Smith/fire god


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 23rd February 2014, 21:44

Smith/fire god

I coded up a smithing god that is now on a CSZO experimental branch. You can give feedback in this thread.

Please note that the god was coded for the purpose of testing ideas, and there are probably some bad things in it right now. Hopefully these can be worked out, and if not, then at least we'll gain knowledge of what works and doesn't work.

Commit message:
  Code:
A defensive-oriented god whose abilities have a gold cost.

The flavour is a god of fire, but one who uses fire for creation rather
than destruction.
This is manifested as a smith god reminiscent of Ptah and Hephaestus.

Piety is gained from reading enchant scrolls and exploring.
The enchant scroll conduct is intended to pressure players into reading
scrolls early rather than stockpiling them, which I consider
interesting.
Exploration piety exists so that you can gain piety even when the game
generates very little scrolls.

Abilities:

(*) Boosts the AC of metal body armour. (~8 extra AC at
max piety in plate armour)
This ability synergizes nicely with the enchant conduct.

(**) Reforge an enemy weapon into a mundane hammer.
This is a defensive ability that can cripple enemies such as hill giants,
orc warlords, and certain uniques.

(***) Add the flaming brand to your weapon. (costs lots of gold)
This is the only god given brand that can be applied multiple times.
The piety breakpoint for this ability was chosen to be *** because that
allows players to have a flaming weapon by the time hydras appear.

(****) Divine bellows ability.
This is the same effect as a fan of gales, except it doesn't summon any
elementals.
It creates some distance between you and other monsters.

(*****) Fire-immune magma form with eruption ability.
Magma form is a very powerful effect that makes you immune to fire, but
is extremely unstable and prone to spontaneous erupting.
The eruption effect deals fire-based AoE damage, but ends your
transformation and "magma-exhausts" you.


Ability text:
  Code:
+Divine Bellows ability
+
+This ability releases a great gust of air around you that will push away
+nearby monsters and clouds.
+%%%%
+Firebrand Weapon ability
+
+Using the great forges beneath the earth, Igni will permanently imbue your
+weapon with a brand of flaming.
+%%%%
+Reforge Weapon ability
+
+This ability transforms a non-artefact weapon into a mundane hammer.
+%%%%
+Magma Form ability
+
+Gain the power of the volcano by transforming your flesh into magma. This
+transformation will render your immune to the effects of fire and
+petrification, but weak to cold. While in this form, you radiate a damaging
+heat aura, and your fire and earth magic will be enhanced. Your scrolls will
+be safely stored underneath your magma covering, which means that you won't
+be able to read them while transformed. Unfortunately, this form is extremely
+unstable; taking high amounts of damage may cause you to erupt catastrophically
+into clouds of petrifying ash and fire.
+%%%%
+Erupt ability
+
+While eruption is normally an unpredictable event, it can also be triggered
+at a moment's notice by those in magma form. This ability releases large
+amounts of fire and petrifying ash, but with it comes great pain to yourself.
+After erupting, your transformation will end, and your magma will be
+temporarily depleted.


Also, the name is currently a placeholder, but I don't want to see any name recommendations in this thread. If you have a really good name then you can PM me, but don't waste space by discussing it here.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 02:29

Re: Smith/fire god

Are you still thinking about ideas for an altar-sacrifice ability? I saw the post on Mantis where you were chatting with dpeg, did that go anywhere?

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 02:55

Re: Smith/fire god

Flaming brand seems a little underwhelming, it's not a brand I'd choose very often. Forge hammer sounds cool for sure.

EDIT: Misread, ignore old version

Halls Hopper

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 06:13

Re: Smith/fire god

I haven't tried it yet, but does reforge always work, or is there some kind of MR/HD check? If not it seems like it pretty much takes care of all melee uniques.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 06:41

Re: Smith/fire god

So far what I've heard is that the god is underwhelming. Part of this is because the piety gain is too slow and fire brand is boring, but I think a greater reason is because the current effects are situational and thus rarely used. And while it's not necessarily bad to have situational effects, it is bad to lack abilities and conducts that influence the game at every step. That is what needs to be worked on.

Are you still thinking about ideas for an altar-sacrifice ability? I saw the post on Mantis where you were chatting with dpeg, did that go anywhere?

An idea from IRC was that praying over an altar at 6* piety would maximally enchant your weapon. That seems like an okay idea to me.

Flaming brand seems a little underwhelming, it's not a brand I'd choose very often

Yes. The firebrand ability will be removed or reworked.

I haven't tried it yet, but does reforge always work, or is there some kind of MR/HD check? If not it seems like it pretty much takes care of all melee uniques.

It always works, and actually it seems a little weak at the moment. Monsters with high HD still hit hard with hammers.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 07:38

Re: Smith/fire god

pubby wrote:Yes. The firebrand ability will be removed or reworked.


What if Smithgod had their own unique brand, or perhaps their own unique base types (similar to the sacred scourge et al. for TSO)?

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 07:39

Re: Smith/fire god

It occurs to me that reforge should ironically work pretty well against Cerebov.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 07:42

Re: Smith/fire god

Some quick comments, some just copies from what I said on Mantis. I'm convinced the flavour is rich enough to carry a god. We "just" have to come up with a good enough design :)

1. Reforge is alright, but might be better as a passive ability. Could also extend to metal body armour on monsters if the piece re-forge to the their original form upon death. (Or if not: then it's a mixed blessing.) A simple approach flavour-wise: the stuff melts, and thus drops from monster inventory to the ground. (Could apply a chance; single test per monster.)

2. A god like this has to have some interesting forging ability at altars, in my opinion: cannot let the opportunity slip to turn altars into anvils :) For this, I'd like a crafting interface which is more elaborate than scrolls of acquirement but less elaborate than Sil's (where you navigate a complex menu). Needless to say: each altar only to be used once. (Interface perk: can easily Ctrl-F for forge-unused smithgod altars.) Bringing pieces would be reasonable (e.g. the metal weapon/armour basetype).

