unwary kobold of your incoming strike, a thundering voice booms: "FOR HONOUR!"
The kobold is now alerted!
You slice the kobold into ribbons!

[goodcoolguy]

This would be a case of doubling down on a bad mechanic. Introducing a god of something bad, e.g. curses, will have negative consequences down the road.

[lethediver]

This feels way too bland to me. Like it literally is just summoner that gets some free hp and mp. Its not even really clear that the hp and mp will really help since if somethings getting past your summon wall then its also not getting killed by your summons and you cant fight back With the mp anyway or else penance.

[Psieye]

I don't think it's wrong to have both specialist gods and generalist gods to choose from, but that's just my opinion.

It is an opinion that runs contrary to the developers' policy.

The crux of the issue: why do you want to indirectly buff Summoning with a new god? If it's for the mechanical feel of having an army, there already are gods who achieve this: Makhleb, Nemelex and Yredelemnul to name a few. If it's purely for the flavour/conduct of casting summons, you won't get far in convincing people.

[Lasty]

I think other posters have done a good job of giving the necessary feedback here, but since it seems like Nekoatl is still considering moving forward with this project, I want to be clear: the proposed god would not be accepted by the devs, but you're welcome to code it for your own amusement of course.

In terms of the motivation behind the god, I think you should investigate your sense that summoners are difficult to play or that they need dedicated support or that the support they need is lacking. Summoning is one of the if not the strongest magic school in the game; simply being able to acquire and cast a small handful of summoning spells is enough to almost guarantee victory, and we already have a god that will gift you more summoning spells and also give you more mana to cast them and also make it easier to cast them sooner (Sif).

[bcadren]

Second, balance is not a big deal for proposals, but this god is staggeringly weak. You give up all non-Summoning spells and the ability to help your summons in melee (since you lose piety by doing so) in favor of almost nothing, since XP reduction is nigh-unto meaningless, abjuration hardly ever happens in the first place...

TSO directly buffs allies with things like increased duration and healing, and the halo improves their accuracy immensely.

Although I don't support the proposal as written I would like to dispute these points.

I used a few averaging functions with Sequell and found that characters with highest skill being Summoning are 1 XL lower on average entering Lair and 2 Lower by Vaults. You can call it negligible if you like, but not meaningless. That said, form personal experience if you rely completely on summons, instead of going into melee at all (like say a FeSu), the disparity is larger than that (like 3-4 levels by vaults). In my experience it's less than negligible, because your defenses end up being lower than other characters (including other mages), leaving you vulnerable to being shot by a bolt or airstrike, while waiting on your summons to do something.

Abjuration is fairly common in a lot of areas; since the change that made all summoners also have abjure. Orc High Priests and Sorcerers have it. Several early game uniques have it (Fannar, Natasha, etc.) most elves have it, etc. You can plot a 3 rune route that (mostly) avoids it, though you'll see some in Vaults, Zot and Depths, but extended...uhh geez. Every "boss" enemy has it except Antaeus (including the majority of random panlord), shadow demons, even common Ynoxinuls. About half the monsters in Tomb has it, etc. It's fine to say it's avoidable, but never happens is, again, hyperbole.

TSO also offers abjuration protection and HP/MP boosts on your AND Summons kills of demons/undead. Makes Dragon's Call simply gamebreaking in extended, like seriously amazing.

(This god is probably beaten clearly by either new Sif or TSO depending on what you wanted to do with it; though I do like the idea of abjuration protection away from a god that restricts which summons you can use this god is overall too boring otherwise to support that.)

I'd also like to say clearly that "Pure" summoner is weak for a number of other reasons, like because you need to resummon upon going up/down stairs it has a harder time dealing with V:5 and other ambushes than a conjurer (who would have a level 9 by then and blast everyone to hell), a meleeist (who would have decent defenses to deal with the horde), etc. Trying to rely completely on summons is fairly foolish because of that and because of relying on getting some very specific book drops... Summoning does more kills/MP; where Conjurations does more kills/turn, the latter can be very important at times, such as it being dangerous to wait on your summons to kill a tormentor while you just stand there getting tormented, etc.