Some comments on the other proposals in this thread:
and into wrote:a.) "Fail-safe" — Piety cost, 3 MP plus cost of spell. Cast a memorized spell with spell failure set to (current value - (5 + 2*Invocations).
"Reduce your spell failure rate" seems way too close to Vehumet. Making it active instead of passive isn't enough of a distinction IMO.
and into wrote:b.) "Double Cast" — Piety cost, 5 MP plus cost of spells. Cast two spells at once. Only incurs hunger cost once, from whichever spell had higher hunger cost. You can only double-cast a spell that you have sufficient mastery over, based on your unmodified (no Wizardry) spell success with it. Invocations skill level determines the max spell level and minimum success rate at which a spell can be double cast.
and into wrote:d.) "Spell Storm" — Very high piety cost; 9 MP plus cost of chosen spell. You choose a suitable spell you know and cast it en masse. Only works for some spells, however most summons, most conjurations, and most hexes are stormable. Basically casts a single spell multiple times, with targets randomly chosen when applicable. Number of times the spell is cast will depend on Invocations skill level compared to level of the spell chosen.
I'm not really sure how this fits Sif Muna's theme. Being able to go crazy with a single offensive spell seems to fit Vehumet's flavour better - I don't see how it fits "god of knowledge".
and into wrote:c.) "Delayed Cast" — High piety cost; MP and hunger cost of chosen spell. Sif lets you put a spell of your choice with X% failure or less on "delay" (cf. delayed fireball). Once "charged" you can cast the spell instantaneously from your abilities menu with no MP cost, nor hunger cost. Certain spells (Revivification, Death's Door, etc.) cannot be put on delay in this manner, however. Invocations skill level determines the minimum spell level and failure % that one needs for a spell to be cast on delay.
This one seems pretty appropriate though, I guess you could imagine that you "super-learn" a spell.
and into wrote:Sif book giving is similar to how it is now. However, in addition, right after you choose Sif you immediately receive one randart book of 5 to 8 low level spells chosen randomly.
I don't really like this, it potentially encourages scumming and maybe abandoning Sif immediately. It also sortof moves Sif closer to Kiku/Vehumet, which doesn't seem desirable.
Siegurt wrote:I'd do two things to Sif:
1. Give him a piety-dependent wizardry (spell success not spell power) bonus. At 200 piety, it's the equivalent of wearing a ring of wizardry.
2. Give you some extra spell slots, if you lose piety or abandon Sif, you are forced to amnesia spells until you are under your limit.
1. is, as said before, too much like Vehumet. 2. is a good idea (but it doesn't mesh well with my proposal).
twelwe wrote:I still want to see a magic-berserk style ability, where your spells take half as long to cast and cost half as much mana, with a swiftness-style opposite effect when the ability ends.
Again not a bad idea, but the ability to go nuts with destructive magic screams "Vehumet" at me far more than it says "Sif".
argonaut wrote:If you're worshiping Sif you could have two sets of spell slots, your natural ones and bonus ones based on piety. You can cast spells from either set. On joining you get one bonus slot prefilled with a low-level spell. Periodically Sif will change a spell in one of your bonus slots.
Memorization would be the key change. Instead of book gifting you sacrifice books to add them to the divine library. All spells that you've sacrificed become available for memorization (to your normal spell slots) at any time. You can also memorize a spell from a Sif-slot to keep it around. This would synchronize nicely with Amnesia since you could tailor your spell set at any time.
Another bonus is that if you abandon Sif you lose the extra spells and all the books you've donated instead of being left with a pile of god gifts.
As far as I can tell there are two elements to this:
1. A gift system that is a lot like Vehumet's
2. A minor convenience gain that potentially screws you up if you ever leave Sif. I can't see it giving you any actual utility - it just means you don't have to cart books around/go back to floor books, so if I was planning to abandon Sif I wouldn't use it at all.
psyshvl wrote:For gifting spells, Sif could give you a choice of randart books to memorize from, and instead of getting the book you chose as an item, you instantly memorize those spells up until Sif chooses to gift you another selection of spells. That way you will have a variety of random spells at that change periodically. Abandoning Sif would cause you to forget those spells. If Sif did this upon joining his/her religion, it plus the casting bonuses might make Sif a more attractive option for early non-caster characters that want to branch out into spellcasting.
So wait, you could suddenly lose the spells you're relying on in the middle of a battle? That seems more like a Xom or Jiyva thing.
nagdon wrote:Sif followers have access to a divine library containing lots of spells. Spells can be added to the library either as divine gifts (this replaces book gifts) or book sacrafice (destroys book, adds all spells in the book to the library). The library can be accessed by a "Divine Knowledge" ability (instant, 1 MP, small piety?), which allows the player to select a spell from the library. The selected spell is castable with a success chance boost, but doesn't occupy place in the player's Spells Known list. Using the ability again replaces the selected spell with the new one (so there is always exactly one directly castable spell in the library).
I guess this is pretty similar to my proposal, but I don't really like the idea of boosting the success of library spells (which I presume include the spells you have memorized, otherwise you'd be introducing a weird incentive). That is once again stepping into Vehumet territory. I guess sacrificing books would work fine as a mechanic too, I don't think many players plan to abandon Sif anyway.
dpeg wrote:Alright, I also have an opinion on Sif Muna. I believe that the flavour should change from "raining books" to "library". A simple take on that theme: you get books as now (perhaps starting a bit earlier), all of them are randart books with "Sif" in the title. You can keep a book as long as you like, but then you won't get a new one. You have no control over what you get, but the librarian tries to avoid duplicate spells, especially with what you already saw (excluding shops) and somewhat less with what you borrowed so far.
At a certain piety level (say ***) you earn the right to lend books at the counter: an active ability which lets you choose a book from a list. These books would be standard spellbooks (to make parsing easier for the player), and access would depend on piety.
"You get access to one spell at a time, then you lose it" seems again to be moving more towards Vehumet, even if Sif were to give you more a bit more control over it.
I guess the ability to request specific spells might make sense though.
dpeg wrote:Furthermore, I believe that the miscast protection can be strengthened. There are several ways to do this, I want players to be able to go for otherwise risky spells reliably. A random idea: an active Wild Magic-style power. I think Sif can understand the daring and ambitious.
I don't see how Sif is daring or ambitious? Being able to cast a spell more powerfully seems more like a Vehumet thing again.
monty wrote:What if Sif actually let you visit a physical library? Like you get an active ability that will teleport you to a cool extra-dimensional library after 10-20 turns of uninterrupted channeling? That would just be so cool, and it would allow Sif to use physical spellbooks, but prevent you from having to schlep them around. The portal would return you to wear you came from so you couldn't use it to get out of the abyss or Pan.
Seems like a weirdly flavoured and channely version of Step from Time