New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)


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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 17:33

New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Rothzul, God of Joint Endeavors.

Theme: Rothzul is the god of joint endeavors and supports situations where people work together. Unlike other deities, Rothzul has no problem with the death of allies in battle, since that is an inevitable consequence to cooperation. There is a cynical undercurrent to this, for Rothzul does not care whether such cooperation is truly voluntary. As such, summoners, slavers, and necromancers have been known to worship him, though it is highly questionable whether their coerced thralls are truly committed to their master’s endeavors….

Niche: Rothzul fills supports three styles of play:

1) He is the ideal god for summoners. This can allow for us to completely sever Vehumet from summoning.
2) He is a god for warriors, and especially beefy warriors, who want allied play but no consequence for ally death.
3) He is an alternate choice to Kiku and Sif Muna for necromancers.

Likes: Rothzul likes it when:
1) You train summoning;
2) Your allies kill
3) You “enlist” creatures to your cause. Enlistment includes enslavement, control undead, death channel, simulacra, and animate dead.
a. Piety is only given once, so no repeat piety for enslaving the same goblin over and over.
b. Piety gain is tied to overall piety. So, enslaving a goblin or animating a bat might give piety at 0-20 piety, but for a 6 star Rothzul adherent, only
enslaving a high HD monster would have any piety benefit.

Dislikes: Rothzul dislikes it when:
1) You wear warding equipment (a general dislike for anti summoning magic)
2) You cast abjuration or mass/abjuration (same dislike for anti summoning magic) (penance)
3) You kill summoners (piety loss).
a. Of course, enslaving a summoner and sending him to a suicidal death wouldn’t bother Rothzul in the slightest…

Respecting Prior Niches:
1) Rothzul will not grant permanent allies (Yred, Fedhas, Beogh’s domain)
2) Rothzul will not grant temporary allies (Makhleb, TSO’s domain)
3) Rothzul will not grant a permanent enslavement power (Yred’s domain)
4) Rothzul will not grant conventional healing of allies (Ely’s domain)

Powers:
…… : Enlist (MP, Food): Essentially the enslavement spell. Its power increases with invocations. Primarily allows non-spell casters to utilize Rothzul.

**…. : Longevity (MP, Food, Piety): Increases the duration of enslavement and summons. Duration is a function of Invocations and the HD of the monster/summon (harder to keep a hydra around longer than a goblin).

***... : Transfuse (Food, Piety, HP) : Heal an ally. Amount of healing depends on invocations. The amount healed is taken from you. Can never kill you outright. Every point in invocations decreases the amount of damage you take by 2%. So at max invo, healing an ally for 50 hp would cast you roughly 25 HP.

****.. : Shared Supplies (Comestible): For sentient living humanoid allies, you can invoke this power, select an ally, and select a potion. The ally receives the benefit of this potion, and you lose the potion. Wizards can give those potion of berserk to tanky allies, fighters can give potions of invisibility or brilliance to mage allies.

*****. : Blood Bond (Piety, Food, Piety). Smite Targeted. If you target an ally, damage to the ally goes to you. If you target yourself, damage to you goes to your allies. If used in the latter way, massive piety drain like Yred’s pain mirror.

****** : Soul Ally (Massive MP, Food, Piety). Creates a temporary duplicate of yourself to fight at your side. The clone is a projection of your spirit. As such, it cannot be transfused since you share the same spirit. If it vanishes after timing out, there is no penalty. If it is killed, you lose 50% of your current HP. If the ability is too strong, it can be further balanced with other death drawbacks, like 1-2 turn paralysis following the duplicate’s destruction.


Different playstyles will derive different benefits from this god.

1) Traditional summoners like DESu will like longevity and using blood bond on themselves to avoid damage.
2) Heavy fighters will like enlistment in order to get support, will like transfuse since they can use their large HP reserves to keep key allies alive, will like blood bond to keep squishy allies like boggarts or mages alive, and will really like Soul Ally for tough fights.
3) Necromancers will enjoy the additional benefits of having an easier time getting piety due to animate dead, death channel, control undead and simulacrum, and extensions through longevity to haunt and simulacrum. Through shared comestibles, mummies will have uses for some potions.

