God Concept: I, King of Hell


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Dis Charger

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 00:47

God Concept: I, King of Hell

I is the true king of hell and the evilest god in the game. The background Hell Knight starts with this god. Otherwise, he has an altar in the Vestibule of Hell. Flip-flopped on putting this in GDD versus starting it in CYC. Hope I made the right decision.

In design, this grew out of giving hell effect's power to players and giving an explanation for a lot of flavour things, including hell knights; but I think it fills the unique niche of being a mummy-friendly somewhat defensive god.

Conducts:
  • You may not use Holy Wrath Weapons and gain holy vulnerability upon joining. (If you didn't already have it.)

Piety Gain:
  • Killing non-demons [low piety]
  • Killing worshipers of other gods and good creatures [high piety].
  • Visiting Hell (stops piety decrease).

Piety Loss:
  • Loss over time.
  • Attacking friendly demons. (penance)
  • Helping Others (Heal Wounds or Haste on anything except yourself). (penance)

Special:
I blocks the wrath of other Evil gods. [Beogh, Lugonu, Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Makhleb]; non-evil gods will not be blocked.

Invocations:
  • [0] Destroy Holy Weapons (8-12 Piety) - destroys all holy weapons in LoS, including those currently wielded by enemies.
  • [0] Rot Protection - Piety dependent protection from Rot (living) and Mutation (dead). Auto-switches on use of Necromutation; Vampires are special cased to block rot effects from mutation, but not mutations themselves. At 200 Piety you cannot rot.
  • [0] rReligion - You are protected from the effects of lesser gods. There's a piety dependent chance of any other god's Invocations be reflected back to the user. This is most notable in Smiters Smiting themselves; but also manifests in an anti-magic-like effect on stronger priests (Orc High Priest and Elf High Priest being the most common of these). Note that I cannot protect you from any Holy elemental effect. (Daeva's smiting may be blocked, but Cleansing Flame is not).
  • [0] Revenge for Harm - On a killing blow, your god takes down the enemy with you. On weaker enemies (versus Invocations and Piety); there's a chance you will receive an amount of HP equivalent to if you'd successfully Vampirically Drained the killer's remaining HP. Works on all non-demons. Chance of killing blow on killer is 100%; chance of being saved is a function of Piety, Invocations and the enemies HD; can technically reach 100% if you are killed by an HD:3 or lower monster at max level/Invo; but effectively never breaks 25% (don't know the equation to use).
  • ** Retribution - Gives you a temporary 'Ret' buff; which makes you immune to status conditions. Invocations-based chance to reflects status conditions back to their creator, piercing most resistances. Note that this means ALL other status conditions, you can't use any other charms with this active. Duration of the effect varies with Invocations.(5 MP, 6-8 Piety)
  • *** Malign Offering - Smite-targeted Vampiric Draining; which heals both you and all allies. Ignores all resistances; working on all non-demons (including non-living and undead). Power scales with Invocations (7 MP, 4 Piety) [2d(Invocations) damage, single target; all allies are healed for half of damage done.]
  • ***** Unholy Infusion - You take the form of a demon; granting you permaflight, rTorm, rHellfire, slaying and enhancer bonuses that scale with Invocations. Even undead may transmute into a demon. [(+Invo/3, +Invo/3) Slaying; 100+Invocations/2% Spellpower boost (all schools)] (10-15 Piety)
  • ****** Reforge Armour - You may Reforge a body armour to make it into the demonic equivalent. Only works on metal armours. As a general rule it greatly decreases the encumbrance, while increasing the base AC by 1. Full list:
    • Demonic Ring Mail - 6 AC, -5 EVP
    • Demonic Scale Mail - 7 AC, -7 EVP
    • Demonic Chain Mail - 8 AC, -9 EVP
    • Demonic Plate Armour - 11 AC, -13 EVP
    • Demonic Crystal Plate Armour - 15 AC, -17 EVP
    Becoming a demonic armour also applies a +3 Enchantment and special brand (Spined) which gives retaliation damage on melee hit equivalent to Hell Sentinels AND makes the item immune to corrosion if it wasn't already. I briefly considered this affecting weapons too; but promoting Tridents to DTridents and the like seemed both too powerful and a bit boring for a late game ability (larger bonus; but on things you would have long stopped using anyways.

Overall; though having as much defensive use as Zin; the god's abilities are intended to be about vindictiveness and hatred towards those that caused afflictions. Instead of just curing my poison, I give my poison to the creature that poisoned me (Retribution may make letting yourself get red level poison as a DS strategically sound, which would be interesting to see).

