Portal Vault: Inimical Temple

[roctavian]

I think late D could go for some more interesting portal vaults -- currently Wizlabs are wonderful, but I don't always run into them, and it would be nice to have the possibility of other things to spice up the mix. I mentioned this idea offhandedly in another thread about a hundred years ago, here's something more proper.

The Inimical Temple
A dark counterpoint to the Ecumenical Temple, one which rejects all comers rather than accepts. Here would be a branch populated by priests of different races, and perhaps other religiously-appropriate monsters. The gimmick is this: for the duration of the time you spend in the Inimical Temple, you suffer the wrath of a random god. At the end, there should be worthwhile rewards: I was thinking a guaranteed good randart, appropriately themed to the wrathful god, could be a good conservative proposal. A more radical idea is making the branch "safe" and keeping it around permanently if the player sticks around, kills all the monsters, and weathers the wrath til it ends: I hate stashes and think they're unnecessary, but for some players, the idea of a second empty 1 level branch for keeping junk is probably attractive. If the player leaves before the wrath expires naturally, it will be an empty arch like any other portal branch.

Unknown or unresolved problems
* Wrath is due for an overhaul in the near or uncertain future, so things may play very differently than we might assume right now.
* I don't know how to make this branch compatible with players who are currently suffering from god wrath/under penance. I suppose that players could either be denied entry (I don't like that idea) or they would have additional "Inimical Temple" wrath on top of whatever they entered with.
* Not all wraths are created equally. Some should be outright vetoed if they aren't interesting or relevant to the character entering the portal branch. This relates to the first point.

Are there any other issues/thoughts/ideas you have?

[Galefury]

I like the idea in general, but...

This would require a lot of new monsters, which is terrible. Many god abilities already have monster versions (afaik not currently part of the code, but implementations exist), so making these divine monsters would most likely not be as much work as it initially seems. IIRC there even was a framework to give regular monsters religious powers, so normal monsters might be turned into worshipers with that. But adding a bunch of monsters just for a portal vault seems like a horrible idea. If the random religious enemies from the abstract worshipers demigod proposal ever get added, those might be used, alongside other vaguely thematic monsters.

I think having specific versions of the temple for each god (or some gods) would be better than just using a random god. If the terrain and the monster set are chosen with a specific god wrath in mind, much cooler things could happen. Also, of course the wrath effects would have to happen much more frequently than usual.

[reaver]

This would require a lot of new monsters, which is terrible.

I don't think so, particularly if we focused on the "other religiously-appropriate monsters" part.

Ashenzari - Monsters with cursed equipment
Beogh - Orcs
Cheiriados - Slow monsters in general, like snails. Monsters with Ponderous equipment.
Fedhas - Plants, Lair monsters
Jiyva - Slimes
Kikubaaqudgha - Necromancers
Lugonu - Abyss monsters, monsters with distortion weapons.
Makhleb - Demons, Demonologists,
Nemelex Xobeh - Deep Dwarf Artificers, Monsters from decks of summoning, monsters with decks, maybe moths of suppression
Okawaru - random fighters
Sif Muna - random spellcasters without conjuration spells
Trog - Berserkers, Moths of Wrath,
Vehumet - spellcasters with conjuration spells.
Xom - random monsters, some with chaos branded weapons.
Yredelemnul - Undead creatures, creatures he gifts.

There are some problems, of course. The difficulty is inconsistent, but we could tune the monster sets based on depth. I am worried about Nemelex's concept, but if we had to give just one god new monsters it would be a much more manageable task.

You may have noticed I didn't put in the Good Gods. I don't recommended using the Good Gods in this portal because the wrath mechanics would be unflavorful and it would be hard to differentiate their monsters sets; they all rely on the holy monsters.

Wrath is due for an overhaul in the near or uncertain future, so things may play very differently than we might assume right now.

Don't worry about this. The current ideas are 1) Make wrath time out based on XP to avoid scumming and 2) Scale wrath effects to the player's level, which would be helpful in making this idea a reality.

[roctavian]

I didn't really expect it would take a lot more monsters either, per reaver's post.

I definitely think that specific versions of the temple for specific gods would be best rather than having it purely random. In this way, I think Nemelex could be left out, Kiku and Yred could be combined, and Zin/Ely/TSO could also be combined. Admittedly I don't know if combining all three would make the experience interesting either, but at least it'd be another potential place to encounter holy monsters.

If we were to pare things down further, Oka and Trog could be a single map, as well as Sif/Vehumet. But I think it wouldn't be hard to differentiate those.

[njvack]

What about your current God? Would the temple alway generate as one for a god different from (and opposed to, if the good gods are included) your own?

Good god wrath doesn't seem particularly problematic to me. Sif wrath would either be horrible or irrelevant. Mutation-based wrath would need to be limited to the time you spend in the temple, or excluded.

[roctavian]

I feel like it would be more interesting to present a character with a couple of different wrath situations, and maybe would suggest excluding a currently worshipped god from occurring in the temple -- but perhaps it would be better to just weight the current god quite low.

I feel like the mutation stuff probably should be limited to the temple, considering that good gameplay wouldn't be able to counteract mutation threat, but maybe people who are more knowledgeable about balance could weigh in on this idea?

[Speleothing]

Does wrath mutation ignore rMut? Edit: it does.
So I guess you either have CureMut/Zin piety or just not clear the portal vault. People retreat from Ossuaries, Baileys & Sewers all the time if they meet something they're not prepared to handle.

I guess this would require being spoiled on what gods will mutate you (Jivvya and ???). I would still weight their Temple to appear more infrequently.

However, Contam from miscast wraths would be affected by rMut. So there's that.