3. Fire branding is not good enough. Ring of Flames would make some sense as an active ability.

4. I suggested giving bonus AC for metal body armour regardless of base type (so as not to reward plate the most) but pubby disliked this for god overlap. Another suggestion: bonus AC is related to related to enchantment on worn metal body armour. Still another suggestion (could be combined): the god allows to bypass the enchantment cap for metal armours.

5. Enchant Foo scrolls could have lowered/removed failure chances.

6. Piety for using Enchants is interesting. I'm sure even more interesting things could be done; but I need more time to think. A simple idea inspired by Ashenzari: you get exploration piety, modified by how many self-enchanted items you use (weapon, all armour pieces).

I'd like to see some discussion about the potential scope for such a god. Currently, it's all very much coming from the theme. The powers make it look very melee-centric (which is not a problem in itself).
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 07:59

Re: Smith/fire god

forging your own equipments is so much nicer than god gifts, I like that very much.
the item related abilities are very powerful, maybe to balance it, Igni could dislike wearing or wielding items you did not forge/ enchant yourself. this would slowly drain your piety while you explore.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 08:16

Re: Smith/fire god

This:
1. Reforge is alright, but might be better as a passive ability.

and this:
I'd like to see some discussion about the potential scope for such a god


Gave me the idea that this god could have passive disenchantment of enemy weapons/armor during melee. IMO this would create an interesting choice (makes strong ego items less dangerous in the hands of the enemy, but makes them less powerful by the time you get your hands on them too. Less strong than reforge, esp. against artifacts (no effect, which seems reasonable.))

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 08:52

Re: Smith/fire god

For the altar forging aspect, you could have an ability that lets you forge something at high piety (either acquirement or some sort of enchant boost or maybe you could make something a randart), but the forging process destroys the altar or renders it useless. That'd make it easy to find altars you haven't used yet; using Ctrl-F to find "smithgod altar" would leave out all the "broken altar"s you've created.

I don't think reforge should work against artifacts, considering they're specifically supposed to be virtually indestructible (though I guess an argument could be made for divine power overcoming an artifact's endurance).

Should the god boost SH as well as AC? That could be an interesting effect, though I'm not sure how much it would unbalance things.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 09:23

Re: Smith/fire god

Artifacts cannot be changed by magic or mundane means, and I'd add "divine" to that list. :|
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 10:10

Re: Smith/fire god

I read 'reforge' as .. replacing the weapon, not changing it. But I see that Pubby has clarified that now.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 10:20

Re: Smith/fire god

dpeg wrote:2. A god like this has to have some interesting forging ability at altars, in my opinion: cannot let the opportunity slip to turn altars into anvils :) For this, I'd like a crafting interface which is more elaborate than scrolls of acquirement but less elaborate than Sil's (where you navigate a complex menu). Needless to say: each altar only to be used once. (Interface perk: can easily Ctrl-F for forge-unused smithgod altars.) Bringing pieces would be reasonable (e.g. the metal weapon/armour basetype).

There's already wizmode code to turn a mundane item into an artefact. The code specifying gifts from various gods could be used to make Igni's forged gifts be biased towards more positive enchantments, rF+, flaming, etc. or whatever else a smith god might like.

3. Fire branding is not good enough. Ring of Flames would make some sense as an active ability.

I'm not really enthusiastic about having two gods in a row whose final ability is a form change -- what if the fire branding was replaced by a milder version of the heat aura-slash-eruption from Magma Form?

5. Enchant Foo scrolls could have lowered/removed failure chances.

How about: Enchant Foo scrolls have a chance of adding something more than 1d2 levels of enchantment, like 1d3 or 1d4 or 1d( max(2, piety stars) ), and enchantment caps are removed or increased.

6. Piety for using Enchants is interesting. I'm sure even more interesting things could be done; but I need more time to think. A simple idea inspired by Ashenzari: you get exploration piety, modified by how many self-enchanted items you use (weapon, all armour pieces).

Self-enchantment might be hard to keep track of, and it might be confusing/undesirable to a player to get no benefit from a +5 armour they found on the ground, or to remember how much of their +7 enchantment was there when they found it. Why not just have Igni appreciate using well-made armor regardless of who made it? (On the other hand, Ashenzari's piety rules require you to do a thing you might not otherwise do, i.e. wear cursed items. But most people are going to want to walk around with well-enchanted armor anyway, so it's not really that strenuous of a conduct.)

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 10:28

Re: Smith/fire god

nicolae wrote:
5. Enchant Foo scrolls could have lowered/removed failure chances.

How about: Enchant Foo scrolls have a chance of adding something more than 1d2 levels of enchantment, like 1d3 or 1d4 or 1d( max(2, piety stars) ), and enchantment caps are removed or increased.

That would make you hoard the scrolls till 6 stars, and that's supposed to be discouraged. I like increased cap more.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 10:38

Re: Smith/fire god

spudwalt wrote:The forging process destroys the altar or renders it useless. That'd make it easy to find altars you haven't used yet; using Ctrl-F to find "smithgod altar" would leave out all the "broken altar"s you've created.

This could potentially play out well with altar desecration by having the ability of converting the altar of another god to yours - to then use this altar to forge another item.
Because then you'd have the ability to forge quite a lot of items, but only if you're willing to suffer the wrath of the gods whose altars you desecrate.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 11:06

Re: Smith/fire god

Bloax wrote:This could potentially play out well with altar desecration by having the ability of converting the altar of another god to yours - to then use this altar to forge another item.
Because then you'd have the ability to forge quite a lot of items, but only if you're willing to suffer the wrath of the gods whose altars you desecrate.


I think altar desecration is intended solely for Lugonu -- the gods of the main pantheon might not like each other but they'd never stoop so low as to defile another god's altar, good heavens.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 11:44

Re: Smith/fire god

Hi, we were talking about this one on tileschat yesterday. People seemed pretty excited about the idea, so if this is going to be THE fire god, can we add a mass innerflame ability?

