God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates


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Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2016, 21:16

God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

Note: The name is a placeholder.

Description: Pran-Zali is a shrewd god of the sea that values freedom and lust for adventure and treassure. Followers of Pran-Zali often live on the edge of society as buccaneers, rogues, adventurers or other sorts of scum.
While Pran-Zali certainly loves a good display of bravado, it values skillfullness over brute force and as such encourages the use of underhanded tactics and agility in combat.
Who of you landlubbers has enough gut and wit to find he ultimate treassure, the Orb of Zot?

Altar: looks like it's made out of the wreckage of a ship. It has a black flag with a jolly roger on a broken ship mast.

Appreciates: Killing enemeis (+1), killing enemies skillfully i. e. in one hit, such as stabbing them or drowing them with confusion (+2). This bonus is not granted for killing chaf.
Gets mad at you when: You abandon it. Wrath effects: Confuse, durably summon undead/shoals enemies, turn the ground into deep water.

Powers:

    Bilgerat: You can move and fight in shallow water without penalties. Granted upon conversion.

    * Critical strikes: Your melee attacks have a 1% chance of landing a tier 2 stab. This stab is modified as if you were wielding a dagger. Chance increases by 1% per pip of piety up to a maximum of 6% at maximum piety.

    ** Ambush: You turn invisible, but your movement rate is reduced as if you were slowed. You can only use this ability if you aren't spotted by any enemies in view. The effect breaks early if you take any damage or you take any other action other than moving or attacking. Duration is based on invocations. Costs: Low amount of piety.

    *** Grappling Hook: Works exactly like lesser beckoning, but in reverse - it pulls you towards the enemy. You can also target solid features like walls or trees. Costs: Moderate amount of piety.

    **** Cursed Blade: Your melee attacks cut the victim's magic resistance in half.

    ***** No new abilites.

    ****** You and me and the devil make three in the cold and billowing sea: The ground turns into shallow water (area increases with invocations) and you blink adjecent to a random enemy on the screen and perform a melee attack on him. This then repeats up to 9 times, depending on piety. The same target can be struck more than once. The water persists for a few turns. Costs: High amount of piety.

This is my first god proposal. Please tell me your thoughts on Pran-Zali!
Last edited by removeelyvilon on Thursday, 3rd November 2016, 21:31, edited 2 times in total.

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Spider Stomper

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2016, 21:21

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

i'd play the fuck out of this god. dunno if that's a good sign, but I would.

edit: though I would consider a couple changes:
--) maybe critical strike should trigger more often (like doubled chances?) for actual short blades, to encourage their (thematically appropriate) use.
--) ambush feels a bit too close to shadow step. I wonder how important you think it is to the intended function of the god.

edit mk 2: given the existence of Gozag it's asking for trouble, but wouldn't a TRUE pirate god have an ability related to the acquisition and/or burying of gold?

edit mk 3: grappling hook's ability to target walls makes it almost as good an escape mechanism as cblink in many respects and better than it than others (no contam, functions in zot). I'd remove that function, or somehow severely limit it in some way.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2016, 22:28

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

Could a minor piety drop for spending gold (he is a pirate god and wants you to hoard it) work?

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 02:51

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

Needs more booty!

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 09:48

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

From what I can tell, the sole purpose of this god is to buff stabbers. Ok I suppose there's the OP "cBlink in disguise" 3* power.

Too narrow. Take a look at Dith: nominally this is a go-to god for wannabe stabbers but it's strong for other styles too.

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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 10:05

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

Aren't ****** abilities supposed to be be one-time? Move that one to *****
Love the theme(Crawl needs more silly gods!), but the idea could use some work.
Memento mori

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 10:37

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

dracos369 wrote:(Crawl needs more silly gods!)


I seriously hope not
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 16:07

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

dracos369 wrote:Aren't ****** abilities supposed to be be one-time? Move that one to *****
Love the theme(Crawl needs more silly gods!), but the idea could use some work.