Spoiler: show
Removed stuff archive:
  • * Invoke Hell - Calls forth the mystical force of hell on command. Doesn't work in hell. Takes 3-5 turns of speaking to invoke. (Like Recite, you may take any action that doesn't require voice during this time. Unlike recite, effects only occur on the last turn and require that your talking be uninterrupted, also unlike recite checks all possible effects every time.) (Leaves you exhausted for a long period of time [longer than berserk.]) [8-12 Piety, Noise, Time] This unleashes the following:
    • For every 'holy' creature. (Healers, those of Holy holiness, worshipers of non-evil gods); there is a chance that they will go mute (permanent silence), go insane (permanent confusion), be paralyzed, be blasted with hellfire (Invocations dependent power), or damned (cast into hell).
    • For every living monster, there is a chance that they will go insane (permanent confusion), claw their eyes out in fear (pain/permanent blindness), rot (miasma), be turned into a mindless slave (turns directly into a friendly zombie without going through death), go berserk, be tormented, or be afflicted with normal fear.
    • For every non-demonic monster, there's a chance of a standard miscast effect (Includes explosions, but not hostile summons).
    • Lastly summons 1-4 denizens of hell. Variety varies from Skeletons/Zombies (low invo) to Fiends and Eldritch Tentacles (high Invo); if a Tentacle is called it is the only thing called.
      In general; odds of getting a stronger effect (or effect at all) are higher at higher invo and versus lower HD creatures.
  • **** Fires of Hell - Fireball targeted Hellfire, with power dependent on invocations (2d9 HP, 7 MP, 5-8 Piety)
Last edited by bcadren on Friday, 9th May 2014, 00:09, edited 18 times in total.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 01:28

Re: God Concept: Iblis, King of Hell

So.... combine all the good gods, and give them to the only races that can't use them? Which basically eliminates the interestingness generated by them not being able to use them, without really adding anything interesting. No thanks.

If you wanted to do something Hell themed, I bet you could come up with something. But base it off of the hells in the game, not off of the Good Gods. Invoke the powers of one of the hells? What would it take to make the player into a hell lord? etc.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 01:34

Re: God Concept: Iblis, King of Hell

I don't really see the need for this deity. If you want to use a good god, you can play as one of the 21 non-evil non-demigod races. Limiting him to only the evil races makes it so 5/6 characters can never use him. Also, because he's non-ecumenical, you will probably never use him anyway. Ignoring all that, the only original ideas here are Demonic Armor and Fires of Hell, plus maybe the protection from religion. The other abilities are either direct ripoffs or so limited in their utility they might as well not exist. If you really think that evil races are lacking in their god choices, try to at least come up with original abilities to fill the niche. I can expand on my criticisms if you want more feedback.

Also, Iblis? As in the Islamic devil (and villain of Sonic 06)? Come on, Crawl doesn't do straight references.

Sorry if I come off as too harsh, but I happen to be coding a god with a friend and now realize just how hard it is (both coding and differentiating the idea). Maybe stick to CYC and see if a thread is good enough to be moved in the future.
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Dis Charger

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 01:45

Re: God Concept: Iblis, King of Hell

indspenceable wrote:If you wanted to do something Hell themed, I bet you could come up with something. But base it off of the hells in the game, not off of the Good Gods. Invoke the powers of one of the hells? What would it take to make the player into a hell lord? etc.


Actually it is based off the hells quite a bit already. o_o; Effects of hell just happened to be remarkably similar to Zin's Recite (though honestly if you did the full effects of hell that one invocation would be enough to float a god; chance of summoning Eldritch Tentacles, a couple fiends, powerful undead, confusing, paralyzing or causing miscast explosions against all enemies...borderline too powerful for a god ability, even if it was the only one). That is where this started though, invoking the power of hell. I just made it an evil mirror of Recite to keep from being too powerful...

Then, none of the abilities are -the same- as the original. The spirit is similar, but...for example, Divine Vigour and Vitalization were already similar ([more HP and MP (Vigour)] or [+stat boost and immunities (Vitalization)] this is immunities + Slaying. Also the immunities offered as passives are different. (Good gods give rN (TSO), rMut (Zin) and no passive, but stronger life protection (Ely); rRot as a passive is offered by no gods at all). Nothing is JUST EXACTLY WHAT GOOD GODS DO...they are similar, yes; but nope, not the same. Also the (gameplay, as opposed to flavour) reason evil characters can't do good gods is that Ely's healing is too powerful with no hunger costs (would need a significantly higher Piety cost for Self-Healing to balance) and this god offers no immediate healing like that.