Everyone thinks it's super fun, yet immolation scrolls are rare and most people I would argue just wouldn't pick Xom for the effect. So you could have like

*** - Temper: All hostile creatures in LOS: d27 vs hd or become innerflamed (piety, 50 gold)

this would for me make me use the god for sheer fun. Also a ****** gift of reforging an item into an artifact could be interesting since that was mentioned.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 11:48

Re: Smith/fire god

Quick digression about desecration: at least according to my plan, it would be Lugonu-only, like nicolae said. (I don't want to turn the existing divine enmities, like Zin-Xom or Sif-Trog, into outright hostilities. Lugonu is, in my Crawl mythology, something like the fallen god.)

Altar use could be simply covered by having "a burning altar to Smithgod" (before use) and "a flame-cut altar to Smithgod". (Words arbitrary examples, of course.)

About form change as final ability: I agree it does not feel very elegant -- but still much better than yet another ally power. :)

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 12:07

Re: Smith/fire god

I haven't had the chance to play the current iteration of the god yet but there are a bunch of things I thought when reading through the desc.

•I'm unsure about the balance implications but I think if one is expected to use enchant foo scrolls early on then removing the limitations to these scrolls (as in, failure chances as the enchantment goes higher) makes the conduct a lot less frustrating as you don't need to struggle with your +6 great sword that refuses to go up (and don't have to do silly things like using EW1 on weapons you don't actually plan to use once the weapon you do want to use goes over +5 acc).

•Passively melting the weapons and armour of enemies sounds interesting (and it would make the god do something helpful early on, which is nice); I was thinking maybe the melted stuff should only reforge back into shape if you kill the target within a certain amount of time but that would probably be relevant never until the one time it is and you forget about it.

•I misunderstood the fire brand ability when I was first reading up on it and thought it would be similar to the firebrand attack salamander firebrands have (deals flaming brand damage and creates a ring of fire around the target when you hit him, while making you immune to said clouds). I think selling that as a weapon brand multiple times would actually be interesting (and damn rad) and something people may actually consider purchasing multiple times. If it's just flaming brand, then you'll probably get it when your weapon is unbranded (or worse, when you id ?brand weapon to roll for fancy rands) and never bother overwriting any other brand with it.

•I don't really understand why divine bellows is there. I mean it's flavorful to a degree but in the end it's a free evoker that pushes people away from you in the same fashion the already existing evoker does. I guess it's meant to be used also when your magma form explodes so you and your scrolls don't get screwed by the fire clouds? I think having firebrand make you immune to fire clouds and not having to use a god ability to save yourself from a part of another god ability would feel a bit more cohesive, but maybe I'm missing something.

•Magma form seems strange I think. While it sounds cool I don't like full fire immunity even if it's temporary because it just removes any threat from a lot of enemies in the game that should imo remain a threat (even if just a minor one), but leaving that aside a non-melding form (I assume it is non-melding since else it doesn't seem to synergize with other parts of the god like AC from metal armour) that gives you fire thorns, immunity to X and explodes at the end doesn't sound very exciting to me since its uses seem rather binary.

This turned out to be a lot longer than I expected but I think the god has some very interesting potential, can't wait to see how it develops.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 16:02

Re: Smith/fire god

I haven't played him, but some muscellaneous personal thoughts:

I like people's ideas about weapon forging, particularly the altars-as-anvils idea. I think there are a lot of possibilities for how they could work - turn a normal or blue item into an artefact, add a random ego or brand to an item, increase an item's enchantment, etc. Maybe multiple options could exist, or maybe we could just pick the best (personally, if there's only one, I like turn a normal item into an artefact).

Also, the god already has gold-cost abilities, maybe that could be used as an alternative to the once-per-altar idea? Pray at an altar and pick an item and pay an amout of gold, the more you pay the more likely you are to get better enchantments or egos? Or maybe once per altar is better, not sure.

On the topic of gold costs, they seem like they'd be hard to balance, because the amount of gold available in a given game is so variable, especially when you take into account variable shop quality. Some games I'm flooded with gold with nothing good to buy, some games I find tons of good shops and can't find enough gold to buy everything I want. If abilities cost too much gold, then the god would become annoying in games with sparse gold finds and/or very good shops. If they cost too little gold, then the gold cost might be trivial in any game that doesn't have sparse gold and good shops. Overall, I think both the amount of available gold and its value varies much more from game to game and character to character than piety or mana (and, unlike mana, you don't know how available it'll be that game so you can't plan for gold costs as easily), which would make choosing balanced numbers for gold costs very hard.

Piety for using enchant scrolls is a neat idea, but there seems to be a conflict of interest between being encouraged to use enchants early for piety and some of the forging ideas people have. The ability to use altars to forge your weapons or the removal of enchant caps would both encourage hording enchant scrolls to blow them all on an eventual weapon or armor you want to keep for the rest of the game. Maybe this conflict would be interesting (get piety faster or have more enchant scrolls to use later), or maybe it would be annoying. Although some of the ideas people have, particularly improving the success rate of enchant scrolls, might go well with using them early. If enchantment caps stay but enchant scrolls have their success rate increased or get a chance to give multiple levels of enchantment per scroll, then you can afford to blow them early on weaker equipment for piety because you don't need as many later to enchant your equipment to a satisfactory level.

Also, there seem to be two flavor ideas going here: the fire god and the smithing god. There's an obvious connection between the themes, since fire is involved in smithing, but some of the abilities don't connect. Magma form has nothing to do with smithing, while the bellows has nothing to do with fire. While it's okay to have multiple themes going and the abilities don't all have to synergize, I think we want to make sure that everything fits together into one, coherent god concept. If this guy's supposed to be a smith who dulls your enemy's weapons while strengthening your own equipment, then turning you into a giant ball of magma doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If he's a fire god who wants to burn the world down, then magma form fits but turning enemy weapons into hammers doesn't. I also agree with people that two gods in a row with a form change as their last ability is repetitive, and I think a god who's meant to be equipment-focused should have an equipment-focused final ability, not a form change (since form changes often have anti-synergy with equipment).

