Fedhas

When playing, I found it very convenient to map decomposition to 'p' (prayer). This would make a good default; decomposition is used much more than any of Fedhas's other abilities, it's like a sacrifice, and Fedhas does not use 'p' for anything else either. — nrook 2010-09-13 22:08

When evolving a fungus, one gets the message, “Your piety has decreased.” This is a strange message; as far as I know, piety is never referred to in such a numerical way, other than in this message. It is probably okay to have no message for this (just the normal a-plant-changed one). — nrook 2010-09-13 22:08

New lifesaving ability from mantis 1166:

If you're about to fall into deep water, from levitation ending or a confusion mistep or whatever, Fedhas should automatically throw some sunlight at you before you dive in (ie, same turn), with normal sunlight effects. Fedhas wouldn't act for lava, of course, just water. I think 100% saving chance would be fine, considering the rarity of drowning deaths, with a piety cost and/or timer comparable to other gods' lifesaving effects.

I don't intend for this to be a major selling point or anything, but just a little bonus that makes sense for the god to have. Also, I think it'd generally be nice if life-saving mechanics were more varied than “run out of life but don't die.” — OG17 2011-04-11 01:44

+1, I like it. — evktalo 2011-04-13 20:34

Just a little tweak to further Fedhas as an anti-undead god, why not have there be interaction with Vampires and Sunlight? Some kind of interaction that Vampires probably wouldn't like. My first thought was “force fleeing behavior” (no summoning just running!) but that would be annoying in its own way. Cheesier might be instant destruction, but, well, I think decomposition is enough of that sort of thing. — raskol 2011-10-30 11:16

dpeg 2010-01-29 10:28:

Recently, Evolution targeting has been changed from applying to adjacent plants to standard targeting. This has benefits and drawbacks, I list some, from the point of view of the

Adjacent targeting for Evolution:

• Is a unique targeting mode: this is good for distinction (making Fedhas powers look less like spells) and also for flavour (gardening by standing next to the flora).
• Unique targeting may also be bad because it is different to ordinary targeting (so may need explanation, for example).
• Adjacent targeting is stronger when it comes to oklobs (can get many adjacent oklobs in two turns)…
• …but weaker for wandering mushrooms (standard targeting allows to create wandering mushrooms next to monsters, if done right).
• The adjacent targeting interface can be a bit confused when it comes to oklobs vs mushrooms. (E.g. payment via plants or piety.)

Apart from this issue (which is not urgent), the god is very fine. Excellent flavour and usefulness.

Have fireball-like targeting and effect to get both the adjacency effects (target yourself), or the remote effect (target something else)? — Luca 2010-05-14 10:39

caotto 2010-01-30 21:28

issues:

sunlight:

• Right now sunlight inflicts backlit, I want to make it illuminate the aoe for some time instead of giving a status ailment.
• The plant creation is still problematic because it encourages tedious behavior (evaporating all water squares). Probably going to drop that at some point (but it could use a different plant creation concept). Maybe make it cause plants in the aoe to regenerate instead of creating new plants
• Along with making it a duration effect, maybe make it damage vampires each turn.

rain:

• rain trapping (stand adjacent to a monster not on a diagonal, use rain twice, leave) too strong? could just use deep water adjacent to player? inconsistent placement of deep water (proportional to invo?). This trivializes melee non-flying non-amphib monsters, also trapping a ranged enemy (such as a lich) then leaving is a functional kill (of course you get no experience, and a part of the level is cut off).
• A different approach would be to reuse the tide mechanics and make water placed by rain recede after some time (don't know if this would be easy).
• Rain could use a different plant creation concept–it could place a novel type of plant (which could then be evolved into something else), but I don't know what exactly. Something with aquatic plants might be interesting – rain could place seaweed which gets turned into something else?

