Two Ideas for Ely Rework

Back Room Game Design Discussion
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Hi. I’m not sure these ideas will change Ely, but I write with the belief that these ideas and discourses will be a richer approach to Ely.
I felt there were four types of players about Ely.

  • exploiter.
    It’s someone who uses Ely. They use Ely’s heal and power before they believe in another neutral god, and then they switch.
  • strategist.
    a person who constructed a strategy around Ely.
  • good player.
    a person who enjoys a good god roleplay.
  • the others.
    a person who doesn’t play Ely

I think there are two stances between them.

  • “heal me. ely. please” - they like the stability that Ely gives. ‘ex’ and ‘st’ is here
  • “a pacifist” - they like Ely’s identity - pacify. ‘gp’ and ‘st’ is here.

What if Ely recognizes these two kinds of people? What does Ely think of them? My first idea starts here.

egoist hater

As a meme, now Ely dislike egoists. Ely dislike the selfish use of divine vigour and heal Ely gave without spreading them to the world. -5 piety.

These constraints will disappoint ‘ex’, but instead let’s give Ely a bunch of other things to satisfy ‘st’ and ‘gp’. But the problem is, if Ely is too good, the ‘the others’ get angry. Ely needs more new constraints here.

By the way, if you can’t use the heal to yourself, who should you use it to? You have to use it right away on your enemies, and you have to use it on your ally.
Surprisingly, DCSS has a concept that includes both.

Cleric. invocation school caster

magic is a constraint. Be restricted by int, armor, and mana. The specific ideas are as follows.

pseudo new Ely
Ely is now dislike if Heal/Divine vigour targets the player. -5 piety. (add)

‘-’
Protection from Harm
‘**’

  • Heal. ability. (1 MP, 1~2 piety).
    smite. heal target and remove sickness, draining, Poison, Confusion, Slow, and Petrify. if invocation level is 14, become 3x3 smite.

‘***’
gift.
it is gift. Each time the player travels with Ely, Ely periodically presents one invocation school spell. Nothing to do with conversion in TSO or Zin.

only good god beliver can spell it. requires piety when used. TSO and Zin beliver need more piety.
level is 1~6. like poison. It’s useful in early games and it’s very low in meaning from the middle.

  • summon lamb (invocation/summon). (2 MP, 0 piety, if TSO/Zin, 1 piety)
    summon some lamb.
  • pacify (invocation/hex). (3 MP, 1 piety, if TSO/Zin, 2 piety)
    heal other’s pacify. need WILL check? if enemy have weapon, they drop their weapon.
  • summon shepherd (invocation/summon) (4 MP, 1 piety, if TSO/Zin, 2 piety)
    Shepherd has magic. When he howled, allies of hd lower than Shepherd are strengthened.
  • hildegard’s voices of angels (invocation/hex) (6 MP, 3 piety, if TSO/Zin, 5 piety)
    pacify Refrigeration.
  • ???
    more invocation magic?

‘******’
life to the dead magic
remove 2 unholy spell from library. give 2 Holy Spell. …once.
This spell glows cyan and can only be used by Ely.

  • Summon perl dragon? apis? (invocation/summon) (7 MP, 4 piety).
    summon perl dragon or apis or whatever. i can’t choose it.
  • Divine vigorous. (invocation/fire/icy) (7 MP, 4 piety)
    3x3 smite.if DV target you, it is DV. if DV target ally, it (might? haste?) make them stronger.

my english is bad. sorry…I could speak more richly in my native language, but it’s difficult.

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Very interesting ideas.Personally I’m really happy with Ely’s Playstyle. Pacifying and self heal gave me really good runs in the past and is very enjoyable for me.

I have a question regarding your heal ability. You heal and smite at the same time? How would that work?
Why would anyone spend piety to heal enemies?

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3

very nice question. I think it must change to heal ally. Heal enemy is horror in gameplay. I think everyone thinks differently about heal other. someone like point that ely heal ally and enemy both. in my case, I think heal other should be separated into hex and summon assistance.

so my thought is here.
heal → heal ally
pacify → heal enemy

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Elyvilon is designed for deep dwarf. If I need a defensive god I go Trog for magic resist, Wu for an escape, or Zin for poison resist. Elyvilon’s heal is too expensive to use during combat, and requires a significant xp investment unlike vitalisation or Trog’s hand. It would maybe make sense on a Ds, but Ds can’t worship Elyvilon.

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5

Talking about reworks for Ely, it does bother me that Ely condones bloodthirst.
I would love a rework which supports a more pacifist style.

Changes I might suggest:

  • Followers of Ely receive 50% xp when they first see an enemy, and no xp for killing things. This effect is permanent, does not go away when you abandon Ely, and replaces her ‘wrath’.
  • More support for not killing things, eg:
    • pacified enemies leave their items behind when they leave a level
    • if you see an enemy again after a long time it has a chance to be pacified. I’d guess that “after a long time” would have to mean something like “you’ve gained 1000 times more xp than this mob is worth”. The point is to get rid of all the minor Orcs in the Mines, for example. You might have a chance to avoid the Orc Warlords and go shopping if you weren’t getting swarmed by popcorn.
    • killing living enemies costs piety, but leaving living enemies alive gains some piety
    • an ultimate ability that lets you bypass a very dangerous level
      • it’d have to be very strong and very expensive. Because the very point is that you it should let you beat Zot:5 without killing. Unlock conditions could be something like ‘gain a use if you get a rune without killing anything in that rune branch’ or something equally difficult.
  • A priest start which starts with Ely, a cursed -2 weapon, and some defensive/escape items/abilities
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Relating to super abilities that give novel but very challenging avenues to peacefully beat Zot…

“Lay Down Arms” ability that functions similar to a scroll of extinction mechanic, in which the chosen of Ely can cause use the power of a rune to convince all monsters if a given type to cease their attacks and go back to whatever else they were doing (either disappear or just move around with no regard to the player). Perhaps this is only useable to a certain extent based on how low the players kill count is.

Zot without orbs of fire and orb guardians would still be pretty tough for a pacifist.

Caveat: this doubtless violates crawl design goals and general good sense, but for all that it’d make me try some pacifist runs.

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