Also honestly, I'm a bit tempted to pull out the middle abilities (hellfire and Fiend) for being similar to Makhleb (though more powerful/reliable and higher cost) and leave it as a semi-defensive Zin-like evil god.

EDIT: From a gameplay standpoint Mummies/Vampires could really use and/or be interesting with a source of self healing (or all undead, but especially those two); but I can't find it in myself to literally place the same exact self-healing Ely has with higher piety cost, instead of hunger, nor can I justify giving a hell-themed god Ghostly fireball, without doing something weird like saying Hellfire represents Gehenna, Ghostly represents Tartarus and there are two more fires that we've never seen yet (I find that option silly). I went away from offering Regen as part of the infusion, it's just a resistances +Slaying, +Spellpower invocation (Regen made it too much like Trog's hand).

EDIT: Edited heavily back to an earlier version that used the full power of hell instead of mirroring recite. Also removed the Fiend summon.

EDIT: Edited name to the letter I; because literally being the name of the Islamic devil is too direct a reference.

EDIT: Added Malign Offering as the healing ability I was hankering for.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 03:14

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Maybe I was sorta dismissive earlier, but I'll clarify what I mean. I concede that technically you aren't just saying give all the good god abilities to undead, but I don't give that you aren't effectively suggesting that.

[0] Destroy Holy Weapon - Destroys Holy Wrath branded weapons. - Exactly the same as Ely, except s/evil/holy/g
[0] Rot Protection - Piety dependent protection from Rot (living) and Mutation (dead). Auto-switches on use of Necromutation; Vampires are special cased to block rot effects from mutation, but not mutations themselves. At 200 Piety you cannot rot. - Exactly the same as Zin's mutation resistance ( mutation sources turn into rot when you turn undead, as a vampire, so it does follow ).
[0] rReligion - You are protected from the effects of lesser gods. There's a piety dependent chance of any other god's Invocations be reflected back to the user. This is most notable in Smiters Smiting themselves. - Sure.
[0] Revenge for Harm - On a killing blow, your god takes down the enemy with you. On weaker enemies (versus Invocations and Piety); there's a chance you will receive an amount of HP equivalent to if you'd successfully Vampirically Drained the killer's remaining HP. Works on all non-demons. Chance of killing blow on killer is 100%; chance of being saved is a function of Piety, Invocations and the enemies HD; can technically reach 100% if you are killed by an HD:3 or lower monster at max level/Invo; but effectively never breaks 25% (don't know the equation to use). - This is ely's life protection, only it also hurts the killer.
* Invoke Hell - Calls forth the mystical force of hell on command. Doesn't work in hell. Takes 3-5 turns of speaking to invoke. (Like Recite, you may take any action that doesn't require voice during this time. Unlike recite, effects only occur on the last turn and require that your talking be uninterrupted, also unlike recite checks all possible effects every time.) (Leaves you exhausted for a long period of time [longer than berserk.]) [8-12 Piety, Noise, Time] This unleashes the following: - You've replaced the specific effects, but this is Recite.
** Retribution - May be invoked while confused. Cures all your current status problems and gives them to the creatures that caused them to you. Pierces rPois on non-demons. (5 MP, 6-8 Piety) - Kinda like pain mirror.
*** Malign Offering - Smite-targeted Vampiric Draining; which heals both you and all allies. Ignores AC/EV. Power scales with Invocations (7 MP, 4 Piety) [2d(Invocations) damage, single target; all allies are healed for half of damage done.] - Didn't notice this one before. I like this, though it seems powerful.
**** Fires of Hell - Fireball targeted Hellfire, with power dependent on invocations (2d9 HP, 7 MP, 5-8 Piety) - Also seems powerful - there are a couple of sources of
***** Unholy Infusion - Protects you from confusion, stat drain, Holy Wrath (makes it work like a normal weapon) and petrification. Gives you slaying and enchancer bonuses that scale with Invocations. [(+Invo/3, +Invo/3) Slaying; 100+Invocations/2% Spellpower boost (all schools)] (10-15 Piety) - This is essentially vitilization.
****** Reforge Armour - You may Reforge a body armour to make it into the demonic equivalent. Only works on metal armours. As a general rule it greatly decreases the encumbrance, while increasing the base AC by 1. Full list:
Demonic Ring Mail - 6 AC, -5 EVP
Demonic Scale Mail - 7 AC, -7 EVP
Demonic Chain Mail - 8 AC, -9 EVP
Demonic Plate Armour - 11 AC, -13 EVP
Demonic Crystal Plate Armour - 15 AC, -17 EVP
Becoming a demonic armour also applies a +3 Enchantment and special brand (Spined) which gives retaliation damage on melee hit equivalent to Hell Sentinels AND makes the item immune to corrosion if it wasn't already. I briefly considered this affecting weapons too; but promoting Tridents to DTridents and the like seemed both too powerful and a bit boring for a late game ability (larger bonus; but on things you would have long stopped using anyways. - So, bless weapon for body armor. Could be cool, but feels like it just exists to mirror the good gods.