eronarn 2009-12-27 23:13

• The available plants are too boring. Toadstools should be replaced with an array of weak combat plants, thus making decomposition a more interesting tactical option. There should be different plants for different kinds of corpses, as well.
• In general, a lot more kinds of plants! Even if they're minor variations on each other. Jiyva has more variety in jellies than Fedhas has in plants… that bothers me a lot.
• Giant spores and the Reproduction ability feel tacked on way to give Fedhasites a damage ability. Dropping it and having giant spores only a rare product of Decomposition, or ballistomycetes an Evolution plant, would be much better alternatives.
• I'd like to see a “lesser evolution” ability: heal, buff AC, or the like a plant for piety (but no fruit cost), whereas Evolution does this but also improves the plant to a higher form (for a fruit cost)
• Neutral plants attacked by monsters don't fight back. They probably should, or plant neutrality as opposed to friendliness should be revisited.
• Shoals is going to get tides. These won't interact well with Fedhas sunlight. I propose: Fedhas sunlight doesn't work on any water contiguous with open sea, and on river-y maps, have open sea at both ends of the river for “walls”.
• Sunlight, when used in a way that won't hit anyone, doesn't train Invo or cost MP. This is inconsistent and unnecessary - if people want to evaporate water, they can just spend MP to do it.
• The limited supply of fruit, plus the importance of fruit as a hunger item, is kind of annoying. I'd like to see more meat “snacks” - e.g., make beef jerky or sausages come in stacks.

Addendum to this (character is dead now, after one rune)

• Ballistomycetes are still horribly unfun and spammy and just generally awful. Even after they got toned down. They are not anywhere close to being a fun part of Fedhas - they're either a nuisance or a free cleared level depending on your playstyle.
• The grow/evolve screens need work badly. Fractional amounts of fruit? Really?
• Fruit costs seem too high, in general.
• Sunlight is useful in Swamp but the AI/combat stats for fish out of water needs work. They're… surprisingly competent under those conditions.
• The sunlight no Invo/MP thing is a huge bug in one regard: you can spam it infinitely until it successfully spawns a plant for “free”, thus scumming a barrier any time you're in a corridor with 3+ squares between you and the enemy.
• Walking through plants works great.
• There should be separate plants for aquatic vs. terrestrial situations… possibly even for specific branches.
• To get around the problem of lack of mobility, other Fedhas plants should look into new forms of mobility: propagating by cuttings or runners, only growing along walls but doing so at walking speed, a cental body that sprouts hyphae anywhere blood spills for as long as it remains alive, floating spores/seeds, piggybacking on monsters.

b0rsuk 2010-02-14 15:10

I have a couple of issues with Fedhas.

• Powers belong more to a Gardener God, not Plant god. Plant/growth god controlling weather ? Really ? I think it should be more about relentless plants that manage to grow in even most inhospitable area, not terraforming.
  • Well I like the weather/terrain modification aspect of the god. caotto 2010-02-14 16:36
• Titles sound too modern. Green race, photosynthesis this or that.
  • I don't care to discuss this issue in general terms. Make a specific proposal for replacing a specific title or no action will be taken (even if you do make a specific proposal we may not accept it). caotto
• Sunlight is too much of a micromanagement issue. Accuracy bonus is vital for certain playstyles (ogre clubs, inaccurate spells, draconian breath) and you end up casting it before every fight, almost without thought. This is bad. My suggestion: keep all effects, remove acc bonus (highlighting invisibles for allies still possible). See Gardener God comment above.
  • I'm not convinced that this is an issue, not everything can be high risk/high reward. caotto
• Rain wouldn't be overpowered even if it left player's square alone. It would still be hard to abandon position if it turns out to be too rough. As it is, it pushes merfolk/levitation combo too hard. Note that making Rain drown all tiles except player location could be very thematic: a defensive power which makes player plant-like - running away is not possible. See Gardener God comment above.
  • Well originally rain didn't flood the player square, we added the rain clouds, which can flood it. It may be reasonable to prevent rain clouds from flooding the player square in some way, but I'm more inclined to nerf rain than to improve it (at any rate it will probably stay as is for 0.6). Flooding the entire LOS is out of the question, it would dramatically increase rain's ability to trap things indefinitely, which is something of a problem already. caotto
• Ballistomycetes don't fit the god much mechanic-wise. I suggested it and I'm to blame. I think the power should be replaced, it's not much fun.
  • Actually I'm to blame since I implemented the spores ability and am pushing to keep it, so don't flatter yourself :P. I think the spores/mold/ballistomycetes can be interesting mechanically although the implementation is not all that good right now. caotto
• Theme feels very narrow: Plants. Broadening it would inspire other powers. Examples of extra themes: cycle of life (death and rebirth, reincarnation), fertility (could mean duplicating items), Fauna (lots of stuff).
  • We certainly don't have a shortage of powers, and I don't care that you think the theme feels too narrow. Alternatively you could say we expanded Fedhas' theme to include gardening. caotto
• Decomposition could use more flexibility. Throwing a corpse into water and using growth could cause water lillies to grow, enabling passage over water. But heavy-handed multipurpose Sunlight leaves no room for sophistication.
  • I like the weather/terrain abilities as stated above. I don't care that you think 'heavy-handed multipurpose Sunlight leaves no room for sophistication.' caotto