Rothzul doesn’t grant you allies or even buff your allies like Beogh or TSO, so much as he gives you the means to make allies. He provides ways for you and your allies to help each other, though the cost is always to you or the ally.

To underscore how cynical this all is, Pikel should worship Rothzul.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 18:34

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

At least this god doesn't care with allies casualties. To me, enlist should cost money rather than food.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 18:50

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Roderic wrote:At least this god doesn't care with allies casualties. To me, enlist should cost money rather than food.


You know, dpeg once had an idea for a money god that would bribe branch ends. You could give Rothzul two abilities: Enslave, which is temporary and relies on MP/Hunger, and Enlist, which is permanent with enough money and works only on living humanoids (possibly even demons - clearly demons care about money, why else would Pan Lords and Hell Lords keep loot in their fortresses).

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 18:58

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

I agree with Roderic on the money part. Baring that I have some serious problems with this god.

Enlist is either useless or gamebreaking. A wand of enslave is, in my opinion, probably the most potentially powerful wand in the game. An enslaved hydra, orc warlord, or another potent monster can change the course of a battle in moments. However the very low chance of it actually working, even with a decent evocation skill, as to avoid it trivializing the more difficult battles. This puts enlist in a weird position. It has to work, if it doesn't than 90% of this god is useless. However, it can't be spamable or cheap, lest you simply capture every unique you come across. Money would be an ok option, but money is limited, and as I said before, not being able to use enlist makes this god useless. I honestly don't have an awnser for this. Making it cost food makes it over powered for mummies, casters with lich form, and races that can eat everything. Making it cost a scaling mana cost greatly favors casters. I have no idea how to make this balanced.

All the other abilities (save the last two) leave a lot to be desired, half potion effects is a neat idea, but honestly terrible game play wise. What potions would you honestly use on your allies that wouldn't be a waste or better used on yourself? The only one I can think of is levitation. Transfuse is unique, but would never be used. Monster HP is far higher than the players as the game progresses. Healing something as early as an ogre would take 4 or 5 times the normal life bar for even the most tanky of characters. Longevity is alright, enough said.

Blood bond is unique and I like it, but it would require a massive amount of favor to be used, to retain balance. Even then it's basically a weaker pain mirror. I say weaker because keeping an entourage of high HD monsters around can't be practical or it would be over powered, and keeping a large amount of weaker monsters around would basically mean anytime you activate it you just nuked your entire army.

Soul ally is great. Honestly it sounds pretty balanced as it is, the draw backs may need tweaked, since if it dies you are going to die 99% of the time.

There's other problems, but these are the big ones, mainly the enlist ability. I like the idea of a god of slavery/leadership, but I don't know if this is the way to do it.

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Snake Sneak

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 19:33

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

These abilities look cool :)

If Enlist used money, could you enlist a creature, have it fight for you for a bit, then kill it and take the money back like in Grand Theft Auto? :) Presumably this would cause piety loss...

Here's another alternative for Enlist: it can cost equipment! So you want to enlist a hobgoblin - well, maybe he can be convinced if you give him a shiny new sword, or a suit of armor! The better the equipment, the more loyal your minions will be - and the longer they will tend to survive, naturally! edit: and you'll finally have a use for all those bardings you find when not playing a centaur/naga! ;)
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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 19:38

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

On the whole, this sounds like a cool, well thought-out proposal (although I found it unfortunate and counterintuitive that Okawaru's "look after your allies" conduct instantly translated to a very roundabout "don't have allies ever"; he should either have become a commander-type god with a bit of retooling, or should be reflavored to be explicitly in favor of fighting alone). Some thoughts, though:

Piety gain for summoning skill seems to step on the toes of Sif's rather unique gimmick, and doesn't seem necessary given all the other ways to gain piety. Also, if you intend the god for necromancers as well, then it doesn't help to make it any more non-optimal for them (on top of what they're giving up by not worshipping Kiku).

3) You kill summoners (piety loss).

I would hate this. It would be more annoying than anything else, even if the loss is small. Consider that not even Beogh dislikes killing orcs if they are hostile. It's also unnecessary given that losing warding and Abjuration is a serious enough conduct by itself.

