Not Used: Deity Suggestions

I noticed that while Andra was updated to offer a different divine favor(entangle) the website still states that you get a animal ally(dire bear). I think this should be changed.

I noticed that in many worlds while a god or goddess might prefer a specific race or a specific gender as a priest or priestess, that even unfavored races and genders can cast spells and use their god/goddess' abilities. Would it be made so male clerics merely cannot advance past level2 as a cleric, yet give them the ability to cast spells as the lowest ranking member of a clergy(layman are the lowest ranking clergy members often reserved for doing the simplest of duties, as well as consisting primarily of those new to the church).

I noticed that the clerics and followers of Aquar don't benefit as much as those of Harcorth. Can I make a suggestion on that? Allow followers the ability to breathe water so long as they stay above a low piety level, it would be very disturbing to lose water breathing ability while still under-water. I also want clerics of both deities to be immune to the spell Drown, which is an instant killer. I forget if that spell is on Aenea though, if not, maybe it can be added as a spell both those gods clergy can cast as well as be immune to?

I notice that we still are developing the orcish lands, and the more suggestions I add about it the more Amethyst has to work and/or be burdened by those thoughts. But if we could decide which deity is commonplace for full-blood and half-blood orcs it would be nice. I think Torgat would be a good choice.

I like the suggestions for Aquar and Harcorth. It would make a couple of subraces moot however...

OT: I'm probably the only player that misses the bear. The bear could handle most of the stuff it spawned (with help from the Druid), and it got my low level druid extra XP and neater loot.

Svair wrote:I like the suggestions for Aquar and Harcorth. It would make a couple of subraces moot however...

OT: I'm probably the only player that misses the bear. The bear could handle most of the stuff it spawned (with help from the Druid), and it got my low level druid extra XP and neater loot.

I miss the bear too, but apparently it was causing problems with the server. Truthfully I realized these problems could have easily been solved if people merely unsummoned the bear before logging out...

Yeah the bear was cool, but it would often summon in at the start of a fight, then leave half-way through.. leaving lower level PC's with the difficult job of "clearing up the mess".... also if it died and was ressie'd it refused to be empithied/dominated and would often stand around doing nothing.... and for some reason the cleaner script never seemed to remove the dead bear... at later levels it became more annoying and worthless when it would run in fear at most of the things you would fight... .... ... the entangle effect doesn't seem to be much better but thats just because as yet I've not had it fire during combat (but plenty of times whilst just walking about)... ... ...

As another diety favour suggestions.. would it be cool to have a scaling favour based on level and/or piety??

At lower levels, the bear was causing problems with spawning tough stuff and then vanishing. That's why I changed to the entangle favor.

With several of the deity favors, they have a random chance of firing when you are "in combat". For the game engine, that includes when you are standing in an area that is burning you, when you are activating items, and when you are in the process of casting spells. Basically, any times you wouldn't be able to use a healer's kit. The game can't tell the difference between actually fighting and just "busy/excited".

Followers of Aquar randomly get potions of water breathing, which they can use themselves or give to others. The potions, like the spell, protect from drowning and last for game hours at a time.

As far as clerics and gender, the only one that there is a restriction with is Zolaras. Zolaras has male followers, she just doesn't grant them any powers (hence, only female clerics). You could always say you were a "lay priest of Zolaras" as a male, but there wouldn't be anything more to it. All other priesthoods are open to both males and females, and all priesthoods are open to all races.

Orcs most commonly worship Ragnor, with worship of Sorgath and Torgat a close second. Though rare, you may even find orcs praying to Asis when the expected birth of a strong new warrior is near. Pretty much like other races, orcs in Aenea pray to any of the gods when it is appropriate, but each choses their own patron deity they most agree with.

I'll have to update the website with the newer info on Andra's favor.

Scaling favors...a possibility, since many people now go through the effort of sacrificing things to increase piety. I wouldn't have it scale based on level though. The deity favor system was created at least a year before the piety scores were added, so they were just never mixed together.

Ragnor seems to be the preferred diety for Orcs.

Favors currently seem to be either really useful, or rather pointless depending on the god or goddess. Favors of Gort simply outstrip any others in terms of usefulness over a character's life and what it accomplishes for the character. Conflagral is second on my list of what I think has the greatest impact.