I like to get actual criticism (in particular this one), but I think that b0rsuk is a bit off (this time only). pointless's reply also sounds a bit gruff for my tastes. First, I won't discuss the theme/flavour. A god dealing with plants is an awesome idea; Fedhas brings together the fungi, spores and various plants of the game; creating Oklobs is super-awesome; most important to me, Fedhas is a god supporting all forms of ranged combat in a fresh and very good way (much better than anything I came up with over the years). Bringing Sun and Rain into the picture is not necessary, but very fitting. (The objection which I actually expected, but never got so far, is this: “How can Sunlight removed deep water and leave an even floor?”. But I don't care for realism, and nobody asked anyway.) The theme is not narrow at all, because it allows to create a fun and full god (and Fedhas has more flavour than several established gods).
Titles and some speech is not ideal, I would like to get proposals for these.
It wouldn't have occurred to me to use Sunlight on most enemies. If this is indeed ideal playing style (i.e. using Fedhas as a Corona substitute, right??), we can either accept that or change the mechanics. I am sure this does not need a change before release.
Rain used to come much earlier (second power?) and it was highly overpowered. Now it comes last and it's a really strong power.
I really like the bit about water lillies from corpses in water. This should probably wait until/if we get flowers to pick up. (Jude mentioned something along these lines for Eringya's wizlab.)
Fedhas being the god for merfolk/kenku: I thought about this and I feel we should not mind as long as Fedhas is fun and good for more than just merfolks and kenku (which is the case: as I said, the whole “ranged attacks” playing style is supported). This particular synergy is no different to Trog being particularly attractive to those who won't cast anyway. I am not worried that MfCr^F becomes the new MDFi^O. (A much grave problem was Cheibriados, who had issues with the target audience being no more than nagas. I think we have solved that by now, however.)
Thanks again! — dpeg 2010-02-14 18:43

Here is my analysis of Fedhas. This is based on two wins, HEGl and HEAr. One used conjurations and the other used summonings, both ended with an invocations title.

Fedhas is extremely strong early and late, but completely goes missing during the midgame. Mushrooms become available right away and they clear lair for you, which makes Fedhas one of the strongest and most reliable gods early. However once you get around D:14/V you might aswell abandon them, they are mostly a waste of piety at that point (not that fedhas piety is good for anything else). This is the point where fedhas does *nothing* for you until you start doing branch ends. The only thing you'd use around this point is rain, and it's for fairly lame uses like trapping things behind deep water so you can safely kill them from the edge of LOS. Once you get to branch ends oklobs completely destroy them, of course. In fact they are pretty overpowered. They are unkillable at high evo and even at ~15 invo they clear zot:5 easily. Fruit supply is no concern also. By the way, after getting the orb I created a 30 strong oklob barrage on the D:1 upstairs and farmed orbrun spawns for a while, not that this is an issue or anything, I just thought I'd mention it.

I agree with Eronarn that more plant allies would be a good thing, I quite enjoy having permanent allies and Fedhas could provide strong single (or few) ones instead of the mass spam Yred and Beogh offer. I'm not sure how exactly to provide strong ones for the midgame without letting the player get them early, perhaps natural progression for mushrooms similar to how orcs upgrade work, or something with fruit.

Fedhas is probably one of my favoured gods, or could be with some fun stuff to use after mushroom stop being useful. — st 2011-12-15 11:33

Merged from another Wiki page.

Might be cool to allow Fedhasites to interact with trees in some way… some ideas:

• Moving into a tree takes extra time, but is considered climbing the tree, giving a stealth boost/partial invisibility
• Can jump out of a tree (somehow?) at a monster for increased stab chance/damage

If at all, only to allow to go into trees adjacent to floor. Otherwise Fedhasites could always hide on levels with trees. This is scummable as soon as on such level comes up. Also, even if staying in/on trees was costly (e.g. piety), I am not convinced. If trees ought to play a role for Fedhasites, it should be much more minor.

