@Shtopit: Well, of course it's nothing but mental gymnastics - but let's face it, most of the stuff on this forum is nothing but mental gymnastics.
Anyways, I addressed most of the god combos in the OP - most of them work together better than you'd think.
Malevolent wrote:There are... how many gods now? 25? That'd be about 300 possible combos for this race, many of which would need awkward little special cases so they wouldn't be excessively overpowered or break any game mechanics.
I can't think of any god combos that would be
excessively overpowered. I really can't think of any that (assuming the chassis I listed) would be stronger than simply going MiBe^Trog or something. "Power level" balance between gods/species/classes isn't really a concern of the game to begin with - don't tell me you seriously think that Mummies are comparable to Deep Dwarves, or that Fedhas is comparable to Okawaru. Do the former groups have their niches? Absolutely. But they're absolutely not as strong as the latter.
All for one gimmick that probably isn't even all that exciting. That'd be a lot of developer time that could be put to better use even if the idea was actually good.
Yes, let me make it adamantly clear, this will absolutely not be a thing that happens. But I think that the simple theorycrafting potential of choosing multiple gods - like you said, that's 300ish combinations - that's pretty exciting to me!
How so? Many of them would probably just overlap with a typical all-rounder mage, really. Or combos like Trog/Oka - they'd just replicate the same melee playstyle that the two gods individually offer anyway. A combo like Ru/Lugonu would give you almost all the tools you need to beat the game and shore up all your weaknesses that either god can't cover alone.
Admittedly that was poorly worded, but most new species/gods/etc overlap in playstyle with pre-existing playstyles to begin with - it's the smaller nuances that make it interesting.
Hell, let's talk about a Trog/Oka Samsaran. So you have -10% HP, and generally bad combat apts, so you'll nevertheless have to play more cautiously than your standard melee race. On the other hand, you'll have multiple combat invocations to use, which gives the character more combat options than just beating their head against stuff, and having more weapon gifts ALSO gives the character more options. Granted, that wouldn't be all that interesting (generally speaking you'd just use Heroism any time you'd use berzerk anyways), but choosing between Finesse and Berzerk WOULD require some thought, and having to choose between combat buffs is generally more interesting than only choosing one, especially when they have costs associated with them to begin with. It's not great, but A: I can't imagine oka/trog would be that popular except with people who really aren't very creative (and they'll just spam mibe's anyways) and B: It IS something you chose specifically because it's not very interesting.
with even more *meaningful decisions* for players to make in terms of how their build progresses
The limitations or outright drawbacks chosen by a player when worshipping a god make for meaningful choices - depriving the player of having to cope with them would make for less meaningful choices, not more.
First of all, much of the added versatility and shoring up of weaknesses would have to be spent on dealing with having abysmal apts (particularly experience), and if ignored, it would be a significant limitation to cope with on its own. Second of all, 18/25 of the gods have significant drawbacks/hoops to jump through, and 8 of those gods' requirements and drawbacks are absolutely crippling/comprehensive - and I really think that most of the most popular gods for such a species would fall into the latter group. Doubling up on god conduct is, in many situations, its own thing to cope with.