The Tavern

I think Fedhas has abilities which could perfectly support a Druid background. The * ability allows an ally-centric playstyle which is IMO different enough from necromancy/Yred/Beogh/summoning because of the unique properties of wandering mushrooms and oklobs. The difference between starting with Fedhas and worshipping him in the Temple matters for the more fragile races, who can rely on allies and avoid meele combat with Fedhas.

Suggested equipment:
* leather armour (or animal skin for those who can't wear it or maybe animal skin for everyone)
* weapon: either quarterstaff (relatively strong thematic starting weapon)
or scythe (thematic, but weak -- forcing heavier mushroom usage; allows reaching attacks while hiding behind allies; substituted by a dagger/staff (?) for spriggans)
or dagger (supports stabbing monsters distracted/confused by mushrooms)
* some fruit, for example 3 apples (oklobs may be owerpowered on D:1-2-..., but fruit can be anyway found on level 1 and without this druids may be too heavily dependent on luck; it is likely to be saved for later encounters and not used too early).
* maybe some ranged combat equipment to allow abusing the shooting through plants/fungi power -- one of the following choices (probably a fixed choice, not selectable at game start):
* 8-10 poisoned darts
* 20 rocks (maybe replaced by 4-5 large rocks for ogres/trolls)
* sling + ~15 rocks
* wand of frost (10)

Suggested skills (before aptitude-based adjustment):
Fighting: 2
Short Blades: 2 if they start with a dagger
Staves: 2 if they start with a quarterstaff
Throwing/Slings/Evocations: 2 if they start with an item using it
Armour: 1 if leather armour
Dodging: 2 + 1 if animal skin
Stealth: 2
Stabbing: 1 if they start wiht a dagger
Invocations: 3-4

If the oklob creation ability is owerpowered, maybe change the evolution ability to convert regular plants to oklob saplings and oklob saplings to oklob plants (both costs 1 fruit).

I always liked the idea of Fedhas being a starting god with a druid type background. The thing I hate about fedhas is his total reliance on fruit as a random drop. The one time I really played fedhas I got all the way to zot5 and all my plants just got worn down. It was really fun though, but I wish there was some sort of code where friendly oklobs spawn fruit at random intervals so you can go back and tend your old gardens to check for fruit. Maybe 1 random fruit every 1000 turns or something.

The problem is not that oklobs are overpowered on d1-2, it's that mushrooms are way overpowered that early and the piety cost is so small you effectively have as many of them as you want. Fedhas is already the strongest god in the game at 1* piety so I think letting you start with him is pretty close to a free win.

I love the idea, but as crate said : mushrooms op earlygame.

Fedhas as a starting god with some piety is totally overpowered. I know, because I already created a druid background with fedhas as starting god some weeks ago which started with some fruits and piety**. I'm sorry that I don't have the code anymore, but this background just didn't work...

I would have made a suggestion like this long ago (sine I'm a big fan of druidic lore) but I hesitated. Anyway here's some random thoughts on this.

It would belong in the zealot background tree and STR, INT, DEX would be equally boosted by choice of background (after all druids are jacks of all trades). No spellbooks to begin with. Starts out with * piety, a small amount of fruit (BUT NO RATIONS since you live in the outdoors and don't have any supplies from stores, you live off with what you find in the wilds) so you might have to eat some of the fruit if you don't find rations on early D)

On the other hand, Trog trivialises the early game but still he's not getting nerfed somehow. But yes, Oklobs on early D are too much since they are permanent.

Nevertheless, i'd like to see a druid background some day. Although with Transmuters and Earth Elementalists there's too much overlap to be added as a caster background so only Zealot is an option I think.

Perhaps evolution could be bumped up to a higher piety level so you can't use shrooms and oklobs very early. But Fedhas has a lot of abilities and I don't know how you could swap them around...

i don't have numbers for it (i'd have to look at the source), but from playing experience i'd say both mushrooms and oklobs are rather dependent on invocations. it's only that mushrooms start strong already. they could take a nerf at low invocations, since fedhas is very good very early even if you take him at the temple.

that said, i like fedhas as is.

This has been suggested already a couple of times.

I think Druid is an interesting theme to explore, but the first thing to fix is having a starting deity. It's been commented somewhere, perhaps several times, that the developers don't want more backgrounds starting with deities because a) it removes choices and b) is extremely hard to balance. Anyway I don't see why there has to be an intrinsic connection between "Druid" and "Fedhas". Druids are classically known for utilising plants for healing properties and so forth; this is a far cry from raising armies of sentient mushrooms and acid-spitting plants. Druids also have a spiritual connection to the animal kingdom.

The problem here is that a starting background can't have special abilities; and Fedhas doesn't really provide particlarly thematic support for a proper druid.

I had a look at the Wikipedia page on Druid and what's described there to me seems quite close to Witch, with even elements of necromancy (human sacrifice). So perhaps the background should have strong hexes aptitude, minor necromancy, short blades and start with a sickle. It can even combine some elements of the "Alchemist" proposal - a starting book could be Fulsome/Evaporate, Canine Familiar, and some Hexes.

What might work is a new god proposal actually designed around a druidic theme. Then a Druid background can still be created, which would of course be a natural fit for the druid god, but the player could take other gods as well.

Some ideas for the god:

- Piety for sacrificing humanoid corpses
- An ability centred around creating beneficial potions from some finite reagent (e.g. fruit)
- Gifts of seeds/bulbs which can be planted in corpses and grow into fruit-bearing plants. Doesn't have the overpoweredness problems you'd get with Fedhas and the rate of gifts can be tuned. You could try to stockpile fruit and switch to Fedhas late-game but as some have pointed out, Fedhas minions won't help so much at that stage.

- Animal attunement - you can place your mind into that of an animal, and for a time you can control them and see through their eyes. Useful for scouting, but animals aren't usually all that stealthy so you will likely wake stuff up (and monsters will automatically be agressive toward a controlled animal). Your physical self can be attacked whilst doing this. You can cancel the attunement at any time but it takes 1 or 2 turns to pull out. When the animal is injured or killed you take a small portion of the damage as "sympathy pain", you could even be confused / paralysed for 2-3 turns when forcibly evicted like this, so it's not a gameable way to exit for free. You can also be abjured out of the host. This idea could be considered as a new spell (Hexes/Tloc or Hexes/Tmut) instead of as a god ability. This could be pretty interesting combined with summons and inner flame, the self-damage balances it nicely IMO.

Raise your hand if you can't start as a Monk and find a Fedhas altar usually before Ecumenical Temple.

Yeah, I see no hands.