Goonhub
04-30-2015, 12:55 PM
So, as many of you know, I have had an axe to grind for a long while about the chaplain being pointless and boring and shitty and more or less beneath the clown in terms of actual ability to do things and be not a staff assistant with a few extra sets of clothing. I've been tinkering around to fix that, letting chaplain immunities cover many wraith and vampire tricks, and the like, but I've moved fully into the last phase of the rework - reworking religion itself 
As it stands, my plan is this. Chaplains start the round with the ability to choose from domains, sort of like the really old system for picking real-world religions to be a member of with a lot less potential headache and racism. The current domains are Light, Darkness, Order, Chaos, Life, Death, Machinery, Nature and Atheism. When you pick a domain, you get a randomly generated god name to go with it, so you're not just a chaplain of Nebulously Defined Space Christ, you're the priest of Strrog the Blazing Blade, God of Light, or Xomkmin the Twerking Cluwne, God of Chaos. This is to encourage chaplains to actually make up a religion based on the name and domain they've got, however paper-thin, or roll with weird name combos.
The meat and potatoes of the rework is that each domain gives 2-3 minor powers that a chaplain can use, allowing them to choose what kind of shit they'd like to do. These powers are not meant to encourage a massive skew in favor of the chaplain at doing something except in very niche situations. They're nice little perks to have that let you do fun gimmicks and assist here and there, not turn into supercop douchebag inquisitor supreme. In addition, traitor chaplains will have access to an evil power for the domain they've picked, that's much more effective and useful for treachery involving that domain. Price of the item that lets you get traitor domain powers is TBD.
I've got two concerns about the rework so far: One, that this might give chaplains a little too much, and two, that chaplain immunities in combination with powers might create hellfucker supercops. I'm willing to tweak, move, reduce, or remove full-blown immunities if that becomes a problem, but I also think that a surfeit of riches is a preferable situation for a job to be in compared to having jack and shit to do 99% of the time. In addition, each round chaplains can only do one domain's gimmick, so they may have a large number of things to choose from, but once they've chosen, they only have a small slice of their potential. Still, some of the domains might get cut away if they dont have a compelling reason to exist.
So far, these are the thoughts I've been having about powers, and the stuff each domain generally does:
Atheism: Either super gimmicky stuff - for instance, the random name generator will always name your god "[yourname] the Smug Bastard, "God"/"Goddess" of Atheism" - or shifting supernatural immunities to stuff like vampires/wraiths/wizards here. I'm hesitant about the latter because it'd mean that if you choose atheism and there are no supernatural antagonists, you're useless, but if you don't and there are, you're screwed. Traitor power: I have no idea.
Life: Something based on the healing touch genetic power, or a long cooldown that lets you stabilize someone in shock or having heart failure, like an on-demand defibrillator without evil uses and a much longer wait between uses. Maybe a stamina buff/regen buff too on a decently long cooldown. Life chaplains are last-ditch paramedics and triage people, basically. Traitor power: give someone diabolical space cancer that grows out of control and makes them explode into mutants and headspiders or something if untreated.
Death: This is hard to think of options for that aren't ridiculously useful or pretty much worthless. Hearing ghosts more often would lead to incessant deadchat spam, resurrection or murder powers are too good, etc.. My thought is to let them see ghosts with no names and (if possible) no hairstyles, if the code allows it, so they can only notice that Scrubs McPubs has like twenty ghosts swarming around them, and figure something's up. It could lead to ghosts leading the chaplain to a changeling mid-feeding, or a traitor resupplying, which is kinda shit, but could also be really funny if the chaplain just charges in like an idiot with no admissible evidence. Traitor power: maybe hear deadchat perfectly, or bind ghosts to items like wraiths possessing an object so the ghosts can fly around wreaking havoc. Something spooky.
Order: Uhhh. SS13 is sort of all chaos all the time, really, so this is a bit hard to think of ideas for. It's mostly in for the Chaos domain unless I get more good ideas.
Chaos: Pandemonium is almost too easy as a power. Just general weird shit, like 2e Wild Magic in DND or playing as a Xom worshipper in Crawl. Possibly with a semi-functional amusement mechanic if I can be assed. Traitor power: Decent cooldown but otherwise free DNA/ID/clothing scrambling for constant getaways?
Light: Photokinesis from genetics is a given, as is possibly glowy and immunity to flashes. Traitor power: superflashing? Blindness?
Darkness: No Cloak of Darkness. Fuck that buggy power. Darkness/light removal power, see in the dark, maybe even as far as some sort of blindsight. Traitor power: Summon The Darkness from the hell pit, blowing out all lights nearby.
Machinery: While I had the really neat idea of a long cooldown emag-reversal power, it turns out there's no standard way to handle being emagged despite the proc being standardized, so that would be a monstrous pain in the ass. Robospeak implant innately is a given. Summon Buddies to send all securitrons and buddies swarming to your location? Traitor power: full screen EMP and emag on a long cooldown.
Nature: I actually have these powers concretely in place, just working on coding them. Bless Weed turns black weed to normal weed, normal weed to white weed, and rainbow weed to omega weed. White and omega weeds don't get further upgrades. Fortify Plant slightly improves all the stats of a potted plant or seed. The traitor power, Mutate Bees, turns targeted bees into murderous waspbees compelled to murder everyone, including their parent
Feel free to post input or thoughts. Criticism/negative opinions are welcome so long as its not purely shitposting.
