Fedhas rework (again)

[Hellmonk]

Alright, I'm not gonna go over all the reasons fedhas needs a rework this time, suffice it to say that the current iteration of fedhas has some pretty major design problems. This is a Fedhas rework that got kicked around a little bit on irc but we want some more feedback before trying out an experimental or putting it in trunk. The general theme is "make Fedhas the god of summon forest".

*..... gives some passives, maybe just the current plant related stuff.

**.... gives Summon Forest as an active, moderate piety cost ability, which at first just converts some walls into trees and summons a dryad (with strong correlation between invo skill and the strength of the dryad)

***... gives the dryad the ability to awaken forest, so you get snaplasher vines and tree damage (should increase with invo skill)

****.. places some water when you summon forest, amount and chance depending on invo skill.

*****. will sometimes summon other plants (mangrove, thorn hunter, oklob) when you summon forest, chance/number depending on invo skill.

Basically, turn Fedhas into summon forest: the god, with new stuff getting added to the ability at higher piety ranks and each aspect of the ability improving with invocations skill. This keeps part of the "turret defense" aspect of Fedhas because you can make part of the dungeon into favorable terrain for a time, but without the crazy luring that current Fedhas encourages and without the mushroom spam at * piety. Summon Forest as a spell would get the axe as part of this proposal. Feedback appreciated.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Is it possible to change walls to forest to avoid luring into open terrain? After the change it would still be the worst god from luring perspective IMHO.

[Alphaeus]

I know I don't have the experience to comment extensively, but I will say that I think that Fedhas does need a rework, and that this is a viable concept. The big problem I have with summon forest is the whole aspect of the Dryad in the first place -- more often than not unless you manage to meat-shield the dryad they get killed and the forest is no longer awakened.

Now, on the spell this makes sense because you're summoning the whole package. As a Fedhas worshipper, though, you should have the ability to awaken them yourself.

So instead of giving a Dryad the ability to awaken the forest, at ***... piety give the player the ability to awaken the forest. That leaves open the option of exploiting existing trees in Lair/swamp/etc at mid-piety range to help with defense.

[amaril]

All fedhas summons are stationary, with a smite-based placement interface. When they leave los, they automatically vanish. This removes the 'drag all enemies back to my oklob' aspect of fedhas while keeping the td element. Also makes mushrooms/oklobs a little less busted, but still strong, and encourages the player to stand and fight full packs rather than retreat and waste piety. I'm indifferent wrt fedhas' other abilities, but theoretically sunlight and [shallow] water could be used as terrain-based debuffs that also vanish when you leave los.

Also remove fedhas' connection to food please

[Shard1697]

I know I don't have the experience to comment extensively, but I will say that I think that Fedhas does need a rework, and that this is a viable concept. The big problem I have with summon forest is the whole aspect of the Dryad in the first place -- more often than not unless you manage to meat-shield the dryad they get killed and the forest is no longer awakened.

Now, on the spell this makes sense because you're summoning the whole package. As a Fedhas worshipper, though, you should have the ability to awaken them yourself.

So instead of giving a Dryad the ability to awaken the forest, at ***... piety give the player the ability to awaken the forest. That leaves open the option of exploiting existing trees in Lair/swamp/etc at mid-piety range to help with defense.

Yeah, I agree with that. I also think it would be cooler if instead of the trees and vines, it was still temporary oklobs. I don't like the flavor of the god basically being one spell that already exists.

[njvack]

to be fair, summon forest is a pretty weird spell that feels more like a god ability to me

[upsidedownchuck]

I kind of like the summon forest spell and would be a little sad to see it go, but I agree that if this rework were to happen it would probably need to go, and this does seem like a good rework.

[bel]

I suggested something like this in the last rework thread, so I don't think it's a bad idea. However, my experience with Summon Forest (as a summoner) suggests that it works better with more summons on the screen (because the dryad can easily die otherwise). So I'd make Fedhas grant other summons together with the dryad. The summons can get stronger as the piety level / invo rise.

Alphaeus's solution is also fine.

[Realz]

I think the proposed is exciting. I'd love to try to implement it, even just for fun. Unsure how successful I will be, or how long it will take me, but it's gotten me thinking about it a good bit.

Here's my thought on how to fill this out (largely the same as proposed, but fleshed out a bit):

*..... All plants are friendly. Can move/fire through plants. Move normal speed through water. And increased HP regen while in water (currently thinking equivalent to two necklaces).

**.... Summon Forest active. Duration scaling with Invo. Initially just generates some trees and a small chance of water and/or plants (inanimate). Tree density and num water/plants scaling with Piety.

***... Forests will be awoken when summoned. Dryad is gone completely - basically, YOU are the dryad now!

****.. Increased MP regen while in water (also two necklaces worth).

*****. Any plants that would be summoned with the Forest have a chance of summoning as a plant ally (mangrove, thorn hunter, oklob), scaling with Invo.


Remaining question: does Summon Forest need to be replaced? I realize it may be a bit off-topic, but I didn't want to make a separate thread, since it doesn't make a lot of sense outside this context... here's a couple crazy pitches for a replacement spell:

Willbinder (needs a better name) - Level 4 Summoning/Translocations

- Attempt to banish an enemy to the Abyss. This bends their will to your own, and allows you to summon them back as an ally. (Successfully banishing an enemy changes this spell to "Summon Banished Ally" until it is cast.)