I don't think they are all one time. Honestly this god looks like it would apeal to the MiFi in CPA more than dith.
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/playe ... speon.html. I started playing in 0.16.1
I achieved greatplayer in less than a year.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 4th November 2016, 18:06

Re: God proposal: Pran-Zali, God of pirates

removeelyvilon wrote:Note: The name is a placeholder.

Description: Pran-Zali is a shrewd god of the sea that values freedom and lust for adventure and treassure. Followers of Pran-Zali often live on the edge of society as buccaneers, rogues, adventurers or other sorts of scum.
While Pran-Zali certainly loves a good display of bravado, it values skillfullness over brute force and as such encourages the use of underhanded tactics and agility in combat.
Who of you landlubbers has enough gut and wit to find he ultimate treassure, the Orb of Zot?

Altar: looks like it's made out of the wreckage of a ship. It has a black flag with a jolly roger on a broken ship mast.


I like the theme.

removeelyvilon wrote:Appreciates: Killing enemeis (+1), killing enemies skillfully i. e. in one hit, such as stabbing them or drowing them with confusion (+2). This bonus is not granted for killing chaf.
Gets mad at you when: You abandon it. Wrath effects: Confuse, durably summon undead/shoals enemies, turn the ground into deep water.


1. Gods that care about killing enemies should not care about how you kill them. This is to prevent degenerate behavior.
2. This doesn't seem to fit extremely with theme. What about gaining piety for finding artifacts?
3. Alternative means of gaining piety: -Killing water-associated creatures (merfolk, water elementals, harpies) -burying treasure -killing uniques[/quote]
[/quote]

removeelyvilon wrote:Powers:

    Bilgerat: You can move and fight in shallow water without penalties. Granted upon conversion.

    * Critical strikes: Your melee attacks have a 1% chance of landing a tier 2 stab. This stab is modified as if you were wielding a dagger. Chance increases by 1% per pip of piety up to a maximum of 6% at maximum piety.

    ** Ambush: You turn invisible, but your movement rate is reduced as if you were slowed. You can only use this ability if you aren't spotted by any enemies in view. The effect breaks early if you take any damage or you take any other action other than moving or attacking. Duration is based on invocations. Costs: Low amount of piety.

    *** Grappling Hook: Works exactly like lesser beckoning, but in reverse - it pulls you towards the enemy. You can also target solid features like walls or trees. Costs: Moderate amount of piety.

    **** Cursed Blade: Your melee attacks cut the victim's magic resistance in half.

    ***** No new abilites.

    ****** You and me and the devil make three in the cold and billowing sea: The ground turns into shallow water (area increases with invocations) and you blink adjecent to a random enemy on the screen and perform a melee attack on him. This then repeats up to 9 times, depending on piety. The same target can be struck more than once. The water persists for a few turns. Costs: High amount of piety.

This is my first god proposal. Please tell me your thoughts on Pran-Zali!


1. Bilgerat - I think this is good for flavor. I would expand this to automatically mapping water. Also, what about getting a *bonus* to stealth for being on water, and it does not break invisibility?
2. Critical Strikes - I don't like this ability, as it feels too generic. I think this can be cut as there are other goodies.
3. Ambush - For this, transforming the ability into LOS range reduction with reduced move speed would make it much more interesting to more builds.
4. Grappling hook - I think having it only work on terrain would give it a good drawback and distinguish it from dithmenos' ability.

5. Cursed Blade - Vulnerability is extremely powerful. This seems broken. Hit once then kill with an enchantment. I also don't like how it only applies to melee attacks. I would instead make this a passive, enemies with lower health would get lower magic resistance and EV, and would rename this to terrifying presence. If properly done, this could make Hexes more relevant for extended. I think this is a good signature ability.

IDEA: An interesting idea would be to give a piety counter for each branch. The idea being that piety measures how feared you are as a pirate in that area. If this approach is taken, the abilities could not cost piety.

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