DeptOfElf wrote:Greetings, I'm new here. (Probably a bad way to introduce a god proposal, I know.)
New or not, you put some time and thought into the proposal, and you are taking criticism well. Those are very good signs.
There's a lot going on here and a number of problematic ideas, but some of that has already been raised, so I will focus on what I think are some of the more promising or interesting things about the proposal.
1.) A conduct that makes consumable items perishable, whether you are carrying them or not. Notes:
+ This is different from current gods' conducts, even the harsh ones. It is somewhat similar to Jiyva, as an anti-stashing conduct. However, it is a much more serious anti-stashing conduct, and in addition it could seriously affect game play and would, I think, give Crawl a different dynamic and feel.
+ An additional idea is that, rather than hating encumbrance (now removed), this god could limit the number of item slots in your inventory. (Not sure how I feel about this; however, since the god would be majorly anti-stashing, you couldn't just juggle your inventory around to side-step this conduct. Anyway, it is an additional idea.)
+ Certain powers or abilities would need to be given by this god in order to balance this conduct and make it not annoying, while still keeping it strict enough that it impacts game play meaningfully. If the "perishability" applies to permafood items, for instance, you'd need to think of some abilities to counteract that (reduced hunger costs based on piety, etc.)
+ There would be lots of different ways to "flavor" this or justify it thematically; I'd focus first on getting a good mechanical framework for the god, and then fill in the flavor later. (Just off the top of my head: god of asceticism, god of decay, a connoisseur/collector god (takes items from you, gives piety in return), etc.)
2.) A version of dual wielding that might actually work in the game. However, I would caution against just making DWing give you more damage, in which case it is just a (potentially cheaper, skill-wise) version of wielding a big two-hander. In this respect I offer a few ideas/observations:
+ Min-delay and damage roll are handled the same way, you just get two attempts to hit. However, based on weapon skill, the difficulty of attacking with two weapons could badly hurt spell casting success (not power), and/or give an EV malus, and/or provides an accuracy penalty to your weapon attacks. You need higher weapon skill than min-delay in order to offset these penalties, but no amount of skill will completely eliminate them.
+ Based on weapon skill, attacking while Dual Wielding has a chance for one of your weapons (at random) getting a low-tier stab. This wouldn't add a ton of damage for non-short blade dual wielders, but it would offer an incentive to dual wield short blades, change the feel of combat, and would provide an additional way for s. blade users to consistently melee high AC enemies in the late game that they couldn't get stabs against via hexes, invisibility, or luck. This would also (potentially) provide an incentive for higher training of weapon skill than just reaching min-delay, especially if combined with above point.
+ Other things would have to be handled on a case-by-case basis, for balance. (E.g., vine stalkers probably should not get two bites when dual wielding.)
+ In terms of thinking about the balance of this for damage output, it could be (at one extreme) comparable to permanent, passive finesse. So some of the stuff above would probably need to go along with it, in order to keep it from being quite *that* good. Even if the god's conduct ends up being quite strict, straight-up (effective) double damage output passively is a
huge boost. Among other things, haste, and perhaps also !might or other buffs, would almost certainly have to be banned for DW not to be completely broken (with whatever flavor justification, although some kind of "asceticism" flavor seems to apply quite nicely here as well).
3.) The god could have a good game play niche, forcing additional risk (significantly less ability to rely on consumables; at least certain buffs are banned), while offering high reward (very high passive damage boost). This theme or feel could also be developed with active abilities. Certainly, I think duplicate artefact—Gozag offers [EDIT: oops, not artefact, but the point about similarity/redundancy still stands] duplication of anything, once per game, already—and the other item-management-type abilities should be cut, with some abilities that are much more tactically-oriented being put in as replacements.
While on that topic: other things that step on other god's toes (passive dex boost is basically the same as 1/3 of what Chei offers) should also be dispensed with.