Personally, I'd find it most interesting to scrap bellows and magma form and focus on an equipment theme. I think adding in some fire is cool, but I like the idea of him being a smithing god first and a fire god second would be far more interesting. Improving your equipment and messing with enemies' equipment both feel like design spaces that are largely untapped in crawl - for improving your own, we've got scrolls of enchantment and brand weapon but that's it, and for messing with enemies' I don't know of anything. In general, Crawl is far more about making use of the equipment you find, rather than turning the equipment you find into something you can make better use of, and I like the idea of a god who turns that around. One of the cool things about the gods in Crawl is the way they enable or promote different, unique playstyles and sometimes make you think about certain game mechanics or situations differently, and I think a Smithing God is a fantastic opportunity to make you rethink how you evaluate and use the equipment you find, something that I don't think any existing god does on a large scale.

If people were more interested in a fire god, I'd be more interested in a "burn the world" sort of good than smithing. Although that does step on Vehumet and Makhleb's toes a bit, at least flavor-wise.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 16:11

Re: Smith/fire god

I agree that bellow isn't all too exciting right now. Perhaps it can be synergized in some way with flame clouds, say, you could create a ring of flame and use bellow to blow the flame across the room.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 16:12

Re: Smith/fire god

I really like this proposal, and I think there are some good ideas floating around in the suggestions. Thanks, Pubby, for the initial design.

Here's where I'd like to see this god go, in part taken from others' suggestions:
* Passively remove chance of enchant scrolls failing.
* Turn his altars into one-shot acquirement-like effects, ala dpeg.
* The reforge power forces the target to drop the weapon, as it has become very hot. This could be passive or not, but if not passive might also need to do some damage or apply a small attack malus ("an orc warlord (burned hands)")
* Keep repeat-fire-branding
* at 5*, flaming melee weapons held by the player are "forgeflame" weapons. Fire damage for these weapons is generated the same way, but ignores some number of levels of fire resistance (or all fire resistance). Alternately: resistances stay the same, but the amount of fire damage doubles. This is not a change to the weapon itself, but a divine change to how the flaming brand procs and displays for sufficiently devout worshippers, so losing piety or going into penance immediately reverts the weapon to mundane flaming.
* Magma form stays approximately as-is, but when you take sufficiently large damage, that damage is negated, a massive fire explosion (similar to fire storm) happens centered on you (but not damaging you), and the form instantly expires. This change makes it a moderately-interesting escape/emergency power.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 17:58

Re: Smith/fire god

Would reforge work best as passive, progressive, permanent damage to opponent weapons? Like every attack has an X% chance of -1 to enemy weapon acc or dmg?

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 18:13

Re: Smith/fire god

bisonbisonbison wrote:Would reforge work best as passive, progressive, permanent damage to opponent weapons? Like every attack has an X% chance of -1 to enemy weapon acc or dmg?


Maybe, the question is whether reforge should leave the weapon in a condition where the player can still use it, or if the player just has to deal with a bunch of -5 weapons.

Edit: A passive ability I thought up ages ago for a long-forgotten god, but that might work as a supplementary feature for Igni: Sense Metals. Shows you, Ashenzari-style, where there's metal -- steel, silver, gold, iron (i.e., heavy weapons and armors). I don't think it'd be necessary to display the actual type of metal. Variant: Sense Artefacts.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 18:39

Re: Smith/fire god

I'd be fine with making this guy primarily a smith god (though having some fire-related abilities would make thematic sense). We've already got the idea for a fire/magic god in another thread: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10949

Reduced chance of enchant scroll failure sounds nice. It is kinda frustrating once you get up to about +7. And, having a chance to apply more than one enchantment level would encourage using scrolls earlier, which sounds like something we wanted to do. If enchant scrolls do apply more than one level, would that mean using enchant armor on a hide would turn it into a +1 dragon armor or whatever?

I'm not sure if this god should have an ability with a gold cost. While gold costs for divine abilities are something the game doesn't have yet, I'd say they would be better saved for if/when we finally get a money god.

For the reforge ability, I'd kinda like it if it was a single-shot ability that let you destroy the weapon of a single opponent, either with a physical attack or melting it with divine fire magic (either way, we could have it do a bit of damage to the opponent as well). My reasoning for this is that I'm not sure a smithy god would enjoy his followers creating a whole bunch of useless crap; rather, he'd probably prefer his followers testing the strength of their weapons against the strength of their opponents' (and if their opponents' weapons break, well, their forging techniques weren't up to snuff). Would it make sense to have a chance of failure based on the enchantment level of the weapon you're trying to break? (You could easily break a mundane sword, but a magical sword might give you a bit more trouble.)
(Also, if we go the magic route, could we name the ability "Smelt"? I ask mostly because of this: http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/ ... eid=249691)
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 19:25

Re: Smith/fire god

Disclaimer: I haven't play tested smithgod yet.

In terms of theme, I agree with everyone saying Igni should be an equipment god possibly with some fire powers, but not a fire god. I think an equipment god could fill an untapped niche (for all the disappointed Oka worshippers, haha), the way Dith has become the go-to god for stealthy types (while still being playable for other builds).

Some thoughts. I like the idea of getting piety from reading enchant scrolls. But the problem is that enchant scrolls aren't that common, and can vary a lot game-to-game. A way around that is for the god to let you generate enchant scrolls (a la Ash with curse scrolls). My suggestion: sacrificing weapons/armour gives a chance of generating EW and EA scrolls. Higher tier (e.g. bardiche, exec axe) and highly enchanted equipment have a higher chance of generating scrolls. The result of this is that piety gain gets tied to exploration (if you explore more you'll find more gear) and to killing enemies (you can take enemies' gear), which are tried-and-true ways for piety gain in crawl. The flavour for this is that Igni lets you reforge other equipment in order to improve your gear. "Igni smelts down the foo for parts! You receive xxx."