You didn't include it in the list of dislikes, but I'd assume Rothzul would forbid attacking your own allies. Maybe also making your allies come to harm, but I'm not so sure about that one. If you throw a Fireball at an enemy and an ally happened to be adjacent, well, Rothzul may just consider that a "casualty of war". ;)

On powers:
HP is a cost I can see working well for Enlist—it jives well with the HP cost theme you have going with the rest of the abilities, and is a resource that non-magic-user characters are more likely to have in spades, while not being totally spammable. Crazy suggestion: make it so that the Enlist ability works 100% of the time (if you don't outright fail to use the ability), and make the HP cost a function of Invocation and maybe Piety checked against target MR. Then, if the HP loss curve is adjusted right (big if, admittedly), you can give non-magic-users a way to gain low-level allies for small to moderate HP loss, while you give casters a choice between going for their spell and risking failing the MR check and shelling out HP for certain neutralization of a strong enemy.

The other abilities are thematically appropriate without being too overpowered or too useless. I particularly like the idea of Soul Ally, although it might be hard to use without screwing yourself over from the 50% HP loss; I'm also not sure whether the AI is good enough to help you get the most out of a clone of yourself. Ideally you would be able to control your soul ally just as closely as you control yourself, but I can't see a way to implement that without making it a total interface trainwreck.

You probably want to make Transfuse, Blood Bond, and maybe even Shared Supplies cost MP too. Most god abilities do.

Anyway, this looks like a great suggestion! Hope to see it in the game eventually.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:04

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Piety loss for killing summoners would make this god pretty useless in the end-game/extended end-game, possibly even after as little as Lair if you get a game with tons of summoners, such as the Orc Sorcerer/High Priest Orc:4 end.
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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:07

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

I've actually been thinking about a similar idea - a tyrant god who likes you to lord it over your minions. I was going to make a thread for it, but I'll post some of the ideas I've had here, and maybe we can come up with the best of both worlds...

Much like the OP, I thought this god should not care about minions dying, but as he regards you as one of his minions, he doesn't care that much about you dying either, so he would not give any defensive abilities or help against hostile summons...

However, I thought undead minions should be specifically excluded, as we already have Yred and Kiku as gods dealing with undead.

Likes: as in the OP, training summoning skill and ally kills are the obvious ones. However, I also thought casting a new summon spell for the first time could be a way to gain piety as well.

Dislikes: Fighting in melee or getting hit in melee - as a follower of a mighty tyrant, you should have slaves to do your dirty work for you and shouldn't have to stoop to the level of physical combat yourself.

Passive abilities:

Increased power of summons spells - like the OP's longevity idea, only I thought it would work better as a passive ability that either increased the duration of summon spells or increased the chances of getting better or more monsters, depending on piety.

Increased XP for allied kills - since the god prefers you to use your minions to do your fighting, he also allows you to get a greater share of XP when they kill your enemies. It would never get to 100% though, maybe maxing out at 75% instead of the usual 50%.

Active abilities:

Slave Driving (needs a better name) - shout at your slaves to attempt to drive them to greater exertions in your service. Would cost MP, piety, and breath. Could have varying effects, depending on invocations skill, including buffing/hasting/berserking your allies, but if unsuccessful could also cause them to rebel against your cruel treatment (turn hostile.) Should also make noise like shouting.

Spell gifts - since he likes you to summon minions, he should probably also grant some way to learn the appropriate spells. Book gifts are out of favour with the devs at the moment, and while a similar mechanism to that proposed for Vehumet could be used (is it in trunk yet?), maybe something else would be more interesting.

My suggestion would be this: If you pray while wielding a spellbook, the god will overwrite one of the spells in the book at random with a summoning spell of the same level that you do not already have. This can only be used once per book, and maybe also a limited number of times per game.

The idea of gaining minions through the Enslavement spell (or wand) also lead to another idea - as a tyrant, the god could also support other hexes that allow you to 'dominate' your opponents in some way, for example by making Confusion or Ensorcelled Hibernation more likely be successful.

