Proposal: Xom and ?useless


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Halls Hopper

Posts: 83

Joined: Saturday, 23rd March 2013, 11:12

Post Sunday, 2nd February 2014, 18:56

Proposal: Xom and ?useless

I'd like to propose a new passive ability for Xom followers:

Random Usefulness - changes a behavior of scroll of random uselessness, triggering one of the following effects instead of the usual cantrip:

[*] heal for 3d5 HP
[*] one temporary beneficial mutation
[*] berserker
[*] brilliance
[*] as !resist
[*] uncontrolled blink
[*] static discharge
[*] instant shafting of the player
[*] confusing touch
[*] summon butterflies

The list definitely isn't final, it's here for general concept. No effect should be harmful while all should be at least slightly beneficial. I'd like to hear your ideas about appropriate effects.

Reasoning:
Scrolls of random uselessness are largely uninteresting and redundant. Well, they are random and useless, right? They can sometimes matter on the beginning, especially when you blow your only ?ID on them instead of some more useful scroll that can save your life, but afterwards, they are simply ignored similarly to ?curse foo.

However, ?curse are worth staying in the game due to Ash who makes a good use of them. As ?immolation was changed recently to do something interesting and I see ?useless as a nice piece of flavor especially in connection with Xom, I'd be happy to make it more interesting and connected with our beloved god of chaos.

I'm proposing this god ability being inspired by Ash and ?curse, but also because Xom has a peculiar habit of sending you into dangerous situations very early, sometimes obviously trying to kill you. Having one more tool at your disposal will hopefully help some character survive hostile demon summons on D:2 and offer a slight benefit for worshipping the chaos itself, retaining the chaotic and unpredicatble nature of Xom.

I hope a change like the one I'm propsing will fulfill that demand.
You slash the rat with your +7 +5 cursed slightly rusted very sharp meteoric steel demonic flaming triple sword of speed and pain covered with various bloods and vomit. The rat is not hurt.
The rat bites you.
You die…

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 19

Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 15:12

Post Sunday, 2nd February 2014, 21:31

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

I like this idea in theory but it seems to have a big problem with it. Cursed scrolls are the major aspect of Ash so it is not difficult at all to communicate to the player about it. However if scrolls of uselessness are valuable to Xom, how would it be communicated? It seems like it is something that you would only understand if you looked it up in a spoiler online. This is something that is acceptable (and even fun) in some games but this seems to be against the philosophy of crawl.

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1888

Joined: Saturday, 9th July 2011, 20:57

Post Sunday, 2nd February 2014, 21:41

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

red_kangaroo wrote:I'd like to propose a new passive ability for Xom followers:

Random Usefulness - changes a behavior of scroll of random uselessness, triggering one of the following effects instead of the usual cantrip:

[*] heal for 3d5 HP
[*] one temporary beneficial mutation
[*] berserker
[*] brilliance
[*] as !resist
[*] uncontrolled blink
[*] static discharge
[*] instant shafting of the player
[*] confusing touch
[*] summon butterflies

The list definitely isn't final, it's here for general concept. No effect should be harmful while all should be at least slightly beneficial. I'd like to hear your ideas about appropriate effects.

Reasoning:
Scrolls of random uselessness are largely uninteresting and redundant. Well, they are random and useless, right? They can sometimes matter on the beginning, especially when you blow your only ?ID on them instead of some more useful scroll that can save your life, but afterwards, they are simply ignored similarly to ?curse foo.


Making a scroll behave entirely differently for a single god seems spoilery and unintuitive, and giving Xom specific abilities seems quite out of the spirit of Xom.

If random uselessness needs to be improved (besides just getting rid of them), why not change them to "scroll of randomness" or "scroll of random cantrip" and give them a small list of very minor effects that are sometimes useful but are never guaranteed to be so, similar to the current summon butterflies effect?

Halls Hopper

Posts: 63

Joined: Saturday, 25th January 2014, 22:17

Post Sunday, 2nd February 2014, 22:09

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

nicolae wrote: If random uselessness needs to be improved (besides just getting rid of them), why not change them to "scroll of randomness" or "scroll of random cantrip" and give them a small list of very minor effects that are sometimes useful but are never guaranteed to be so, similar to the current summon butterflies effect?