The chance of generating scrolls should be fairly low overall (maybe ~10% or less?), but with a steady supply of enchant scrolls, I don't think Igni should have to lower the failure rate or increase enchantment rate. I would support a higher enchantment cap however, which maybe scales with piety. +15 sounds good at the top end. Failure rate after hitting +9 could be higher, maybe much higher. Igni doesn't mind if you keep trying to improve, though :P

Regarding altars as anvils. If I remember from playing Sil, anvils there are a use-it-or-lose-it affair, since floors are not persistent and get regenerated every time you leave a level. In crawl, though, persistent floors would mean tedious travel to and fro the Igni altars. Yes, it's already done for TSO, Kiku, Lugonu, but those at least are for one-time gifts whereas Igni would presumably offer more than one chance at divine smithing. I would propose instead that Igni occasionally gives a one-time chance to improve some of the gear you're carrying. It would be nice if this can be tied to altars, but that just seems... clunky. Also, not letting the player save the divine smithing gifts for some final weapon seems appropriate for a god that wants you to read enchant scrolls as soon as possible.

As for divine smithing... I don't think it should give relatively mundane stuff like + enchantment or common brands. It should be stuff unavailable elsewhere, like say a burning brand that applies Sticky Flame at every hit. Copies of fixedart effects (like static elec, reaping, disruption, penetrating, etc) could work here. Or maybe stuff like reducing EV penalty of armour, or min delay of weapons (effectively creating new base types).

For an active ability, how about a Heat Metal effect (yeah, stolen from D&D). Opponents take damage if they're using metal gear, possibly forcing them to drop the gear. Could work as retribution too in case of abandonment.

I really don't like the Divine Bellows, Magma Form, and Erupt abilities. They don't really tie in to the theme I have in mind, which is making your gear better. In particular, Divine Bellows seems like an ability that a ranged or blaster god would give.
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 19:48

Re: Smith/fire god

something that would really be interesting is a final gift, that would allow you to turn a weapon or armour into a very powerful artifact, with but to do that you must sacrifice a rune. the sacrificed rune would change the artifact. for example, sacrificing the Barnacled rune would give a weapon {Freeze, rC++, Clarity, rMissiles}.
this would be interesting because it would present a nice choice: should you clear an adittional branch to turn your Claymore into the Claymore Of Badassery?
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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 20:52

Re: Smith/fire god

Regrading altar-acquirement, it seems like the easiest (and perhaps best) way to implement it would be to let the player select a piece of equipment in the inventory (weapon or armor, enchanting your own jewelry might be too powerful), and it gets buffed.
Personally, I like getting a random evokable and a random resist attached to it. (Even if it's already an artifact?). This would force the player to choose between waiting to get a good brand/enchantment level on a good base type first, or trying to get an evokable and resist that is useful right away when they reach high enough piety (with a slight chance at finding another altar later in the dungeon).

Pull each from a (weighted) list:

Resists: rF++, rC++, rPois+, SInv, rElec+, rMut, Clarity, Hunger--*, MR++,
Evokables: +Blink, +Ctele, +Tele, +Fly*, +Rage, Invis*,

*If we include evokable Flight & Invis, it should take stealth skill & innate flight into account when selecting. Same with Hunger reduction for mummies.


I also like the idea of sacrificing armor/weapons to get enchant scrolls.
Last edited by Speleothing on Monday, 24th February 2014, 20:59, edited 2 times in total.

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 20:57

Re: Smith/fire god

Quote is not edit

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Post Monday, 24th February 2014, 23:56

Re: Smith/fire god

Alright, it's fine if we start thinking about a smithing-focused god. It helps to come up with ideas in that direction, and not just voice opinions :)
I'd say to leave gold be for the moment (one motivation is that I have a gold god design pocketed but other reasons have been mentioned). Let me talk about item-centric abilities.

Altar stuff & crafting:
Simply turning an item into a randart is not nearly good enough, in my opinion. (Hirsch: giving up a rune is completely out of the question.) As I said, I'd like to see some crafting stuff. It should be quick and meaningful; ideally, tough decisions in short time. Some ad-hoc ideas: you have to bring an item to be "divinified", and it has to be a mundane metal item (weapon except staff, body armour except robe and leather; ego is fine). The performance will be better the more Enchantment scrolls you have spend on it (successfully or not). You invoke the divine hammer, and you get a choice of five (say) randarts made out of your item. If your chosen item had an ego, that's preserved. One of the randarts is guaranteed to be quite plain: randomly increased numbers, one random resistance. All others are more elaborate (and can have one negative trait); all of these have an additional item cost which is specified. You have to select one of the five choices right now; you don't have to deliver the ingredients immediately. So if a particularly tasty randart version of your plate mail asks for five rings and six scrolls, you have all the time to collect them -- the plate mail will happily wait on the altar-anvil for you to return. [This is a very simplicistic approach to create decisions. I added the bit about the sunken Enchant scrolls so as to make the decision of when to apply the power less obvious. Interface concern: allow access to Ctrl-F during decision; best achieved by separating ability invocation and decision making into two turns.]

Non-standard egos would be very cool to have, but that's a lot of work. At least for the anvil-altar thing, I'd stick with standard properties. However, for an active power, more egos can be used (because you can playtest these easily in a game, no need for additional overhead). DracheReborn listed some interesting powers. We can also steal some from other games (like Brogue's damage sharing, spirit weapon creation, submission/domination).

I don't have qualms about players to create and modify artefacts, as long as it is clear that the actual power to do so is strictly divine.
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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 01:08

Re: Smith/fire god

a cool option, with a more questy feel to it would be Igni wanting very specific components, so he can forge the artifact from scratch. components like dragon hides, Aizul's blood (got by just killing her), Menna's feather... that way, to get the most powerful possible artifacts, one should complete difficult tasks.
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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 03:06

Re: Smith/fire god

Ok, I've tested a bit. Here's the morgue:

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/DracheRebor ... Reborn.txt

Cleared Lair and Orc, probably won't go further since I'm not too interested in Magma Form.

