Of cults and deities

[Atan]

I've recently started playing a fireborn character. Made it a monk for meditation, becomng an obvious expert in pyromancy.

Now came the time to chose a cult. So I asked myself: From a role-playing perspective, what would be a proper choice for a conscious ball of fire? The obvious possibilities were Ruggili and Sorig (lighning and fire being related, and both aspects of pyromancy).

Problem #1: Why would I chose Ruggili with all his disadvantages when one of his main bonuses, extra protection from fire, is useless when your race gives you already 100%?

Problem #2: So I chose Sorig. Now if you read the fine manual, it tells you that "divine shock is the most powerful god-given spell" or something similar. In fact it's useless : deals little damage and breaks your own earth walls while you're trying painfully to get rid of the big monster on the other side. Other god-given spells are not particularly useful either (windstorm is particularly ridiculous and useless)

Problem #3: Chosing Gaea would make the character *much* more powerful than the previous two choices, but has no meaning from a role-playing perspective - fireborns were even considered "unnatural" at some point.

Basically I think there is one major flaw in the god-system now : gods were built with humans in mind (whereas half the characters I tend to see online are dragons or fireborns), and the result of joining a cult does not depend on the race at all.

Suggestion #1 : Make cult effect race-dependent : If the character race is an enemy of the deity, forbid it (e.g. no half-orc priest of Mostrai). If the character race is one of the cult races of the deity, give some sort of bonus or remove a malus (e.g. a fireborn should find it beneficial to join Ruggili, even though it already has 100% protection from fire - for instance, don't add any extra cold and sustenance malus, since duplicating fireborn's malus with Ruggili's malus doesn't help advertise the cult to its main follower group - whereas if those protection bonus/malus are reserved to non-humans, then they mean making the non-fire person who joins the cult more fire-like, without penalizing the adept that was already fiery to begin with)

Suggestion #2: "Fix" Sorig's granted spells - this deity is presently too unnattractive, with no holy word and really weak spells (forked lightning is the only decent one, yet still less powerful than a holy word from other deities - and it destroys dropped items, obviously, which a holy word does not)

Thanks for bearing with this large post...

Atan

[Salathar]

Problem #2: So I chose Sorig. Now if you read the fine manual, it tells you that "divine shock is the most powerful god-given spell" or something similar. In fact it's useless : deals little damage and breaks your own earth walls while you're trying painfully to get rid of the big monster on the other side. Other god-given spells are not particularly useful either (windstorm is particularly ridiculous and useless)

One important thing to mention is that divine shock deals god power damage which most monsters lack resistance to.
Although I do agree it seems underpowered overall. Experimentation shows that overall ball lightning beats divine shock at the same level, there are exceptions of course.
Cause Many Wounds is infact a powerful spell at high level, but because it is not a mass effect spell it's not that handy for levelling.

Problem #3: Chosing Gaea would make the character *much* more powerful than the previous two choices, but has no meaning from a role-playing perspective - fireborns were even considered "unnatural" at some point.

They are not anymore as it seems hence the change of the roleplaying perspective.

Make cult effect race-dependent : If the character race is an enemy of the deity, forbid it (e.g. no half-orc priest of Mostrai).

What about heretics that betray their own kind to serve the wiser god who in return grants them forgiveness and fixes the flaws of their nature?

[cavesomething]

What about heretics that betray their own kind to server the wiser god who in return grants them forgiveness and fixes the flaws of their nature?

Wouldn't that mean that choosing certain gods could change a character's race?
That could prove somewhat interesting, although there would have to be some /very/ harsh penalties to prevent abuses of that (and probably some quests involved also).

[bort]

thats why you get resisistance to god power +95 from your alter before converting.

[cavesomething]

That behaviour strikes me a just very, very wrong.

Shouldn't there be a way to track praying, maybe a special (invisible?) item that is carried that tracks when the character last prayed. If praying were to increase its HP (think demon icor for a comparison) then the value of it would give your standing with your god.

This then would be the counter used to determine whether conversion succeeds, which seems far saner.

[Guest]

Ok.. I think you guys went off topic from making gods suitable. We arent discussing getting smitten by your god for betraying him. I tend to agree that all around gods arent suited well for their intended worshippers(except Devourers, which is deviously well suited for wraiths!) But I dont see restricting who can worship a god as the best answer. For example, an elf cant worship Gnarg because Gnarg dislikes elves? Well... what about dark elves? They hate wood elves etc with a passion, would they be disallowed this(purely hypothetical situation involving non-existant races based off other references) simply because they are "elven"? I am saying maybe something such as god-given items could be changed to enhance the natural worshippers more then an unnatural worshipper. I.E. Ruggilli could give multiple rings/amulets, thus while a normal human could worship him, he'd be allowed only the normal 2 rings, 1 amulet, but a fireborn would be allowed 4 rings/2 amulets. Now a wraith worshipping Devourers on the otherhand, could receive something that perhaps speeds up food consumption significantly and gives other nice bonuses. These are just my thoughts on the matter.

[neptune]

What about gaea? Just don't reflect her banish on you. I worship gaea and she works. In fact, any other deity besides gaea for a fireborn or dragon happens to be useless except if you worship valrei which is like gaea.