Yes, only adjacent to floor is what I had in mind, actually. — doy 2009-11-24 19:55

Trees are already supposed to block visibility like smoke does (one doesn't, but two will). I don't think another bonus is necessary. — jpeg 2009-11-27 22:15

Not sure about this for players, but I would love monster dropbears do exactly that. — KiloByte 2009-12-11 15:29

Andy 2012-07-03 20:49

Early in the development of Fedhas, there was a synergy between Giant Spores and ballistomycetes: each spawned the other, leading to a real sense of plant growth taking over the dungeon. First, I would really like this re-implemented. I've been told, though, that ballistomycetes no longer spawn giant spores. If that's true, then why does the ballistomycete description still say they DO “occasionally spawn giant spores”?

Moreover, undead can no longer worship Fedhas, so players can't just spawn a spore then wait for the spore/ballistomycete combo to take over the level. If they do, hunger becomes an issue. Besides, hunger is already an issue for followers of Fedhas as the more powerful Fedhas god-abilities require fruit, thus discouraging fruit as a source of food.

— LordSloth 2010-04-15 08:25 I was asked to share my opinion, so despite not being an expert on the subject, decided to share my experiences (0.6.0). I LOVE Fedhas, he's a great god for characters that start off really weak and aren't great at specialising, such as my Ogre Earth Elementalists. I actually HAD fun playing several OgEE with Fedhas (and one merfolk stalker), to my great surprise. For some context, I died on d:8, lair:1, lair:4, and d:17 (mfst). I enjoyed each and every run that got fedhas, the first one least of all. I'd like to say that not once could I attribute my death to Fedhas, but there was one enjoyable exception.

The merfolk stalker came first, and was least enjoyable because I was fixated so much on fruit costs and rain etc. My first impression of wandering mushrooms was abysmal. I mean, I'm paying piety for a pet that won't move to attack? I felt gypped. I was also a bit annoyed that they stopped moving based on what I could see, not what they could. They were also not as great at crowd control as I had hoped, since retreating back into them tended to break formation. And they're a far cry from invulnerable. Then I saw three of them fight off a hydra without any assistance, and I fell in love. I lacked poison resistance, but they allowed me many times to use mephitic cloud to escape from a dangerous pursuer. I fled and exchanged places with one in a corridor and then fired mephitic cloud through the shroom to the monster on the the other side, something I couldn't have pulled off with undead or summons. Though undead are a little more tolerant of bolt attacks…

Stabbing and my spells were more or less of a wasted. It did get me thinking how things might be more fun with a full fledged venom mage, so I could pump out some ranged damage instead of chasing all over creation after confused ants, trying to get in a stab.

I didn't end up using sunlight or rain much, but I did weaponise a few plants into military-grade oklobs. It could easily err into waste, and in fact, my first several low invo, awkwardly placed lair oklobs were a waste. Still, I at least got to halve the cost by using pre-existing plants. The second notable situation occurred at the bottom of the swamp outside of the rune vault. I created one oklob from a swamp plant already lying around, and a bunch of mushrooms to cower behind if things went bad. Things never did, thanks to Projected Noise, and that one oklob really did a number on the few approaching baddies. I first used magic mapping to extend the range of projected noise, then a series of castings to pull them out of the rune vault, but in the opposite direction. I mostly waited for them to come to me, but i did use a string of carefully timed Noises to pull some to my nice dry ambush. As soon as one or two monsters spotted me and roared, I'd use more Noises to lead off the ones that were still out of sight. I killed all the inhabitants of the classic ending without any trouble, and little effort, even though the monsters would have outclassed me solo. The third notable situation with oklobs involved a very nasty vault with dragons and vampires and orange crystal statues, oh my! (and a few uniques). I upgraded four existing plants and I was able to clear the floor that should have killed me by all rights. Still it came close quite a few times - I lost 2/4 oklobs. By the way, this guy died to an unnoticed Zot trap while retreating.

