I was thinking how great it would be to have an order skill like the city skill to preach the word of your chosen God in order to create essence for that god. A peaceful way of providing essence when you choose to play a pacifist character.

Surprisingly, thats a good idea but how would it work? Lets say I kill a steel goat (hypothetical) and off it to Estarra, and assuming I could influence a goat, and influence it successuflly, would I gain any exp and how much essence would Estarra gain? Compared to a goat.

Actually goats cannot be influenced as far as I know. You have to influence denizens I believe, village people and other sentient beings. Like faes and so forth. Also since influencing is like fighting only no death, you lose experience I imagine you would get the same essence you would had you killed them and offered to the shrine.

Here is an example


Influence Bob with evangelism.


Preaching passionately, you inform Bob of the wonderful gifts your Lord has in store for a loyal member of his church
Bob fidgets nervously and sweats spots his brow as he looks away, wishing to be anywhere but here.

WIN
Bob looks up at you, with a new light to his eyes as he kneels down humbly and swears himself to your lord.


Lose
Bob scowls and mutters angrily at you, muttering the word "Blasphemy" under his breath.

Heh, that's a pretty good idea. I can see, however, trans influence order members walking around and converting Death Knights over to Isune and Moonmaidens to Fain, and that wouldn't make a whole ton of sense.

To prevent just making it double essence when you influence then kill, perhaps the God in question wouldn't get essence for having a corpse already loyal to them offered.

Maybe set it up so that they only give the essence once a month, like a village gives their tithe to a city. They can be influenced back and forth by differing orders, but when it comes time to give the essence, whoever has the influence of the NPC gets the essence.

Maybe also work a timer in there, so that when they give teh god essence, the longer they have been influenced, more essence is given(up to a certain point of course).

It should also require a shrine somewhere more or less near. After all the influenced people need to find a holy place where they can pray and offer things. So maybe, when there isn't a shrine, let's say up to 5 rooms away, then the influencing won't last really long and no or only very few essence get be gained.

If this applies only to village citizens and they give up no essence if their corpses are offered, but give a little essence daily as long as they stay influenced, then some of the points raised above could be dealt with. It would also be a good way for the villages to work for the gods as well as the cities.

Their divine loyalties could be added to their analyze description:

"Bob's eyes shine with an unshakeable zeal for the compassion of Isune."

If this skill was given as an order skill, as the cityinfluence skill is with city rank, it could reduce the clear advantages that a trans influencer would have.

Details aside, I think this is a fantastic idea.

wow, you guys took a good idea and "added" to it to death....

I think there should be that kind of nonviolent way to get essence for a god. I'm a pacifist and im always looking for new skills I can use without compromising myself morally.

*looks* yep, this is the Ideas section and.... *looks again* this is a message thread. Sorry, your comment made me wonder for a second.

Maybe it's a reflection of how good an idea is.

Well, essence gained is essence lost as well. Whenever a loyal npc dies the God they have sworn to should lose essence much like should a human player die that belongs to their order. Perhaps special shrines could be erected in the villages that have sworn themselves to a certain God that can't be defiled and have special order abilities that relate to them. Like an order nexus at the different villages to the Order that controls them for easier defense. Also, those that are influenced would have to stay under an Order's control for a certain period of time, and would have to be stackable with a cities control. For example, lets say both Raezon and Serenwilde control Southgard. A tithe of the production would go to the city as well as power for the city, but Raezon's Order would gain essence from the villagers as long as they aren't slain and have a free shrine which to offer to and defend from.

I think, as well as influencing a village to be controlled by a city/commune, this should also be the same for Orders.

CITY/COMMUNE RELIGIOUS ORDER

Stewartsville: The Dominion of Magnagora , Mystery Seekers of Raezon
Estelbar: The Forest of Serenwilde , Auseklis' Forestals
Acknor: The Dominion of Magnagora , Mystery Seekers of Raezon
Delport: The Principality of New Celest , Holy Order of Roark
Rockholm: The Principality of New Celest , Ethereal Order of Lisaera
Southgard: The Principality of New Celest , Wings of Isune
Angkrag: The Dominion of Magnagora , Magical Order of Lacostian
Dairuchi: The Dominion of Magnagora , Magical Order of Lacostian

Ehh, not to burst your bubble here, because it is a good idea, but if you made it so that an offering, loyal to a god wouldn't give esscense, then...there would be no offerings to be had.

Influencing for essence is a great idea, as has already been said, but it doesn't need special rules.

There's no imbalance for the 'double offering' of something you influenced then killed and offered. If that were so bad, why can I influence then kill it for extra experience already?

Having villages loyal to a particular Divine is interesting, but what would it actually bring to the game that needs to be there? When changes like that do occur, it is to fill some need. There is enough conflict over villages as it is.

Having influence skills based on Order rank is interesting, but what about influencers who aren't yet part of an Order? Also, the bulk of any Order will be low ranking members, so the limited skills offered by a rank based system would keep influencing from being a viable alternative for them. More so, you can offer essence to any Divine regardless of your affiliation, and an Order based system would logically limit you to your own order.

No, all that need be done is add 3 Divine influencing skills to the set, set them as neutral in difficulty, and have them give essence and experience when succesful. Even better, sentient creatures would be flagged with either Affinity, Disinterest, or Hostility towards certain Divine to determine influence difficulty. That would put it right on par with every other influence skill.

I think that this could tie in well with, who was it, Donnar's suggestion of congregations, actually. That way it's not just restricted to people with high order rank, anyone can influence for their god by just joining the congregation and having the influence skill necessary.

Just what we need because the situation between the cities doesnt provide enough conflict, a way to start it between the Orders as well! Order Wars... coming soon to a game store near you.

Actually I believe it would be something more like this:

Estelbar: The Forest of Serenwilde , Ethereal Order of Lisaera
Acknor: The Dominion of Magnagora , Fain's Masque
Delport: The Dominion of Magnagora, Fain's Masque
Rockholm: The Principality of New Celest , Magical Order of Lacostian
Southgard: The Principality of New Celest , Wings of Isune
Angkrag: The Dominion of Magnagora , Fain's Masque
Dairuchi: The Dominion of Magnagora , Mystery Seekers of Raezon

:ph34r:

What I ment by added to it to death was just the short version of what Melanchthon said. When you come up with a good idea and then add so many features to it, it then becomes less of a good idea to the point of being just silly. Kinda like microsoft used to do/does.