Lair Larrikin
Posts: 21
Joined: Monday, 19th August 2013, 05:42
God Options for Rogues, Archers and Warrior Mages
edit: the newest proposed version of these gods is available here. The following is my original suggestion.
Arilunu the Huntress
Arilunu was designed as a viable alternative to Okawaru for ranged marksmen. Since animal enemies are kind of a big thing in this game and there currently aren't any gods covering that domain, I decided to go with a hunter theme. I was also trying to keep her powers general enough that non-ranged characters, particularly rogues might find her appealing.
Appreciates: slaying animals or magical beasts, sacrificing their corpses
Deprecates: animal corpses or chunks rotting (piety loss), harming neutral or allied animals (penance)
*0
grants a single gift of ammo upon joining; periodic gifts of non-branded ammo
While Okawaru takes a while to start giving gifts, Arilunu starts gifting small amounts of non-branded ammo right away. If the character joining is unskilled in any form of ranged combat she will gift throwing items.
*1
Hunter's Snare (piety)
You may turn a stack of ammunition at your feet into a deadly trap. At least 20 units of ammo must be provided for a dart, bolt or arrow trap. At least 1 must be provided for a net trap.
While traps being phased out of the dungeon is largely a positive thing, I think that using them against enemies as a player is a pretty neat feature that I wouldn't want to disappear. Besides which, there's already code and sprites in place, so this would be a good opportunity to recycle them into something else. The two changes would have to do with increasing the trap's damage and making it only target enemies. Branded ammo traps could also be a neat addition.
*3
Pacify Beast (food, piety)
Renders the target animal non-hostile. Higher levels of Invocation may make it friendly or allied instead. This ability can be used on the same target repeatedly in an attempt to increase its affection level.
*4
gifts branded ammo, gifts nets
*5
Active Camouflage (passive)
You are invisible until the first time you strike an enemy. The invisibility is renewed when there are no enemies visible.
For melee characters this is essentially a free stab, making the god an interesting pick for melee characters and especially for assassins. For ranged characters it gives an escape option since walking around a corner will renew their invisibility.
Arilunu alternatives: I was debating whether or not she should gift launchers and decided to take them out of the final version. Pacifying creatures could either be buffed to give xp for every conversion, similar to Elyvilon, or nerfed by giving a hard cap to the number of creatures you can have allied at once. It really depends on how strong the rest of her kit turns out to be.
Master Nuu
A god made especially for both rogues and unarmed fighters. He would still be a great choice on any character who uses fast weapons and has a high dexterity score as Nuu's granted powers scale exclusively on attack speed and dex.
Appreciates: sacrifices of permafood
Deprecates: summoning, enslaving or otherwise acquiring allies (penance), deliberately drawing attention to yourself by making noise or wielding a -stealth artifact (penance)
Will not accept worship from anyone with less than 15 dex ("Master Nuu refuses to teach the clumsy!");
*0
Tumble (food, 10 turn cooldown)
Allows you to move two spaces in a given direction and briefly enchances evasion based on your dexterity. It's impossible to use this ability to move through walls, but it is possible to use it to move past your opponents.
Mostly designed for novice assassins who may not be able to close the gap to their target without waking it up. But it also serves the role of making nimble characters more mobile and evasive.
*2
Power of Speed (passive)
Every successive hit on the same target before its next action will deal bonus damage based on your dex score.
With daggers and unarmed strikes being the fastest hitting attacks in the game, this ability is intended to narrow this god's focus to the fast and accurate as opposed to the slow and powerful. The damage bonus will also be a welcome addition for short blade users who need all the damage buffs they can get.
*3
Tempered Body (passive)
After suffering the negative effects of a consumed potion at least 3 times, you acquire permanent resistance to it's particular effect. Only potions consumed after this power is gained will count towards the total.
At the moment bad potions are sort of like curse scrolls before Ashenzari was introduced. They're good for trolling you once, and then never having a meaningful role ever again. This skill is intended to make them have an actual purpose besides making taste-test identification of potions risky.
*5
Crippling Strike (passive)
Your attacks have a chance to slow your opponents or paralyze the ones that have already been slowed.
Nuu alternatives: I had a few other choices for a late level ability before deciding to go with crippling strike. One particular ability idea was to reduce movement delay for as long as you were hidden, which I suspect would have ended up being too powerful or too difficult to code.
Mogdeija the Battlemage
Mogdeija's kit is aimed at improving the performance of mixed spellcasters such as skalds who currently suffer from not being able to do either of their two jobs well. Thinking of a way to improve them I came up with the idea for a god that emphasizes the use of armor by casters (inspired by Louise). Allowing mages to cast firestorm while wearing plate is not the intended goal here, but rather to give a higher success rate for level 1-6 spells to armored casters.
Appreciates: training magic skills while wearing armor. Piety gain is determined by the armor's spellcasting penalty.
Deprecates: using necromantic or transmutative spells or items (penance)
*0
Armored Casting (passive)
The penalty for casting spells while wearing armor or using shields is decreased by one full category.
*1
Spellmail (passive)
Your armor will absorb the brunt of your miscast magic. The majority of miscast effects are prevented altogether; some may apply a -1 to a single piece of your equipment instead.
One of the problems of casting spells as a mage knight is taking unnecessary damage and mutations from bad miscasts. Having your gloves go from +2 to +1 is typically better than losing 10% of your max hp from a mutation.
*2
Supercharge (glow)
Spell success rate greatly increases for your next turn. Repeated use of this ability can quickly contaminate you with magical energies.
*4
Meltdown (glow)
The enchantment level of a random non-artifact piece of armor is reduced by one in exchange for restoring a portion of your MP.
*5
gifts enchantment levels to randomly selected, non-artifact armor
Mogdeija alternatives: If Mog turns out to be a really good choice for conjurers (I doubt she'd be better than Vehumet), her rules could be changed to either ban conjuration or only grant piety as long as you are training both magic and combat skills at the same time. Supercharge can also be tweaked to have a slightly different effect like giving it a longer duration but increasing glow effect for every spell, or perhaps changing the magic contamination to a flat mp cost.
The purpose of this thread is not necessarily to push for the addition of these particular gods, but rather to brainstorm and discuss ideas for rogue, archer, and warrior-mage themed gods in general. So feel free to discuss my ideas, suggest your own, or just comment on the proposal; maybe I'm wrong and the current pantheon is enough to cover all the bases after all.