STicky flame

[delarado]

This is stupid.

What the F^"£$^£"$ are you supposed to do when you get sticky flamed.

Twice in this game I have been sticky flamed by something from around the corner, and I just have to watch every scroll I own burn. You cannot drop them faster than they burn. You cannot put the fire out. What can I do about it?

[Amnesiac]

Wear a mottled dragon armour. To be honest, I hate it, too, and I have complained at least in one GDD post about it, but it's still there, so... Now I just prefer mottled dragon armour to any other armour on most characters and why not, it has an ok AC and you also can dodge. It is quite a good armour, anyway and it's my favourite dragon armour.

[delarado]

There should be some fix for it. Even if it takes multiple turns, you should be able to get rid of it, like a potion of curing cures confusion.

I have lost 2 scrolls of blinking, 3 scrolls of teleportation, and many others just clearing D:27 because of mottled draconians.

The only fix for this is simply "dont carry scrolls" which is not a good compromise IMO.

I have done:

D27/27
Elf2/3
Snake4/5
Blade1/1
Lair8/8
Orc4/4
shoals4/5
vaults4/5

And I have no amulet of conservation.

The fix for this stupid scroll destruction cannot be "stay more than 6 tiles away" because A melee character cannot kill a mottled draconian from +6 tiles away really. ITs not even a case of changing tactic, you just can't...Short of quaffing potion of speed and grabbing every wand of cold and magic darts I have and using those, your only option is to kill them and watch all of your scrolls burn.

Come on, who agrees with this? Surely other people have had this problem?

p.s Im a gargoyle in a randart crystal plate mail with 65AC. MDA isnt an option!

[Siegurt]

If you step it to shallow water it is extinguished, not that that's terribly helpful most of the time.

[Mankeli]

Wear a mottled dragon armour. To be honest, I hate it, too, and I have complained at least in one GDD post about it, but it's still there, so... Now I just prefer mottled dragon armour to any other armour on most characters and why not, it has an ok AC and you also can dodge. It is quite a good armour, anyway and it's my favourite dragon armour.

You can still lose scrolls even with MDA but you don't get that "Fire" status which is the main killer of scrolls.

[Amnesiac]

You can still lose scrolls even with MDA but you don't get that "Fire" status which is the main killer of scrolls.

well yes, but with conservation/preservation the chance is even smaller and you'll lose like one scroll instead of 20

MDA isnt an option!

Why is that? It's an option exactly because you are a Gr with a lot of AC. You'll have like 50 AC but a lot more EV, especially if you train dodging and gain Dex on levelups. You should enchant it to +6, of course.

Maybe if we all wear a MDA devs will do something

[delarado]

You can still lose scrolls even with MDA but you don't get that "Fire" status which is the main killer of scrolls.

well yes, but with conservation/preservation the chance is even smaller and you'll lose like one scroll instead of 20

MDA isnt an option!

Why is that? It's an option exactly because you are a Gr with a lot of AC. You'll have like 50 AC but a lot more EV, especially if you train dodging and gain Dex on levelups.

Maybe if we all wear a MDA devs will do something

Because the solution to something should be to completely nerf your character

Maybe AC will be almost comparable, but GDR will be nothing like.

[Amnesiac]

Nah it won't be critical. Gr has innate gdr, too, afaik

[zugundertherug]

If you've got a phial of floods, you can create emergency water to put out the flames. Of course remembering that this is an option is another matter, let my scrolls burn a couple of times when a phial was available.

[BlackSheep]

Other options include: train stealth, learn summon butterflies

[variouselite]

Its a function of the game, I agree that it is brutal, but if youre playing crawl enough to get stickyflamed you must have at least some appreciation for the fact that the game can be brutal. Its what makes the game fascinating, and so endlessly entertaining to me anyway. You lose concentration for half a sec or you fail to anticipate the abilities of a monster you could potentially face and you get bent the fork over. Thats why we dont get bored with this game when we do with so many others, it doesnt hold our hand. I dont know though, maybe a fix/change/etc is in order here, maybe there could be a very rare "bag" or cloak or even maybe a random property that could give you (extra) resistance against your scrolls getting burned. I just like how brutally "realistic" the game tries to be and it seems pretty realistic that some ancient dry paper you have in your bag/pockets would get burned if you were drenched in napalm(as it were).

Ive played some other roguelikes where cloaks(with FR) gave a bonus to scrolls check against getting burned up, i think thats a pretty fair idea(if the cloak is FR and its at least mostly wrapped around you, fire isnt exactly getting through(with full power).

[Amnesiac]

clothes and books should burn, too

[variouselite]

maybe they should, but if you toss a heavy oldschool item of clothing, damp with your sweat into a fire, or a heavybound book the same, its not exactly gonna just poof like some dry paper will. you know?

[Bloax]

Its a function of the game, I agree that it is brutal, but if youre playing crawl enough to get stickyflamed you must have at least some appreciation for the fact that the game can be brutal. Its what makes the game fascinating, and so endlessly entertaining to me anyway. You lose concentration for half a sec or you fail to anticipate the abilities of a monster you could potentially face and you get bent the fork over.

Losing all your scrolls is just plain annoying. It'll reduce your possibilities for escape, sure - but it's not very avoidable.
Zot:5 and no conservation? Say goodbye to all your scrolls. Unless you drop a good portion of them, which you should. Because degenerate behaviour is discouraged.
And nothing quite beats the annoyance of seeing the limited consumables you've scrapped together throughout the game all turning to smoke because "haha fuk u".