What makes favors of Gort so valuable and beneficial is not just -what- they do (a use of transference per favor), but that you get the favor as a token in your inventory, which you can basicly 'save' for when you really need it.

What I would suggest for a diety favor change is make them all function like favors of Gort. When you get the favor, you get a token in your inventory, which you can fire off when you need it most. It could make current favors useful (favor of Dalix for instance... PFE is an incredibly valuable spell effect to have... just the randomness of the current implementation is not noteworthy), or could help point out deficiencies in the current favors (Andra worshippers could help get imperical data on how the favor's working out, for example).

Nice ideas here.

MannyJabrielle wrote:Ragnor seems to be the preferred diety for Orcs.

Favors currently seem to be either really useful, or rather pointless depending on the god or goddess. Favors of Gort simply outstrip any others in terms of usefulness over a character's life and what it accomplishes for the character. Conflagral is second on my list of what I think has the greatest impact.

What makes favors of Gort so valuable and beneficial is not just -what- they do (a use of transference per favor), but that you get the favor as a token in your inventory, which you can basicly 'save' for when you really need it.

What I would suggest for a diety favor change is make them all function like favors of Gort. When you get the favor, you get a token in your inventory, which you can fire off when you need it most. It could make current favors useful (favor of Dalix for instance... PFE is an incredibly valuable spell effect to have... just the randomness of the current implementation is not noteworthy), or could help point out deficiencies in the current favors (Andra worshippers could help get imperical data on how the favor's working out, for example).

Dude.... genious.

Hey MJ that idea for changing all favours to work like Gort's sounds really really good... do you still get the tokens at the random times as usual??...

... If put in place then the idea to scale the favours seems even easier to implement...along the lines of "Check Piety" > "create this token" > "reduce piety by x for creation of that token" ...

I can see minor errors happening if the players inventory is full... but I'm sure something can be worked out (such as instant triggering)...

I know piety increases for worship/ gold sacrifice but I've got a question too.. Does sacrificing remains increase piety?.. I've never noticed if it does ..or is it a direct "sacrified accepted" = "gold &/or xp" ?....

Also to scale Gort's favor.. a hybrid Transference/ Word of recall sounds good.. or a directed away Phoenix's Teleport Capture (instantly moving all enimies away)?? .....

All the gods run to a particular theme so it can't be that hard to populate a list of benefits.. just setting the values would be a problem.. do you go by the 5's (for those people that dont really care about piety) or by the 100,000's (for those that do)...
((extreme examples given are deliberate to illustrate the point.. ))

There is a chance of a piety score increase for sacrificing remains and for sacrificing items out of your inventory. Sometimes you get gold, sometimes xp, sometimes piety, sometimes nothing.

Okay.. is there a feedback message for the increase in piety?... .. I'm only asking because 90% of my remains/area sacrifices give xp and 90% of my inventory sacrifices give gold ... 10% of both giving nothing, being no feedback but "sacrifice accepted message"..??

Also are the only ways to loose piety from "walking the dias", praying at an alter for aid, desecrating your own gods alter(everything needs to be tried once , ahem), and "?? getting a favour ??"......

Also is it possible to change the area sacrifice visual to "get on your knees and worship" from "stand and do a googly eyed dance".....

There is no feedback message for the increase in piety. Kind of like praying in real life.

Getting a favor currently has no relation to the piety score.

It's possible for me to change the animation.

I second the animation change - that would be cool, and perhaps more appropriate for the act.

I dunno, I kinda liked the "waving your hands up at the gods in the sky" sacrificing animation. Perhaps an option of pray on knees vs talking in tongues fire and brimstone preacher dance with a VC option?

Eric of Atrophy wrote:I second the animation change - that would be cool, and perhaps more appropriate for the act.

We'll see. As for more appropriate...in real life, don't priests usually hold up what they're offering to their god(s) with both hands, as if getting it a couple feet higher will help the deity see it better? Waving or swaying hands in the air while praying also seems to be popular in some groups.

OK.. so I know this thread is a little old now but I've got some new diety and cleric related suggestions....