I like this, items that are always bad are kinda dull once IDed, items that are risky but useful are a lot of fun.Making it a Xom only skill seems to narrow to meaningfully impact the game.

Dungeon Master

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Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 00:11

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

phobetor: Well, we just had precisely this happen with !slowing -> !lignification. More ideas are definitely welcome.

Halls Hopper

Posts: 63

Joined: Saturday, 25th January 2014, 22:17

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 06:24

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

dpeg wrote:phobetor: Well, we just had precisely this happen with !slowing -> !lignification. More ideas are definitely welcome.


Cool, When I saw lignification added and slow removed I was wondering if that was a direct swap to spice up slowing or just an odd coincidence. Glad to hear items are moving in that direction.

As for the scroll I think the best direction would be to add chancy escape effects to fit with butterflies.

    Summon butterflies
    Random blink
    Directional blink
    Wisp Form (or something similar which is fast but frail)

Kind of a deck of escape light.
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Halls Hopper

Posts: 83

Joined: Saturday, 23rd March 2013, 11:12

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 08:25

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

About the spoilers - that's why I'm suggesting god ability, so you can see it on religion screen.

I'm definitely not against making the scroll useful for everbody, but for the original proposal I wanted to preserve the trickster feeling of the scroll. It's as if there is a vast cult of Xomian mages that dedicate their lives to creation of completely random and useless scrolls and infesting dungeons with those scrolls, just for the sake of fun. Seeing the scroll as Xom's (or his clerics') creation I thought it would be interesting to link it even more with him/her/it.

If it is changed to have some minor but random effect, I'd say give it more than just strictly escape tools. It is scroll of randomness, after all, so a bit inappropriate effect is cool. :)
You slash the rat with your +7 +5 cursed slightly rusted very sharp meteoric steel demonic flaming triple sword of speed and pain covered with various bloods and vomit. The rat is not hurt.
The rat bites you.
You die…

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 508

Joined: Sunday, 16th June 2013, 14:01

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 10:48

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

The scroll should have instant or quick field effects like butterflies, fan's blowback effect, mass slow/confusion/polymorph as oppose to lasing self effects for two reasons: self-buffs are potion territory.
More importantly, you shouldn't be able to scum buffs before a fight.

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 726

Joined: Friday, 11th February 2011, 18:46

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 16:08

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

The simple way to make it useful would be to make it randomly choose among any good or double-edged, tactical scroll (not curse foo, enchant foo, recharging, identification, or acquirement).

1010011010 wrote:The scroll should have instant or quick field effects like butterflies, fan's blowback effect, mass slow/confusion/polymorph as oppose to lasing self effects for two reasons: self-buffs are potion territory.
More importantly, you shouldn't be able to scum buffs before a fight.
I would take out the mass slow/confuse/polymorph, and add mass dispersal (the ammo brand, so it would blink every other creature to somewhere else in sight), uncontrolled blink, shafting, tukima's dance on enemy weapon, etc.
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Mines Malingerer

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Joined: Monday, 13th January 2014, 21:27

Location: North Carolina, USA

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 21:52

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

Tiber wrote:I would take out the mass slow/confuse/polymorph, and add mass dispersal (the ammo brand, so it would blink every other creature to somewhere else in sight), uncontrolled blink, shafting, tukima's dance on enemy weapon, etc.


Yes. Effects that still play on chance but can completely alter the current moment's playfield. That's Zom style, yo.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 216

Joined: Saturday, 25th December 2010, 20:02

Post Monday, 3rd February 2014, 22:05

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

Tiber wrote:The simple way to make it useful would be to make it randomly choose among any good or double-edged, tactical scroll (not curse foo, enchant foo, recharging, identification, or acquirement).

