Slime Squisher
Posts: 392
Joined: Sunday, 11th September 2016, 17:21
Bioengineering God
Innate species mutations and temporary mutations don't count as mutations for the purposes of this god. Worshipers are not excommunicated for falling to 0 piety. Granting or removing of mutations by divine abilities are not subject to mutation resistance or failure. Does not accept undead worshipers.
Appreciates dissecting (chopping) corpses and acquiring or losing mutations by non-divine means. 5 piety for the 1st corpse of each type dissected, decreasing linearly to 1 for every corpse beyond the 4th (to discourage grinding, but flavored as there's less to learn from dissecting the same species multiple times). Mutation acquirement is worth 10 piety, and mutation loss worth 5.
Abandonment removes all mutations and drains skills by the same amount Clean Slate would have + [2 - piety/200]% of an additional large skill drain. Aside from the skill drain, no lingering punishment is applied.
Granted abilities:
[------] (no activation failure for these 4)
Experiment (costs 2000 nutrition): Gain a random mutation (equal chance good or bad; limited to those available from consumables plus those innate to more than one species).
Clean Slate (skill drain): Remove all mutations. Amount of skill drain scales linearly with the number of mutations removed.
Rollback (costs [10 x DIFF + 3 x TOTAL] piety): Remove one mutation of the player's choice.
Engineer (costs [10 x DIFF + 3 x TOTAL] piety): Add one mutation of a category which the player has been mutated at some point in the game, but restricted by compatibility with existing mutations.
[*-----]
Redesign (costs MP): As wand of polymorph, but not subject to MR and can't target uniques or undead. Chance of successfully activating ability based on Invocations skill.
[****--]
Malpractice (costs piety, MP, nutrition): As Malmutate. Chance of successfully activating ability based on Invocations skill.
DIFF is the absolute value of the difference between the numbers of good and bad mutations. TOTAL is the number of all mutations. Piety cost can exceed 200, at which point Rollback and Engineer are unavailable for use until some mutations have been removed by other means. This is done for balance reasons and to encourage meaningful decision making, but is flavored as a piety cost proportional to the complexity of further tweaking the genetic code.
When selecting mutations with Rollback or Engineer, the player is asked "Which mutation?" and given a text prompt, and the input string is checked to match part of the name and description of each valid mutation. If 1 match, a y/n confirmation is presented (with an init.txt option to allow advanced players to skip this prompt). If 0, the ability is cancelled with a message stating there was no match. Otherwise, a list of matches is displayed to choose from. Pressing Esc at any time cancels the whole process, and cancellation at any point does not consume time or piety.
There are 2 opposing strategies, of which players can choose to follow one to an extreme or try to strike a balance. Players can try to maintain a small mutation count, keeping the piety cost low so they can mutate frequently to fit their changing situation. Or, players can try to gradually load up on their favorite mutations at increasing piety costs and the risk of losing control of their mutations entirely (the piety cost keeps the limit approximately in line with that of the luckiest godless mutation roulette practitioners and peak moments of Jiyva's whimsy, with additional leeway to players willing to bear bad mutations).