My first OgEE:Fedhas (Lair:4) game tuned out surprisingly fun. I got gourmand, so was reckless in sacrificing corpses and raising mushroom pets. I was surprised at exactly how early I could get them, and got a lot better at using them (positioning). I learned that they're pretty damn cheap to create, and the piety hit for them dying is actually pretty insignificant if you're not killing them yourself. It's high enough not to recklessly waste a dozen or more in the orcish mines prematurely, but low enough there's no reason not to create 3 at all times, and not worry much about average wear and tear/sacrifices. I finally died when I (as an OGRE) got overconfident and got myself into a battle royale.

Because of their movement pecularities, Wandering Mushrooms make a horrible army. They just cannot bring their firepower to bear. However, moving with three or six keeps you from getting overconfident. They're extremely useful in bringing down two or three very nasty monsters, especially if you can bring fire support in the form of a stone arrow instead of melee.

The second OgEE:Fedhas died to underestimating Psyche. I think I may have gotten her confused with Jessica threat levels… Even despite the dagger of distortion and the wand of disintegration, I refused to believe she was a threat. Whoops.

The third one was my most recent attempt. I found an early elven shield and mace of protection, so I didn't use spells much. I will say that when I felt the need, sandblasts + stones was handy for firing through my pets - mostly I just bashed alongside. I died on lair one to the same lesson many a worshipper of Beogh has learnt. Shortly after entering into lair:1, I ran into Erica, who went invisible and confused me, despite me trying to position the shrooms between me and her. I noticed Fedhas isn't very forgiving of attacking plants even while you're confused. While I was under penance (love the title, by the way), I quaffed my one potion of healing, and teleported next to another unique. A chain of teleports later, and I found someplace to rest. Unfortunately, while trying to leave the floor, I encountered Erica again, who did the whole invisibility/confusion routine again, and I got even more penance to serve. I'll have to be careful about iding immolation, I wonder about fear.

I want to see how a late-game (not extended, just elven halls/vault/3 runer)ogee does - I think it's a surprisingly viable and I will give it another run or two to try to form a *strong* opinion on the latter abilities. I will say this, I do wish you had a way to convert existing shrooms/oklob plants from neutral to ally. I'd love to see a low cost, but even if it cost the same as just evolution (not evolution + growth) it would make stumbling across some of those oklob vaults a bit more special fun, instead of a missed opportunity and nullified threat.

In my experience so far, Fedhas strikes me as an especially powerful early game god, wandering mushrooms retain utility earlier and longer than I expected, and more suited to 'jack of all trade' characters than specialists, because you can so freely switch between solo fighting, brawling with fungal allies at your side, and providing what is almost smite targetting heavy artillery support with stone arrow or other projectiles from the rear - and not panic when you fizzle or get hit especially hard. — LordSloth 2010-04-15 07:20

I had a couple more experiences with Fedhas and the wandering shrooms, and I wanted to comment on their pathfinding. The shroom seem great at following your average character, except with corners. It seems that if you have a setup such as below, you tend to lose all your mushrooms at once if autoexploring. This isn't the only situation I've seen it happen, but the easiest example. #### …# ##.# …# #### If you round this corner with one shroom, you rarely lose it, as long as it is closely following you. If you round this corner with two or more shrooms, most of them seem to completely lose track of you, and revert to their semi-roaming 'stay here' behavior. If you return to the other side of the corner, you'll see that they often seem to wander off in the complete opposite direction, instead of trying to track you like a hostile shroom or typical monster would.

The other thought I had on pathfinding - though one I'm less confident about - involves the random energy system, the one introduced to minimize pillar dancing. I'm wondering specifically what complications having extra or less energy with a group of same speed allies would have on the pathing front. For allies, it might be better to remove random move energy.

As a side note, you can recall your shrooms, but not your oklob plants. I'm wondering if this is a special case, oversight, or would be equally true for any theoretical immobile ally. — LordSloth 2010-04-26 02:00

RE: recall all monsters with M_STATIONARY won't be recalled. — caotto 2010-05-14 03:20

Which is a good thing here, if there was any question, as setting up tactical oklobs is much more interesting than carrying acid-spitting walls around with you.

