Monster invocations / god abilities

[sgrunt]

An idea that I've had brewing in the back of my mind has been to allow monsters to use divine abilities - that is, if a monster is assigned a god, they should be able to use the abilities associated with that god.

After a flurry of work, I've done enough work to show everyone an implementation of that idea. Behold: http://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/commits/mons-gods

Very few monsters at this point are generated with deities, so if you're interested in testing this, I suggest you select an appropriate template monster (vault guards have been very good for this, at least for the fighting-type gods) and assign them the appropriate deity (and perhaps hd:16 or hd:20 - the former will assign them ****** piety, and the latter will give them an effective maximum piety); in most cases, the monster will then have their equipment (or spell set, for the magic-oriented gods) adjusted to suit their new divine inspiration. (Heavily Invocations-based deities such as Elyvilon or Zin will also benefit from their followers having the priest_spells flag set.) For maximum entertainment, pit groups of about ten followers against each other in the Arena; this will give you a good feel for how the followers of a particular deity work out.

In actual gameplay, I envision most of these abilities will be limited to special monsters (uniques and/or vault-placed monsters), but there's an argument to be made for some regular monsters to have these abilities (abyssal knights roaming the Abyss, anyone?).

I look forward to hearing your discussion and feedback.

[eeviac]

So you're saying that the enchanted forest branch (that will be taking one of the pan runes fr) will have fedhas worshipping spriggan priests? Hmmmmmmmm

[twelwe]

I love the idea. All sorts of ideas are stewing about in my mind. Just two games ago, I came across an Ashenzari altar vault with walls that turned to glass and a "see what I see" message. Adding these monsters into the game gives all sorts of new tools to vault makers and would tip me over the edge into actually learning how to make them. It also opens up some uniques to true God worship instead of just giving them abilities that mimic them.

Couple problems though..

Will ely worshipers try to pacify the player?
Will trog worshipers be able to burn spellbooks?
What about zin abilities on the player? Fedhas? All seem troublesome.
Will lugonu worshipers be able to use corruption?

[sgrunt]

As implemented at present:

Will ely worshipers try to pacify the player?

No, though neutral Elyvilon followers (which is the default state for them) will heal the player, and hostile Elyvilon followers will pacify your minions.

Will trog worshipers be able to burn spellbooks?

At present, no, and that's not necessarily going to be implemented, similar to how Nemelex monsters won't sacrifice everything in sight. The only abilities I've done that impact items on the floor are corpse-related - Fedhas abilities (creating toadstools and spores) and Kiku's corpse torment.

What about zin abilities on the player? Fedhas?

Are there specific abilities that you think will cause problems? (No, a Zin priest cannot turn the player into a pillar of salt, or otherwise afflict them permanently; most of the worst Recite effects are turned into confusion or paralysis instead.)

Will lugonu worshipers be able to use corruption?

Yes, though it is a once-per-level occurrence across all Lugonu followers (including the player). This likely means there shouldn't be too many high-level Lugonu followers let loose (there was a suggestion on IRC earlier, for example, to buff Louise's level to that point and place her later in the dungeon).

...edit:

I came across an Ashenzari altar vault with walls that turned to glass and a "see what I see" message.

That's one of my vaults, and I'm glad you like it.

[eeviac]

I am emphatically opposed to adding any more sources of paralysis into this game.

[mageykun]

I think the obvious question is what happens if you run into one of these devout critters and you have the same god. The Beogh heretics fighting for to prove who's worthy logic won't apply to all the gods- in fact, it goes pretty solidly against the flavor of some.

Do they become allied (pff, course not), friendly, neutral, pacified, or fight as normal? Does the behavior vary by god, perhaps? Or you could always just lock out spawning devotees of the player's god (although that could be circumvented if the player avoids the monster, changes gods, and re-encounters later).

[njvack]

This is neat! I can imagine some fairly low-piety god powers being really really dangerous in the hands of monsters (Brothers in Arms, I'm looking at you) but that can all be balanced, I think.

@mageykun: I suspect that the only dudes who would wind up being anything other than hostile would be followers of the Good Gods, similar to how holies treat players now.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I think Fedhas and Jiyva followers would at least be neutral to the player if they have the same god as well. All the rest of the non-evil/good/chaotic gods, it could go either way really.

[njvack]

In the Crawl canon, there aren't actually sentient Jiyva worshippers other than TRJ, Dissolution, and (sometimes) the player -- that's why her altars vanish after killing TRJ if you aren't a follower. Technically, leaving Dissolution alive really should preserve Jiyva's altars as well -- though this is an awfully rare edge case.

It'd be... interesting... if Dissolution got a Slimify attack

[pubby]

I agree that there shouldn't be any other Jiyva worshipers other than TRJ and Dissolution.

