Yanos the Two-Natured -- God Idea

[koboldina]

Yanos the Two-Natured

Some say Yanos is an angelic demon; some, a demonic angel. Others still whisper that the god was once a mortal who delved too deeply into secrets both infernal and holy. The only thing that is certain is that Yanos is an entity that despises both angels and demons, and teaches his most honored worshippers to use their own powers to destroy them.

The basic theme is a god that is the "evil" (hated by good gods, at least, for hunting angels) equivalent to Tso - a god that gives very good benefits in the late/extended game but is difficult to quickly gain piety with in the early game. Combined with this is a mostly "form" based god, which we really haven't seen yet - Dith is the only god that has a shapeshift power. I also like the idea of having something that grants rHoly in the game, since it doesn't exist yet.

Piety:
Gain: Killing holy creatures. Killing demonic creatures. Exploring the dungeon in search of said creatures (at a lower rate than Ely's exploration-based piety).
Loss: Mid to fast decay.

Conduct:
No demonspawn allowed - sorry Ds, but Yanos wants you dead.
No using holy or unholy items - these are an unsanctioned use of holy/infernal power. This means no: holy word scrolls, torment scrolls, harm amulets, holy branded weapons, demon blades, demon whips, and so on.

Active Powers:
**. - Hell Channeling - Hellfire. Functions the exact same as a staff of Dispater (including self-damage), except the attack damage is based on invocations instead of evocations. Also grants resist (not immune) hellfire for an invocations-based length of time (always relatively short.). Significant piety cost - maybe half of an upheaval.
***.. - Angelic Visage - Holy form. Grants rHoly, 20% hp (just as ice form), holy branded unarmed attacks, and rN-. Does not affect your equipment but cannot be combined with any other forms. If you are attacked, there is an invocations-based chance you will lose some piety and bleed a cleansing flame on the attacker (kind of like Dithmenos's smoke.) More invocations = higher chance to bleed cleansing flame and less piety lost per hit. Invocations also determines length of transform - at 0, it should only last as long as hydra form. Should have significant piety cost so people don't just leave it up all the time - I'm thinking on par with an Upheaval.
*****. - Form of the Bennu - Temporarily transforms you into a Bennu, the personification of life and death, holy and unholy. You gain the draining+holy unarmed attacks of a Bennu while in this form. If you die, you explode in a blast of ghostly flame just like a bennu would - and come back at full health, in your normal form. However, you suffer permanent hp loss on par with using Borg's Revivification, except the amount you lose is based on invocations rather than necromancy. Piety cost the same as Zin's sanctuary - and you pay the same cost again if you die while in this form.

Don't let anybody tell you all I do is try to sell you guys perler stuff! Any thoughts on this idea?

[amaril]

It is strange to me that the hellfire ability also grants rHellfire, because these two abilities serve opposite functions--I can imagine seeing a hell sentinel/ hellion and firing a hellfire blast against a wall, which isn't necessarily the worst case of interface screw but is still kind of clunky. Why not just passively grant rHellfire, and have the ability cost hp? Bennu form has a similar issue--it will actually just be used as borg's rev, so all of the other stuff it does is pretty much flavor text (although I suppose the ghostly flame could help finish off some non-endgame threats? and the rn- makes you slightly more vulnerable if you have to use the form in tomb)

This god also seems to overlap with the endgame gods you are trying to contrast from--holy branded attacks (that admittedly force you to use UC) and cleansing flame sounds a lot like the shining one.

edit: mixed up which forms got rn-. I suppose the negative energy vulnerability differentiates this god from TSO, but it also makes this god's 'main form' significantly less appealing in the places you'd want it. Flavor-wise, holy things in dcss tend to be negative energy immune (I believe).

[koboldina]

It is strange to me that the hellfire ability also grants rHellfire, because these two abilities serve opposite functions--I can imagine seeing a hell sentinel/ hellion and firing a hellfire blast against a wall, which isn't necessarily the worst case of interface screw but is still kind of clunky. Why not just passively grant rHellfire, and have the ability cost hp? Bennu form has a similar issue--it will actually just be used as borg's rev, so all of the other stuff it does is pretty much flavor text (although I suppose the ghostly flame could help finish off some non-endgame threats? and the rn- makes you slightly more vulnerable if you have to use the form in tomb)

The hellfire ability grants rHellfire because anything else that uses hellfire in Crawl gets hellfire immunity or resistance. I actually kind of like the idea of the hellfire-at-the-wall situation - you're basically sacrificing your own life force to unleash a demonic power within you so you can resist more demonic stuff. We could make this more interesting, unique, and thematic by making the hellfire spawn all around you (ala the Irradiate spell) rather than being targetable - come to think of it, I like this better.

I agree that Bennu form is mostly just going to be used as Borg's, but it's also much better than Borg's in that you can put it up in advance. If you're afraid of being bursted down by a particularly burst-damagey enemy like Cerebov, throw away some piety on Bennu form and go to work with confidence. The general idea being that it's a very powerful defensive option which eats a lot of your piety - the other stuff, I agree, mostly is fluff and could use tweaking, but to be fair having holy branded UC attacks is something that doesn't exist in Crawl as of yet and could be pretty cool to see.

