Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list


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Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 04:55

Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

This proposal neither stems from nor (directly) concerns the power of Yredelemnul, rather the concept that most of his ally gifts are boring. This is, in my opinion, an unfortunate result of the progression in which he grants he grants undead allies. There are several interesting midrange gifts that are fairly useful during the midgame, such as freezing wraiths, phantasmal warriors and flaming corpses, but tend to peter out quite quickly as the game progresses and their defenses become inadequate. The gifts that actually have potential to take a hit and last, specifically ghouls, bone dragons and profane servitors, all are fairly similar in concept to both each other and to the legions of zombies at a Death Knight's command in that their usual usage is to bump attack enemies. Among these top three there is some variation, ghouls being able to use humanoid equipment and servitors being complete badasses (er, having angelic speed and whatnot), but the point remains that their usage is basically the same.

Note that the recent changes to crypt monsters has helped, but as I noted above most affected monsters suffer from a terrible fragility that prevents their extended use. Furthermore, I think that Yred would benefit from other aspects of the Crypt update, such as using the new monsters. More on that later. I also acknowledge that you can essentially pick a useful undead servant with Enslave Soul, but I feel there is unused potential here to make Yred more fun to play without having to find Rupert/Nessos/Lamia/an annihilator/Tiamat first.

The proposal proper

[*] The following monsters would make excellent candidates for inclusion as Yred gifts:

Revenants - These guys seem practically designed for the position of supporting undead armies. Their ghostly flame abilities are unique in all the game, and certainly would breathe life into a dead army (Or perhaps the other way around?) Yred would have to give players either immunity to or healing from the ghostly fireballs (leaning toward immunity), but this is trivial. Their summoning of spectral things would be a nice addition as well, and probably not overly game breaking. Regardless, an allied revenant would be a powerful ally indeed, and it would belong with the other late game gifts.

Ancient Champions - A progression from the humanoid undead above ghouls. Again, these would be lategame gifts for their excellent equipment and spells.

Shadows - These undead would be fairly appropriate for an early game gift, slipping into the darkness and "stabbing" dangerous foes.

[*] The following monsters are certainly worth consideration, though for one reason or another may not make as much sense as the above category;

Death-flavoured demons - While Yred doesn't explicitly have any connection to demons, both the god and the demons have an affinity for death so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see them working together. He does, after all, send them to punish you under pennance (due to necromancy miscasts). This group includes soul eaters, reapers, and maybe rotting demons. Soul eaters are interesting because of their drain life ability. Reapers can be dangerous because of their potentially branded scythes and reaching, but are not necessarily exciting for reasons outlined in this thread. Rotting devils are boring mostly because of how little rotting does to monsters, furthermore they are not generated by necromancy miscasts and therefore have the least attachment to this group anyway.

Liches - The flavour on these guys makes them seem too individualistic to be pawns of Yredelemnul, but perhaps the God of the (Un)Dead has lured several of these masters of magic? These guys would obviously be lategame gifts, and their obscene power would be nice to experience shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face. They might fall victim to the fragility argument presented above, but you could also speculate that a lich would generally be able to hold its own in a fight.

Vampires - From a flavour standpoint they are similar to liches, though perhaps even more separate from Yred because they like to hang out together. Regardless, This class would have the benefit of being spread throughout the game, however. Vanillas in later early game, magi and knights in later midgame. Vanilla vampires are in as of this edit, replacing freezing wraiths.

Bigger mummies - See above for the flavour, mummies seem to be doing their own thing even more than the above two. Mummy, though, is the only class out of these that Yred currently grants you a member of, hrm. Guardian mummies would be okay, probably in the later midgame. It would be nice to see a functional death curse work on an enemy monster :D Mummy priests and greater mummies, on the other hand, are absurdly powerful and might not make the best Yred gifts.

*The above three sets clearly have their own ambitions and seem too intelligent (or individualistic) to be granted as slaves, but keep in mind Yred's persuasive influence reaches even angels (servitors) and that Crypt vaults are generally flavoured with Yred altars (i.e. the dudes within are worshiping Yred or whatever)

Jiangshi - I originally had these in mind when going to propose this, but besides their sixirfraigangjlaxy-like movement and vampiric attacks they aren't particularly interesting. Sixirffakbndxy-like movement probably wouldn't be so great for allies anyway.

Eidolons - Would probably be nice to have except they would spam Cause Fear and make everyone sad.

---

Overall, I think that an update to ally gifts would make Yredelemnul overall more attractive and more importantly more fun to play with. I think revenants would be the best choice to add, but it is certainly not the only option to consider. Feel free to leave any appropriate feedback.