So - some abilities aren't just mirrors, though a couple of them feel REALLY powerful (Ranged, Smite Targeted Vampiric Draining? My summons aren't going anywhere...). Other than the recite clone and I GUESS the hellfire/armor, though, it doesn't really feel like hells. Actually, the whole thing feels really strongly defensively oriented, which seems... totally different than what you're going for.

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 16:34

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

All the races unable to worship good gods are unable to wield Holy Wrath branded weapons. There's not exactly a lot of other sources of 'holy' stuff to offend this guy with. (Are Scrolls of Holy Word still in the game? I haven't seen one yet in 0.14 myself, but that could just be luck)

'Evilest' god just sounds ridiculous. Not as a word choice, but as a claim at all. If you want an evil god that specifically hates Team Good and welcomes with open arms all those rejected by Team Good, that's fine, but claiming the dude is the evilest in all the land is just preposterous. Plus, it doesn't even mean anything in-game. (It's not like the good gods can get extra-mad at you for turning not just to a evil god, but to the evilest god, since the entire idea is they're mutually exclusive)

Rather than destroying holy weapons and yadda yadda I'd rather see some form of protection from Holy Wrath. Currently it's completely irresistible, and it would actually be kind of neat to be able to cover up that weakness to some extent with the right god choice. But 'destroying' Holy Wrath weapons is just the occasional random shot of piety. Random, because unlike weapons generally, Holy Wrath weapons are kind of rare. Not interesting.

Protection from other gods is interesting, both because Smite is incredibly annoying and because it would give 'evil' races a way to do stuff like milk Sif Muna for books and then run crying to Evil Mcbad for protection from Divine Wrath. On the other hand, that's not supposed to be something players can do freely in the first place. There's a reason the Good Gods only protect you from evil gods, and a reason Kiku is the only evil God that offers substantial God Gifts, which coincidentally are completely useless if you don't want to offend your current protector. Evil Mcbad protecting you from any deity opens the door to getting an avalanche of gifts out of Trog, Okawaru, or Sif Muna (Or Jiyva if we're counting mutations a gifts) and then leaving them with minimal danger. But protection from Smite is kind of cool. Now if only it was available to the species with crap HP who most desperately want the protection.

Retribution is neat, and would be much appreciated for Mummies in specific. (A way to clear Confusion at will! Thank Evil Mcbad!) It also completely trivializes ailments, which is kinda ridiculous for a 2* skill. I dunno. I like the idea of Mummies having a reliable way to clear Confusion, rather than just hoping for Clarity ASAP, but it's not a very interesting skill. In practice it's just something you hit the instant something Confuses you, or once your Poison level is red, or whatever. There's no thought being applied to how do I use this? or should I use this? It's just 'uh oh, better Invoke'.

A Hellfireball is kinda ludicrous. Mass damage that bypasses normal Fire immunity? And it's not like Evil Mcbad is being set up as really really hard to build/hold Piety with, so the Piety cost isn't necessarily a huge limiter.

Calling Evil Mcbad I seems either really brilliantly meta ("I am the evilest thing in this game! Me, the player!") or really really bad. ("I is-" "CAVESPEAK" "No no, the god's NAME is I-" "CAVESPEAK")

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 16:45

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Let evil king god detect holy wrath weapons for you with a big red message. You get an activated ability that takes some piety and destroys all holy wrath weapons in LOS, including ones wielded by enemies. That feels a bit more flavorful than providing protection from holy weapons. Definitely drop the "sacrifice holy weapons" thing.