I'm not even going to start on the realm of "All Your Scrolls Turn To ..." Smoke Demons known as "The Pandemonium". (Population: Neqoxecs, smoke demons, smoke demons)

You can still lose scrolls even with MDA but you don't get that "Fire" status which is the main killer of scrolls.

well yes, but with conservation/preservation the chance is even smaller and you'll lose like one scroll instead of 20

MDA isnt an option!

Why is that?

Conservation is far from guaranteed, and to get MDA you have to kill up to several mottled dragons.
All of whom have a very good chance to cover you with "NO SCROLLS ALLOWED" Flame. In which case you'll lose a good chunk of your scrolls already.

Spoiler: show

rant warning

Zot is my most hated area of the game, not because of things like Killer Klowns, Tentacled Monstrosities or the legendary Orbs of Fire - no. It's because of DRACONIANS.
Draconians are those little pricks that like to spam their breath ability at you, so much that they at times just straight up stand waiting in the distance for it to recharge.
Oh, and their breaths include "Flame cloud somehow always happening to be on your position", "Sticky flame", "Potion shattering" and "Corrode equipment".
They also come packed with spells like "Spam death drakes", "Blink other", "Crystal spear", "Smite"+"Hellfire burst", and the famous "Hellfire"+"Sticky flame"+"Hellfire burst" combo.

[variouselite]

I hear you man. Im not saying I think its fair or something that I would be upset about being changed. Why did you quote part of my post there though? it doesn't really seem like you said anything in relation to the quoted portion. I basically agree with you anyway, all I am saying is that sometimes things like this make a game *more* enjoyable, in a twisted sadistic way. Theres plenty of games out there that make everything simple and easy if thats what you like. I like dcss *because* its sadistic.

[Bloax]

Early morning speech, most likely. "Except losing all your scrolls is just plain annoying. It'll reduce your possibilities of escape, sure - but it's not very avoidable or difficult or anything. Just plain annoying." Sounds more like it.

[ontoclasm]

A melee character cannot kill a mottled draconian from +6 tiles away really

Oh, a melee character. How unfortunate that wands and crossbows and javelins and god abilities and corners and elemental evokers and scrolls of fog/fear and rods and magic are all completely off-limits to one of those!

[zugundertherug]

Oh, a melee character. How unfortunate that wands and crossbows and javelins and god abilities and corners and elemental evokers and scrolls of fog/fear and rods and magic are all completely off-limits to one of those!

In all fairness if you're talking about an early mottled dragon scrolls/wands are likely the only viable ranged options for a melee char, and even then only fear/blinking is guaranteed to instantly work (a cold wand will probably take 2-3 shots at low evoc, assuming you've got one). Corners obviously depend on where the dragon was encountered.

[and into]

Oh, a melee character. How unfortunate that wands and crossbows and javelins and god abilities and corners and elemental evokers and scrolls of fog/fear and rods and magic are all completely off-limits to one of those!

In all fairness if you're talking about an early mottled dragon scrolls/wands are likely the only viable ranged options for a melee char, and even then only fear/blinking is guaranteed to instantly work (a cold wand will probably take 2-3 shots at low evoc, assuming you've got one). Corners obviously depend on where the dragon was encountered.

Right, but delarado was complaining about clearning D27... probably had/should have had a way to deal with it. Of course, sheer bad luck means you can still get pegged with sticky flame despite good play. All the same... on D27, you can take losing some blinking and teleport scrolls.

[zugundertherug]

Right, but delarado was complaining about clearning D27

Ah did not see that.

[minstrel]

I agree, sticky flame isn't so much a threat as a nuisance. If it had the same chance each round (or maybe a little less) of destroying scrolls as a normal fire spell, I'd be fine with it. As is, it so drastically puts your items at risk that it encourages dull gameplay - retreat around a corner to hit "d?", kill the otherwise easy monster, go back and ",a", or at higher levels just don't even bother carrying an entire class of items in zot.

[delarado]

Just because something CAN be dealt with, doesn't mean it should remain unchanged.

I CAN deal with a boss at work that cusses me out all day long, but that doesn't mean I should have to.

Walking around a corner in a tight corridor to be set on fire and lose half of your scrolls is not fun, or adding in any way to the experience of the game. It is unavoidable, and stupid.

I'm not saying remove it, i'm just saying rework it slightly so SOMETHING can be done about it. at the moment there is only one way to deal with it, once its happened - and that is rare to spawn. This needs to be changed IMO, but obviously nobody agrees with me.

The next time you play, I hope you walk around a corner and get set on fire by a lone mottled something and lose your scrolls so you feel my pain!

If I had any opportunity to deal with it, i'd agree with you. But I didnt, and often don't. Making someone read teleportation, quaff speed and run away from an otherwise easy pack of monsters just to save some scrolls is not a fun mechanic. It doesn't need removal, it needs to have some way to deal with it thats not an amulet of conservation. I still like my idea of waiting in place while on fire stopping the item destruction.

Imagine if there was no potion of cure mutation and everyone said "just kill mutation capable monsters from out of LOS"...

But as mentioned, everyone is so divided on this, I'll just deal with it

[Sandman25]

Actually I agree with you but I suggest you to change attitude to it. Being adjacent to Mottle Dragon is like being adjacent to Neqoxec - you can do little about it. Fire Crab is even worse since you cannot dodge fireballs which leave flaming clouds. Games without conservation are special and this is good for variety reasons, don't have too many scrolls and expect them to be lost eventually (I lost all my scrolls and almost all potions in Pan, for example).