Dismissing allies

[smock]

Vampiric giant spike club + Okawaru + Animate Skeleton -> optimal play is to carry corpses to somewhere safe (eg, up a floor). Animating skeletons on a partially explored floor leads to piety loss. This make the game a little less fun. It's very rare to get vampiric bashing weapon + Oka + animate skeleton so this isn't a bid problem.

Being able to dismiss allies would help. To prevent abuse with Okawaru, allies could wander until leaving the level like pacified monsters or allied could ignore dismissal requests if there's a monster in LOS. Otherwise I can't think of how dismissing allies would alter the game in a bad way.

[KoboldLord]

Or you could just ignore the teeny-tiny piety hit for making a skeleton that ends up dying. It's not like it's penance or anything. You will probably lose more piety to decay by carting those corpses upstairs to butcher them than you ever will simply letting the skeletons follow you around. The typical Okawaru follower probably doesn't need to butcher more than a couple times per level anyway, and you're killing and sacrificing a whole lot more monsters than you need to make up for that.

And really, you have a vampiric giant spiked club. What are you stockpiling Okawaru piety for, anyway? You're not likely to get a better gift than that, and if your piety does end up getting chipped down a bit, your chance per kill of getting piety goes up to compensate.

[smock]

Never mind! I was under that impression that allied deaths were a big hit to piety.

[danharaj]

You lose the ally's HD in piety or some formula like that. Maybe HD/2? Anyway, bigger skeletons means bigger piety loss.