[crossfire] holy altars & sacrificing.

[Mark Wedel]

  There have been past discussions about allow players to sacrifice enemy 
monster parts on their gods altar to get to some benefit, etc.

  I was thinking about this, and maybe it just makes sense to let the player 
sacrifice whatever.

  Now the reward for doing this is improved chance at divine intervention. 
After all, we let players buy most everything else, let them buy some godly 
influence and have them use up there money.

  From the most basic, take the value of the objects on the altar.  Apply some 
formula (square or cube root?) and that is the bonus odds of improved results.

  Whether or not the god gives you anything, the sacrifices are of course taken. 
  After all, the gods or priests are not guarantee success, just saying it would 
be more likely.

  There should of course be some cap on how much a bonus you can get, so a 
player can drop down 50,000 pp and get the best stuff easily.

  Certain objects may have increased value - body parts of enemy monsters are 
maybe credited and 3 or 5x normal value.

  Unidentified equipment has zero, or perhaps negative value.  The priests don't 
want you throwing their junk at you.

  Likewise, cursed objects (known or otherwise) have negative value.

  Gold, gems, identified stuff, etc, has normal value.  One could perhaps 
customize this some based on gods (some gods worship some items more than others).

  It would seem to me this might be a good way to burn up some extra money. 
Even at modest levels, it can take a long time praying over the altar to get 
some gift.  So all I do is press control-p for  few minutes.  If I could drop 
down some of my extra platinum and save some time, I'd do so.

  The code already has a special check for player praying over a gods altar, so 
all that is involved is a little code there - no changes to archetype should be 
needed.

  That said, if my idea of some gods liking some objects more then others is 
added, then some archetype or something describe that may be necessary 
(<god>_sacrifice_want or something).  Some gods may not really want stuff (would 
gaea really want people sacrificing weapons?  Although that case could be made 
either way - she may want them just so that no one can use them, or it could be 
said that if the priests are really taking the sacrificing and giving them to 
people in need, would only want stuff they could use).

  The other thought, which is somewhat related, is add some stat (or use some 
field in the praying skill) that denotes piety.

  Eg, each time you sacrifice stuff, your piety goes up.  Each time you pray 
without sacrificing, your piety goes down.  Some minimum piety is needed to get 
some gifts (eg, you're not going to get the gods weapon if you never do anything).

  Perhaps the kill code can also be modified to check to see if you killed a 
monster of the god - if so, piety also goes up.  In some sense, piety is sort of 
like exp, but less direct in that you can buy it (looking at the catholic 
church, many people are depicted in artwork not because they were really 
religous, but rather because they gave lots of money).

  Either way, it would seem this might be a way to use up some player wealth.

  As an aside, there should also be some cap on how much is actually taken. Eg, 
if a player accidentally drops his stash of gems of flawless beauty, god may 
realize it is a mistake and only 'take' one of them, and not the entire stash). 
  This could also make it a little more convient - drop that pile of platinum, 
and just pray with 100 pp (or whatever) being taken each time, instead of drop, 
pray, drop, pray, etc).