I notice that there are 20 dieties in Aenea... and 20 domain powers... now the domain powers in Aenea are locked out in favour of the much better custom granted stuff.. however is it possible to remove the domains the cleric picks on creation /first cleric level to get rid of the highly gross (spoiling my glorious looking hybrid translucent GUI) white squares in the feat list.... .....

Or better yet, replace/overide each domain feat with one specific to the Aenea dieties, listing the bonuses/granted spells the cleric gets, and adding that feat to the cleric for their patron( removing whatever two they picked themselves automatically in the process)..... ... so kinda editing the .tlk and feats things a bit... ... if possible the new Cleric of "Aenea Diety" feat could even have a use that is a base radial menu for granted spells, with branches to the same "cast spell" nodes that appear in the normal cast spell radial..... this would also mean (if I'm correct) that the granted spells would then work like "real" spells and not "locked level item" spells.... .... ....

Any ideas anyone?

Default clerics choose 2 domains though, while Aenea has clerics following only 1 deity.

So, perhaps instead just keep the original domains, but rework their powers slightly.... to be more of "slight gifts". Minor saving throw bonuses, boosts to lore checks or healing checks, +1 attack vs evil/good/vermin/elemental, ect.

No, I'm on about removing those 2 domains from the player... and replacing them with (minimum) a descriptive one for their patron... .. and as there are 20 (old NWN )domains and 20 (new) Aenea Dieties could just re-use the domain 2da entries and re-write them to save space in the feat.2da, iprpfeat.2da (item properties) and cleric feat lists..... the only thing I'm not 100% sure it's possible to remove a selected domain feat.... but adding would be an update to the cleric / iprp list then possibly adding them to the creature skin... ...

To be honest I have no idea how to add custom feats, or how it works, but does!! ... Look at all the feats already added!....

I agree that reducing their powers would be an effective comprimise, but at the moment I don't mind that they give NO benefit's, or even that the descriptions plainly state "This feat is not used in Aenea".... the custom granted "stuff" created by is so much better...

My main gripe is that the icons look ugly in the feat list, It just spoils the mood every time I check what one of my clerics feats actually do (which is often - cause I'm forgetful) ... I suppose in summary I'd at least like some icons linked to them.. even greyed out/ alpha channel only ones...

But whilst I was thinking of suggesting only that change, I thought "here we have 20 useless feats, 20 useless 2da entries, 20 possible uses for said slots which will benefit everyone and help player immersion into Aenea".... then consider an idea just thought of now... yes this could be a menu for "Diety Granted Spells" with a correct 2da entry and sub-radials linking to the correct granted powers... ... but if it is just a descriptive change/addition in the .tlks and can be given to PC's ((and it lists the basic dogma, favour, and cleric bonuses)) then why not give it during creation on selecting your patron?... ... a permanent reminder of what your patron is and stands for... ... ...

Hmmm....grounds for additions here.

I can remake the blank domain icons to just be transparent (the blank white square was a very quick thing to get rid of the old icons).

As far as re-using the domains...wouldn't really work. Unless multi-classing to cleric, domains are chosen at character creation (before the character gets into the Aenea module). I just shut them down in-module and overwrite the descriptions with the aenea.tlk file.

Now, the suggestion of deity-specific feats with sub-radials...I'll have to look into it.

That would be *ridiculously* bada$$.

I would have to whip up a cleric the moment it was implemented.

The unused domain feats are now removed when you level up as cleric.

Yay!!! Yay!!! .... Thank ye !...

Now how about some "descriptive" feat additions?... maybe one for each diety (dogma, clerical gifts, cleric granted spells, favour).. and why not also go for one for each subrace (bonuses/penalties/xp %).....

EDIT EDIT :: is a fore-thinking Genius... ... Above suggestion already done... ...

If it's possible to link the feats to the correct spells then all the better... and I just had great idea of where to place them on the radials... under the "Cast Spell > Special Actions" one.. the same one that lists counterspelling, and defensive casting mode... two more radials added.. "subrace spell ability" and "cleric granted spells"... wouldn't this be ace?... and if it can be done like this.. then bye bye "millions" of player tokens... ....

