Nerf the Nullrod

[Urlance Woolsbane]

 

Preferably by removing it altogether.

 

This topic is absolutely not motivated by that time I was a vampire and I came across the chaplain in maintenance, no siree!

 

I quite like the chaplain role. It adds a nice bit of flavor, and has (in theory) responsibilities which are almost completely roleplay-oriented. The station wouldn't be the same without it. As such, it's a crying shame that it possesses an item which instead encourages it to be the round's designated valid hunter.

 

So... We have an item which not only dampens the powers of cultists and vampires, but also makes an effective weapon in its own right. To make things worse, it can transform into a wide array of outright weapons (don't you need a permit to carry them?) The chaplain's supposed to be the station-equivalent of your parish priest, not Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 

Now, to be clear, I don't mind the Chaplain being able to create holy water, nor its fantastic properties. This fits the role and doesn't make him an actual warrior.

 

I realize this isn't anyone's highest priority, not by a longshot, but the solution is eminently simple.

 

[Spacemanspark]

Honestly, I think the weapons should just be reskins. Perhaps the only thing to change is the size differences, and the ability to put them on your back depending on which one you choose.

[flimflamm]

It's deadlier than an esword. Give a tater version option to chaplains make it do massive brute like it does currently and or just nerf the brute.

[NethIafin]

I think as long as it is NOT a null rod, it should not nullify powers - for balance purposes

[Dinarzad]

 

Honestly, I think the weapons should just be reskins. Perhaps the only thing to change is the size differences, and the ability to put them on your back depending on which one you choose.

 

^ This

The null rod itself is fine, but some of the alternatives you can turn it into add other stuff that make it... interesting. Both for good and for ill (No-drop is a double-edged sword for example.)

 

I think as long as it is NOT a null rod, it should not nullify powers - for balance purposes

Then you may as well remove the alternatives because nobody is ever going to take anything BUT a Null Rod. Imagine playing Chaplain, making your lolzy gimmick set up and then finding out it's a cultist round. Congrats, you just deleted the only way to clean runes away, just to fuck off a bit an have a giggle.

 

The features of an NR are super important, balance wise. Making the alternative skins, into just that, skins, removes some of the other problems and preserves the Chaplain's intended role of being the guy to handle the spoopy supernatural end of things.

 

[Kyet]

 

The Chaplain has many factors that encourage validhunting:

- Easily able to space people (mass driver)

- Easily able to destroy bodies (cremator), and even has a SOP rule giving them explicit permissions to do funerals for anyone who "cannot" be cloned. Nothing says this doesn't apply to DNR people.

- Roundstart weapon (null rod)

- Weapon (null rod) that can be customized to have any one of a number of beneficial effects, from being undisarmable, to penetrating armor, to being a space-chainsaw.

- Has a weapon (nullrod) and item (holywater) which are extremely effective against several types of antags (vampires, cultists, revenant, etc), often uniquely effective.

- Is immune to being a vampire or cultist, which ensures they're typically trusted by security in any situation where these antagonists are around, or suspected to be around.

- Has most of their area as "blessed ground" which protects them on their home turf against vampires, and means vampires are brought to them for testing.

- Has maint access and almost no demands placed on them, giving them no reason not to wander maint looking for trouble.

- Has a rule in their SOP prohibiting the use of the null rod except in self-defense, but this is rarely enforced. Command/sec won't turn down the help, even if the Chaplain is breaking SOP and Space Law.

- Has a full riot suit (named "templar armor", but actually a subtype of sec's riot suit!) in their locker at round start. Roundstart riot armor!

- Can self-heal at will with their bible. Can heal other people, too.

- Can acquire immunity to space by choosing to play a Vox chaplain, including immunity to space carp by choosing the carp-based version of the null rod. As far as I am aware, this is the ONLY way to become immune to space carp, which are perhaps the most commonly encountered hostile NPC in the game.

- Is the only job that gets its own definition file in the code, due to how many roundstart options it has: https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradis ... haplain.dm -- not even Captain or the Centcom jobs get this treatment.

