Lore-friendly priest improvements
issueid=4455 09-13-2016 03:23 AM
Junior Member
Number of reported issues by Warlord_Shea: 1
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
Issue Details
Issue Number 4455
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Suggested
Priority Unknown
Suggested Version ADOM r70 (v2.2.4)
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 4
Votes against this feature 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




09-13-2016 07:35 AM
Senior Member
You can't wear the holy symbol, you only assign it into a "quick use" tool slot.
If it was worn, it should take some other slot - i.e. amulet one.

09-13-2016 11:07 AM
ixi ixi is offline
Junior Member
I have an odd feeling about this change. It's obviously positive step in the right direction. However the ways PC can get piety (as well as maintain alignment) sometimes look weird. The easiest and best ways in ADOM of gaining piety are living sacrifices and gold. PC's actions, playstyle, how regular he does some acts are not paying much role. Even race-specific sacrifice items can be entirely ignored with no harm.

Appears that this change is mostly about accumulating piety that was got the ways mentioned above...

09-13-2016 12:20 PM
Senior Member
Part of the problem with piety is that it's mostly invisible, so players aren't really aware of gaining or losing it most of the time. And when they can test it, they're also in a position to increase it vastly.
So one improvement might just be to let priests see their own piety at all times. For example:
(U)se holy symbol? Y
You are very close to Onn.
(P)ray. A healing light surrounds you.
(U)se holy symbol? Y
You are spiritually invincible.

This would give priests a better sense for how often they can pray, and let them better manage it as a resource.

Are there any actions a player can take to increase piety other than sacrificing? I've always thought self-flagellation was kind of cheesy.

09-13-2016 12:34 PM
Ancient Member
I feel like there are many other actions that should impact piety in a powerful way but don't factor in at all.
For L chars, stuff like turning undead, holy-watering griff grave, healing wounded lawful monsters (not wounded by the PC), helping lawful npcs, saving kelly etc. should provide a piety boost apart from the regular alignment increase.
This would nicely reflect not just the moral stance of the PC but also the deity's appreciation and approval of their actions that are very fitting for their alignment.

Similar thing could be done with other alignments, where alignment-appropriate actions would generate piety as well.
For priests of any alignment, these actions' effects could simply be doubled/quadrupled so it would be possible and reasonable to gain piety for crowning with these acts, perhaps with some minor part due to live and gold/items sacs.
That way you get a bonus playing priests but you add some features that all other classes can benefit from.

Otherwise, I'm seeing the original suggestion as too centered on priests as a single class.
Why not rework other classes with similar tweaks in mind?
Let smiths work on artifacts at level 50, mindcrafters block spells and drain stats, necromancers turn into liches, archers fletch slaying missiles of choice, healers heal drained stats and so on.

I voted yes but I would rather see changes with a global scope, where every class gets something extra, unique to them, instead of a several modifications of a single class.

09-13-2016 04:51 PM
ixi ixi is offline
Junior Member
Off topic

Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
Let smiths work on artifacts at level 50, mindcrafters block spells and drain stats, necromancers turn into liches, archers fletch slaying missiles of choice, healers heal drained stats and so on.
And Chaos Knights able to trigger some corruptions and chose which of them of them to develop upon gaining... :)

Seriously - each of these suggestion worth a separate RFE. The only problem is that the current Creator's focus is far from making such changes. I don't think any of them will be done until all the promises from resurrection compaign are satisfied, NotEye is working smoothly and subjects TB has already marked for completion are done.

09-13-2016 05:55 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by ixi
I don't think any of them will be done until all the promises from resurrection compaign are satisfied, NotEye is working smoothly and subjects TB has already marked for completion are done
I'm afraid these things will consider an indeterminable amount of time. Like 2d6 years if the current progress is any indication.

09-22-2016 10:03 PM
Junior Member
I think the gist of the original post was this: what is it that makes a priest special with regard to piety? Nothing.

That should change somehow.

Warlord Shea

09-22-2016 10:30 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by BenMathiesen
Part of the problem with piety is that it's mostly invisible, so players aren't really aware of gaining or losing it most of the time. And when they can test it, they're also in a position to increase it vastly.
So one improvement might just be to let priests see their own piety at all times. For example:
(U)se holy symbol? Y
You are very close to Onn.
(P)ray. A healing light surrounds you.
(U)se holy symbol? Y
You are spiritually invincible.

This would give priests a better sense for how often they can pray, and let them better manage it as a resource.

Are there any actions a player can take to increase piety other than sacrificing? I've always thought self-flagellation was kind of cheesy.
This makes a lot of sense, IMHO.

Honestly, having it as a class power (or even hidden level 1 power) that priests don't have natural piety decay would be okay. I mean, priests are already a very strong class, but it's thematic.

Self-flagellation only affects alignment, not piety. Ways to increase piety that don't involve sacrificing.... there's holy symbol usage. And you get a small piety bonus at level up. Um.... I think pissing off one god gives piety to the other two. Tracts apparently have some effect on piety, but tracts also seem to produce fairly wild divine retribution effects that make them really unsafe to use.

09-29-2016 03:27 PM
Junior Member
Priests are good enough on their own. But I like the idea of BenMathiesen about holy symbol giving additional information. I play with priests a lot but I rarely use it.

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