Rework the Scroll of Noise

[XuaXua]

First off, the NEW Scrolls of Immolation should be auto-pickup; they've saved my ass more often than not. That said, I think the scroll of Noise should be reworked in the same vein. Currently, it is just 't, t', but I feel it should have some fun utility.

Reading Noise could have some effects, like causing minor torment-like damage due to the sound , possibly killing rats in the process. It could be so loud the entire floor wakes up. It could be used to negate an approaching silence.

Ideas, or leave it as-is?

[WalkerBoh]

I think scroll of noise and fear should just be combined so that scroll of fear results in noise + fear. I agree with you that scroll of noise is pointless as it stands.

[Wahaha]

It breaks mesmerize and I use it for that purpose sometimes. Only a niche use obviously.

[Amnesiac]

I think scroll of noise and fear should just be combined so that scroll of fear results in noise + fear. I agree with you that scroll of noise is pointless as it stands.

what's the point in combining fear and noise if you need fear to scare away enemies and noise just draws more

[epsilon]

Reading Noise could have some effects, like causing minor torment-like damage due to the sound , possibly killing bats in the process.

ftfy

Expanding idea of waking whole level, scroll could produce sound for a few turns, dragging every monster on a level like Mark effect, but not to player - to the point where scroll was used. This way it could be useful for moving enemies away from stairs, or luring them into a corridor in a situation where you'll fight them all at once anyway (like Elf:3). As a bonus, it can block any silence and mesmerize effect while it actually making noise.

[dck]

There was a spell called projected noise that did basically the first half of this but a lot better and it was awful and silly.

[Galefury]

As a spell it was bad, but it would maybe be okay as a consumable.

[XuaXua]

As a spell it was bad, but it would maybe be okay as a consumable.

I agree with this.
If it had the effect of creating an area of continual sound in the spot it was read, attracting monsters, that would be pretty neat.
It should also continue to be applicable against mesmerize, possibly for the duration.
I do wonder if it would fight silence, or if silence would overpower it. I suspect silence would overpower (as in, work the same as-is).

That said, does silence currently consume a projected noise?

[Galefury]

There currently is no projected noise.

[XuaXua]

There currently is no projected noise.

OK, when Projected Noise was around, did silence consume it? As in, if Projected Noise was around, and it was removed from the codebase, but the patches that removed it might actually still exist, and if Projected Noise was the way to go with the scroll, were all the pieces in play back then, or would new additional coding be needed to code for the Silence case??

[galehar]

If it had the effect of creating an area of continual sound in the spot it was read, attracting monsters, that would be pretty neat.

This is almost exactly what it's doing now. I don't see how making its effect last a few turns would change anything. Monsters which hear the noise come to the source. The other ones don't come and are very unlikely to hear it a few turns later. Also, it already has a pretty good range. What's the point of changing it to wake whole level instead of "only" half the level?

There was a spell called projected noise that did basically the first half of this but a lot better and it was awful and silly.

The problem with projected noise is that you could use it to attracts monsters away from you. It's not that simple with ?noise.

[1010011010]

Should all scrolls be useful? Scroll of random uselessness could have more effects like butterflies and less cantrips.

[BlackSheep]

I always thought it would be neat if a scroll of noise would scare away things of animal intelligence (or less). Apart from that, the only other crawl effect I could think of to tie to loud noise would be dazing. Then just rename it to scroll of flashbang and start fights with it.

[Leafsnail]

How about combining fear and noise to make a "Scroll of Scary Noise" (IE, a noise that causes monsters to move away from it)? That would be pretty useful for reducing the heat on you but not overpowered for a consumable.

[and into]

Scroll of fear is not OP, though, and doesn't need a nerf making it noisy.

I think current scroll of noise is fine, it means there is some small risk to read-IDing in certain situations, kind of like how potions of mutation punish (potentially much more severely) quaff IDing. Scrolls of random uselessness are actually worse (from a design perspective), in my opinion, but I think it is fine to have those too. Once these scrolls are IDed they don't serve any purpose, aside from the small chance at summon butterflies from ?RU. But noise has a (small) risk factor attached for when they aren't yet IDed. Immolation used to do that; now it can be potentially a bit dangerous, but it isn't exactly likely to kill you all of the sudden when you are trying to find teleport at low-ish HP. So noise is good to have, I think.