- Is almost never held accountable by their head of staff. Security officers who screw up can be demoted. I can't remember ever seeing a chaplain demoted for validhunting / being too aggressive.

 

Right now, chaplains are effectively crusaders / knights templar, not priests.

Not due to any one, single cause, but rather due a combination of all the above factors.

 

Yes, the null rod was ported from another codebase (TG: https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/4505 ), but TG is lower RP than we're meant to be, and their influence shows.

 

Ideas for fixing chaplain:

- Add paranormal ERTs. Only paranormal ERTs get the full null rod. Normal chaplains get a weaker version.

- Split the chaplain into two jobs. Priest and Prison Chaplain. Priest spawns where current chaplain does, but doesn't get a null rod at all. Prison Chaplain is rather like Brig Physician, getting a full null rod, but they answer to security. They also help keep an eye on the brig, and talk to prisoners. Might also have the benefit of reducing brig boredom for prisoners.

- Start enforcing anti-validhunting rules against chaplains who validhunt.

- Remove their immunity to being vampires, cultists, etc. Lore-wise, their faith is strong, but not so strong that they can resist Nar'Sie magic or hostile bluespace entities. They're priests, not wizards. This makes those antags slightly more powerful, and also ensures security won't *always* give the chaplain the benefit of the doubt, so it reduces their license to validhunt.

- Remove their maintenance access, so they're not cruising maint all round.

- Move their templar armor to the brig, so they have to ask security if they want to use it. Or make it an item ordered from cargo. Or make it only accessible/usable on red alert.

- Make the null rod an item ordered from cargo. This way, when one chaplain cryos, and a second one joins, the second one can still get a rod. Also, chaplains don't get a powerful weapon at roundstart, but can still get one in an emergency. Even if chaplains order it every round, at least it gives cargo something to do.

- Add mechanics that support chaplain RP and provision of religious services. E.g: all characters, not just chaplains, can select a religion, and chaplains can offer services in that religion once or twice per round (AOE spell-like ability). When activated, everyone in the area gets a small bonus that lasts for 15 minutes. People of the same faith as the chaplain get double the bonus. This would make chaplains useful for blessing a squad of officers before they enter combat - not just wading in swinging a nullrod themselves. Perhaps you have to be inducted by a chaplain in the round before you can pray - or you can pray without it but your inducted/not status is visible to admins and might make the difference between your prayer being granted or not.

- Another example: chaplains could have a 'convert' spell which, after a delay, converts adjacent humanoids to the chaplain's faith. The recipient has to accept this before they can be converted, and if they decline, they can't be prompted again for the rest of the round. The chaplain could have a job objective to convert at least 20% of the station to their faith using this method. Conversion to the chaplain's faith doesn't have anything to do with being an antag, and does NOT give any mechanical benefits - its just a fun RP mechanic that lets the chaplain try to spread the word of whatever religion the chaplain character has.

 

[Monstrant]

 

^^

I agree so here is how I would do it:

Add new role called the Inquisitor, they have the powerful null rod which can be weaponized whilst the priest/chaplain get the one which can only be transformed into beads, staves and other defencive stuff ( Priest's rod is obviously lower damage. ) The choices for the religion bible all lay on Priest and the Inquisitor answers to both the Priest and the HoS. Priest does not have armor! Instead they get faith upgrades based on amount of people converted which strengthen heals, allow more effectively to purify evil. The Inquisitor does not get that. He only has immunity to bad stuff but cannot upgrade in the way Priest can. That way it is more rewarding to be the Priest in the long run but those who want to really help security as the divine warrior can still exist and face the same penalizations as the Sec Officers ( easy way of granting chaplain's powers ( the job definition file the one people complain about ) because often chaplain doses off somewhere and voil la no new chaplain no new powers. ) So there is incentive in playing both RP/faith mode and Combat/anti antag mode. What do you think?

 

[Doukan]

 

Armour aside (half as good as riot gear FFS) the items are fine, the chef has access to deadlier armament and there's no problems with that, it's the playstyle that needs fixing. No more hugboxing please it never ends well and would kill the SS13 magic.