Although it might be interesting to put uniques that didn't spawn in other branches in the slime pits as slimes of Jiyva. e.g. "You notice a jelly {Sigmund}. The jelly {Sigmund} invokes the powers of Jiyva! You die."

[sardonica]

Just like anything which gives monsters the powers of a player character, this is a bad idea. Because now all changes to the player character must be considered in light of how a monster will use it.

[twelwe]

Not necessarily. Nowhere did he say all God worshiping monsters are guaranteed all of that God's powers.

[sardonica]

Yah, so now we have to decide which God changes will be applicable to monsters and which won't be.

[sardonica]

Yah, so now we have to decide which God changes will be applicable to monsters and which won't be. It seems a lot more complicated than just changing whatever monsters you want to change unilaterally.

[KoboldLord]

Yah, so now we have to decide which God changes will be applicable to monsters and which won't be. It seems a lot more complicated than just changing whatever monsters you want to change unilaterally.

Traditionally, when a player-controlled ability gets nerfed because it's stupid-overpowered, monsters with an ability based off that player ability get to keep it in its full stupid-overpowered glory. That's why ghosts of your spellcasting characters suddenly learn to throw their Sticky Flame or start summoning wildly more powerful creatures than they ever could have before.

For instance, Wiglaf is already flavored as a devotee of Okawaru. He got to keep Might and Haste as invocations rather than changing to Heroism and Finesse, so he still gets good damage even while he trivially prevents you from running away.

[twelwe]

Yah, so now we have to decide which God changes will be applicable to monsters and which won't be.

You say this like it is some kind of insurmountable burden

[sardonica]

Yah, so now we have to decide which God changes will be applicable to monsters and which won't be.

You say this like it is some kind of insurmountable burden

Mr Kobold actually gives a good example. Did anyone consider little ol' Wiglaf when they made the changes to Okawaru?

[dpeg]

sgrunt: Many thanks! This has been on certain developers' wishlists for ages (I know that Erik and Darshan always wanted this).

Hopefully I get around to playing with mumra's Demigod patch at some point (this is where you collect 'abstract followers' as a demigod). That will make good use of custom uniques with god powers (these are what the gods would throw at you to show your inferiority).

[XuaXua]

Do monsters lose piety / have to regain piety to re-use divine abilities or is there a time limit between uses?

Would something like this concept be used to revisit existing monsters with divine abilities (Orc Priests)?

[Roderic]

It is a perfect chance to allow some banished monsters to return from the Abyss as Lugonites

[mageykun]

It is a perfect chance to allow some banished monsters to return from the Abyss as Lugonites

That would work a little better if banishment were still a spell. As is, it would be a little weird if Lucy rewarded your AK feeding creatures to the abyss by freeing them, duplicating your powerset for them, and then sending them back to kill you.

[jejorda2]

There's always distortion. And decks, right?

Maybe the elven halls should feature some lucy lovin' orc bands that lost their run-ins with the elven banishers.

[twelwe]

Banished uniques coming out as lugonu worshipers is such a great idea! I agree that it should only apply to uniques banished by a non-lugonu worshiping wielder of distortion. There should be an upon-banishment chance here - these are made up numbers - 10% chance they spawn on another level (they escaped the abyss) 85% chance they'll be stuck there, 5% chance they spawn on another level as a lugonu worshiper. This is a nice opportunity for a message on entering: You sense some great power warping the fabric of space. Something powerful has returned to fight again! If you fight a lugonu worshiper while wielding distortion, it would be awesome if they could escape the abyss at full health after possibly being banished by the player.

[o_O]

What about Sif followers with actual spells and actual mana pools? Or maybe just a Sif spellcaster unique at first, with channeling and some spells from a random book or two.

Hopefully I get around to playing with mumra's Demigod patch at some point (this is where you collect 'abstract followers' as a demigod). That will make good use of custom uniques with god powers (these are what the gods would throw at you to show your inferiority).

This would be a good way to generate followers of otherwise rare gods, in addition to being lots of fun for demigods.

[twelwe]

There should be some kobold pack that worship Trog take place of kobold demonologists. I really like how Saint Roka and Margery and Azreal etc have entourages and wish that kind of thing was more common than with uniques, goblins, gnolls, merfolk, kobolds, etc. But demonologists are just annother generic boring summoner, where a Trog pack or even a devout Exalted Kobold who could use BoA would be refreshing. Other species need more of this.

[sgrunt]

I've had the idea in the back of my mind for a while to introduce a basic kobold berserker enemy (after all, it works pretty well for adventurers, so why wouldn't the kobolds themselves think of it?); perhaps there could be two variants - a regular semi-low-level version and an "elite kobold berserker" that has BiA - to fit with your concept.