Dungeon Master
Posts: 3618
Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43
Equipment god
The long form is on the wiki. Here in abridged form:
Piety gain
Piety gain for killing.
Bonus piety for killing with equipment you spent Enchant scrolls on.
Powers
- Enchant Foo scrolls are identified and never fail.
- monsters may drop their weapons, with chance based on piety vs HD (0 piety, passive)
- enchantment caps for weapons and armour are increased by one for every * (* piety passive)
- brand ability for wielded, mundane weapon, even if it already has an ego (* piety, active)
- another brand ability for wielded, mundane weapon, even if it already has an ego (*** piety, active)
- temporary defensive ego, regardless of armour worn (***** piety, active)
- forging: turns a mundane weapon/armour item into an artefact; every altar can be used once (****** piety, altar)
- reaping (killed monsters arise as allied zombies)
- domination (a successful hit may temporarily enslave the monster)
- blood bond (a successful hit with the weapon applies to all monsters of the same genus in sight)
- shafting (a successful hit may shaft the monster; melee weapons only)
- disarm (a successful hit may make the monster drop its weapon; melee weapons only)
- sticky flame (a successful hit may put sticky flame on the monster; melee weapons only)
- confusing touch (again, like the spell; melee weapons only)
- spirit weapon (a successful hit may spawn a minor, spectral version of the weapon; melee weapons only)
- immolating (a successful hit may put inner flame on the monster; ranged weapons only)
- penetrating (ranged weapons only)
- exploding (ranged weapons only)
- transference (incoming damage from a monster is shared between you and all other adjacent monsters — from Brogue)
- cursed aim (any melee attack of a monster on you has a chance to fully hit another adjacent monster instead)
- morbid weapon (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)
Forging
This is a strategic ability, and only available at altars. (There is a gambling element here: the more altars to the god you find, the more forging opportunities you will get. I like that.) Since this god is so much about equipment, I want a more elaborate forging mechanic than the plain branding of other gods (Lugonu, Kikubaaqudgha, the Shining One), or the simple “turn item into artefact” of wizard mode. I also want the interface to be very simple, while the power should provide choices. The mechanics:
- You have to stand at a not-yet-used and tidy (no other items) altar and invoke the forging ability.
- You are prompted for an item, which must be weapon or armour piece, mundane (no artefact, ego is allowed), and is not allowed to have negative enchantment. This item then drops to the altar.
- You get a list of five choices. Each of these is an artefact with the same base type and the same ego (if your chosen item had one; it will get an ego if it has none). The enchantment(s) is/are increased. The top artefact of the list is always quite simple: random increase of enchantment(s) and one random resistance; this item has no further conditions. The other four artefacts are full-blown artefacts with at most one bad property and these have conditions (such as trove quests). Thematically, the forging process needs additional magical/mythical ingredients.
- At this point the player returns control. Trying to pick up the item leads to prompt for one of the five choices. So you can only pick up the item if you meet the conditions (or you just take the first choice).
For the player, this adds a quest-like flavour to forging. Note the crucial difference to troves and scrolls of acquirement: here you get to see the rewards alongside with the costs! The player can make a fully informed decision.
Here are some examples of what might happen if you select a +5 demon trident for forging:
- Code:
a) the +8 demon trident "Hulyip" {freeze; rF+}
b) the +12 demon trident of the Seven Heavens {flame; Dam+5 Str+2 rElec}
This needs 5 potions of heal wounds.
c) the +10,+13 demon trident of the Lost Cause {pain; rC++ rF+ Curse AC+6}
This needs the staff of Dispater.
d) the +7,+8 demon trident "Ootsarkem" {vamp; rN+ rMut Noisy EV+5 AC+3}
This needs a wand of hasting (7).
e) the +14,+9 demon trident of the Bees {elec; rC+ MR+ Stealth +Tele}
This needs 12 scrolls of teleportation.
Enchant scrolls
Scrolls of enchanting are important for this god. My goal is to make their use not entirely obvious, and dependent on your actual situation. On the one hand, scrolls of Enchant Foo are never lost, so you can apply them safely to highly enchanted gear (minding the cap, of course). That would suggest to hold out for good items, worthy of late or at least mid game.
On the other hand, you can and probably should use early enchanting scrolls to boost your piety gain. When to do so, and when to stop doing it, are hopefully interesting decisions. There is also the point that you may want to put as many enchantments into item you want forge into artefacts as possible, but that clashes with piety gain acceleration.
A comment: Some of the pieces of this god look questionable to me. However, I am really confident about the forging artefacts. I think it is simple to play and has a chance to live up to the goals. The question whether we want a god where powers are chosen randomly or even be the player is a political one: do we accept such novelty?