I'd actually suggest that Fedhas gets a “free” plant recall ability similar to Yred and Beogh, which could be added to ** or whatever along with the current power. The reality of the game is that pathfinding alone doesn't get the job done, at least for grouped or non-fast allies, and depending on it is a reliable source of low-key irritation. Any god that offers permanent companions should have a recall ability - it's ugly, sure, but I'd consider it currently necessary. Of course, improved pathfinding would be preferable. — OG17 2010-05-14 04:26

There needs to be a severe limitation, like a channel time, to keep this from being abused. I don't think it's desirable to incentivize Fedhas worshippers to leave 8 shrooms on the map so that in a pinch they can instantly summon up a layer of fungus to rescue them from danger, and it would be very powerful in any case to allow for instant repositioning during battle. I like the feeling that Fedhas helps you make zones of control that you have to figure out how to exploit best. — raskol 2011-10-30 11:11

Fedhas is one of my favorite gods, and until the addition of Ashenzari I considered him the only god that really supports a stabber/enchanter/spriggan build except maybe Sif Muna (and gift gods are boring). Mushrooms are very tactically interesting, as you can't simply sic them on enemies but can set up a wall to either fight with you or in your place (though setting up an optimal wall requires careful manouver). The fact that they apparently sacrifice hit dice as they attack still seems a little odd and unintuitive but they're strong enough and cheap enough that it's still worth it. I'm usually too much of a hoarder to use oklobs much but they're certainly fun too, especially in groups when you know you're about to tackle something nasty and/or against uniques. But the main thing I like about Fedhas is that you start strongly feeling the benefits of worshiping him early on and without having to wait on the RNG. I never really felt his usefulness petering out or failing to scale since you can afford to summon more often as the game progresses, but I've never reached Zot and certainly not the extended endgame. I totally agree that their pathfinding is a pain though, and a piety-free “recall mushrooms” ability is badly needed. — Brickman 2011-04-13 06:18

My biggest Fedhas-annoyance is that you can't tell when your shrooms are now one more move away because of the random energy thing or if they've spotted something. Worse, autoexplore doesn't recognize that motionless shrooms are a problem. For instance, I had two shrooms in tow, hit o, and at the end of some zipping around get a face full of bees and a “You feel slightly guilty” message with the last mushroom nowhere in sight.

They should be conga mushrooms (physically attached to you or another mushroom if you are at normal speed or slower) and throw their hands up when they spot something that makes it so they can't move anymore. If the conga thing is too much at least give them a “Your wandering mushroom goes rigid!” (anything that's obviously distinct from actual paralysis/petrify) so Fedhasites at least will only lose shrooms in literal corner cases. — raskol 2011-11-03 22:27

Perhaps we'll have a heading like this for most pages, where we'll put the rejected ideas for a while before they're cleaned out.

A rather simple idea - since the only way to gain piety with Fedhas is to sacrifice corpses, the main foodsource for most characters, a Fedhas worshipper with decent piety should gain an ability to create fruit. Each use would produce a number of fruit worth somewhere between 600 and 700 satiation, so you could get a single apple or 10 sultanas. The piety cost would probably be worth 2-3 decompositions, which would be worth 2000-3000 satiation normally. The use of this ability would be that you can convert corpses into permafood, thus gaining the advantage of having food that doesn't rot; not very different from the vampire's ability to bottle blood. This ability would also be extremely useful for herbivorous characters like spriggians but also ones who started out normal but gained the herbivore mutation.

This would probably break Fedhas' fruit-costly abilities. — MrMisterMonkey 2010-09-13 00:17

Yeah, they would turn into a piety cost with added interface complication. Theoretically, choosing between food and piety is a good feature. In practice, it probably only matters when you build up Fedhas piety for the first time. So, won't do. — evktalo 2010-09-13 09:31

What if Fedhas got an ability to increase the player's satiation level at the expense of piety, then? It would still help with providing food, but would bypass the fruit phase so it couldn't be used with his fruit abilities? — RndmNumGenerator 2010-09-13 11:44]

Okawaru, Trog, Lugonu, Makhleb, Nemelex, and Yred worshippers all have alternate uses for corpses and no one's starving over it. Most permafood isn't fruit, and Fedhas allows eating fruit regardless. There's no food problem here. — OG17 2010-09-14 06:03

Piety for satiation additionally sounds a lot like a certain Zin feature, except with Zin you have to be starving to use it. — MrMisterMonkey 2010-09-14 06:54