1010011010 wrote:The scroll should have instant or quick field effects like butterflies, fan's blowback effect, mass slow/confusion/polymorph as oppose to lasing self effects for two reasons: self-buffs are potion territory.
More importantly, you shouldn't be able to scum buffs before a fight.
I would take out the mass slow/confuse/polymorph, and add mass dispersal (the ammo brand, so it would blink every other creature to somewhere else in sight), uncontrolled blink, shafting, tukima's dance on enemy weapon, etc.


Make a new effect. give all creatures including the player the same visual effect as new ?imolation, but blue rather than red. with this effect, any time a creature is hit, it randomly blinks somewhere else within LOS of the player if possible.

This would fit Xom, I think: Iit's annoying, but can save your life, and has strategic uses when it comes up, but maintains the unpredictability that comes with random blinking.
The above post is for entertainment purposes only. If you think anything I ever say is backed by fact, or if you cite things I've said in any argument ever, you are insane.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 99

Joined: Monday, 28th May 2012, 21:47

Post Tuesday, 4th February 2014, 23:15

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

Quick and dirty suggestion would be that the scroll simply "gets his attention."
Doesn't have to be good or bad, play on his mood or not maybe, I dunno. But just the idea that reading a "scroll of harmless chaos" being a way to get the attention of the "god of chaos" sounds like it could be fun.

A seven-headed hydra comes into view!
As you read the scroll of Random Uselessness, it crumbles to dust.
WHAT'S UP, MORTAL?
You suddenly find yourself in a different location!
The seven-headed hydra bites you! x7
Xom roars with laughter!
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Halls Hopper

Posts: 83

Joined: Saturday, 23rd March 2013, 11:12

Post Thursday, 6th February 2014, 08:37

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

Arkhan wrote:Quick and dirty suggestion would be that the scroll simply "gets his attention."
Doesn't have to be good or bad, play on his mood or not maybe, I dunno. But just the idea that reading a "scroll of harmless chaos" being a way to get the attention of the "god of chaos" sounds like it could be fun.

A seven-headed hydra comes into view!
As you read the scroll of Random Uselessness, it crumbles to dust.
WHAT'S UP, MORTAL?
You suddenly find yourself in a different location!
The seven-headed hydra bites you! x7
Xom roars with laughter!


Nice. :D
You slash the rat with your +7 +5 cursed slightly rusted very sharp meteoric steel demonic flaming triple sword of speed and pain covered with various bloods and vomit. The rat is not hurt.
The rat bites you.
You die…

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 726

Joined: Friday, 11th February 2011, 18:46

Post Thursday, 6th February 2014, 14:39

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

Arkhan wrote:Quick and dirty suggestion would be that the scroll simply "gets his attention."
Doesn't have to be good or bad, play on his mood or not maybe, I dunno. But just the idea that reading a "scroll of harmless chaos" being a way to get the attention of the "god of chaos" sounds like it could be fun.

A seven-headed hydra comes into view!
As you read the scroll of Random Uselessness, it crumbles to dust.
WHAT'S UP, MORTAL?
You suddenly find yourself in a different location!
The seven-headed hydra bites you! x7
Xom roars with laughter!


The Xom card already does this. People don't see it much because it's in the deck of oddities though.
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Pandemonium Purger

Posts: 1283

Joined: Thursday, 16th April 2015, 22:39

Post Wednesday, 3rd June 2015, 02:15

Re: Proposal: Xom and ?useless

IronJelly wrote:Make a new effect. give all creatures including the player the same visual effect as new ?imolation, but blue rather than red. with this effect, any time a creature is hit, it randomly blinks somewhere else within LOS of the player if possible.

This would fit Xom, I think: Iit's annoying, but can save your life, and has strategic uses when it comes up, but maintains the unpredictability that comes with random blinking.


That is a fine idea: a scroll that gives the player and all monsters in LOS a temporary status effect that makes them function like blink frogs. Hitting, getting hit, and simply moving may cause random blinking. It could also apply a -cTele effect, and make teleporting enemies/player blink instead of teleporting. This would be a useful, double-edged scroll, like ?immolation and ?torment. Very useful for characters with ranged attacks, like ?vulnerability is useful for enchanters. For kicks, you could make it turn actual blink frogs into plain giant frogs.

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