Feedback: piety seems pretty hard to come by. I found Igni in Temple (D:4). I had a bit of luck early, with Eustacio dropping a elec cutlass, so I happily piled all the EW scrolls I found on it. I had a late Lair (D:11), and before entering I had already done a Sewer, an Ossuary, an Ice Cave, and 2 levels of Orc (I poked in to find some plate). Despite all that, I hit 3* piety only just before entering Lair. Around that time, I found and started to wear amulet of faith, but by the time I cleared L:8, I have only hit 4*. After clearing the rest of Orc, I was still at 4*. With piety so hard to accumulate, it kind of made sense for god abilities to have a gold cost instead of a piety cost.

The current god abilities are probably a bit lacking. Getting fire brand by Lair seems like a reasonable goal at first blush, but really it isn't necessary since hydras can be handled with wands, and if you're really worried you could have gone M&F instead. An active Conjure Flame ability at 2* might work better - that's something that you could really build your tactics around, and might be a goal that you rush for by burning enchant scrolls early. As I recall, the Conjure Flame ability was well-received in pubby's caveman god proposal, but maybe it fits better here.

Reforge didn't seem to affect enemy damage that much. Weirdly, it turned Fannar's staff of cold into a staff of fire - that surprised and amused me. I think it would have been useful dealing with gnoll packs armed with halberds, but I didn't have Reforge online yet when I met those. Oh, and none of the god abilities trained Invocations.

One little suggestion primarily for flavour - it occurred to me that a god based on improving equipment probably dislikes corrosion. So jellies, etc might be especially hated by Igni and he could give bonus piety for killing those. But that is not too important.

Mostly though, I think this god badly needs a piety gain mechanism that's faster and more consistent.

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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 12:51

Re: Smith/fire god

Thanks for the comments everyone.

It is clear that the god needs more complicated item smithing, which I'll add in the next version. It probably won't be as complex as some of your ideas, but it will be a start.

As far as enchant scrolls go, one idea from IRC was that you would gain piety by sacrificing enchant scrolls (via praying), and then Igni would passively enchant your gear based on piety. Not sure if that would work, but it's an idea.

Personally, I'd find it most interesting to scrap bellows and magma form and focus on an equipment theme.

This would be fine, but it's important for the god to provide several abilities useful in-combat. An ability that removes/worsens enemy equipment falls into this category, but is not enough on its own.

An active Conjure Flame ability at 2* might work better

Temper: All hostile creatures in LOS: d27 vs hd or become innerflamed (piety, 50 gold)

Any opinions on this? I didn't want to duplicate an existing spell in the initial implementation, but if people really want those abilities then I can add them.

Also regarding magma form and eruption:
If this ability gets removed from the god, how would anyone feel about moving it to Lava Orcs as a replacement to their tension effects? Might be worth trying since the code is already there.
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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 17:05

Re: Smith/fire god

Hmm, having exploding lava orcs might be fun.
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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 20:26

Re: Smith/fire god

pubby wrote:It is clear that the god needs more complicated item smithing, which I'll add in the next version. It probably won't be as complex as some of your ideas, but it will be a start.
In the end, it shouldn't be complex. Just a tad more than the current powers (bestowing a specific ego on a weapon), and ideally with a chance to trigger actual choices.

As far as enchant scrolls go, one idea from IRC was that you would gain piety by sacrificing enchant scrolls (via praying), and then Igni would passively enchant your gear based on piety. Not sure if that would work, but it's an idea.
This might fit the flavour, but I am afraid it does little more: you would obviously sacrifice any Enchant scroll right away -- no choices! Compare with Ashenzari, where Curse use really matters. I think using Enchant scrolls for piety purposes has prospects... we just need to think more about it.

[Scrapping bellows and magma form and focusing on an equipment theme] would be fine, but it's important for the god to provide several abilities useful in-combat. An ability that removes/worsens enemy equipment falls into this category, but is not enough on its own.
Agreed. But there is definitely enough around to create versatile, different and cool god abilities around equipment. Some random ideas (I've chosen them so that they might be interesting as active abilities, which you select depending on your enemy set, and they attempt to be tactically interesting):
  • chain ego: (active, your weapon) Damage inflicted by your weapon on a monster also applies (perhaps in part) on all monsters in LOS of the same genus
  • cursed aim: (active, enemy weapons) An enemy attacking you with a weapon has equal chance to hit any other adjacent monster instead
  • shafting ego: (active, single attack like Confusing Touch, your weapon) A blow so strong it will shaft the enemy
  • morbid weapon (active, enemy weapons) An enemy weapon hitting you has a chance to become free (spectral weapon) and attacks its owner. Once the owner is dead, the weapon drops to the ground.
There is an infinitude to explore. :)

(Also: yes to staying clear from existing spells.)
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Post Tuesday, 25th February 2014, 23:08

Re: Smith/fire god

reforge into chains: (active, your weapon) turns the wielded steel weapon (non staff nor quarterstaff) into a trowing net, with range 2. the net's durability and acuracy are based on Invo, and trowing skill does not affect it.
Unleash brand:(active, your weapon) temporarely removes the brand from a wielded weapon, projecting its magic into the real world.
example :
flaming: a bolt of fire that causes flaming clouds. the chance of leaving clouds, and the damage of the bolt, is based on invo and weapon's enchantment.
freezing: freeze mosters in LOS as per the spell, once per turn, for x turns. damage is based on invo, duration is based on weapon's enchantment.
after the spell ends( after the flame clouds disappear, or the freezing stops) the brand returns.
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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 00:20

Re: Smith/fire god

Alright, I reread the whole thread. Here are my thoughts:

1) We can keep thinking of (and calling him) the smithgod. However, in-game there shouldn't be references to material. I don't think it's worth the trouble. To an unsuspecting player, this should be a god who is all about armour and weapons.

2) Monsters passively losing their weapons would make a very nice early power: you get something out of the god right away.

