Why do Chei abilities cost MP?

[PowerOfKaishin]

The only thing I can think of is so that you can't just use Step from Time as an "LOL IM SAFE NOW" option whenever you want, but piety already stops this from being spammed every 20 steps.

Chei is supposed to give the player a lot in exchange for slowing them down. Certainly he does currently, but considering I already have to get Invocations to 13 (which is not trivial in the early game) to get a failure rate for SFT that most players would deem acceptable (4%), I don't think I should have to set aside an additional 10 MP on top of that just to have Chei abilities handy. 10 MP is already non-trivial, even before considering the fact that one is worshipping a god that disallows them from running away easily to refresh it.

At this point, Chei abilities are practically spells since the player has to train a pseudo-spellcasting skill to get them castable and take from the same pool as spells to use them. I don't think god abilities should be quite likened to that (for any god, not just Chei).

20 aut movement speed (and no way to change it without offending Chei) is supposed to be the big challenge here. You can make a meaningful choice argument regarding abilities vs spells. That's certainly valid, but the MP cost only serves to penalize one of the biggest reasons people worship Chei in the first place (spells in heavy armor). This seems unnecessary for a god that already has such a harsh conduct.

I would like to have spells (with all of my MP usable for them) alongside Chei's god abilities. Devs, please give me my cake and let me eat it too.

Can his abilities be changed to forgo MP cost, just costing piety and hunger as they do now?

[VeryAngryFelid]

I am not sure the problem is specific for Chei. It applies to Zit and Lugonu, for example. It would be interesting to see more gods work like Makhleb with HP cost instead of MP, current situation favors melee much more than casters IMHO

[PowerOfKaishin]

It's definitely not. I think MP costs should not exist for many gods, but Chei gets hit the hardest by them.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Feel like my post got swept under the rug

[VeryAngryFelid]

Feel like my post got swept under the rug

Hopefully devs missed the thread.
Current situation:
Spells are limited by:
1) a whole stat dedicated just to it and completely useless otherwise (Int)
2) huge investment aka your damage is low (you cannot just find equivalent of a +4 whip of electro on D:2 and start killing everything unless you find at least 2 of robe of archmagi + staff + ring of fire/ice).
3) huge investment aka you are going to be killed by miscast (staff/ring of wizardry).
4) huge investment aka you are out of MP (staff/ring of magic power)
5) hunger (staff of energy, otherwise don't even try to cast Shatter early as Sp of Vehumet/Sif Muna).
6) inability to use heavy armour
7) gods (see OP of this thread)

Melee is limited by
1) distance (polearms help a bit)

Ranged is limited by
1) ammo (early game only)

Do god abilities really need to have MP cost as essential part of their balance?

[Siegurt]

Feel like my post got swept under the rug

Hopefully devs missed the thread.
Current situation:
Spells are limited by:
1) a whole stat dedicated just to it and completely useless otherwise (Int)
2) huge investment aka your damage is low (you cannot just find equivalent of a +4 whip of electro on D:2 and start killing everything unless you find at least 2 of robe of archmagi + staff + ring of fire/ice).
3) huge investment aka you are going to be killed by miscast (staff/ring of wizardry).
4) huge investment aka you are out of MP (staff/ring of magic power)
5) hunger (staff of energy, otherwise don't even try to cast Shatter early as Sp of Vehumet/Sif Muna).
6) inability to use heavy armour
7) gods (see OP of this thread)

Melee is limited by
1) distance (polearms help a bit)

Ranged is limited by
1) ammo (early game only)

Do god abilities really need to have MP cost as essential part of their balance?

Well, if you are trying to compare spells to melee/ranged then melee/ranged is also limited by "area of effect that you can do damage to" and also by "the inability to do anything other than damage"

However, i am not sure that that is either relevant to the OP nor is it really related to the comment about it being swept under the rug.

So i find, personally, that activated abilities that take up MP for gods are ones i don't use as often as i probably should, *particularly* when my primary way of killing things also takes up mp, when i would want to have an emergency option, i am usually below the threshold of mp, and always keeping say 10 mp in reserve is a really huge penalty at the stage of the game where those sorts of abilities are most likely to be needed.

I am not sure that the mp costs have the intended effect, or indeed, if there is much thought put into what the intended effect actually is. But at a minimum, i think it is worth a discussion.

[Rast]

Spells are limited by:

Let's not forget that spells do more damage than weapons and can hit several or many monsters at once.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Let's not forget that spells do more damage than weapons and can hit several or many monsters at once.

I disagree about damage and there are some weapons which hit several or many monsters at once (axes and some unrandarts). Actually axes are superior to any spell in the worst situation i.e. when you are surrounded and cannot run away.

But let's not derail the thread further please. I think everyone agrees that melee characters are stronger when it matters (i.e. before getting Bolt of foo online) so it does not make much sense to limit casters access to gods.

[Siegurt]

I think everyone agrees that melee characters are stronger when it matters (i.e. before getting Bolt of foo online) so it does not make much sense to limit casters access to gods.

I don't, but as you said it is off topic.

[tabstorm]

Let's not forget that spells do more damage than weapons and can hit several or many monsters at once.

I disagree about damage and there are some weapons which hit several or many monsters at once (axes and some unrandarts). Actually axes are superior to any spell in the worst situation i.e. when you are surrounded and cannot run away.

But let's not derail the thread further please. I think everyone agrees that melee characters are stronger when it matters (i.e. before getting Bolt of foo online) so it does not make much sense to limit casters access to gods.

I'm pretty sure Tavern Thought ranks all mages except VM as above all Warrior backgrounds. Why this is the case is beyond me...

Anyway, regarding the OP, I don't feel like you run out of MP with chei very often. I think the invo investment for using step from time is a bit high, though.

[dowan]

Chei's abilities are overly expensive. 10MP? Not even the most powerful spells in the game cost that much.

You already picked chei, haven't you paid enough already?

If there's a balance concern (again, you picked chei, that ought to balance almost anything) I suppose you could stick exh on step from time...

[PowerOfKaishin]

Since there seems to be a pretty common consensus that this is quite a bit of >_< and definitely not =D (and a very tiny bit of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), how does one go the next step and propose something like this to the devs?

[Arrhythmia]

Since there seems to be a pretty common consensus that this is quite a bit of >_< and definitely not =D (and a very tiny bit of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), how does one go the next step and propose something like this to the devs?

you did.