Not sure how this would work exactly, but thematically it would be neat if worship of evil king meant that as you gained piety over time, your body, armor and/or weapons were corrupted with evil. Undead species would be unaffected, but non-undead species would slowly become "undead-like" as they gained piety. This could be determined not by current piety, but by total amount of piety gained over the course of worship. Would fit nicely with theme and would allow non-undead species to worship. Evil king god is fine taking non-undead worshipers, but you pay with your soul.

A 6* piety gift that let you put the vampiric brand on a melee weapon would be very appealing. (Perhaps OP. On the other hand pain and distortion are extremely powerful brands so maybe it is not beyond on the pale.)

Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 17:41

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Reading Ghoul King's post made me realize that undead races really DO have holes in their ability sets that they can't cover with existing gods. So let's change around some of the abilities in the OP to be more flavorful and appealing. And let's make it possible for any race to worship him.

-Retribution: curing status on demand is a bit much, and it's kind of a no brainer when to use it. So let's make it an ability that reflects ailments while active, but can't cure afflictions. Now you have to decide if you want to give up a chunk of piety for protection, or trust in your MR. Heck, let's make it more powerful: whenever you get hit by a status, there's a % chance that Crawl Satan will cure it, depending on your piety and the specific ailment. Then it attempts to inflict the status on enemies in los, resistible by MR or HD. Now there's a use for potions of confusion, poison and paralysis.

-Drop the recite skill and hellfireball. One is too close to existing powers, the other is too powerful . Even the summoning portion of Invoke Hell is treading on Trog's and Makhleb's toes.

-Unholy Infusion: let's make this a completely original power: activating unholy infusion changes you to a half-living, half-dead state, like a thirsty vampire. This affects both living and dead worshipers. Now mummies can drink potions at half power for a short time and living non-casters can get some of the benefits of necromutation. Let's say it can also protect you from hellfire, making the god attractive for the extended endgame. Just remember that you don't gain piety for killing demons, so you have to use it sparingly.

-Destroy Holy Weapons in LoS: I like this. I think protection from holy weapons is a little boring and probably too powerful, but making it an activated ability that costs piety would work. In fact, let's make this skill useful for all worshipers: worshiping SuperBadGuy makes you particularly susceptible to holy wrath weapons due to your supreme evilness.

-Reforge Armor: This is flavorful and unique. It can stay.

-Malign Offering: This gives access to godly healing, which undead desperately need. It can stay.

So now we have an original god that gives undead access to things they need without simply ripping off existing gods.
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Barkeep

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Post Thursday, 8th May 2014, 20:16

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Just as a quick aside,
File200 wrote:activating unholy infusion changes you to a half-living, half-dead state, like a thirsty vampire. This affects both living and dead worshipers.

I'm not sure how ideal it is to have god powers that work so wildly different on different species. It's one thing when a god power just isn't available to, say, Fo. It's another altogether when a god power is not only available, but does a completely opposite thing.
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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 00:11

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Edited a bit:
  • Removed the Invoke Hell, even though it was supposed to be the core of the proposal, heh. Some of the effects might be salvageable? Invocation that turns target living into a zombie directly, perhaps?
  • Removed HellFireBall (I actually didn't think it was going to be that powerful and was mostly there for flavor anyways (similar to Beogh's smite, it's not terrible, but not worth the cost most the time was the idea).
  • Opened up to all worshipers, but all worshipers get rHoly-.
  • Clarified rReligion a bit.
  • Clarified that wrath ticks are only blocked from a set list of gods that Good gods hate; though wrath tick blocking in some form should stay because no one would go without religion until the vestibule in order to pick up a god then.
  • Unholy Infusion now transmutes you into a Demon (different resistances; same Spell Enhancer/Slaying boost).
  • Retribution is now a status buff that blocks other statuses; including poisoning, all hexes and charms.
  • Destroying holy weapons now costs piety instead of giving it.
  • I like the idea of a steady infusion of evil for non-evil users; but am afraid it would de facto end up being 'a spriggan mummy hybrid' or 'a centaur demonspawn' in practice unless something more unique than steadily becoming undead or demonic was developed.
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 04:11

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Revision looks better, IMO. A couple of questions about balance/flavor:

  • Crystal Plate Armor is made out of crystal, right? not metal?
  • Smite targetted vampiric draining that also heals your allies is still awesome. Smite targetting in general is special, IMO, and should be kept rare. Could this be LOS targetted instead? at least forcing you to take some (even just a little bit of) risk to use it?
  • What's the downside of demonform? Seems like way better lichform without any of the drawbacks of lichform. The natural drawback is holy vulnerability, but you already have that from worship. The cool thing about alternate forms (which makes them much more interesting than charms) is that they ALWAYS have some sort of drawback.

dck

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 05:35

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Train of thought when reading this proposal:

"ew more god backgrounds"
"I is a pretty stupid name"
"piety rules are sensible, HW on others restriction weird"
"shit it fucks with other gods' wraths that's not a good start"

[0] Destroy Holy Weapons (8-12 Piety) - destroys all holy weapons in LoS, including those currently wielded by enemies.