Since the discussion of monster candidacy in some respect involves Yred's flavour his '^' screen is here for your convenience:
  Code:
Yredelemnul the Dark is an evil God worshipped by those who seek powers over
death and the undead. Followers, who must oppose all things holy, can raise
legions of servile undead, and gain a number of other useful (if unpleasant)
powers. Yredelemnul appreciates killing, but prefers corpses to be put to use
rather than sacrificed. Destroying artificial beings is also favoured, as they
are neither truly alive nor subject to death or undeath.


A survey of current Yred gifts may help give background to the proposal:
Spoiler: show
Game placement categorization is mine and approximate.

Early game:
Mummy - Can hit okay for the first maybe 10 dungeon levels, fairly boring though. They place a scary curse on your enemies but they never get scared to death :(
Wight - Cool that they use weapons, but in practice they are weak and pass quickly. Perhaps several could be gifted together, as found in the dungeon?
Flying skull - Certainly my favorite of the early game gifts, Skulls are unique in that they are the only undead to be gifted in packs. They fly, they are fast, they do plenty of damage both before and after their damage buff, and their tile somehow makes what probably should be terrifying so adorable :D
Wraith - The first of the updated undead, wraiths sap the vigor from and slow your enemies.
Mid game:
Freezing Wraith - Hit pretty hard with their freezing brand. That's about it.
Flaming corpse - Sticky flame adds more damage to their melee attacks.
Phantasmal warrior - Blink Close is definitely a nice touch. It gets them killed sometimes but at least makes them interesting. Their -MR is usually negligible on enemies, but I suppose could help support your wand usage.
Skeletal warrior - The toughest of the midrange undead, Skeletal warriors are able to use weapons. They come with them, so this can usually be ignored unless one of the weapons has a decent brand. What does make them interesting, however, is their ability to pick up and use ranged weapons. A friendly crossbow generally expedites the carrying of the black torch and all that.
Late game:
Flayed ghost - These guys are pretty neat since their update. The Flay ability is fairly unique, though on your team usually is just a different Smite. They die (re-die? dissapate?) quite easily by the time you get them, though.
Death Cob - Really fast, but also quite fragile. I can't really think of a time where these have been too useful. Usually they are just popcorn (unsurprisingly)
Ghoul - These guys are pretty fun if you can pretend you are a Beoghite for a moment and equip them with some decent armor and weapons. Good health and damage, but are just more bump attack fodder without a ranged weapon.
Bone Dragon - Massive HP and okay damage make them even better at bumping into things.
Profane Servitor - Even though these guys for the most part fall on the wrong side of my proposal's context (they just bump into things), it's hard to say bad things about them. They give you and your pals an Umbra aura that does... Um... something! There see they have some support to them! :D But seriously they have awesome flavour and I would definitely keep them as the "capstone" Yredelemnul gifts.

As you can see, there aren't really very many supportive abilities among the undead. (Four if you count all of slowing, -MR, Flay and umbra) In addition there are only two gifts that are able to make ranged attacks (Three if you include Flay), and both of these require input from the player. This proposal aims to add some variety to the armies of Yredelemnul.
Last edited by RBrandon on Saturday, 18th January 2014, 18:25, edited 4 times in total.
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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 06:32

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

what about some lost souls? fully healing your gifts would be nice.
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Sar

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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 06:42

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

You can enslave a death mage.
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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 08:49

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

that does sound like fun.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 23rd November 2013, 13:27

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Hirsch I wrote:what about some lost souls? fully healing your gifts would be nice.


That did cross my mind, though I think that would work better as an ability "Call Lost Soul" than as a gift, which is what this proposal addresses. Being able to fully heal a profane servitor on its destruction would be more than a little strong though.
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 03:17

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

yeah, I suppose so. but if it was a gift, it would take the place of a possibly better one, so it would not be OP, would it?
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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 03:23

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Hirsch I wrote:what about some lost souls? fully healing your gifts would be nice.


Revenants summon lost souls and their ghostly fireballs can heal undead -- if it's desirable for Yredelemnulites to get healing on their undead, adding them as a rare top-level Yred gift might work better.

reg

Lair Larrikin

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Post Sunday, 24th November 2013, 07:27

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

An ability which sacrifices some of your health/piety to create a lost soul would be a pretty cool thing to have for Yred.

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Post Tuesday, 26th November 2013, 04:41

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Do revenants summon lost souls at all? I have played around with them a bit and they haven't yet summoned them for me.

Is there any interest in this at all? I think this would be a great way to get more people to see some of the more interesting undead monsters.

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Post Tuesday, 26th November 2013, 05:11

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

RBrandon wrote:Do revenants summon lost souls at all? I have played around with them a bit and they haven't yet summoned them for me.


Damn, I was getting lost souls confused with spectral things, which revenants do summon. Never mind.

