Unarmed with Ashenzari

[XuaXua]

Niche case: if you play unarmed with Ashenzari, you cannot ever become fully bound since you always have at least one hand free.

Is this a niche case, or is there a way this can be overlooked through analysis of skill values?

[Klown]

"unarmed can never have nice things because it gets kind of good 20 hours into the game when you hit 27 UC skill." - DCSS philosophy.

[jejorda2]

You can wield a cursed weapon (or weapon and shield) and cast blade hands (or certain other transmutations) every time you fight to get the skill boost.

[Igxfl]

Unarmed is good later on, and Ashenzari is good mid-to-late game even with a slot missing.

It's initially getting rolling with UC^Ash that I'd worry about, not whether it eventually becomes late-game optimal.

[damiac]

"unarmed can never have nice things because it gets kind of good 20 hours into the game when you hit 27 UC skill." - DCSS philosophy.

Yeah... I really don't get why unarmed gets any special disadvantages. Its advantage is that you start with the weapon (at the cost of it utterly sucking at low skill levels). Its other advantage is that at 27 skill, it just barely outdamages a top tier 2 hander(the 2 hander only needs 24 skill or so)

Its sort of like saying fire magic should be weaker if you have a shield, because firestorm is highly damaging.

I can sort of be ok with shields having extra effect on UC, as 2 handed melee users (except FO) can't use a shield.

But the extra delay from armor makes no sense at all. Why is there a special case disadvantage to the one melee skill that sucks throughout the parts of the game that matter?(because at 27 skill, you're already past the hard part). Not to mention, how would an unspoiled user ever understand why their unarmed attacks are taking randomly different amounts of time?

[Lyrick]

Unarmed also has support from lots of transmutations, blade hands, statue form, and dragon form are massively powerful with regards to UC users

Its not like being fully bound has that much of an advantage over being seriously bound either, unless you were concerned about missing a critical 0.2 skill levels in everything. And the increased rate of piety replenishment is not terribly exciting, even playing my vampire enchanters with a trigger finger on scry never caused piety to dip to 5 stars.

Most importantly, you have no weapon for Xom to swap.

[Igxfl]

What if we just had have Unarmed work normally with armour?
Forms usually merge your armour anyway, if you're using those.

[dck]

it's more like saying that without claws or forms you can punch the crap out of everything for 18 skill and if you want to kill faster you can invest more.
Also the part about it sucking completely during the early game isn't a fair approach; you start out weaponless if your background had no UC option, but quickly skill gained turns your fists into a decently enchanted mid-weapon and at high(<20) level of skill you have the equivalent of a well enchanted greatsword.
All of this without any other requirement than training more, so you don't have to worry about actually finding and enchanting weapons and indeed early on there is a significantly less random factor to how good your offense is going to be.

[damiac]

Yeah, that's true Dck, that's what makes up for UC's weak early power curve compared to melee weapons, the guarantee of availability. But that doesn't explain why UC has to have an additional malus from wearing armor. The Ash thing is just another random disadvantage UC gets (although it's easy to understand why, mechanically).

[XuaXua]

What if, while under Ashenzari only, Curse Weapon scrolls would "bind hands" if you have nothing held when they are read?

[dck]

and indeed early on there is a significantly less random factor to how good your offense is going to be.

It interacts strangely with ash because ash is a god built upon a strange mechanic and the resulting interaction between UC and him isn't particularly bad (even offers interesting choices at times) so there isn't much of a perceived need to change it.
In practice the penalty from armor doesn't matter as well, so that's also why there isn't much perceived need to change it either. If I was to take a shot in the dark I'd guess it was a long time ago related to a concept of monks and never saw further development.

[FishServ]

Why would you ever want to curse your weapon hand when enhancer staves, rods, blowguns, (good) decks, crossbows, and the -3 short sword of Situational Usefulness (+Blink +Fly Sinv) exist?

[Sar]

Early in the game, a cursed weapon is probably the best way to get a decent piety flow. Sadly, early in the game is also when stuff like blowguns will help you the most, but oh well. Later in the game, it's less important, but I still usually left it cursed. Blowguns are nice and always a sad thing to lose when you have curare, but I rarely use other wieldable stuff you mentioned.

[Siegurt]

Proposal:

New Item: Cestus, occupies both 'glove' and 'weapon' slot, two-handed, uses UC skill, cannot be branded, add 2 to base unarmed combat (equivalent to claws:1) does not stack with claws (suppresses claws:1 and 2, can't be used with claws:3), can be cursed. Can be 'enchant armour'd like normal gloves but not 'enchant weapon'd at all.

[tompliss]

proposal : rename Cestus => "Spiked Gloves".

[XuaXua]

Why would you ever want to curse your weapon hand when enhancer staves, rods, blowguns, (good) decks, crossbows, and the -3 short sword of Situational Usefulness (+Blink +Fly Sinv) exist?

For the same reason any other worshiper of Ashenzari curses their weapon. What, do no one play fully-bound?

proposal : rename Cestus => "Spiked Gloves".

Brass knuckles.