Temple Termagant
Posts: 6
Joined: Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 03:39
New God Idea: Balor, the Dreamer
The description of this god is as follows:
Balor the Dreamer is a slumbering deity who desires only to sleep in peace. Those that choose to enter into his dreams would be advised to tread lightly, as Balor does not enjoy being disturbed. Followers that can avoid waking the dreamer will have the privilege of watching as the lines between dreams and reality are blurred, and Balor's dream becomes indistinguishable from the "real" world. As they slip deeper into the dream, followers of Balor gain Line of Sight reduction while retaining information about their surroundings, and additionally enjoy random ephemeral dream characters and items that fade in and out of reality. At higher levels of piety, they can even begin to take control of the dream themselves.
Racial Restrictions
Demigods may not follow Balor (or any other god).
Appreciates
- Not being disturbed (small constant piety gain tied to experience gain)
- You or your allies killing loud monsters has a chance to grant piety.
Deprecates
- Small piety loss whenever a loud noise is made by something other than you, proportional to loudness of noise.
- Large piety loss when you make a loud noise (even inadvertently)
Given Abilities
Piety ()
(Passive): Balor's dreams occasionally result in friendly summons, or in the creation of temporary dream equipment.
A friendly [monster name] wanders into your dream environment
You notice a [item name]. Was that here before?
(Active): You can pray to invoke silence. Thematically, Balor casts silence on you to shut you up so he can get back to sleep. You pay piety because Balor is irritated at you for disturbing him. He will also cast silence on you when you first convert to him, though this first silencing will not cost piety. (Cost: Moderate amount of Piety)
Balor mumbles, 'Shut up mortal, and leave me alone!'
Piety (*)
(Passive): LOS is reduced by 1 rank.
Your surroundings become darker as your dream focus narrows.
Piety (**)
(Passive): LOS is reduced by 1 additional rank.
Your surroundings become darker as your dream focus narrows.
Piety (***)
(Passive): LOS is reduced by 1 additional rank.
Your surroundings become darker as your dream focus narrows.
(Passive): You can detect terrain and monsters up to 2 spaces beyond your line of sight.
Your awareness of the dream expands.
Piety (****)
(Passive): You gain clarity, flight, and teleport control.
You feel lucid.
Piety (*****)
No new abilities.
Piety (******)
(Active): Reality Check - You can slip into a dream-within-a-dream for a short amount of time. (Cost: Large amount of Piety)
You feel as though you can slip deeper into the dream.
Detailed explanation of abilities:
LOS reduction with detection of terrain
The first three ranks of Balor's piety result in LOS reduction, which is tremendously helpful for stealth oriented characters (see "Reason for Proposal" below). At the third rank, Balor gives characters the unique ability to "see" two spaces beyond their (reduced) line of sight; it is basically like normal sight, except that it only goes one way. Obviously, followers of Balor still cannot target things beyond their line of sight, but they know that they're there. This ability is the main benefit of worshiping Balor, as it makes it easier for players to avoid undesired encounters. It also lets stealth characters plan their assassinations more effectively.
Dream Monsters and equipment
Balor will randomly gift friendly creatures and/or equipment to his worshipers. However, all such gifts are temporary (the idea is that they are part of a dream). Friendly creatures will always be of the silent variety (i.e. monsters that don't make noise), and are not considered to be summoned, even though they will time out after a while. Gifted weapons will always be short blades (suitable for stabbing) or blowguns/needles, and will usually have useful brands. Gifted armor will always be light and will not hinder attacks or spellcasting. Dream armor may be put on over normal armor (since otherwise it could leave the player very vulnerable when it vanishes), in which case the two armors do not stack, but the normal armor is instantly re-equipped when the dream armor vanishes. All dream items will have the "dream" ego to indicate that they will vanish after a while (and, in the case of dream armor, that they can be placed over regular armor).
Clarity, Flight, and Teleport Control
Clarity and Teleport Control need no explanation. Flight is permanent, meaning that once the player gains level 4 piety, he will be flying until his piety drops below 4 (i.e. it is not invokable, it is intrinsic.)
Reality Check
This is the most complicated ability that Balor has, and possibly the most controversial. I am interested especially in feedback on this. Basically, for a large amount of piety, the player can create a checkpoint to which he may return at any point during a limited period of time. Thematically, the player slips into a dream within a dream, from which he can awaken if things get too dangerous. Mechanically, it works like this:
1. Player invokes reality check, expending a large amount of piety. The game records its state, as though it were making a save file.
2. For the next X many turns, player has the Metadream status (or some other appropriate label for the condition).
3. While player has the Metadream status, if he dies or chooses to activate his "awaken" ability, he returns to the "save file" that was created when he invoked reality check. The piety he spent to do this is not refunded (so if he decides to reality check again, he will have even less piety, and thus cannot simply reality check forever). (You wake up! It was just a dream!)
4. Otherwise, once X many turns have passed, the player loses the Metadream status, and the "save file" created for reality check is deleted.
Basically, reality check gives a player a second chance, but only if he forsees that he may need one in advance.
