Halls Hopper
Posts: 89
Joined: Thursday, 30th May 2013, 18:35
Nepocsis, god of permanent allies for healthy summoners
Nepocsis is a god of control and forced domination. He allows players to use some of their max hp to dominate the minds of intelligent monsters, turning them into permanent minions. At higher piety levels he lets the player slaughter minions that have served their purpose for mana, and gives a couple ways to fire around friendly slaves.
Purpose:
To provide casters with permanent allies similar to what melee classes get with Beogh and Yredelemnul, to give summoners some more interesting strategic options than just mobbing enemies, and to incorporate some of the ideas in the “max hp cost for summons” proposal to encourage the use of beefy spellcasters like naga and deep dwarves.
Given Abilities:
*
None
**
Dominate: Costs: 3MP, max hp Smite targeted ability usable on normal intelligence or higher monsters, opposed by magic resistance. Successfully dominating an enemy turns it into a permanent ally, but lowers the player’s maximum health based on the dominated creature’s hit dice. The player’s maximum health returns to normal when the monster dies (their current hp is unaffected).
Dominated creatures do not gain any experience themselves, and will never grow any more powerful than when they were dominated. Named unique monsters are ineligible for domination (“______ refuses to bow to your will!”).
Recall: Costs: 2MP, food exactly the same as Yeredelemnul’s recall.
***
Cull: Costs: food, 1mp Instantly kills a dominated monster, returning mana to the player based on the target’s hit dice and current health. (creature HD) * (1 + Invocations * 0.05) * (% of target’s current health) mana returned, something like that.
****
Scatter the weak: Costs: food, 2mp Beam targeted, instant spell. Does no damage, but pushes friendly monsters in its path to either side to let the player easily fire through their horde of friends.
*****
Gathering power: Costs: piety Instantly teleports all friendly monsters in the player’s LOS adjacent to the player, letting the player surround melee enemies with monsters.
******
Sigil of Control: Costs: piety The player temporarily gains the ability to fire spells through their allies and summons, and makes these allies immune to any damage caused by the player’s spells.
The cost in food, piety and max hp for all of these abilities will need to be determined. Dominate and Scatter the Weak should be usable near constantly, within reason. Gathering Power and Sigil of Control should only be useful in emergencies due to their steep piety costs, to balance out them being the only things Nepocsis followers spend piety on in the first place.
Appreciates/depreciates:
What I have here is subject to change. Right now the idea is to be an easy god to build piety for in the early game, but difficult in the extended end game to keep his piety-costing powers from being abusable by late game casters.
Flavor-wise, Nepocsis values social order and obedience so having a more restricted code of conduce would make sense. It just didn't seem like a good idea gameplay-wise.
Appreciates:
Piety for killing intelligent, living creatures not following a god
Depreciates:
Piety lost over time
Is Deciding to Worship Nepocsis a Meaningful Choice?
Nepocsis’s mana regeneration mechanic is the riskiest (and probably worst) offered by any of the spellcasting gods; the player’s maximum hp is lowered for using it and there is always a chance slaves will die before they are culled. He also doesn’t offer any spellbooks, forcing the player to possibly risk needing to hybridize if they get unlucky and don’t find any useful books. In return, Nepocsis offers permanent and quite probably terrifying servants, the ability to easily fire beams around them at enemies and easy access to recall.
A character planning to make heavy use of summons and conjurations would get the most value out of this skillset, but due to the risks it certainly isn't a no-brainer choice for a summoner to pick Nepocsis. Also, since species with more HP could maintain a sizable army of the worst of whatever monsters they are currently encountering, it isn't a no-brainer choice for a non-summoner to not pick Nepocsis either. Any character who wants allies, has enough health to not be crippled by the hp costs and uses any ranged attacks and/or spells ever could get good use out of this god.