Fedhas shouldn't care if your wandering mushroom dies

[hawthornbunny]

I think that there shouldn't be any piety loss if a wandering mushroom ally gets killed. It doesn't make sense to me either flavorfully or mechanically, for several reasons:

- It's more difficult and inconvenient to have to protect mushrooms because of the way they move.
- Generally, I don't actually want to protect them, since they make useful corridor blockers and allow me to get out of trouble.
- I already use piety to make the thing in the first place, so it's not like I got the thing for free. Deciding whether or not to let the mushroom die is a strategic sacrifice.
- Fedhas' abilities are described as "incidentally" useful for adventurers. I think this should go both ways. I care as little about plants as Fedhas cares about me. It's more of a symbiotic relationship than a personal one.
- Fedhas doesn't care if enemies destroy unintelligent plants by the dozen in order to reach you. The same should hold true for sentient flora. It doesn't make sense that Fedhas would value intelligent life more highly; in fact, I think the opposite is true.
- Fedhas isn't just the god of plants, but also the god of decomposition and the natural cycle of life and death. The loss of one mushroom shouldn't incur his displeasure, and it should easily be outweighed by the fact that I'm producing bucketloads of the things everywhere I go.
- The ability that produces wandering mushrooms is called "Evolution", which puts me in mind of Darwinian natural selection. Thematically, I'd argue that if a wandering mushroom dies, it's because it wasn't strong enough, and Fedhas should actually be in favor of that.

[Siegurt]

I would argue that gods caring about ally death generally leads to degenerate and un fun behavior.

[KoboldLord]

Just roll the penalty for having a mushroom die into the original cost for making the mushroom in the first place. Essentially, assume they all die. This is effectively no change from the status quo, because under normal circumstances pretty much all of them do in fact die, but that way you aren't encouraged to try to park them somewhere.

[prozacelf]

Also to the point, you could make an argument for dying mushrooms costing piety back when Fedhas had no piety decay, but it seems silly for it to still be there now.

[bel]

IIRC, the cost of an allied plant dying can vary a lot ("you feel a little guilty", "you feel very guilty" etc.).

If the cost of mushrooms dying is to be added to the cost of creating a mushroom, on the assumption that everything is going to die anyway, it should be discounted somehow. Since it is paid up front, instead of later.

Of course, one could have a simpler solution by not discounting the cost; this would be a nerf to Fedhas. Depending on the numbers involved, Fedhas can take a nerf.

[Yermak]

under normal circumstances pretty much all of them do in fact die, but that way you aren't encouraged to try to park them somewhere

There are two ways for mushrooms to die: to be slain, which is penalized by Fedhas, and to use all of their attacks and die "naturally", which isn't penalized.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Just roll the penalty for having a mushroom die into the original cost for making the mushroom in the first place. Essentially, assume they all die. This is effectively no change from the status quo, because under normal circumstances pretty much all of them do in fact die, but that way you aren't encouraged to try to park them somewhere.

I'm not completely convinced by this line of reasoning. In my view it would still be beneficial to prevent fungi-cide in the same way that it is beneficial now: it preserves piety. Players might feel different about mushroom-death after the proposed change, but that would be an illusion. They still lost the piety invested in the mushroom.

[duvessa]

Just roll the penalty for having a mushroom die into the original cost for making the mushroom in the first place. Essentially, assume they all die. This is effectively no change from the status quo, because under normal circumstances pretty much all of them do in fact die, but that way you aren't encouraged to try to park them somewhere.

I'm not completely convinced by this line of reasoning. In my view it would still be beneficial to prevent fungi-cide in the same way that it is beneficial now: it preserves piety. Players might feel different about mushroom-death after the proposed change, but that would be an illusion. They still lost the piety invested in the mushroom.