3) Whereas your armour is boosted passively (including rule changes like increased enchantment caps), there could be a number of active powers, all of which enhance your weapon. I think that's the most interesting form for direct player-god interaction. We already listed some; the design work would be to select a number of tactically interesting and different powers, and to find good piety/MP costs.

4) The actual forging should be a strategical ability (i.e. used very rarely). I think requiring the player to pray at an altar is good: it happens rarely and is easy to do. Offering a number of (trove-style) quests would meet the two criteria (no elaborate interface, actual decisions). Note the crucial difference to acquirement and troves: here you see costs *and* rewards in advance! (Also note that the number of uses is limited by the number of smithgod altars in your game; this contains a gambling element -- I like it and while I'm certainly not alone with that sentiment, I also know that some will hate it.)

5) On piety: given that this is a god for weapons, piety for killing sounds alright to me. It would be nice to spice this up in some form. Here is my proposal:
5a) As a passive power, enchantment caps go up with piety. (Say you can enchant gloves etc. to +5 at ******.)
5b) Failed enchantments are tracked and increase your chance to make it work next time.
5c) Piety bonus when killing a monster by how many enchantments are on your kit.

Interface for 5c) would be easy: item inscriptions counting enchantments, like "+3 hat of see invisble {god+2}" or similar. Can also keep track of them on the piety screen (^), as is done for Ashenzari boundedness.

6) A conduct: not really necessary, but it could be interesting. I envision that you get one weapon power for each piety star (so first at *, next at ** and so on). You can only use weapon power N if you've applied at least N enchantment scrolls on that weapon.

Note that 5) and 6) are biased against weapon/armour artefacts. That's on purpose: I understand the god to be about making weapons yourself (including posh version eventually), not picking up fancy items made by others.

Just some stuff for discussion.

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 01:08

Re: Smith/fire god

I've been playing a Formicid Monk on the experimental branch all day today so I figured I'd share my thoughts on this god. I'm currently around XL22 and clearing back and forth between the Depths and Vaults so I've had a lot of time to become familiar with the god.

First I have to say that I've never seen a run so devoid of decent armour and jewelery, I was certainly scraping by at every single moment of the game. The only reason why this character made it to the end-game was because of a +2 vampiric demon trident I acquired with an early scroll. This only served to make me just sustainable enough to barely survive, as there were only large shields until Snake/Swamp and a complete lack of straight offensive/defensive jewelery (only resist rings). I wore a chain mail with the magic resistance ego and enchanted it up when enchant armour scrolls rolled in, while keeping an eye out for randart plate. I'm actually still using that chain mail (currently at +6) because even after Orc shops, a Bazaar, and Elf:3 I have yet to come across a randart heavy armour that is not +0 or worse. Seriously the worst shops I've ever seen, as there wasn't anything better than a regular trident for weapons either. But on to the actual deity mechanics...

The ability to reforge a creatures weapon into a hammer was actually incredibly helpful. If I wasn't able to get some additional experience from the Orcish Mines, I would have certainly died in the Lair. But I was actually able to kill two Orc Warlords with a combination of evocable invisibility, sigmund's vamp scythe, and weapon reforging. It does reduce their damage output greatly and provides some fun mechanics when you reforge their trident or glaive and they lose their deadly range. The gold cost seemed a bit steep, so I saved it for big nasties like the Orc Warlords as I wanted to save gold for the Orc:4 shops. When I began to realize how pathetic all my shops spawned in as, I was able to use the ability more frequently and it proved to be a life-saver when clearing the Snake Pit as well.

The knock-back ability saved me from some Death Yaks once or twice, but I did not need to use it at any other time even though I was a Formicid and had little means of escape. I never branded a weapon with Flame because it was not necessary after I received the demon trident early in the Lair. The cost seemed incredibly steep for a Flame brand, too. As for the AC bonus from wearing metal armour, I wasn't sure how this was calculated but I just assumed I was getting the bonus by wearing the ego chain mail.

As for the magma form, I only used it once and it was in Elf:3 after I had survived a few close calls and remembered that I hadn't tried it yet. So I went into magma form against 6-7 Elf Annihilators, Demonologists, Priests in the 3rd level treasure vault. This scared the shit out of me immediately because I went down to a quarter health from all of the Elves and was unable to read Fear or Fog, but I had a healing wand and then did some lifesteal for a few turns until the eruption triggered which just cleaned up everything. I'm not sure how this works still but it was large-scale, flashy, and powerful so I am impressed in that regard.

Honestly I spent the vast majority of the game not remembering that I was worshiping a god, and I only used the weapon reforging ability again after reminding myself to try it on Vault Wardens. That all being said, I don't think this Formicid would have survived if it wasn't for the early-game religion abilities that allowed me to setup for the vamp polearm cleanup. Tonight or tomorrow I'll be clearing V:5 and then going for Zot and the ascension.

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 04:45

Re: Smith/fire god

dpeg wrote:2) Monsters passively losing their weapons would make a very nice early power: you get something out of the god right away.


Here's an idea: Every so often (perhaps when you first see the monster, or if it looks like it's going to beat your head in), Smithgod will reach down from the heavens and pluck away the monster's equipment. Then, if you kill the monster, Smithgod will dump the armor where you're standing, possibly with better enchantments, as if the god had been tinkering with it while you were whaling on monsters and is giving it back.

5) On piety: given that this is a god for weapons, piety for killing sounds alright to me. It would be nice to spice this up in some form. Here is my proposal:
5a) As a passive power, enchantment caps go up with piety. (Say you can enchant gloves etc. to +5 at ******.)
5b) Failed enchantments are tracked and increase your chance to make it work next time.
5c) Piety bonus when killing a monster by how many enchantments are on your kit.

Interface for 5c) would be easy: item inscriptions counting enchantments, like "+3 hat of see invisble {god+2}" or similar. Can also keep track of them on the piety screen (^), as is done for Ashenzari boundedness.


