Sacrifice

[Panda_Lord]

Well, I had an interesting death just now. Grawroog, my orcish priest, was, to put it briefly, killed by being sacrificed by a kobold.

My character was at alignment "C", and I always try to play lawful characters, so when I saw a gray altar, I said, "Sweet! I'm just that little bit closer to being lawful." However, after offering 5 gold pieces on the altar, I got the message "You sense a conflict between supernatural entities." I already knew I was dead at this point. Somehow, offering a meagre 5 gold pieces converted the altar to chaos. A nearby kobold was in my range, and immediately sacrificed me in that same turn.

How can something as simple as 5 gold pieces convert the altar? I thought it took hundreds, if not thousands of gold to convert an altar to your alignment.

[sgeos]

What was your character level?

[Elone]

I once tried to move my alignment by sacrificing about 200 money, and the altar got converted. I then reloaded the game for testing purposes, and sacrificed 200 money in steps of 10, and the altar was still converted. Conclusion, an altar has its own piety points. You can convert an altar when you fill up this amount of points. So you move towards the alignment of altar, and the altar moves towards your alignment. However, you need to sacrifice enough at once (3000 was always sufficient to me) to convert the altar in a single turn, and thus not be moved towards the alignment of altar, and not suffer penalties that go with it.

[RndmNumGenerator]

I once tried to move my alignment by sacrificing about 200 money, and the altar got converted. I then reloaded the game for testing purposes, and sacrificed 200 money in steps of 10, and the altar was still converted. Conclusion, an altar has its own piety points. You can convert an altar when you fill up this amount of points. So you move towards the alignment of altar, and the altar moves towards your alignment. However, you need to sacrifice enough at once (3000 was always sufficient to me) to convert the altar in a single turn, and thus not be moved towards the alignment of altar, and not suffer penalties that go with it.
That is very useful to know. It seems that 8 years since the last update people are still figuring things out, like wands of ball lightning, though not exactly ball spells, still turn the entire animated forest against you.

[Elone]

I've known this for past 3 years, I just didnt share it here, it simply never came up... sorry. =( I made quite a few posts where I bring up quite detailed observations and facts not seen in GB, IGB, or elsewhere on these forums. Usually no one comments those observations, maybe simply because no one has anything else to add to them. The most recent examples (made them in the same day, that's why i'll mention them) is the living forest being made hostile by alarm traps, of DL greatly affecting pet shops. I learned a lot of tips and tricks on these forums, and I'm trying to repay the debt.

I'd like to add, YASD subforum is about as enjoyable to me as the general discussion one. YASD give people a lot of opportunities to focus on a specific death, reasons for it, and the ways to avoid it, and sometimes they span into a more in-depth discussion which I enjoy greatly and learn from a lot. I think that I discovered most ADOM tricks in this subforum, and I shared most of mine here too.

[Panda_Lord]

If it is of any real consequence, my character was level 7.

That is an interesting idea you bring about, Elone. If this is really the case, then does one's character level really have to do with converting an altar? Maybe as your character level increases, the amount of "in-altar" piety needed to convert the altar increases, too.

[Grey]

It does indeed depend on character level, though I don't know if any specific research has gone into quantifying things exactly. Possibly depends on piety level with the two gods too. Generally I find a livesac or about 3k gold will work fine for the first 10 levels or so, and after that you'll want a min gold of level x a thousand (eg 15k at level 15) to be fairly sure of cconversion.

[Ars]

With livesacs it depends on the monster and its level too, I think. A basic kobold or goblin might fail already for lvl 2-5 PCs, but meaner monsters can work for a long while - don't know how far though. Altars and gods can work in mysterious ways sometimes - try saccing the EG with a neutral for example.

[Elone]

First off, let's say that an altar has 100 base piety, plus 1 per character level. For level 1 character, it would be 101 piety... for level 50 character it would be 150 altar's piety points. What happens when you generate an altar at 1st level, and then return when you are level 50? Does the altar adjust to your level, does it add those 49 remaining points? Likely not. It would require a (relatively) complex code which includes percentages, and piety points, and reevaluating piety each turn or such, all for a small gain... to adjust a stat which is largely intangible and almost always irrelevant (or negligible). Even if not for the required complexity of that code for a small gain, another reason would be that most things in ADOM are only evaluated at generation anyway. Take small cave for instance. Monsters dont adjust their level to yours once you return there at lever 50. There are other examples, I cant think of any at the moment.

Secondly, I estimate that altars have 2000 base piety points (and not 100 like in the previous example). Why? 3000 gold was always enough money to convert the altar for me, and as some people know, 3gp gives 2 piety points... to 3000gp would gain 2000 piety, converting the altar. You could try sacrificing less than 3000gp, reloading savefiles and finetuning the required amount. Dont even think of adombot to create the altar, I dont think that adombot respects any ADOM's generation codes whatosever.

Thirdly, let's draw some conclusions! It is fairly wellknown that gold gives 2/3rd of a piety point per piece. Therefore, if base of 3000gp is required, it means that the altar has the base of 2000 piety points. But let's draw more conclusions. I've read in the IGB that cooked food gives ~450 piety... Add 50% to it to compensate for the 2/3rd rule (which means that altar gives two pieties for 3gps) and you'll come up with about 650-700, which is the satiation value of the offered cooked meal. Although, a blessed stomafilia should give 4167 piety points in this way (8 of them would guarantee a crowning, but it doesnt seem to work this way) so I assume there is either a limit, or a decaying value, or a link to PC level. I cant be certain without more testing, and I'm drowsy at the moment. What I'm trying to say, is that an altar takes a stat from an item (it's satiation for food, amount for gold, shop price for other items, i dont know about monsters), and multiplies it with 2/3, and converts it to piety points for you.

Fourthly, the third paragraph has a number of inconsistencies which I sadly cant confirm. Any help will be good. Oh, and before I forget to mention, I never needed more than 3000gp to convert an altar. Grey, you say that you need to sacrifice more as your level grows, but did you ever actually try with less?

[Grey]

Fourthly, the third paragraph has a number of inconsistencies which I sadly cant confirm. Any help will be good. Oh, and before I forget to mention, I never needed more than 3000gp to convert an altar. Grey, you say that you need to sacrifice more as your level grows, but did you ever actually try with less?

Yeah, and it hasn't worked - just ends up drawing your alignment to the new god. You can see the level requirement most easily with livesacs - early on a simple goblin will easily convert the altar, but after level 8 or so this is no longer enough (more powerful monsters will do though).

Of course with so many variables in play it's really hard to tell what the hell's going on :) Personally I always like to sac enough to be sure.

[Elone]

You also shoot every item on the ground to make sure it's not a mimic.

[vogonpoet]

To be fair, if its purple or green, or quite a bright colour, who doesn't?

Incidentally, if you want to change your alignment instead of the altar (eg C at a neutral/lawful altar, to move closer to lawful), one gold piece at a time is definitely the best way to go, it will cost you possibly as much as 6gp altogether to go from C to NC, and won't flip the altar.