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:28

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

A god viable for all kinds of ally play would work. You should be aware that a proposal exists: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... :summons&s[]=kiku

One can try to get more playing styles than just summoners and necromancers on board. For that, the god should work with few strong allies as well as with many disposables. Creation of allies en masse should not be god's duty (this is work of the hero). Creating selected, outstanding allies could be okay.

Some quick comments on the proposal:

"Likes: training summoning". This has almost no meaning since the skills change. (Yes, I know that Sif has it but at least it is many skills.) Furthermore, why prefer summoners over necromancers? Also, it is completely unnecessary since

"Likes: kills by allies" is good enough to provide enough piety. Drawback: This can lead to inverse killstealing, where the player tries to make sure that the allies get the kill in. That is why I suggest:

"Likes: kills by you or your allies" instead. Since this god will be pointless without allies, this is exactly what is needed. Also, it means you can take on this god even when you're (still) on your own. If doing this, there is the following natural passive power: ally attacks do not reduce xp from kills. (The xp/2 penalty for summon kills is there for a reason. This would make the god very strong on its own.)

"Likes: Enlist". Again (like piety for training Summoning), this is reflexive: why give piety for something that is supported anyway?

I don't like the dislikes too much but perhaps some kind of conduct could be made out of them.

Problems with Enlist have been mentioned. I am not sure that the god should provide this tool. There is the wand of enslavement, and I could see the god extending the power or duration of it.

There could be other ways to get allies that avoid Enlist's pitfalls:
Capture (or Leash): Only works on dormant, adjacent monsters. If used, the monster wakes up and finds itself leashed. It has one chance to break free (roll monster HD against player Str and piety). If it fails, it is your ally. It can then roam freely (you remove the leash, as its will has been broken). After a while, it will run away like a pacified creature. Many versions of this are possible; the above puts emphasis on Stealth and Strength.

Longevity: If used, it should be passive, in my opinion.

Transfuse is good.

Shared Supply: technical problems, and too fiddly. Have to use the power (two keystrokes), select an item (two keystrokes), choose an ally (at least two keystrokes). Also, given how rare the really useful potions are, I don't think this is worth it.

Blood Bond: Sounds good.

Soul Ally: I am not sure, it may work.

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:40

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

The likes and dislikes, I think can be heavily tweaked. I suggested disliking summoner kills to make this god a bit harder in the end game, but i see the tedium it can generate.

Agree that Enlist is problematic as is, Shared Supplies is too fiddly, longevity should be passive.

I would also note there's some wiggle room here to get misc items into play, since so many misc items involve creating servants (efreets, box of beasts, gauzy fan, earth stone, latern of shadows).

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:42

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Happylisk: What do you think of the concept of the wiki summons god? (There you pay with maxHP to buy permanent, passive effects, mostly for your allies.) You have a basic concept here, perhaps the two can be merged. (This would mean no piety from kills, since you already paid a lot, of course.)

Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 04:05

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

dpeg wrote:Happylisk: What do you think of the concept of the wiki summons god? (There you pay with maxHP to buy permanent, passive effects, mostly for your allies.) You have a basic concept here, perhaps the two can be merged. (This would mean no piety from kills, since you already paid a lot, of course.)


dpeg: I just looked over the wiki for the summons god. I think a merger of these ideas is a very interesting idea. My understanding is that wiki proposal initially was developed prior to the Kiku overhaul. I think a merger of these ideas is a good idea because 3 undead/necromantic gods might be excessive.

If you merge these ideas, I think you end up with something like this: longevity (passive), infuse, and blood bond are in. If those are 2, 3, and 4 star powers, respectively, that leaves the initial power (Enlist being rejected) and the final power (Soul Ally being rejected - I would note it's been suggested before in the context of Okawaru).

To be honest I am not sure where to go with for the first power - I chose enlist to allow characters without necromancy/summoning spells to get this god off the ground (kind of how the first chei power was initially a good way to train chei invocations before the skill change). However, a bit of reflection shows this is not necessary. Wands of enslavement are not too uncommon, and if you're hellbent on this god, you can simply start as an artificer. And of course, misc items like box of beasts are other way to get allies for initial piety. More importantly, it is not necessarily a problem if this god is not accessible to every play style. So, I cannot think of a good initial power but I'm sure the community can.