I like 5c, but I still think that only keeping track of enchantment that you've done yourself might be a bigger interface pain than you suggest, and Smithgod should appreciate fine craftsmanship regardless of where it came from. Though:

Note that 5) and 6) are biased against weapon/armour artefacts. That's on purpose: I understand the god to be about making weapons yourself (including posh version eventually), not picking up fancy items made by others.


...it seems we differ on this.

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 06:35

Re: Smith/fire god

What about an ability to repair corroded equipment?
That should have light piety and food cost, and bring plain equipment with negative enchantment to +0.

Possibly, also protect equipment from corrosion with chance based on piety.

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 06:38

Re: Smith/fire god

dpeg wrote:6) A conduct: not really necessary, but it could be interesting…

...I understand the god to be about making weapons yourself (including posh version eventually), not picking up fancy items made by others.

I had a loose idea for a conduct based on the "making weapons yourself" theme: a no gold conduct. The flavor is that the Smithgod melts down gold to be used in a more practical manner, namely crafting fine equipment. The main effect of this is that you can't use shops, which goes nicely with the "build it, don't buy it" theme. You could also optionally tie in some sort of piety gain with gold collected at that point, if desired. Another possibility is additional weapon/armor bonuses as you collect gold, as Smithgod melts it down and strengthens your own gear with it (I know this has a lot of overlap with Zin, which is certainly a point against it - but I think having 2 gods with gold-related piety gain is better than a dozen gods with killing-related piety gain…).

A less drastic approach is just to ban armor and weapon shops (which also makes some flavor sense, because why would the Smithgod care if you buy potions or wands?).

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 07:39

Re: Smith/fire god

WalkerBoh wrote:I had a loose idea for a conduct based on the "making weapons yourself" theme: a no gold conduct. The flavor is that the Smithgod melts down gold to be used in a more practical manner, namely crafting fine equipment.

I feel like that would work better as a flavor reason for why Smithgod's powers cost gold, at least in the current implementation.

The main effect of this is that you can't use shops, which goes nicely with the "build it, don't buy it" theme. You could also optionally tie in some sort of piety gain with gold collected at that point, if desired. Another possibility is additional weapon/armor bonuses as you collect gold, as Smithgod melts it down and strengthens your own gear with it (I know this has a lot of overlap with Zin, which is certainly a point against it - but I think having 2 gods with gold-related piety gain is better than a dozen gods with killing-related piety gain…).

Well, it might be best not to step on the toes of the Gold god, which is in development limbo but we like to pretend otherwise (sorry dpeg (it's true)))

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 07:40

Re: Smith/fire god

My run ended in an explosion of Hellfire, fireballs, and magma eruption. It took like 15 space bar hits to cycle through, but it was glorious. There was flaming death leaping across the screen as I took down many demons with my final fiery breath.
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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 08:40

Re: Smith/fire god

What if he gave you some way to upgrade magic and randart weapons by improving their base type? There's plenty of times you find a randart with great egos, but it's a trident or a longsword. Smithgod could let you reforge it into a demon trident or bastard sword, and maybe reforge it further into a bardiche or claymore. There would have to be some kind of cost (maybe sacrificing enchantment scrolls?). I don't know if this is actually a good idea or not, but it could introduce interesting decisions: if you find a good randart of a crappy weapon early on, you'd have an incentive to choose Smithgod over someone else.

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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 11:38

Re: Smith/fire god

Viashino: Yes, that's a different take on crafting. My proposal is modest on player-induced artefact tinkering (you can invoke the god to turn a mundane item into an artefact, but you cannot modify already existing artefacts). As I said already, I don't think there's a principal obstacle to a god modifying artefacts. However, the process should be special and interesting (to me, interesting means choices, ideally of various kinds).

nicolae: Hey, no problem about differeing. I am just trying to help a god make a step or two. :) (And don't worry about the gold god, the time will come. Give another financial crisis or two, and everyone will clearly see the need for a proper gold god!)
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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 14:00

Re: Smith/fire god

pubby wrote:Also, the name is currently a placeholder, but I don't want to see any name recommendations in this thread. If you have a really good name then you can PM me, but don't waste space by discussing it here.


I see your PMs and I raise you a thread!
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Post Wednesday, 26th February 2014, 22:10

Re: Smith/fire god

Some changes were just pushed to the experimental branch.

  Code:
Armour boost happens at 1* instead of 2*. Igni now refits metal armour, allowing Og, Tr, Sp, Na, and Ce to wear metal armour without penalty.

Reforge and firebrand were combined into a single 2* ability. Using it on an enemy makes your weapon flaming. Using it on an enemy without rF causes them to get burned and drop their weapon.

You can now turn a weapon into an artefact at 5*.

Divine bellows is now a 3* ability.

Igni grants rF+, rC- innately. Not sure if this will stay around very long.


These changes are still experimental and do not mean I've rejected any other ideas. I just haven't got around to them yet.
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Post Thursday, 27th February 2014, 00:41

Re: Smith/fire god

Hmm, refitting armour seems too good for Og, Tr, and Sp in particular, and it's not like those species need a boost.

I think rF is fine, but not rC-. Would just encourage Igni worshippers to wear IDA, like LO did. Except Igni is supposed to encourage metal armour.

Btw, I think I found a bug:

  Code:
 Erica is burned by the scimitar of flaming.
 Erica unwields an uncursed scimitar of flaming.
 It stops flaming.
_Erica drops an uncursed scimitar of flaming.


Erica generates with a scimitar of flaming, so that seemed weird. I did try to rebrand, but the game said that Erica wasn't holding a weapon that can be rebranded.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 221

Joined: Thursday, 29th August 2013, 09:40

Post Thursday, 27th February 2014, 07:28

Re: Smith/fire god

Does the refit armor ability basically negate Deformed Body on nagas and centaurs? Does it work on things that have randomly mutated, too?

What happens if an ogre uses the ability to wear plate armor, but then inflicts penance? Does the plate armor suddenly fall off or burst?
You hear the distant roaring of an enraged eggplant.
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