This god also seems to overlap with the endgame gods you are trying to contrast from--holy branded attacks (that admittedly force you to use UC) and cleansing flame sounds a lot like the shining one.

The abilities could be altered to avoid too much overlap, certainly. For instance, he cleansing flame bleed effect could become, say, miasma. The idea is to blend supposedly evil and supposedly good powers/concepts from other gods into one paradox god, so a certain amount of overlap is actually intended.

[bcadren]

Active Powers:
**. - Hell Channeling - Hellfire. Functions the exact same as a staff of Dispater (including self-damage), except the attack damage is based on invocations instead of evocations. Also grants resist (not immune) hellfire for an invocations-based length of time (always relatively short.). Significant piety cost - maybe half of an upheaval.
***.. - Angelic Visage - Holy form. Grants rHoly, 20% hp (just as ice form), holy branded unarmed attacks, and rN-. Does not affect your equipment but cannot be combined with any other forms. If you are attacked, there is an invocations-based chance you will lose some piety and bleed a cleansing flame on the attacker (kind of like Dithmenos's smoke.) More invocations = higher chance to bleed cleansing flame and less piety lost per hit. Invocations also determines length of transform - at 0, it should only last as long as hydra form. Should have significant piety cost so people don't just leave it up all the time - I'm thinking on par with an Upheaval.
*****. - Form of the Bennu - Temporarily transforms you into a Bennu, the personification of life and death, holy and unholy. You gain the draining+holy unarmed attacks of a Bennu while in this form. If you die, you explode in a blast of ghostly flame just like a bennu would - and come back at full health, in your normal form. However, you suffer permanent hp loss on par with using Borg's Revivification, except the amount you lose is based on invocations rather than necromancy. Piety cost the same as Zin's sanctuary - and you pay the same cost again if you die while in this form.

Don't let anybody tell you all I do is try to sell you guys perler stuff! Any thoughts on this idea?

So this is the Profane Servitor God, but it's separate from the god that gives you servitors (Yred) and the god that gives you Umbra (Dith). Anyways:

Hellfire Blast - I'm certainly OK with there being a hellfire god ability. Unsure if it should follow the same rules as Dispater Staff and then have a semi-high piety cost. (Lots of costs). Also consider being Hellfire Burst (Hellion) instead of Hellfire Blast (Hell Sentinel) [Less damage but smite targeted].

Angelic Visage - So a Form that Melds nothing, odd, but OK. +20% HP with nothing melded is comparable and strictly worse than Ely's Divine Vigour (+5 + (Invo * 5/3)% HP and MP). rHoly cancels bonus damage from Holy Wrath weapons, but you'd have to be something that takes that damage in the first place for it to have an effect (as it is now). As for Holy Branded UC, Holy Brand is x1.75 damage vs Demons and Undead, so since UC is base 3 +(Skill) it's +2.25 at 0 Skill and +22.25 at max skill with a linear grading in-between. Not terrible; blade hands (the most comparable form since it melds only weapon and shield) is 8 +(STR+DEX)/3; so with average STR and DEX... +18 and probably strictly better damagewise than this form until very high skill levels (though the +20% HP makes the form more comparable).

Bennu Form - I'm going to assume 2x UC (Two separate attacks) one holy [x 1.75 vs undead/demons] and one Draining [x 1.25 and drain debuff (-1 HD) on living)] + Peck Auxiliary (Same as a normal Bennu)...with probably everything except rings and amulets melded. Not terrible, especially considering the DDoor/Sanctuary tier life-saving, but...not amazing either. With the high cost you could probably get away with making them default to hasted without the glow which would make it a more interesting vs. boss form.

---

In short I'm not against it, but branding UC is pretty well weaker than the plain base damage bonuses of existing forms and nothing is strictly amazing about this god.

[koboldina]

So this is the Profane Servitor God, but it's separate from the god that gives you servitors (Yred) and the god that gives you Umbra (Dith). Anyways:

Hellfire Blast - I'm certainly OK with there being a hellfire god ability. Unsure if it should follow the same rules as Dispater Staff and then have a semi-high piety cost. (Lots of costs). Also consider being Hellfire Burst (Hellion) instead of Hellfire Blast (Hell Sentinel) [Less damage but smite targeted].

In retrospect I actually think having it do a unique hellfire irradiate-style explosion around you (possibly with even higher damage than hellfire blast) is more interesting than simply cloning the burst or blast mechanics.

Angelic Visage - So a Form that Melds nothing, odd, but OK. +20% HP with nothing melded is comparable and strictly worse than Ely's Divine Vigour (+5 + (Invo * 3/5)% HP and MP). rHoly cancels bonus damage from Holy Wrath weapons, but you'd have to be something that takes that damage in the first place for it to have an effect (as it is now). As for Holy Branded UC, Holy Brand is x1.75 damage vs Demons and Undead, so since UC is base 3 +(Skill) it's +2.25 at 0 Skill and +22.25 at max skill with a linear grading in-between. Not terrible; blade hands (the most comparable form since it melds only weapon and shield) is 8 +(STR+DEX)/3; so with average STR and DEX... +18 and probably strictly better damagewise than this form until very high skill levels (though the +20% HP makes the form more comparable).

