Amulet of faith

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Jewellery
Name	Amulet of faith
Icon

A charm crafted to call the attention of the gods to its wearer. This divine attention makes it easier to please your god, but your god will also take more notice of your transgressions. The amulet will drain some of your divine favour when removed.

Wearing an amulet of faith causes your current god (as well as any former gods you've abandoned) to pay more attention to you, causing the following effects:

Pros

• Piety gain is 25% faster.
• For gods that grant gifts: Once gift timeout = 0, the chance of receiving a gift is increased by 33%.

Cons

• Removing the amulet will result in the loss of one third of your piety, but will never cause excommunication, or drop piety too close to excommunication.
• Having Faith during penance (even if you are currently atheist) will make divine retribution happen 1/3 more often. This ends the penance more quickly, but does so by causing wrath effects to happen more frequently.

Unusual Behavior

• The following gods are not affected, either way:
  • Ashenzari - Only cares for followers binding themselves with curses. A beneficial curse can still be placed on the amulet, but the amulet itself has no benefit.
  • Gozag Ym Sagoz - Gozag cares for nothing but gold!
  • Ignis - Has already offered all the fire that remains.
• The following gods have other behaviors:
  • Ru - Increases the rate at which sacrifices are offered, but slows the rate when removed. No effect at full piety.
  • Xom - Xom's piety fluctuation occurs 33% faster than normal, and it acts more often. Removing the amulet has no consequences.
  • Yredelemnul - Corpses rise 33% more often (to 67%), but takes away some undead (if any) when removed.
• Demigods will "feel a surge of self-confidence" upon putting on an amulet of faith. This has no mechanical benefit, however.
• Mummies already have innate faith, and receive no extra benefit from the amulet.

Strategy

The value of an amulet of faith is entirely dependent on how much use you can get out of your god's piety.

Gods with powerful abilities and/or gifts, such as Nemelex, will obviously see more benefit. When worshipping such gods, faith can be as useful - if not more so - as the other combat-oriented amulets, assuming you are actually using said abilities. Powerful abilities that are unused won't help you. Conversely, gods focusing more on passive abilities, like Vehumet, won't find as much use from this amulet.

The piety cost to remove an amulet of faith can be intimidating, but it can be managed. For gods with finite gifts (Vehumet and Ru), you can take the amulet off after receiving them at minimal cost. For Uskayaw, the piety loss is irrelevant since you'll quickly lose piety out of combat anyway. For other gods, the piety loss - which is entirely voluntary - is rarely devastating. On the other hand, the benefits of wearing faith for an extended period of time can be immense.

History

• Prior to 0.18, this amulet granted a 33% bonus to piety, not a 25% bonus.
• Prior to 0.17, this amulet increased the chance that certain gods might protect you from harm (your piety was treated as being 33% higher for such checks).