"but holy damage is already incredibly rare so what is the point in even being vulnerable to this if I'm just gonna be able to destroy any threat they could pose the moment I spot one?"
"weird rRot that doesn't even make me want to melee necrophages that's kinda shit"
"rReligion is a terrible name and it's also very unclear, not to mention it just arbitrarily breaks a ton of good monsters like orc priests with no player intervention"
"weird lifesaving but lifesaving is already weird so that's fine I guess"
"retribution seems to just wanna make sure I spam all of my charms before using it when I actually want it"
"wow I really is a stupid name I mean christ"
"7 MP for a rather weak damaging and healing effect eh underwhelming wait this mentions allies have I missed any ally abilities what's going on"
"uh, well so okay a super saiyan slaying form that apparently does not meld shit AND has breakpoints for the slaying well that's not great"
"seriously what was that about allies though is this guy also makhleb"
"why would makhleb let this pansy call himself king of hell anyway makhleb knows what's up"
"oh my god new armors that are just old armors but better why"
"wait so the new awful brand replaces possible good brands I guess you could say that's balanced but it's just a dick move in a handful of situations and free amazing armor otherwise"
"no there are no allies here well what was that then"
"huh a spoiler well best leave that alone really"
"holy shit edited 18 times in total and the name is still arse"

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 17:26

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

One thing I'm kinda iffy about in general is how much stuff this guy does. Most gods don't actually have a new ability/gift/whatever at every Piety star (This guy technically skips the first star?), and it's not like Evil Mcbad's offerings are low-key. I'm also noticing there's no commentary on the specifics of reforging armor in terms of: is this a once-a-game gift like the Necronomicon, or can you do it freely at a high Piety cost, or what?

Now there's a use for potions of confusion, poison and paralysis.


It took me forever to realize what you meant...

Clarified that wrath ticks are only blocked from a set list of gods that Good gods hate; though wrath tick blocking in some form should stay because no one would go without religion until the vestibule in order to pick up a god then.


You haven't actually mentioned anything about Altar placement before this, and though I forgot to ask specifically I imagine some people are just assuming he'd be in the Ecumenical Temple like most everybody else.

General thoughts on the revamp.

I actually like the idea of a deity who renders you vulnerable to Holy Wrath for joining him. I've always found iffy the 'good' gods rendering judgement on you not for the decisions you make but for the circumstances of your birth, and having some circumstance under which your behavior qualifies you as so evil Holy Wrath works on you is nice to see.

I'm assuming 'worshippers of other gods' is intended to refer to priests, such as Orc Priests. It should be re-framed if so: if we're talking about worshippers we could potentially include every random Orc as a heathen (They seem to all be Beoghites in practice), whereas I'm guessing the intent here is more like 'anybody important to a rival god'. By the same token I'm guessing 'good creatures' is meant to refer to Holy holiness creatures: as far as I'm aware, that's the only 'this is a good creature' tag the game actually has.

'Attacking friendly demons' and 'helping others' are both odd deprecations. Evil Mcbad doesn't support Summoning or offer demonic allies, or in fact offer any kind of allies at all. You most certainly could summon Imps or nastier things and then turn around and attack them, but who says they're aligned with Evil Mcbad? And if he's so bad, who says he cares about them? They're not favored servants. They're probably not important to him. Whereas 'helping others' has little potential to crop up in Crawl, beyond being forbidden from helping your (Inevitably temporary or undead) minions being inexplicably forbidden. I guess he could get mad if you kill Pikel instead of butchering all the slaves? I understand where they're coming from in flavor, but I'm not sure what the practical function would be. Are there even any naturally occurring friendly demons in the game?