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Post Saturday, 30th November 2013, 05:24

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Does anyone have some feedback on the proposal itself, and not about the lost souls tangent?
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Post Saturday, 30th November 2013, 06:34

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

I think adding Revenants is a decent idea but I don't like any of the other suggestions. This basically comes down to flavor- I could not see any of the others being subservient to a worshipper of Yred.

Here are the two major ways I would try to improve Yred's monster list: 1) Design monsters specifically for this purpose, and then add their spawning later 2) Add some of the "undead flavored" demons from Tar to his list. (They may have to be removed from Makhleb's lists.)
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Post Saturday, 30th November 2013, 13:40

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Considering what a lich is, I don't think it would make much sense as an Yred gift, undead though it may be. Revenants and champions are good ideas, though. Maybe a lost soul summon could be a tension-and-piety-based thing?

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Post Sunday, 1st December 2013, 02:17

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Most of the problems with including that second section come down to flavour. The monsters are interesting mechanically, but aren't the best slaves. That said, ghouls and servitors and presumably some of the ghosts (flayed ghosts at least speak) are intelligent and powerful yet follow the player. Maybe it is like Beogh's messiah - you are viewed as a champion of the undead and worthy to fight for. Even with that though vampires and mummies probably don't belong. I'm not entirely sure what Yred's full flavour is besides :P

re: reaver: I agree that designing new monsters would be the best solution to this issue, but my reasoning was that it would be fairly trivial to add an existing monster to the list, especially if one were to fit especially well.
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Post Sunday, 1st December 2013, 02:43

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

I almost think that Yred should only gift lost souls. Those are awesome.
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Post Monday, 2nd December 2013, 01:42

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

When anybody gets hit it's a endless loop of lost souls healing each other. Farm enough souls and you resurrect as an intelligent zombie when you die.

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Post Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 16:53

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Servitors make sense as servants because they are corruptions of a being specifically created to serve a deity (well, deities, TSO and Zin). Liches create themselves (and are particularly flavored to individualism--their very existence screams "I defy society, goodness, and even death itself"), and vampires have their own thing going on. Intelligence isn't really the flavor component required for something not to be a servant--there's another component of individualism.

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Post Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 17:13

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

RBrandon wrote:Does anyone have some feedback on the proposal itself, and not about the lost souls tangent?


I like the idea of spicing up yred, reapers sound cool too.
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Post Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 17:15

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

reapers are not even undead
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Post Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 17:33

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

well, they look skeletical. :lol:
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Sar

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Post Tuesday, 7th January 2014, 20:07

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

A horrible being that appears as a great mass of writhing shadows which occasionally reveals a huge, horned skeleton. It is one of the most terrible denizens of the many Hells.

Shadow Fiend servants when?

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 04:16

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

OP reformatted and updated.

There are several nice death-flavoured demons that would be neat to use except they are demons. Though technically Yred wrath can generate hostile reapers and soul eaters.

Speaking of Necro miscasts, would shadows be all that good as an early-ish ally? They have that new invisi-stab thing going on.

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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 04:52

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Invisible allies are really bad. Think about it.

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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 20:35

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

It might not be so bad if it let you see them anyway but yeah I see how that might be bad. Not a whole lot to pick from early on though. Probably why plain mummies are in there in the first place.

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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 21:43

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

You can see invisible allies no matter your sInv status.
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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 22:01

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

why are they bad then?
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Post Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 23:57

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Oh, that is new since the last time I had an invisible ally, then :P Never mind.

Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 18th January 2014, 18:21

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

OP updated with shadows and death-flavoured demons. Recent changes in trunk to Yredelemnul have replaced ice wraith gifts with plain vampires and have capped the player's combined total of profane servitors and bone dragons to 3. This change might necessitate looking further into Yred's ally mechanics, as already suggested by this tread.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Saturday, 18th January 2014, 21:42

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Ancient Champions aren't happening unless they lose Haunt (as they really should... Crypt has enough popcorn factories). They'd be great then, though, and more than make up for the 3 dragons/servitors nerf, although they might make things too Beoghy. Guardian mummies lack that problem, at least, but they're not exactly Ancient Champions. Yred's designed to have a very sharp post-endgame cutoff between useful and untenable, though (at 5 runes + E and Z, when there are no living creatures left), so I'd think his gifts might as well reflect that clear cap.

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 07:56

Re: Proposal: Spice up/update Yred's ally gift list

Been playing a MiDK tonight, very pleased with the Vampire gifts: their confuse spell is always good when it lands, and they last a long time with their in-battle healing.

As far as other gifts are concerned, I think that we need at least one good buffer in the crowd. Enslaving Deep Troll Shamans for the haste/might/heal shows how useful it is.

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