Mines Malingerer
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Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.
Mines Malingerer
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Mines Malingerer
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But the dramatic arts theme, as you have it, doesn't feel coherent to me; connecting "not being able to leave a level or a branch" with "god is telling a story" seems like more of a stretch between flavor and mechanics than we see with other gods. (And you don't have much space in-game to explain the connection to the player, either.)
"Climactic Strike" also seems to break the god-ability theme of resistances and not dying.
Also, if the god not only helps you find artifacts, but rewards you for doing so, it seems odd that the god's main thing, giving you resistances, would overlap with what artifacts are primarily used for.
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"Climactic Strike" also seems to break the god-ability theme of resistances and not dying.
As my proposal stands, you're encouraged to do, say, Elf:5 before entering lair. There will be a lot of dying involved with this one. Thematically, it plays on the trope of the main character being on the verge of death but never actually dying (and also managing killing blows at the villains moment of triumph).
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duvessa wrote:Christ, you can't remove anything without tavern complaining about it.
Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:If abyssed out of order the player may leave at will (but not pick up the rune should they come across it!). Alternatively, Riefe protects the player from being abyssed in the first place ("Your place is here, mortal).
Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:I like Encore as an ability so I'll keep it for the time being (it's simple, thematic, not much different from the good gods similar abilities and would anyway have a lowish chance of activating and eats up a lot of piety when succesfully doing so).
Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:Ah. But the player isn't a conquering hero. S/He's an actor pretending to be one in order to amuse the powers that be (..whilst also enacting the predestined fate of the universe? Good thing religion isn't required to be internally consistent pretty much by default). Encore isn't a very powerful ability in itself (and certainly not a selling point in picking the god), but it's thematic and has precedent and I plain like it. I also feel that another activated low-piety ability is needed to provide incentitive to raise Invocations (Ex Machina is inherently dangerous and unreliable, and in any case only available past the first few murderous branches). Nemesis fits the bill in that it has precedent in Greek drama (essentially it's the concept of dispensing fate good or bad to those that have earned it; the pissed off goddess punishing those displaying hubris evolved from this).
Another option would be having "acting" (better name pending) as an ability as seen in the movie Team America (ie "mindfuck") - single targeted spell, depending on invocations and monster HD the target has a chance of temporary allying you ("~ prostrates itself at thy feet!"), being pacified ("~ is reconsidering its life choices!"), being paralyzed (~ Is mesmerized by your performance!"), being confused ("~ doesn't quite get it"), being unaffected ("~ is unimpressed") or going berserk ("~ is not amused."). Blatant escape option? Yes. Possibly overpowered? Yes. Ridiculus with stabbing? Yes, but then again actors -are- devious bastards eh? Come thinking of it, this is actually rather neat as it's powerful early on (when needed) and naturally loses power after that (with rising HD on monsters), and it still doesn't automatically solve the oh shit situations involving multiple enemies. Anyway, the exact form of the low piety ability isn't important as long as it makes sense and is reasonably powerful early on.
Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:It's OK, but better inventory management seems a bit off as well, more in line with what Sif Muna should afford the PC?
Mines Malingerer
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Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:Don't forget you can still leave stuff around the main dungeon for future use (as well as lair/the vestibule as long as you haven't finished all subbranches). Leaving stuff behind closed doors is kind of safe as far as jellies are concerned, and thieve can be hunted down as well. I'm saying it feels like a Sif ability since she is thematically a Librarian (and imo somewhat boring in her current iteration). One idea for the stash is giving the player free access to the "backstage" area mentioned as a DE ability, but then further restrictions would be needed to be put in place to prevent it being another escape option
Infinitum wrote:Enact is different from Ex Machina in that it's better off used at the beginning of a battle when you can afford to waste a few turns powering it up. Having access to magical crowd control is probably needed to give the player early options to deal with Orc hordes and Hydras. As it is it's probably somewhat overpowered in that a few back to back activations is liable to either kill or incapacitate everything onscreen, at least in the early game (albeit a shortish duration and the piety cost might serve to prevent spam). Ex Machina slightly stepping on the toes of other god's domains is okay in my eyes, but I'll give that sanctuary is a rather non-spectacular use of the power and could be scrapped. Any more ideas what to replace it for?
Infinitum wrote: The god doesn't really feel that weak to me as is now, you get free (and guaranteed relevant!) resists, crowd control and a few fairly powerful escape options in return for potentially having to tackle branch underleveled and not having a 100% safe place to store stuff in. Not Trog powerful (tm), but useful nonetheless and it does add variation to the pantheon.
Infinitum wrote:I kinda like altering the dungeon layout to underline the raw power of the act though.
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Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:In light of the stash situation I also went ahead and wrote the main dungeon, eucumenical temple, treasure trove, bazaars and Zot out of the script altogether - they may all be entered or left at will (albeit leaving an unfinished branch will still incur penance) and Fortune of the Bold (new name for resistance giving ability) doesn't trigger in them. Practically this means you can stash stuff in the temple freely, finish the game with any number of runes without incurring penance and still use Zot as a experience stepping stone to the post-lategame. Still not keen on the prompt ability for this particular god for the same reason sacrificing books and scrolls doesn't work, but to each our own right? Wiki's right there =).
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Mines Malingerer
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Mines Malingerer
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Infinitum wrote:I don't really see the stash problem to be honest
Infinitum wrote:I don't play pure casters so cannot really comment there but planning ahead on what spells you want to learn and bringing the corresponding book cannot be -that- hard.
Infinitum wrote:Regarding the Chekhov's Stash suggestion, whilst it would be useful no doubt and could reduce dependence on spoilers it isn't really strictly needed. I mean it'd suck to helldive and suddenly not have access to levitation on Gehenna:7 but there aren't that many instances of such places in the game and learning to plan ahead the hard way is but one aspect of fun*. I feel that having downsides to choosing a god gets less interesting the more one tries to dilute them.
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