I have a few things I'd like to add. These are not so much serious ideas that I want implemented, more off the cuff ideas for others to consider.

1) Reduce the number of gods. Some of the gods seem to overlap too much IMHO. I don't see a strong difference between Aquar and Harcorth for example, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of underwater exploring as it is. Andra and Borzig seem kinda similar too, and people may feel there are other areas of divine overlap.

Twenty is a nice, even number, but fewer deities means more attention and detail to those that remain. The more gods there are, and the more Churches, the less rich and deep each one seems. Fewer Churches means you could spend more time developing Church hierarchies and prominent NPCs. It means you could develop plots or story arcs, as rival faiths seek to undermine or outright attack each other. Players might feel a deeper connection to their own faith, other than seeing it as a certain bonus for your PC.

2) I would like to remove or at least change the Favor of Andra. I really don't like it. If the Entangle effect were simply worthless, that might be okay, but I see it as a penalty, and I have been nearly killed on several occasions because of it, actually dying once.

I don't know if it works this way for the other gods, but when my favor activates, I am kicked out of combat. This means my queue of attacks is cleared, my actions are cancelled, my Improved Expertise is disabled (resulting in my AC dropping 10 points), and I am now considered out of combat. Because of the loss of IE, a lot more attacks now succeed, with more of them being critical. Being out of combat, sneak attacks now work and if there are assassins in the game, death attacks as well. If I am surrounded by opponents, this means a large number of attacks now hitting me causing a lot of extra damage. Because of the delay in implementing actions, as well as the occasional lag, it might be some time before I can recover from it (it's taken me up until now to train myself to recognize that the favor triggering means I need to immediately take action, usually either by running or quaffing an escape potion).

I'm not sure what could replace the favor. Looking at the description, it says Andra serves Nature, which is a nebulous term. I thought of maybe giving some minor elemental resistance, but that seems to be Borzig's area. I thought perhaps a minor regen effect, but while I consider healing clerical and regen druidic, some might consider regen more in tune with Asis, and some might consider regen too powerful. I thought perhaps Flora's Plant Armor might do it, but I hear that some druids don't run around naked, and actually like to wear armor. As such, this wouldn't benefit them, plus the fire vulnerability could also be an undesired penalty. Since Andra seems to be most about flora and fauna, perhaps a Barkskin effect would be best, since previous posts here say there are problems with animal allies. A natural armor bonus would prolly be useful to all druids, and isn't overpowering (certainly not compared to the spell resistance of Mystara!).

If any favor is going to knock you out of combat though, then I would really like to see it disabled, or a way to disable it. Perhaps simply disable random favors affecting the PC, and let the token be used to trigger a favor when the PC wants it. Or perhaps simply give PCs an inherent bonus, one that doesn't trigger but simply exists all the time. For example, the description says that Lysis grants a static bonus; this could be the norm for other priests. This is why I thought of the minor regen effect... useful, and it stays in the background. Or maybe a permanent natural armor bonus. Whatever the change, I would like to see the Entangle effect go. It has never helped me, I have never seen a single opponent stuck, and I never use the Entangle token.

3) I'm still exploring, but it would be nice to have at least one solid temple for each deity. Not just a shrine but an actual temple, with priests, a high priest, maybe some creatures appropriate to the god...

It would be nice to have a 'capitol' for each Church, a headquarters where people can go and know that this is the heart of the faith, the place where all the magic happens. These could serve later as places to give quests, or places where churches could attack each other.

I must admit that I have not seen the entangle to be effective, even to one opponent, even to the goblins in the early quest for the farmers daughter.

Since druids can calm animals with I assume the Knowledge (nature) skill, one could say they don't need anything else. Simply dropping the entangle effect might do.

If one wanted, one could make it so that the calming effect applies to others in the area, not just the PC. This would be useful so that the druid's pets and summons aren't attacking everything, forcing the druid to join in and thus negating the benefit.

Or, since they have the improved summon effect from the Animal domain, you could give them the turn vermin power of the plant domain.

Again, just suggestions.

is thinking of making several Diety changes ...

See this link here

.... Now how about some more "Dogma/History/Story books of the dieties" ??