Lore-friendly priest improvements
Priest class and piety system improvements
Long time ADOM player (1000+ games) - I have a few suggestions regarding the piety and the priest class:
Piety is a counter that never seems to interact with a couple of things it possibly should interact with. Consider that a priest should have some native piety bonus (something like Candle, and could be stacked with Candle), but also regarding Piety decay, there are things the don't make a lot of sense to me. Some suggestions:
1) A priest that is crowned should have piety decay lowered significantly, and possibly reduced to zero with both crowning and the Saint ability - (which requires using an early skill on willpower, a real sacrifice early-game). Saint itself seems to be almost never used by players.
2) Wearing a holy symbol should reduce piety decay as well. It's a slot that gets more important as the game goes on.
3) Consider introducing a special bonus for a crowning event for a Priest, with Saint, while wearing a blessed holy symbol. Given willpower requirements this would require sacrificing an early game skill for willpower, plus using three ability choices (Pious->Very Pious->Saint) plus the difficulty of crowning later in the game due to native artifact generation (pyramid, si, phial, etc.) Matter of fact, you could even work the Phial in as some sort of lore piety item for L+ or N= crowning.
4) Quest opportunities for higher piety can/should be added to the Teryino druid, the guy at the Dwarftown altar and maybe even add a dungeon feature beyond just an abandoned shrine... what if there were a ceremony going on or a caretaker present? Maybe you'd have to "liberate" the altar in order to change it to your alignment. The quests would only be available to certain alignments, but all classes.
5) If you're wearing a holy symbol, and crowned, and you make a modest move in alignment, can a holy symbol be the AoLS that draws an angry warning from your deity, but puts you back on the 'right path' with your alignment, at the cost of it burning away in a wisp of smoke? Maybe it's not a guarantee, but 50/50. (75/100 blessed, 25/100 cursed).
Net of all, it's a possible mid/late game quest opportunity for #3, and might make a difference that a priest can pray a few extra times compared with other professions when things are going badly. It might result in an additional post-crown attempt if played carefully, but those are usually pretty limited to begin with. Consider an absolute prayer cap (a maximum number of prayers per game) if there's an exploit concern.
It seems there is opportunity to add some depth to piety. Just my two cents worth.
Thanks all!
Warlord Shea
Grey Elf Priest