I'm still iffy about destroying Holy Wrath weapons in general. It either trivializes the weakness to Holy Wrath you pick up from worshipping him or is dangerously likely to be something people don't bother using, depending on how easy to use it is etc. It's flavorful and thematic, I like the idea of an evil god who burns with hate for all that is good (As opposed to the current evil goods, who mostly seem amoral), but where does it fit into the gameplay?

I'm also puzzled by the rot protection. Firstly: why is Evil Mcbad protecting one of his goons at all? Especially since it starts from low Piety ie when you're not terrible important or interesting to your brand-new god. Secondly: what does blocking Rot have to do with being really evil, hating all that is good, or being demonic? I could see Hellfire resistance eg 'your hellish aura protects you' but Rot resistance is just puzzling.

'rReligion' is a bad name, and you don't provide a clear mechanical explanation for what an 'anti-magic like effect' against stronger priests and so on even means.

I'm honestly not following Revenge For Harm's line of reasoning. For Hell's sake, I spit at thee? I guess? I'm personally not fond of any effect that maybe possibly hopefully trips only when you die, and there's something messed up about 'definately attacks your enemy, maybe saves you' in a game where death is usually permanent. So sometimes I get the satisfaction of knowing that even though Sigmund ended my run early again, hey at least he's dead? Worse yet, depending on how strong this is Felids might have an incentive to suicide on powerful Uniques to take them out, trusting in their extra lives to ensure survival.

Retribution needs to clear all status effects if you don't want people benefiting from it and other status effects at the same time. Plus 'reflects back at creator' seems an odd dynamic for something that prevents you from buffing yourself. Shouldn't my Haste reflect back onto me anyway? I'd sooner see it dumped on a random enemy, or the most threatening enemy, or an enemy of your choice, or cloned onto every enemy you can see. (Which would probably be complete bull, mind: see horde of dangerous enemies, activate Retribution, drink Potion of Confusion, win)

Malign Offering is neat, though as has already been pointed out: why does it heal allies? It's also oddly named: I keep imagining Praying over corpses to gain health, not Smite Vampiric Draining.

Why does Unholy Infusion just make you an ultimate superpiece? Certainly, burning a chunk of Piety gives it some limitations, but particularly if it's at all possible to get this guy vaguely early it would be crazy abusable (Demon up anytime you encounter anything vaguely challenging, and then regain the Piety from the things you were going to kill anyway), and even if it's not possible to get until you're largely stuck fighting Demons... well, what is Evil Mcbad doing with a late Altar if he prefers to grant abilities that are terrible by the time you get to him? What next, a God of Poison, Poison, and more Poison who can't be worshipped until the only threats left are all immune to Poison?

Barkeep

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 18:04

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Ipoiis, Demon King

Relatively low piety costs compared to Zin's active abilities at each of these levels, but all abilities require other sacrifices. You are slowly corrupted and take on more hellish characteristics, based on total piety gained with the god (not current piety). As you become more demonic, you become more vulnerable to holy and silver, eventually counting as fully demonic/chaotic for purposes of damage dealt. However, at full demon level you gain partial resistance to hellfire and torment, and rN+++. At high levels of demonic aspect, any hostile demon that enters LOS has one-time chance to become a temporary ally. ("Demons may seek to flatter you and win your favor, though beware that they are fickle allies.")

Upon joining:

Demonic aspect: rN+, Immunity to flaying and drain status. Cannot use weapons of holy wrath nor silver weapons/ammo. Scales up based on total gained piety since worshiping Ipoiis as described above. The strength of your demonic aspect influences the strength of the demonic pacts you can make.

* Dark Pact (active): Piety cost. Make a demonic pact for power. Slowly drains your HP and MP while active. Upon expiration, leaves you exhausted. Can be ended prematurely. All enemies you damage will suffer hellish effects. Cannot be used while either Souleater or Sigil of Mammon is active. Rate of HP/MP drain and strength/likelihood of hell effects against your enemies scale up based on the level of your demonic aspect.

*** Souleater (active): Piety cost. Make a demonic pact for health. Gives heightened HP and MP regeneration and the effect of a temporary vampiric brand in addition to whatever else your weapon has going on. Gives drain status upon the expiration of the effect, scaling up in proportion to the amount of life gained via this effect (this source of drain bypasses drain immunity). Cannot be used while Dark Pact or Sigil of Mammon is active. Greater life gain (and thus drain) scaling up with the level of your demonic aspect.