But pacts are a great way to merge the gods. The idea is, when you've proven yourself as a commander/master/whatever to this god, you can enter into pacts that simultaneously affirm your dominance over your allies and your god's dominance over you. So, trade max HP for a wide variety of permanent upgrades/abilities. This maintains the distinction between this god and TSO/Beogh. Those gods randomly bless the followers they give you at no charge. Here, you acquire your own followers, but they all enjoy an upgrade of some sorts due to the permanent price you have paid.

Is that how you were envisioning merging these ideas, or am I off base?

EDIT: I would note that Max HP for pacts preserves my desire for this god to be desirable for beefy characters. Kenku and Deep Elves have good summoning/necro apps, but I imagine they would be more hesitant than Sludge Elves, Demonspawn, or Hill Orcs to part with HP.

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 05:28

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Happylisk wrote:To be honest I am not sure where to go with for the first power - I chose enlist to allow characters without necromancy/summoning spells to get this god off the ground (kind of how the first chei power was initially a good way to train chei invocations before the skill change). However, a bit of reflection shows this is not necessary. Wands of enslavement are not too uncommon, and if you're hellbent on this god, you can simply start as an artificer.


Or, even simpler: Upon joining the religion, Rothzul looks upon thee and drops a wand of enslavement on your head with enough charges to get your career started.

And of course, misc items like box of beasts are other way to get allies for initial piety. More importantly, it is not necessarily a problem if this god is not accessible to every play style. So, I cannot think of a good initial power but I'm sure the community can.


Maybe a passive increase to the spell power of ally-making spells, and lowers MR of enemies you hit with enslavement spells.

But I think if you're going to include the pact idea, you should go with it from the start: it's such a significant difference from usual religions, it should be the entirety of playing with that god. Gaining another piety star opens up new pact options, and perhaps makes lower-level pact options cost less, or lets you discard lower-level pacts, or some other benefit. Unless you meant having regular-style supplemental abilities that you get as you get more piety, that you don't have to spend pact on, which case the first level power would be the "Negotiate Pact" power.

goo

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 05:53

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Weird question, how would this god feel about you killing Pikel? Maybe ownership of his slaves could transfer over to you after his death?

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 06:01

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

goo wrote:Weird question, how would this god feel about you killing Pikel? Maybe ownership of his slaves could transfer over to you after his death?


I like that. It'd be another way to get slaves, one that doesn't rely on magic spells, wands, or consumables. How many ways are there to get any kind of allies, anyway? Not counting other deities, of course. Necromancy, Summoning, wand of enslavement, Enslavement, box of beasts, and scroll of summoning, as far as I know.

Edit: A lot of the pact powers currently listed for the summons god are necromancy themed, since it was originally thought up for a Kiku replacement, so we may need to go through the list and tweak some flavor. Also, an idea for an active pact ability -- similar in effect to Recall, but lets you choose any square in LoS to "recall" your minions to. Your allies will be placed as close as possible to the target square, with stronger allies placed closer to the center. Dump your allies across a deep water or behind glass, or use them to surround a distant target. It's silent and the relocation is instant, like a blink.

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 14:48

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

goo wrote:Weird question, how would this god feel about you killing Pikel? Maybe ownership of his slaves could transfer over to you after his death?


That's a great idea. It'd be yet another way for non-spellcasters to get their allies going. One could argue that you should get Grum's dogs or Kirke's humans after killing them with this god, but even if it were only Pikel's slaves that would be fine.

Regarding the notion that pacts should be available from the start: You could have 2-4 pacts available at each piety star level, including zero. As piety increased there would be two separate tracks: the pacts you have available, and the powers you have available.

But typing that out, that looks needlessly complicated. Ideas I have suggested that were met with approval were longevity, transfuse, and blood bond. Those could just be level 2, 3, and 4 pacts respectively, with a whole other assortment of pacts possible at each level. Of course, ensuring that the pacts are balanced and that there are no no-brainers will be tricky. The advantage of just having pact selection once at max piety is that it will be much, much easier balance-wise .
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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 17:08

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

That would actually add some interesting choices to some of the unique fights. Engaging Margery while her band of Hell Knights is still perfectly healthy is much more risky than picking them off before engaging her. On the other hand, with this god, you'd have to decide if it'd be worth the risk trying to kill her without killing her Hell Knights for some new allies or if you should thin their numbers a bit so you don't die.
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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 17:22

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

How about an ability that protects you and perhaps your allies from other summoned creatures, kind of like warding?
Or causes them to switch sides to you or at least go hostile vs the caster: betray master (smite targeting?). Of course, to be fair, perhaps certain monsters should also have access to this power...