As it stands, my plan is this. Chaplains start the round with the ability to choose from domains, sort of like the really old system for picking real-world religions to be a member of with a lot less potential headache and racism. The current domains are Light, Darkness, Order, Chaos, Life, Death, Machinery, Nature and Atheism. When you pick a domain, you get a randomly generated god name to go with it, so you're not just a chaplain of Nebulously Defined Space Christ, you're the priest of Strrog the Blazing Blade, God of Light, or Xomkmin the Twerking Cluwne, God of Chaos. This is to encourage chaplains to actually make up a religion based on the name and domain they've got, however paper-thin, or roll with weird name combos.
The meat and potatoes of the rework is that each domain gives 2-3 minor powers that a chaplain can use, allowing them to choose what kind of shit they'd like to do. These powers are not meant to encourage a massive skew in favor of the chaplain at doing something except in very niche situations. They're nice little perks to have that let you do fun gimmicks and assist here and there, not turn into supercop douchebag inquisitor supreme. In addition, traitor chaplains will have access to an evil power for the domain they've picked, that's much more effective and useful for treachery involving that domain. Price of the item that lets you get traitor domain powers is TBD.
I've got two concerns about the rework so far: One, that this might give chaplains a little too much, and two, that chaplain immunities in combination with powers might create hellfucker supercops. I'm willing to tweak, move, reduce, or remove full-blown immunities if that becomes a problem, but I also think that a surfeit of riches is a preferable situation for a job to be in compared to having jack and shit to do 99% of the time. In addition, each round chaplains can only do one domain's gimmick, so they may have a large number of things to choose from, but once they've chosen, they only have a small slice of their potential. Still, some of the domains might get cut away if they dont have a compelling reason to exist.
So far, these are the thoughts I've been having about powers, and the stuff each domain generally does:
Atheism: Either super gimmicky stuff - for instance, the random name generator will always name your god "[yourname] the Smug Bastard, "God"/"Goddess" of Atheism" - or shifting supernatural immunities to stuff like vampires/wraiths/wizards here. I'm hesitant about the latter because it'd mean that if you choose atheism and there are no supernatural antagonists, you're useless, but if you don't and there are, you're screwed. Traitor power: I have no idea.
Life: Something based on the healing touch genetic power, or a long cooldown that lets you stabilize someone in shock or having heart failure, like an on-demand defibrillator without evil uses and a much longer wait between uses. Maybe a stamina buff/regen buff too on a decently long cooldown. Life chaplains are last-ditch paramedics and triage people, basically. Traitor power: give someone diabolical space cancer that grows out of control and makes them explode into mutants and headspiders or something if untreated.
Death: This is hard to think of options for that aren't ridiculously useful or pretty much worthless. Hearing ghosts more often would lead to incessant deadchat spam, resurrection or murder powers are too good, etc.. My thought is to let them see ghosts with no names and (if possible) no hairstyles, if the code allows it, so they can only notice that Scrubs McPubs has like twenty ghosts swarming around them, and figure something's up. It could lead to ghosts leading the chaplain to a changeling mid-feeding, or a traitor resupplying, which is kinda shit, but could also be really funny if the chaplain just charges in like an idiot with no admissible evidence. Traitor power: maybe hear deadchat perfectly, or bind ghosts to items like wraiths possessing an object so the ghosts can fly around wreaking havoc. Something spooky.
Order: Uhhh. SS13 is sort of all chaos all the time, really, so this is a bit hard to think of ideas for. It's mostly in for the Chaos domain unless I get more good ideas.
Chaos: Pandemonium is almost too easy as a power. Just general weird shit, like 2e Wild Magic in DND or playing as a Xom worshipper in Crawl. Possibly with a semi-functional amusement mechanic if I can be assed. Traitor power: Decent cooldown but otherwise free DNA/ID/clothing scrambling for constant getaways?
Light: Photokinesis from genetics is a given, as is possibly glowy and immunity to flashes. Traitor power: superflashing? Blindness?
Darkness: No Cloak of Darkness. Fuck that buggy power. Darkness/light removal power, see in the dark, maybe even as far as some sort of blindsight. Traitor power: Summon The Darkness from the hell pit, blowing out all lights nearby.
Machinery: While I had the really neat idea of a long cooldown emag-reversal power, it turns out there's no standard way to handle being emagged despite the proc being standardized, so that would be a monstrous pain in the ass. Robospeak implant innately is a given. Summon Buddies to send all securitrons and buddies swarming to your location? Traitor power: full screen EMP and emag on a long cooldown.
Nature: I actually have these powers concretely in place, just working on coding them. Bless Weed turns black weed to normal weed, normal weed to white weed, and rainbow weed to omega weed. White and omega weeds don't get further upgrades. Fortify Plant slightly improves all the stats of a potted plant or seed. The traitor power, Mutate Bees, turns targeted bees into murderous waspbees compelled to murder everyone, including their parent
Feel free to post input or thoughts. Criticism/negative opinions are welcome so long as its not purely shitposting.