The Tavern

Specifically, hex spells. What if dith gifted you a spellbook early on containing a handful of hex spells? If you don't start as an enchanter, it is purely luck if you find any hex spells. Compare to kiku and vehumet giving targeted spells as you gain piety. Im proposing that dith would give you a book upon reaching 1 piety, and it would be generated in a similar fashion as kiku's book gifts. Maybe something like:

One of: Slow, Corona

One of: Confuse, Ensorcelled Hibernation

One of: Tukimas Dance, Dazzling Spray

Just three spells. So, you would still have more access to hex spells by picking Enchanter role.

Why should this be in the game?

I think it would make dith more fun. Hexing monsters is fun, and powerful. Currently if you dont start as an enchanter, you probably cant do it. This will provide more options, to more characters.

It would definitely make dith stronger, but thats OK. Maybe it would make dith too strong early on. The book could be gifted at 2* instead. Or maybe change which spells it can give out.

I dont think it would significantly change dith relative to other gods. You would still want kiku, veh, or sif if you want go be gifted lots of spells.

I know its not totally comparable to kiku or vehumet, since dith still does a lot for you even if you arent using any hexes or stabbing. That is why its just a little boost, of a few low level spells.

If Dith grants any spells, one of them should (eventually) be darkness... for reasons.

Upon further thought I think the ideal spell book for this proposal would be:

One of: Confuse+Corona; OR Slow + Ensorcelled hiberanation

One of: Dazzling Spray, OR Tukimas Dance.

The first because confuse and slow both work on anytihng. So either way you end up with a hex that works on any monster. Confuse is the more versatile hex, so its paired with the barely useful corona. EH wont work on undead or rc+ monsters, but slow will give the player an option.

The second result gives players an option versus high MR monsters, since tukimas gets a boost to beat MR, and dazzling spray doesnt check it.

And yeah, darkness memorization could be granted like Vehumet spell gifts, at 5* maybe!

In 0.20, I've been under the impression that in every other game, I find the book of Misfortune before I even reach Lair. Is the RNG weighted towards this? If so Dith worshippers are probably fine.

I have also had this impression, the exception is when the game generates a lot of early books.

I certainly have not found that to be the case, if that is true for you, it is undoubtedly just the rng messing with you.

*ponder*

Is Dithmenos supposed to be the enchanter god? It seems more like a god of random stuff.

I think the op would like it to be, presently dith sucks for enchanter types shadow mimic will almost never help enchanting, and will frequently just screw things up. The rest of dith's abilties don't particularly synergize; shadow step and extra stealth don't help, if something is sleeping you don't need to hex it, and if you've hexed it, you have already woken it up, and shadow form is no better (or worse) for enchanters

Am I missing something? Dith gives an up to 50% chance to try re-hexing, and I can't think of any hexes that casting twice is bad for you. Mostly, I feel like enchanters are using confuse, hibernation, and dazzling spray, which dith certainly won't hurt. Confusing touch doesn't get a dith benefit, I suppose. But for any other enchanter, the second hex chance is really good, and is certainly the god benefit that directly helps the "hex and stab" plan the most.

(To the OP's point, I don't think Dith should get more spells. He's a perfectly reasonable god for non-casters, the low-level hexes that you want under dith aren't particularly rare, and Dith is already quite powerful. I don't think he needs the boost, and since he's not necessarily an enchanter god anyway, I don't like adding spell gifts.)

I believe shadow mimic initially could trigger on things like Ensorcelled Hibernation or needle of sleeping, which is definitely a bad effect.

I can't find the commit but I'm pretty sure now it triggers only when its effects wouldn't be negative.

When you're worshipping Dith, cast a hex spell, and shadow mimic triggers, it casts the spell again, it doesn't fire a shadow bolt. So if you have a 50% chance to hibernate, Dith gives you an (up to) 50% chance to give you a SECOND hibernate spell, effectively increasing your chance to hex from 50% to 62.5%. I'm playing a VpEn of Dith right now, and I'm 100% sure it just tries to hex again:

Aim: an ice beast (lightly wounded, summoned, umbra, chance to defeat MR: 76%)
The ice beast barely resists.
Your shadow mimicks your spell!
The ice beast appears confused.

Iirc, it makes Flesh to stone act much faster.

The old version did re hex when the effect would be negative (glad to hear this got fixed) however your shadow's spellpower is not dependant on yours, so generally speaking it is going to be pretty poor, your extra chance is *at maximum* 50% but that is at max piety and when you are low enough level that you are not a better hexer than your shadow, two things that dont often coincide, and when they do not for very long.

However even if your shadow's hex chance was like 10%, it is free so that still sounds pretty good on paper. until you realize that an extra 10% chance at an effect only matters if you fail (hexes are binary, being confused for longer is rarely important, and when it is, having your shadow save you 3mp is unimportant)

So your shadow's second hex is useful when: you fail, the percentage chance goes off, and your shadow does not fail.

In a regular case that is going to be something like 25% (you have a 75% chance at success), times 50% (presuming your piety is maxed and you haven't recently used any god powers) times your shadow's success rate (which is ok early game but is abysmal later, say 25% post lair) which leaves you with a little over 3% bonus.

At least it no longer wakes up the critters you cast hibernate on (a second hibernate on a sleeping critter wakes it up)

The spell gifts isn't a bad idea, although it feels to me like all I ever find early game are hex books up the ying-yang.

I propose these changes to dith:

* slow down the rate of piety decay (unless that was done already)
* reduce the piety costs a little... (seeing a pattern?) piety on dith seems so harsh the last time I recall...

as for skills:

* Add a skill (for piety) which reduces the magic resistance of enemies similar to scrolls of vulnerability, but without reducing your own. Alternatively, make it a constant effect applied to enemies inside your umbra. This would make stabbers of dith much more viable into late game.