Or perhaps an invokable ability; when enabled, anything successfully hitting the player in melee becomes enslaved but the damage caused is unhealable/drained until the creature is destroyed or until the mode is turned off (or wears off) and then they become hostile again and the player can heal again. This could serve as an escape method; if that's too much perhaps the slave refuses the "wait here" order and/or goes berserk upon freedom or perhaps the duration of the effect is short.

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 20:17

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Happylisk wrote:The advantage of just having pact selection once at max piety is that it will be much, much easier balance-wise .


True, but I feel like the Pact mechanic is interesting enough that it's worth putting in a little more effort to balance as the main feature of the god, instead of tucking it away as a ******-level power.

Either the powers should all be the regular way, getting better increasing with Piety, or they should be Pact-based with increasing Piety giving you better options, or alternatively, there's no Piety at all and you have access to better powers as you gain Pact.

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 05:21

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Seeing as how Vehumet is currently being reworked to drop summoning support anyway (I think), I wonder if it would be a good idea to just have this god gift summoning books (or spells directly). It'd be a lot easier than trying to balance the god primarily around the dodgy enslave mechanic, and worshiping him as a Summoner and then never finding another summoning book would be extremely frustrating. I can see how making him appeal to non-casters would be a plus, but given that the only other reliable minion-gaining mechanics are Beogh (obviously not an option) and necromancy (which two gods already deal with in some form or another), I'm not sure if it's avoidable. Plus Longevity and Transfuse already won't do anything for Raise Dead, and Blood Bond at ***** is a very long time for a necromancer to wait.

Shared Supplies, if it stays in at all, should just passively cause every potion you drink to affect all of your allies. The extra UI hassle is excessive and largely unnecessary; high-end potions aren't common enough for it to be overpowered. Longevity could easily be retooled into a passive as well, if that's desirable.

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Post Tuesday, 8th November 2011, 03:01

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

I don't know if this has been mentioned but as an active power you could have "Possession", a skill that allows you to enter the body of your servant and control it, your body is either defenseless (would add cool tactical choices) or with a +AC/EV.
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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 15:59

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

I've just made an observation in the wiki for a merge/combination of this god with another one that uses a "pact" instead of piety.
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:god:summons
duvessa wrote:Christ, you can't remove anything without tavern complaining about it.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 46

Joined: Saturday, 7th May 2011, 23:39

Post Sunday, 4th December 2011, 08:32

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

Firstly, using HP to gain pact... it's possible with wands of healing or restore abilities or whatever, to permantly regain your old max HP that you used for pact, right?

Just my few thoughts (even though I've never actually won the game or anything).

Rather than an enslave forever, why not have something like: enslave a monster, after X amount of turns (based on skills or INT/STR) the creature will die automatically. This would, for example, if we use it based on INT, act as a mental enslavement and once they pull away from enslavement their mind overloads and causes them to collapse. But also, it would but limited, say one slave for X amount of skill in summons. So at level 27 summons, you could have 7 slaves total or something like that. And speaking of a permanant slave idea: why not use pact for more turns?

Something like: trade 15 pact to command your slave to remain where they are and rest (this will signfy that your mental domination doesn't need to be as strong as you aren't controlling them) but you would have to either leave them somewhere safe but also, you would be alerted if they were under attack. Ideally, this would create some strategy scenarios since you have to consider if it's worth leaving a slave with great gear to defend themselves with while you go off hunting for more valuable slaves but also, if it's worth spending pact and you'd also be able to swap around slaves as you see fit using Pact.

Though since I'm not too experienced at the game, I can imagine that will really be broken with using some uniques for certain branches and then discarding them for other more useful slaves to do another branch with.