 

The only problem with chaplains is that they're allowed to get away with too much because "it's their role lol".

The admins need to come down on valid hunting chappies and the people who enable them (looking at you wardens) like a tonne of bricks, then the problem would go away. We're now in the days of geared-up chaplains leading gangs of sec officers through maint hunting slings, this should not be a thing but is allowed for some reason.

It's only really been a thing since we got the templar armour anyway.

 

My suggestion would be to leave the rod alone (it's a niche item that's no more or less than robust than any other "weapons grade" item like spears/ghetto chainsaws/kitchen knives), make the templar armour hazard vest tier (or at least sec vest tier instead of half as good as riot gear, it should keep it's protection from unholyness though), and give the chaplain an official role in SoP as a priest and councillor who may or may not be Van Helsing but is still bound by space law regardless.

 

They should get a lot of leeway when it comes to vamps/cultists/spookyness but seeing as we're only seeing powergaming assholes who act against the likes of clings and traitors just as much some suffering is needed.

 

Not so ninja edit: Just to add on to what I said above, if you do what I do and ghost frequently you notice the same names popping up in jobs like RD and chaplain, and the same validy borderline assy behavour.

I'm probably just self reinforcing but it seems to support that it's the players behind it abusing the potential for the job that's at issue and not the job itself, we had an identical problem at one time with backup captain HoPcurity and detecturity which has largely since vanished into the ether following stricter rules enforcement.

 

[Monstrant]

 

^^

 

Wait, validhunting is basically going into maint in NON vampire/cult rounds and slamming traitors clings and shadows? Well if they are the antagonists they have to suffer and the chaplain decided to cosplay the paladin whats wrong with that ( No irony I really dont understamd )

 

[Machofish]

 

While I personally think the nullrod is heavily misused, nerfing it into the ground or outright removing it seems a bit over-the-top.

 

Doing some code digging, apparently the nullrod does a stupidly high amount of damage - if I'm looking at the most up-to-date codepage, it seems that most of the nullrod alternatives do around 50% more damage than an average harmbaton swing. That. Is. Ridiculous. Tack on that the nullrod disrupts vamp powers and has lots of other utility functions, and the base of the matter is that it's currently too lethal and versatile to be a default piece of gear that gets dropped in the lap of a non-security, non-command role at round start. I'd argue that the nullrod should keep all of its utility functions, but the absurd damage it inflicts should be halved or even quartered so that it's primarily considered to be a tool with specific uses, rather than a flat-out weapon. Similarly, I agree that the riot-armor crusader gear is a little too over the top.

 

The nullrod's protection against vampire powers and cult magic is invaluable - particularly, it's one of the few remaining options when the cult has become powerful and set up a teleport-rune stronghold outside the station's z-level, and when facing a vampire who inevitably manages to loot equipment from the walking pinatas stupid security officers.

 

I personally think it was a bad idea to add all the sword alternatives to the null rod - most of them aren't even clearly religious in nature. Just off the top of my head, I've seen a claymore, a talking sword, a multiverse sword, and the dark energy sword. If the base damage of the null rod was reduced so it wasn't such an absurdly fearsome weapon in its own right, and we got rid of the extraneous, non-religious null rod replacements, perhaps there would be fewer instances of Chaplains who go rolling around in maint trying to grab some Valids. I believe the presence of the null rod should still make them immune to vampire powers or cult magic - there's plenty of ways in SS13 to murder a wayward Chaplain without needing to resort to cheap tricks, and murdering the chaplain as a cultist or vampire is rightfully a feat reserved only for the robust.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

^^

 

Wait, validhunting is basically going into maint in NON vampire/cult rounds and slamming traitors clings and shadows? Well if they are the antagonists they have to suffer and the chaplain decided to cosplay the paladin whats wrong with that ( No irony I really dont understamd )

NO.