To make it more interesting you could make it meld cloak and give you wings/permaflight. Could make the tile look cooler, ala draconian big wings. As for rHoly, I envision it making you take less damage from smiting in general, cleansing flame, perler dragon breath, etc.

Bennu Form - I'm going to assume 2x UC (Two separate attacks) one holy [x 1.75 vs undead/demons] and one Draining [x 1.25 and drain debuff (-1 HD) on living)] + Peck Auxiliary (Same as a normal Bennu)...with probably everything except rings and amulets melded. Not terrible, especially considering the DDoor/Sanctuary tier life-saving, but...not amazing either. With the high cost you could probably get away with making them default to hasted without the glow which would make it a more interesting vs. boss form.

Not sure. I'd want it to work however Bennu currently work - I think they get one attack which is somehow simultaneously branded draining/holy, but I'd have to check. Those slots would get melded for sure. Permahaste sounds fine, I was worried about the Borgnor effect being too powerful as it was, but if you think it's too weak it could certainly be buffed.

In short I'm not against it, but branding UC is pretty well weaker than the plain base damage bonuses of existing forms and nothing is strictly amazing about this god.

True. Tbh I tried to keep him pretty simple/straightforward.on purpose, I'm not sure if that ended up making him too boring or weak to fit into the pantheon or not.

[bcadren]

I thought about what you were trying to accomplish here a fair bit and I have a few further thoughts on the matter:

1. Hellfire is a boring ability. It seems cool at first, but it's...beam (or smite) targeted damage that ignores resistances, AC, EV and SH. And affects all but (a very small list) of monsters. You talked about switching it to exploding around you instead of beam or smite, but that's even more boring (because it already exists (though irradiate costs Contam and Cleansing Flame only works on "evil" things (IE almost nothing in a standard 3 rune, but almost everything in extended))). It's not a bad ability, but it's just already out there. Also ignoring defenses is both boring and extremely powerful, which isn't exactly a good combo. (Actually I believe Ru's Apocalypse does the same, though it's utility is limited in an interesting way [drain and exh]). Not saying hellfire cannot be an ability somewhere, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of what this god is doing mechanically (temporary forms that have both defensive and offensive (UC) use and it's pretty damn boring without a restriction on its use.)
2. Anyways the core of what you appear to be trying to do is (1) offer branded UC (which is fine and potentially cool) and (2) Offer forms that give both a defensive boost and an offensive one focused mostly around using UC in extended. Some people will say "UC god is too focused", but I'd disagree heavily with them; that's about the same as saying that Vehu is too focused because it only supports Conjurations. Yes, it's focused, no that's not a problem. Also, in theory, the forms could be used defensively without using UC, though it might not be as strong. (Similar to using Vehu for the MP on kills without being a conjurer, like say a Stabber doing so).
3. Your "theme" is duality. I will note that themes don't really have to correlate to the practical use of the god (in this case extended defenses and UC) but it'd help if there is a way to do so. IE: Fedhas's "theme" is plants, what fedhas actually offers is mostly stationary summons. On duality, you never normally have the ability to use Holy Wrath and be undead (torment and poison immune), nor are you ever allowed to transmute as an undead. This god could break both of those rules and it would be ok, because gods are allowed to be exceptions to rules. As an interesting thought all the things that the good gods ban ONLY work on living (slight exception for Dispel and Control Undead).
4. On the note of "rule breaking" while fitting a duality theme. Dual wielding? Would produce a similar effect to the two branded UC attacks for different weapon types.

After all that analysis, here's what I'm currently thinking you should do (if you're keeping the temporary 'forms' feel); you could just as easily turn the main form into a passive instead of an active temporary ability though. Form thoughts:

• Death Scarab - As a player form this would roughly be an undead version of spider form. Undead resists, Venom/Vampiric single bite attack.
• Celestial Fiend - Undead Angel, like a Servitor, but different melee types. This is the form I was thinking could be a passive instead of an active. rC+ rHoly rTorm rRot rN+++, Normal Hunger. UC hits twice; equal hits {Vampiric and Holy Wrath}. ONLY Demonspawn would be affected by both brands; but each gives it use at different parts of the game. Maybe allow dual wielding, maybe disallow shield or gloves (or cloak [permaflight]).
• Bennu Form - Very Fast (Glowless Haste). rF+++ rC+ rHoly rTorm rRot rN+++. Holy/Drain Melee. Respawns on death. Medium-High piety cost.

It's worth the thoughts anyways. Holy while undead resists and UC-focused god are the two interesting strings here. (Vampiric UC could be really REALLY powerful by itself in the main game, while Holy UC is a bit weaker than blades (you saw my earlier numbers, unless the base power is boosted too)).