As for equipment, I think it would be immensely important. Since (hopefully) you being a follower of this god, and as a commander of slaves, you wouldn't use too much equipment beyond the best of the best, then you could give it to your slaves. But I can imagine it'll run into the same problems as the "make ally drink potion" thing with too many keystrokes. But I'm not 100% sure on how the pick up system with allies works. From what I could gather with Beogh, the Orcs seem to randomly pick up items that I would be shocked at.
I mean I spawned all the non-randarts in WIZ mode and I saw one Orc equip a sword even though the ally pickup was set to everything. So I dunno how it would transfer into having an entire army of slaves.

Also, would this god run into the problems that Beogh has? That the Orcs aren't very powerful for Zot, etc? Or would (ideally) using pact let you permanantly keep a few slaves that can be upgraded?

For example, you could have at say... **** piety: Rothzul is satisfied with your skills as an enslaver and grants you a commander. This commander would be a highish level spell caster that can be either a permanant (untill death) creature that is either a spell caster or perhaps a tank. If a spell caster, he would be able to buff your allies and will have a defensive minded AI, in that he'll try to keep away from melee. Or if he's a tank, he'll have the power to go berserk or something every X amount of turns and will inspire your slaves to fight better.

I know there are a few ideas about being granted spells and such but wouldn't it be a bit more useful to have Rothzul willingly give you slaves rather than spells at high levels of piety? Something like: Rothzul allows you to choose a slave of your own from his own slection of slaves. This is would give a bit of a strategy and would be fairly useful. After all, if you've been running into melee slaves, a spellcaster would be ideal.

just my thoughts anyhow

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1888

Joined: Saturday, 9th July 2011, 20:57

Post Sunday, 4th December 2011, 14:26

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

dmurray wrote:Firstly, using HP to gain pact... it's possible with wands of healing or restore abilities or whatever, to permantly regain your old max HP that you used for pact, right?


That seems completely against the idea of pact in the first place. Codewise it would probably just reset the "previous maximum" variable to the current maximum so it would be as if that had been your maximum the whole time.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 46

Joined: Saturday, 7th May 2011, 23:39

Post Sunday, 4th December 2011, 15:06

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

nicolae wrote:
dmurray wrote:Firstly, using HP to gain pact... it's possible with wands of healing or restore abilities or whatever, to permantly regain your old max HP that you used for pact, right?


That seems completely against the idea of pact in the first place. Codewise it would probably just reset the "previous maximum" variable to the current maximum so it would be as if that had been your maximum the whole time.


I was thinking the same. But on the other hand... it just seems like we either use pact a few times and then can get one shot killed by pretty much anything. If pact is a 1 to 1 conversion from HP and on average the abilities cost 5-10 pact... it's not going to last very long end game wise

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1888

Joined: Saturday, 9th July 2011, 20:57

Post Sunday, 4th December 2011, 15:48

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

dmurray wrote:
nicolae wrote:
dmurray wrote:Firstly, using HP to gain pact... it's possible with wands of healing or restore abilities or whatever, to permantly regain your old max HP that you used for pact, right?


That seems completely against the idea of pact in the first place. Codewise it would probably just reset the "previous maximum" variable to the current maximum so it would be as if that had been your maximum the whole time.


I was thinking the same. But on the other hand... it just seems like we either use pact a few times and then can get one shot killed by pretty much anything. If pact is a 1 to 1 conversion from HP and on average the abilities cost 5-10 pact... it's not going to last very long end game wise


You don't spend Pact each time you use the ability, you spend Pact once to gain the ability as an option and then each use would be, say, Food or MP or whatever.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 46

Joined: Saturday, 7th May 2011, 23:39

Post Sunday, 4th December 2011, 15:57

Re: New God: Rothzul (summons and allies)

nicolae wrote:You don't spend Pact each time you use the ability, you spend Pact once to gain the ability as an option and then each use would be, say, Food or MP or whatever.


But what about the activated powers like say Wasting Rage:all friendly living creatures in LoS go berserk but also begin to rot. Cost 5.

Wouldn't you be essentially giving up 5HP to make everything berserk which, while it can save you a few times. It seems like a trade off that won't always work.

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