 

[Shadeykins]

 

^^

 

Wait, validhunting is basically going into maint in NON vampire/cult rounds and slamming traitors clings and shadows? Well if they are the antagonists they have to suffer and the chaplain decided to cosplay the paladin whats wrong with that ( No irony I really dont understamd )

NO.

 

Sparky here didn't really answer the question very well (No can be interpreted in two ways here).

 

Yes, that is more or less validhunting. When you are going out of your way to hunt antagonists to valid kill them as a non-security role, it's considered validhunting.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

^^

 

Wait, validhunting is basically going into maint in NON vampire/cult rounds and slamming traitors clings and shadows? Well if they are the antagonists they have to suffer and the chaplain decided to cosplay the paladin whats wrong with that ( No irony I really dont understamd )

NO.

 

Sparky here didn't really answer the question very well (No can be interpreted in two ways here).

 

Yes, that is more or less validhunting. When you are going out of your way to hunt antagonists to valid kill them as a non-security role, it's considered validhunting.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

 

[Doukan]

 

While I personally think the nullrod is heavily misused, nerfing it into the ground or outright removing it seems a bit over-the-top.

 

Doing some code digging, apparently the nullrod does a stupidly high amount of damage - if I'm looking at the most up-to-date codepage, it seems that most of the nullrod alternatives do around 50% more damage than an average harmbaton swing. That. Is. Ridiculous.

Here are the PRs in case anyone is wondering.

 

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/4505

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/4551

 

The null rod proper is actually the most robust option in terms of pure damage dealing a whopping 18 brute (comparable to a sharpened kitchen knife/wielded spear, minus the cutting, or an unsharpened cleaver).

The other options are more gimmicky with specific drawbacks/utilities and usually deal 15 (identical to a kitchen knife/strike from a pickaxe), for reference most "robust" commonly available items ala toolboxes and fire extinguishers deal 10, things like wrenches deal 5, while something like an e-sword does 20-25.

 

IMO as a unique item for a unique role the damage/utilities are justifiable, especially seeing as pretty much all the rest of round-start power lies with sec/command. They're no more dangerous than anything science can print off 20 minutes into the round or what any greyshirt can stick together with crap laying around tool storage/steal from the kitchen. The reskins are !!fun!! too.

 

[Monstrant]

 

While I personally think the nullrod is heavily misused, nerfing it into the ground or outright removing it seems a bit over-the-top.

 

Doing some code digging, apparently the nullrod does a stupidly high amount of damage - if I'm looking at the most up-to-date codepage, it seems that most of the nullrod alternatives do around 50% more damage than an average harmbaton swing. That. Is. Ridiculous.

Here are the PRs in case anyone is wondering.

 

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/4505

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/4551

 

The null rod proper is actually the most robust option in terms of pure damage dealing a whopping 18 brute (comparable to a sharpened kitchen knife/wielded spear, minus the cutting, or an unsharpened cleaver).

The other options are more gimmicky with specific drawbacks/utilities and usually deal 15 (identical to a kitchen knife/strike from a pickaxe), for reference most "robust" commonly available items ala toolboxes and fire extinguishers deal 10, things like wrenches deal 5, while something like an e-sword does 20-25.

 

IMO as a unique item for a unique role the damage/utilities are justifiable, especially seeing as pretty much all the rest of round-start power lies with sec/command. They're no more dangerous than anything science can print off 20 minutes into the round or what any greyshirt can stick together with crap laying around tool storage/steal from the kitchen. The reskins are !!fun!! too.

 

I fully agree here. Keep it as it is give chaplain something else to do and problem would self resolve. Also I think at least personally that paladin mind set is justified and should NOT be taken as valid hunting a sort of holy security if you will. In fact making that official will be fun. Yes traitor chaplain is nice but I feel that this is more important. ( Though I love the traitor item I would gladly sacrifice it for sorts of mind shield. ) Or New role can be made but well it is pointless because it is the SAME thing just called DIFFERENT. And nerfing it to the ground would at least for me kill all of the fun stuff in chaplain. Chaplain is not pure PR or mostly RP little utility chaplain is power hidden within faith under the seal of morality and the more chaos there is the weaker that seal is.