**** Sigil of Mammon (active): Piety cost. Make a demonic pact for defense. Temporary damage shaving, but you lose gold for the damage prevented in this manner. Cannot be used while Dark Pact or Souleater is active. Amount of damage reduction (and thus gold cost) scale up with demonic aspect

****** Chthonic Ritual (active): High piety cost. Make a demonic pact to save your life. A large amount of HP and MP is restored. You lose a large amount of experience toward character level (base around half a level, cost maxes out at around one and a quarter of a level or so). Cannot be used again until you retain the character level you had upon last use of this ability. Amount of HP/MP restored and experience cost scale up with demonic aspect.

______

The non-piety costs as well as the power of all abilities scale up based on how demonic you are (which is determined by total piety gain under Ipoiis). The abilities Ipoiis provides do not use Invocations; to utilize the Demon King's gifts, you will need to offer more than your meek and worthless prayers.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 18:16

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Quick question: would the 'you become more demonic based on total Piety gain' effect remain even after abandoning him? Or would this be treated as a part of the package of worshipping him, and be stripped from you if you left? ("Ipoiis revokes his favors!")

Barkeep

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 18:20

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Ghoul King wrote:Quick question: would the 'you become more demonic based on total Piety gain' effect remain even after abandoning him? Or would this be treated as a part of the package of worshipping him, and be stripped from you if you left? ("Ipoiis revokes his favors!")


Probably something like: You lose all positive aspects upon leaving, but you retain holy/silver vulnerabilities until the wrath is over. (Upon leaving: "Ipoiis strips you of your demonic privileges—but not your weaknesses!" ... "Ipoiis is mollified. The last traces of servitude toward your former master have been purged.")

Tomb Titivator

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 18:47

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

and into wrote:
Ghoul King wrote:Quick question: would the 'you become more demonic based on total Piety gain' effect remain even after abandoning him? Or would this be treated as a part of the package of worshipping him, and be stripped from you if you left? ("Ipoiis revokes his favors!")


Probably something like: You lose all positive aspects upon leaving, but you retain holy/silver vulnerabilities until the wrath is over. (Upon leaving: "Ipoiis strips you of your demonic privileges—but not your weaknesses!" ... "Ipoiis is mollified. The last traces of servitude toward your former master have been purged.")

I'd fluff keeping the weaknesses as the good gods still hating you, and the removal signifying that they aren't that mad anymore.
Actually, I think that'd be a cool idea for wrath in general. The good gods get mad at you for serving Ipoiis, but he protects you from them. When you leave, he removes said protection and the good gods start throwing lightning bolts at you.

Barkeep

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Post Friday, 9th May 2014, 18:51

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

khalil wrote:I'd fluff keeping the weaknesses as the good gods still hating you, and the removal signifying that they aren't that mad anymore.
Actually, I think that'd be a cool idea for wrath in general. The good gods get mad at you for serving Ipoiis, but he protects you from them. When you leave, he removes said protection and the good gods start throwing lightning bolts at you.


Yeah, that would be neat. Depends on what type of effects you want from wrath. Would be novel to give a mix of Ipoiis's demonic-style wrath (which on its own isn't too severe; he got most of what he wanted from you during worship, every time you made a pact he drew power/sustenance from you, took a piece of your soul, etc.) and a mix of wrath effects from the good gods, from whom you now have no protection. This would give Ipoiis a small, new niche amongst the good/evil god pantheon without overlap.

Shoals Surfer

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Joined: Tuesday, 25th October 2011, 05:04

Post Saturday, 10th May 2014, 20:19

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

Just thought of a new name for him: Infinitely Nasty Bad Overlord Guy, or INBOG for short.

Spider Stomper

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Joined: Monday, 25th April 2011, 20:48

Post Sunday, 11th May 2014, 01:37

Re: God Concept: I, King of Hell

and into's proposal looks good; I like the abilities and their "demonic pact" theme.

I understand the idea of maintaining a distinction between your standing with the god and how demonic you currently are, but this doesn't seem enough to justify having two kinds of piety. Most gods have piety affect both abilities granted and ability power, so splitting that up between piety and demonic aspect presents various problems and breaks consistency. But since all of the active abilities have strong drawbacks, maybe Ipoiis piety and demonic aspect can simply be combined by removing the piety cost from abilities. This would strengthen the theme that the price of the pact is your own flesh/soul/life. Even if abilities need a piety cost, it would still be best to make demonic aspect just depend on piety.

I'm indifferent on the demon ally stuff. It has no mechanical connection to the other features so I'm not sure if it belongs there.

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