Subsequent Trog gifts strictly worse than previous ones

[bobross419]

Has the idea been presented already to have Trog/Oki gift a weapon at early piety that they increase with random bonuses over time? Maybe not a mechanic for both, but it could be interesting to have one of them with this behavior. I'm not sure how this could be done so that it prevents scumming, allows for good scaling, and doesn't become too overpowered - I've got some general brainstorming ideas below.

Acquisition - When you begin worship, pray at altar at some *, etc. God spawns 9-12 random base weapons. Once the player picks up one the rest disappear. I say 9-12 based on how the mechanic is setup. You'd want to not spawn really poor base types for melee classes (Daggers, Hand Axes, Clubs, etc). I think spawning could be accomplished one of two ways - A) 1 Guaranteed random weapon from each skill class (except staffs) with 1 1-hand and 1 2-hand for the rest except Short Blades. B) 10-12 completely random weapons. Maybe a selection screen would be better for this.

Improvements - Based on gift timeout and piety level, God "blesses" the weapon with some type of bonus. A maximum bonus count would probably work to prevent players from just scumming an obscenely powerful weapon. As an example: +18 Enchantment Levels (+9/+9), +4 Resist Levels, +1 Brand, +1 Evocation, +6 Stats. Like I said just an example I'm sure the numbers aren't well balanced. The random bonus could be weighted to increase with piety - At low piety you will likely only get +/+ enchantments with higher chances for the other things as your piety increases.

Abandonment - I'd have to say that the weapon should be lost if you abandon the god.

Not really sure how well this would work out, but I'd think it would be a neat thing to have if its possible. Just wanted to throw the idea out there. I think it would work better for Trog than Oki and wouldn't have any effect on ammo gifts. Trog's signature ability is berserk which pretty much limits you to melee, so a ranged weapon wouldn't really be a factor.

[o_O]

d) Conditional gifts II: Temporary -> permanent.
The idea is that special feats can make an item last longer or permanent. I see two viable approaches:
* Upon delivering a temporary gift, a task is announced. E.g. "May this help you to fetch the barnacled rune." If you manage, the item becomes permanent. Ideally, the item's name reflects the challenge.
* Beating tough opponents has a chance of increasing duration. If duration was increased three times already, the gift becomes permanent. (Drawback: even if we don't use tension, toughness may be scummed -- e.g. by leaving uniques or branch ends for that purpose. It can be circumvented by the god attaching bounties to enemies coming into view. That'd be a small scale version of the other approach.)

Quests! That could also make choosing your 3 runes more interesting.

[thenewflesh]

How about random temporary conducts (thematically appropriate, of course)? They fit with the whole random gods angle and there's a lot of great ideas on the wiki that can be re-used for that. No casting (only available if a character has at least one spell memorised, of course, otherwise it doesn't make sense), no quaffing potions, no fleeing, no blinking / teleporting, no going upstairs, etc.

Conducts should require non-optimal play to the point of being dangerous. They should be thematically appropriate for the deity and the gift itself (if possible). Some kind of balance between the quality of gift and difficulty / danger of conduct must be maintained. The important question is whether breaking conduct should result in piety hit? After all, balancing risk/reward is hard and, even if it's there, the player might decide that it's just not worth the trouble. I think, the most logical solution is to be able to bail out when the gift is given and rules to keep it are established. You should be able to reject it without any consequences for the piety.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

How about random temporary conducts (thematically appropriate, of course)? They fit with the whole random gods angle and there's a lot of great ideas on the wiki that can be re-used for that. No casting (only available if a character has at least one spell memorised, of course, otherwise it doesn't make sense), no quaffing potions, no fleeing, no blinking / teleporting, no going upstairs, etc.

Conducts should require non-optimal play to the point of being dangerous. They should be thematically appropriate for the deity and the gift itself (if possible). Some kind of balance between the quality of gift and difficulty / danger of conduct must be maintained. The important question is whether breaking conduct should result in piety hit? After all, balancing risk/reward is hard and, even if it's there, the player might decide that it's just not worth the trouble. I think, the most logical solution is to be able to bail out when the gift is given and rules to keep it are established. You should be able to reject it without any consequences for the piety.

Trog and Okra say you must fight the next 5 monsters you see. Increasing range (aka memerise) or taking longer than 500 turns will make your weapon go away!

(not necessarly endorsing, just exploring how this might work in practice)

[thenewflesh]

Yeah, something like that might work. However, you can just retreat to some of the specially prepared safe zones. For example, you can leave one of the Lair floors unexplored for just this occasion. I'd want something less random and abusable as a conduct.