X-post from Reddit:
NinjaGamer1337 (OP): Each Alignment could be locked behind a boss/raid drop or quest. For example, you could add the Tumekinian and Xerician ones to ToA and CoX respectively. The Serenist Alignment could be a reward from SoTE or Gauntlet.
Alignments would be untradeable unlike the Prayer Scrolls and would be permanent unlocks.
Swapping Alignments would requiring praying at any altar with a piece of that God's equipment on (I.e. praying at an altar with a Zamorakian spear for instance). This requirement could be dropped if it's too annoying, but swapping Alignments would require an altar no matter what.
Each Alignment would have 4 prayers, and most Gods have both Combat and Non-Combat Prayers.
Each Alignment would be useful for a different piece of content or play style, requiring you to swap before combat or bossing. For example the Bandosian Hammer prayer might increase the damage of 2h weapons or the Armadylian Bird prayer might increase one handed ranged weapon attack range by two tiles. Do you want to bring the Xerician Deflect prayers or the Zamorakian stat boost prayers? The choice is yours.
The issue with the Ruinous Powers was that they replaced the existing prayer book. Most combat in OSRS is built around the prayer book, so the Ruinous Powers had to emulate a lot of the features from the original prayer book. RS3's Curses fell into the same issue, and ended up just becoming a superior version of the prayer book.
Instead of the Ruinous Powers replacing the OG prayer book, turning them into an Alignment you can use alongside the original prayers makes them a useful unlock without devaluing existing prayers. Plus, new Alignments can be introduced to expand reward spaces and diversify gameplay. It's horizontal progression, not vertical.
Also forgot to mention but I added Trinitas to the default Prayer book. It's a fun prayer and I feel it should just be a base prayer unlocked after DT2. Plus it completes the final row of the book making everything look neat :D
Ideas for each God Alignment:
These are just concepts, they might be dumb or wacky. The core suggestion is the idea of God Alignments, what Jagex does with them is up to them. These are just my ideas, please don't downvote the post because you don't like a specific Prayer here lol.
Guthixian
Superheat Form: Burn logs, ores and fish for firemaking, smithing and cooking xp
Metabolise: Can attack 1 tick faster after eating food. Food with multiple pieces (cake, pies, etc) heal for +10%
Sap/Leech Magic: Drain the enemies Magic level (Possibly boost yours? Not sure how balanced that'd be)
Edicts: Overhead. Creates a 3x3 dome around yourself that reduces damage taken for all players inside.
Serenist
Hymn of the Cryws: Reduces chance for tree/ore/fish/herb to deplete while harvesting.
Endurance of the Traehern: Grants a chance to automatically smelt mined ores into bars and fished fish into cooked fish.
Faith of the Hefin: Use special attack/run energy (I can't decide) as prayer points, with a conversion ratio.
Curiosity of the Meilyr: Grants a chance to skip a step while doing a clue. Gain a large stat boost whilst fighting Clue Guardians.
Tumekenian
I don't know what to do for this one, suggest ideas below
Xerician
As you have access to the existing Protection Prayers alongside the alignment, deflect prayers are no longer an overhead. You can use just the deflect prayer or just the protection prayers. Using a deflect prayer visually changes your protection prayer, but it doesn't count as one.
Deflect Magic: Reflect 10% of Magic damage taken back to enemy. Not an overhead. Cannot be combined with other deflects.
Deflect Ranged: Reflect 10% of Ranged damage taken back to enemy. Not an overhead. Cannot be combined with other deflects.
Deflect Melee: Reflect 10% of Melee damage taken back to enemy. Not an overhead. Cannot be combined with other deflects.
Rebuke: Reflect 3.33% of all damage taken back to enemy. Not an overhead. Cannot be combined with other deflects
Saradominist
Fortitude: Boost defence by 20% and grants 3% damage reduction. Not compatible with other stat boost prayers. Defence boost increased while welding a shield.
Vindication: While active, any player that falls below 10% of their max hp within 3 tiles is healed for 35% of your base prayer. Your prayer points are then drained to 0.
Sap/Leech Warrior: Drain the enemies Attack and Strength level (Possibly boost yours? not sure how balanced that'd be)
Safeguard: Protection an additional item on death. Can be used alongside Protect item. Overhead
Zamorakian
Decimate: Melee stat boost. No defence boost
Annihilate: Ranged stat boost. No Defence boost
Vaporise. Magic stat boost. No defence boost
Allahu Akbar Zamorak Wrath: Deal damage in a 5x5 area when you die equal to 25% of your prayer level. Overhead
Armadylian
Sight of Armadyl: While attacking with Ranged, gain bonus accuracy based the distance between you and the target.
Grace of the Aviansie: Use prayer points as run energy. Restore run energy after killing a monster.
Sap/Leech ranged: Drain the enemies Ranged level (Possibly boost yours? not sure how balanced that'd be)
Rejuvenation: Restore your hitpoints based on your prayer bonus divided by 5. (30 prayer bonus = 6x faster hp regen for example)
Bandosian
Purge: Reduce the player's and the opponents prayer points by 33% of damage dealt. Overhead.
Berserker: Boosted combat stats last 50% longer.
Sap/Leech Defence: Drain the enemies Defence level (Possibly boost yours? not sure how balanced that'd be)
Siege: Gain bonus accuracy with slow weapons. Incompatible with other stat boost prayers.
These are just ideas, the main post is about the Alignments themselves not the prayers
There could even be two alignments per god, a combat and a skilling one. That way there's a diverse amount of prayers for everyone
Mod Kieren: Think this is genuinely a brilliant idea - we're going to stick with no new prayers for Desert Treasure II but we're absolutely not closed to new prayers. This has given some really good food for thought on how we look at it in future.
After reading a lot of the commentary on here and other platforms I was getting more keen on the idea of new prayers added to the regular book rather than new prayer books - this takes that just to a new level.
Will continue mulling this over!
think the key thing is the game combat wise is so heavily built upon the core of the existing prayer book - meaning you have to have something that feels very similar on a new prayer book. This was really difficult to introduce without it feeling meh, power creeping almost needlessly or worsening 'chip damage' like things.
This would allow us to avoid those issues and genuinely introduce the player choice we wanted with having a new prayer book.
Thanks for the thoughts, will keep this thread in mind (I've saved it) for when we look at prayers again.