In-Game Ability Descriptions
Balor will silence you if you disturb him. (Invoke silence)
Reality is limited to a small area around you. (LOS reduction)
You are aware of the broader scope of the dream. (terrain/monster detection)
You are lucid. (clarity, flight, teleport control)
You can briefly slip deeper into the dream. (reality check)
Abandonment and Penance
Balor doesn't really care if his followers abandon him, since he would rather not be disturbed. However, he still remains aware of them, and since they are no longer his followers, he is less inclined to be forgiving of disturbances. Thus, he will only punish you shortly after he is due to give punishment and you make a noise. Hence, if you continue to be silent after abandoning him, his "wrath" will eventually dissipate on its own.
Punishments:
- Casting radius 1 silence on you (“Shut up, mortal! I'm trying to sleep!”)
- Smiting you (Balor lashes out at you for disturbing him!)
Reason for Proposal
Balor fills one very important gap in the pantheon of gods: he is a good god for a stealth - oriented character. I have seen other proposals for stealth gods, but I feel as though they lack flavor. Balor has thematic reasons for the bonuses he provides, and aids stealthy characters while not explicitly boosting their stealth. However, Balor should appeal to more than just stealthy, stabby, assassin types - his LOS reduction is useful for all characters, especially the more frail ones, and he provides useful intrinsics at higher piety. His random dream gifts can be helpful to any character, and his Reality Check gives players a powerful weapon (with a high piety cost and necessity of preparation as safeguards against scumming), as well as the only instance of time travel to the past (of a sort) in the game, which is a unique game mechanic.
Justification for why proposal fits with stated game design philosophy:
"Challenging and random gameplay, with skill making a real difference"
- Balor's powerful LOS reduction and enemy detection abilities are balanced by the difficulty of maintaining them. Many enemies will shout when they notice you, which will quickly drain your piety if you are not careful. Thus, playing with Balor as your god is challenging and requires skilled play to be successful, satisfying the requirement of challenging, skilled gameplay. Balor's dream gifts add some randomness, while encouraging players to make full use of them before they disappear.
"Meaningful Decisions"
- Balor provides the player with more of a meaningful decision with respect to whether or not to engage an enemy that is detected just outside of LOS, or whether to avoid it. Whether or not to use Reality Check is another important meaningful decision, as trivial uses of it will quickly sap the player's piety.
"Avoidance of Grinding/Scumming"
- Balor's abilities cannot be scummed. Since piety gain is tied to experience, players cannot simply stay in one place and wait for their piety to increase. They must go out and risk making noise to try to get their piety up. Though reality check may bring thoughts of savescumming to experienced roguelike players, its high piety cost and limited duration prevent abuse.
"Gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie support; Clarity"
- Balor's abilities do not require spoilers to understand, as they are mechanically fairly simple and intuitive (with the possible exception of Reality Check). Most of his abilities are passive, so newbies do not have to actively use them to enjoy their benefits. Reality check is a little complicated, but should be explainable, and is also a very helpful ability for newbies, who may not be sure how to beat a powerful monster, and can use Reality Check as a sort of "sandbox" mode to test out an idea.
"Internal Consistency"
- Balor's abilities and punishments are internally consistent. Just because he is a god for stealthy characters doesn't mean he penalizes stealth for those that desert or anger him - rather, in keeping with his theme, he simply punishes disturbances, just in harsher ways. His abilities all fit with the theme of dreaming - in a dream, a person's focus narrows sharply so that they are only aware of a few things at a time, hence the substantial LOS reduction. Lucid dreamers gain great abilities in their dreams, the most common of which are flight and teleportation (clarity is given because they are lucid). And if you die in a dream, you just wake up, which is what happens with Reality Check.
"Replayability"
- Balor adds to the replayability of the game by offering another sort of play style.
"Proper use of Out of Depth Monsters"
- Okay, not really sure this principle is applicable to a god proposal...so let's just ignore it.
Thematic Explanation of God
The basic idea behind Balor is that he has been dreaming for eternity, and that the "real" world experienced by the characters of Dungeon Crawl is somehow a part of his dream. This does not put him in any way "above" the other gods, as gods exist outside of reality; he is just another member of the pantheon. He is, for the most part, unaware of the goings on in the world, unless you make yourself known to him by praying at his altar. By doing this, you enter into his awareness, which is good because many of his dream effects begin to occur around you, but is also bad because it is now possible for you to draw his attention (and possibly his wrath). Balor wants a peaceful, quiet dream, and so you have to remain as silent as possible; obviously, this is a god for characters willing to invest in stealth. However, even if you do wake up some noisy monsters, you can quickly atone for it by slaughtering them before they can make too much of a racket; Balor appreciates those who prevent others from disturbing him. Balor does not mind very small amounts of noise, such as the (whispered) reading of a scroll; it is the larger, more disruptive noises that he objects to. And any attempt to communicate with him (i.e. praying) will be met with silence - quite literally.
I would love to hear the suggestions of the community on this god, and am open to constructive criticism, and to making any needed modifications to this god. Regrettably, I have no experience coding features for Crawl.