Blink Allies - Level 3 Summoning/Translocations

- Blink up to 8 allies, encircling a selected enemy.

[mattlistener]

Double-necklace HP/MP regen while standing in water seems beyond OP. Moreover, when you found or made water, you would then want to lure the entire floor to where you can fight it from there. In watery branches you'd be invincible.

[bhauth]

If Summon Forest gets axed, then maybe a bad Translocations spell should get buffed to compensate.

How about changing Lesser Beckoning so it always has its current max range, but it doesn't always pull enemies next to you, and the current range formula becomes the formula for how far enemies are pulled towards you?

Alternatively, maybe Gell's Gravitas could be buffed or replaced with something less useless.

[Terrapin]

Summon forest never felt like it had much synergy with other summoning spells to me (although I still quite liked it). Making it a god does make more sense to me. Would you be able to summon forest in enclosed spaces? Because if not it seems like some dungeon layouts might make it almost impossible to use Fedhas. Even Qazlal allows clouds at the edge of corridors. And +1 for buffing Gell's Gravitas because the spell sounds like so much fun and then never lives up to expectations. Blink allies also sounds cool without being too OP—it's not *that* different from just telling them to attack the enemy.

[Alphaeus]

Hmm...

What if instead of just summon forest, Fedhas was more of a Druid-esque god?

For example, you gain nature-based abilities as you level up. Summoning/awakening a forest is only one of those.

* -- Nature's Spawn (Passive): Can walk and attack through plants and trees like open squares. All plants are friendly.

** -- Green Thumb (Passive): plants spawn around you (LOS) passively as you walk; number, frequency, and plant durability scales with piety. Grants no direct benefit, but does serve as a kind of passive defense, since you can walk/attack through them but other creatures can't. Even at max piety, though, the plants are only so durable and cannot spawn on an occupied square. By lategame a melee creature would still waste a couple turns to get through them. Of note -- these plants are permanent, or at least have a long duration.

*** -- Summon Forest (Action): you summon trees, water, and mists/fog around you. Scales with piety.
------ Nature's Scion (Passive): as Nature's Own, except the following -- you gain a swim speed/no penalty from water, rSteam, Poison Immunity. Additionally, you can see through any mists/fog/clouds, though creatures cannot see you.

**** -- Lesser Druid (Action): can gain plant-based boosts, i.e. the confusing attack from the shroom form, or an acid attack from oklob, etc.

***** -- Awaken Forest (Action): you can awaken the forests that you summon, like the spell. In this case, though, it works more like Trog's Berskeking ability, in that it has to potential to be extended every time you kill an enemy.

****** -- Greater Druid (Action): as Lesser Druid, except the boosts last longer/are more power; additionally, you can the ability to blink to any plant in LOS (at an HP cost like the Blink mutation).

------------------------------------------------------

The concept of the OP is to get Fedhas to be actually useful while still thematic, so I'm posting this here to try to flesh out the idea beyond a single spell of questionable usefulness. Fedhas would now be a tactical god. Shutting down enemy movement and attacks with plants would be surprisingly powerful as a defensive mechanism, and Summon Forest and Nature's Own/Scion work to be a great defense option as well to create choke points, fog-on-demand, and water/deep water. The Lesser/Greater Druid and Awaken Forest come along as your primary offensive mechanisms, rather powerful overall but using Summon Forest/Awaken Forest would have high costs (hunger, presumably, since Fedhas already prohibits the only races that are immune to hunger). Lastly, Greater Druid's ability to blink, paired with your generation of plants, would provide a superb escape option -- the costs (the blinking would cost piety as well as HP) would prevent abuse since I'd want it to be set that 3 uses or so would drop you below six stars.

Also of note is that most abilities are passive, and Summon/Awaken Forest would be based off of MP and Hunger rather than piety (Awaken Forest would have a berserk-like cooldown, though). This would encourage using them regularly, but the MP costs should be sufficiently high than you cannot spam them. *Maybe* apply draining here.

Lesser/Greater Druid -- the only other action/duration abilities -- would have piety costs to prevent abuse.


Thoughts?

[sdynet]

If you want to get rid of the Rain, this opinion is meaningless, but once it is maintained, I suggest improving the rain a little. Let the rain form a Liquefied ground( of Leda's Liquefaction) rather than water. IMHO, this can solve two problems.
First, this can prevent a drown of oklob.
Second, it can simplify cumbersome preparatory work and eliminate post-battle cleaning. (Something like this, for example. Plant plants, and let rain fall twice. When the battle is over, if you don't have flying or swimming, you use sunlight to make your way. And while you are farming, the enemy is free to attack you.)

This is an additional opinion to differentiate between Leda's Liquefaction.
opinion 1. Add to this the effect of Grasping Roots.
opinion 2. Remove growth and combine with this. In this case, increase the number of plants through the level of invocation.

[Vanguardan]

Hmm...

What if instead of just summon forest, Fedhas was more of a Druid-esque god?

For example, you gain nature-based abilities as you level up. Summoning/awakening a forest is only one of those.

I like this. Would definitely play a tactical god in this vein. Also of note is that with these changes, Fed would be less garbage-tier in higher rune count runs.

Especially interested in the passive plant spawns concept. That would need to be balanced out of course, like, having a cap of the number of plants onscreen and limited spawns in corridors, so as not to make it exploitable.

There are some things I’d change in the ability list, but I can add those in edits later.

[bel]

Did anything come of this proposal? Seems to me like it had a fair bit of interest at the time.