Let Demonspawn and Undead worship the good gods

[PowerOfKaishin]

If gameplay trumps flavor, then this seems like a good change. There's really no gameplay reason why this shouldn't happen and no real non-flavor reason to restrict those races from worshipping the good gods. They aren't suddenly going to become OP.

The races in question are I believe Ds, Mu, Gh, and Vp. Lemme know if I missed one.

Zinites are supposed to have a "no mutation" conduct, though, so depending on one's viewpoint, Ds still shouldn't be able to worship them.

[mrob]

TSO and Zin are popular gods for extended. Torment is a major threat in extended. Worshipping them *and* having torment resistance is possibly overpowered.

[PowerOfKaishin]

I assume you mean torment immunity and not torment resistance, because Gr and anyone with statue form already get torment resistance and are perfectly capable of worshiping any good god.

Anyway, as you know, all undead are vulnerable to Dispel Undead. Dispel Undead is used in a lot of the same areas torment is (most notably Tartarus and Tomb), presumably so that undead don't get a free pass. Like torment, Dispel Undead is a nasty spell to get hit by. Unlike torment, Dispel Undead can actually kill you. Though your gameplay explanation seems logical, as it currently stands I don't think torment immunity + good gods is remotely close to OP.

It's not like a worshipper of TSO casting Statue Form is scared of torment anyway, seeing as how the damage is reduced to 20% of current HP instead of 50% and the HP you have is augmented with 3 levels of Robust. They also aren't vulnerable to Dispel Undead. That seems much more OP than an undead species worshipping the same god, and that's before you take into account the fact that rN+++ is completely wasted on Ghouls and Mummies.

[phloomp]

The only potentially OP case would be Ds (great invocations aptitude could go really well with Zin). I don't think this is a huge problem though.

Just want to point out that flavor isn't a huge problem either, if you change some text ("The Shining One is skeptical, but accepts you anyway.").

BTW, how's this work in Hellcrawl?

[VeryAngryFelid]

They aren't suddenly going to become OP.

I am not sure, complete immunity to both torment and mutations (Zin) can be overpowered, especially for Ghoul in heavy armour who does not care much about Hell Sentinels either.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Dispel Undead needs line of fire, you can summon a couple of angels as meat shield. Makhleb is number one god for undead now, it will be inferior to Zin/TSO after the change and Ghoul/Mummy already have easy time in extended.

[Steel Neuron]

While I get that gameplay trumps flavour, I think it is important for the world of DCSS to have some consistency.

It's not only about how the gods "feel" about having an undead/demonic worshipper. These gods actively give you tools to harm undead and demonic creatures en masse. It wouldn't make sense for those powers to magically switch off when affecting you, and it would involve a maintenance burden (for example, holy wrath weapons can't be wielded by the undead, but they would have to be excepted in when worshipping TSO. But what if you stop worshipping when wielding one? Would worshipping TSO cause scrolls of holy word to function any differently? Affect autopickup? etc etc).

[VeryAngryFelid]

But what if you stop worshipping when wielding one?

This is not a problem. Holy weapons are automatically unwielded when Necromutation is cast.

[pratamawirya]

Allowing them to worship good gods but keeping their holy weaknesses intact (like invoking cleansing flame damages themselves also, or wielding a holy weapon drains their hp slowly*) could be interesting. It could at least create interesting challenge combos.

*Coupled with tso's hp on kills, it could be a very interesting scenario where the weapon functions like a vampiric one (but on undeads and demons, ha!) that hurts its wielder and therefore forces them to fight more aggressively. (To prevent tedious swapping, we could make the weapon drain life only when there're enemies around.)

[phloomp]

Just let undead and demonspawn wield holy weapons. Draconians can already wield dragonbane. TS1's cleansing flame would probably be awkward to use, so she could give 20% holy resistance (analogous to Kiku giving invokable torment and partial torment resistance). Alternatively, TS1 can just sort of suck for undead instead of being forbidden.

[pratamawirya]

Partial holy resistance is reasonable, since TSO would still be inferior to Zin and Ely for demonspawns and undeads.

[PowerOfKaishin]

well, cleansing flame produces those holy clouds, right? Those things don't affect worshippers of good gods. If all of the modifiers from being an undead^good god are multiplied together, well, there's a x0 in there so they just wouldn't take any damage.

Can I get some input via a dev?