For any other monster in the game, this would basically be correct. However, wandering mushrooms lose 1 of their 8 HD every time they hit a target and don't kill it. So in the current system you can keep track of how much HD each mushroom has remaining, and when it gets down to 1, you probably want to park it to save piety (or let it kill itself which isn't penalized, as Yermak said) and get a fresh mushroom.

[bel]

Mushrooms' starting HD depends on invo, I believe. From god-abil.cc, function fedhas_evolve_flora:

  Code:

    plant->set_hit_dice(plant->get_experience_level()
                        + you.skill_rdiv(SK_INVOCATIONS));

Thus, it's hard to determine when mushroom HD reaches 1, unless one doesn't train invo. I've never done this parking thing, but technically one could, I suppose.

[duvessa]

Sure, but you can determine when it reaches either 1 or 2 which is close enough. And if your visible invocations skill is an integer you can have pretty high confidence in its exact HD.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Just roll the penalty for having a mushroom die into the original cost for making the mushroom in the first place. Essentially, assume they all die. This is effectively no change from the status quo, because under normal circumstances pretty much all of them do in fact die, but that way you aren't encouraged to try to park them somewhere.

I'm not completely convinced by this line of reasoning. In my view it would still be beneficial to prevent fungi-cide in the same way that it is beneficial now: it preserves piety. Players might feel different about mushroom-death after the proposed change, but that would be an illusion. They still lost the piety invested in the mushroom.

For any other monster in the game, this would basically be correct. However, wandering mushrooms lose 1 of their 8 HD every time they hit a target and don't kill it. So in the current system you can keep track of how much HD each mushroom has remaining, and when it gets down to 1, you probably want to park it to save piety (or let it kill itself which isn't penalized, as Yermak said) and get a fresh mushroom.

Sure. I misunderstood what KoboldLord was saying. My assumption was that we were talking about general carelessness with allies. I'm in favour of removing the mushroom-death-tax, not least because it makes me irrationally strongly treasure the blasted things.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

While we are talking about mushrooms...

I find the special movement of them quite a pain. In a lot of cases it seems better to order the mushrooms to guard the area, then scout ahead a little bit, then go get the mushrooms, then order them to guard, then... you get the drift. Shepherding a walking bundle of precious piety isn't great.

[bel]

...I'm [i]n favour of removing the mushroom-death-tax...

You should really call it the mushroom estate tax.

[Fingolfin]

So in the current system you can keep track of how much HD each mushroom has remaining, and when it gets down to 1, you probably want to park it to save piety (or let it kill itself which isn't penalized, as Yermak said) and get a fresh mushroom.

I find it beautiful that Fedhas encourages you to plant mushrooms all around the Dungeon

[ZipZipskins]

Wait, what the actual fuck, mushrooms lose HD over the course of play?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Every time it hits (but doesn't kill?) it loses one HD I think.

[amaril]

Fr: split evolution into two abilities, grow mushroom/grow oklob or whatever. Oklob comes online later & costs more piety. The only cost for either of them is piety: no preexisting plants are required and accordingly the corpse praying mechanic gets replaced w/ usual piety on kills.

Oklobs/mushrooms are non-durable summons that last a moderate amount of time and vanish if you leave the level. Neither of them move, and they are placed (one per ability activation) using the ring of plants interface. This not only makes ally management less of a hassle but would probably also prevent the player from leaning on mushrooms for every fight in the early game.

As has also been mentioned, fedhas should not punish plant death or even hurting plants. Koboldina recently posted a rediculous death on r/dcss where rain drowned an oklob, thereby invoking fedhas' wrath. Similar stories involving reproduction abound and all this conduct serves to do is deter players from ever using fedhas' other abilities.

[ZipZipskins]

Every time it hits (but doesn't kill?) it loses one HD I think.

That's what I've come to understand to my shock and horror over the past few hours.

[Magipi]

Wait, what the actual fuck, mushrooms lose HD over the course of play?

What?! Crawl has a feature that is completely obscure, and also encourages tedious behaviour? Who would've thunk that.