[bcadren]

Thought I'd had before: Cut scroll of noise; add an always available invoke (under the (T)ell menu) of (T)aunt or (C)all Out, which makes a Shout 3 level noise without needing the mutation [just to get enemy attention].I felt silly in Thunderdome and in other circumstances where I wanted all enemies to come to me telling my non-existent allies to retreat in order to make a lot of noise.

[galehar]

Thought I'd had before: Cut scroll of noise; add an always available invoke (under the (T)ell menu) of (T)aunt or (C)all Out, which makes a Shout 3 level noise without needing the mutation [just to get enemy attention].I felt silly in Thunderdome and in other circumstances where I wanted all enemies to come to me telling my non-existent allies to retreat in order to make a lot of noise.

What's wrong with just shouting (tt)?

[XuaXua]

Thought I'd had before: Cut scroll of noise; add an always available invoke (under the (T)ell menu) of (T)aunt or (C)all Out, which makes a Shout 3 level noise without needing the mutation [just to get enemy attention].I felt silly in Thunderdome and in other circumstances where I wanted all enemies to come to me telling my non-existent allies to retreat in order to make a lot of noise.

What's wrong with just shouting (tt)?

That's the thing.
Immolation now has a potential for use after you identify it (it actually did before, but now it's even better!)
Uselessness always has butterfly potential (that saved me ONE TIME).
Curses have Ashenzari
Torment and Vulnerability have their niches.

But once you identify Noise, well... you can always just (tt), and you could have beforehand as well.

[some12fat2move]

Thought I'd had before: Cut scroll of noise; add an always available invoke (under the (T)ell menu) of (T)aunt or (C)all Out, which makes a Shout 3 level noise without needing the mutation [just to get enemy attention].I felt silly in Thunderdome and in other circumstances where I wanted all enemies to come to me telling my non-existent allies to retreat in order to make a lot of noise.

What's wrong with just shouting (tt)?

That's the thing.
Immolation now has a potential for use after you identify it (it actually did before, but now it's even better!)
Uselessness always has butterfly potential (that saved me ONE TIME).
Curses have Ashenzari
Torment and Vulnerability have their niches.

But once you identify Noise, well... you can always just (tt), and you could have beforehand as well.

Noise is a lot noisier than (tt)

[MoogleDan]

Drawing from the ol' 3.5E Player's Handbook, how about a scroll of noise temporarily deafens everything within your line of sight? Still creates the attention-getting boom of noise, but also applies a spell-casting failure rate to every natural being in LOS (including you) akin to the effect of getting whacked with an anti-magic weapon.

[1010011010]

Noise should disrupt convoker's call, damage insubstantial monsters, be louder and make the singing sword jealous.

[nicolae]

Noise should disrupt convoker's call, damage insubstantial monsters, be louder and make the singing sword jealous.

The scroll of noise doing damage seems silly but having just been through Vaults I can definitely get behind noise disrupting convoker's word of recall.

[indspenceable]

The scroll of noise doing damage seems silly but having just been through Vaults I can definitely get behind noise disrupting convoker's word of recall.

I dislike this - the convoker is one of the things that makes vaults super scary. This being the only thing that noise is useful for makes it too much of a hard counter to this.

[Galefury]

Something like a los-wide stun might be interesting (duration possibly dependent on HD, maybe longer for closer enemies). Sort of a scroll of flashbang. It would help kill or get away from enemies, but you better be prepared for company. It could be an interesting alternative to reading teleport because both teleport and this modified noise scroll are much better on mostly cleared levels than on uncleared ones, but while teleport relies purely on volume of cleared area, for noise mostly the path to the nearest stairs or other safe territory needs to be clear. If it turns out to be fun some spawning weight could even be moved from teleport to noise.

[pubby]

Not every bad feature needs to be "reworked" into something better. Scroll of noise should simply be removed.

[Sandman25]

Well, if we had no bad scrolls, we could read-id our scrolls in the middle of a fight. Scroll of noise is the biggest reason not to do it so the scroll should stay as is.

[onton]

Well, if we had no bad scrolls, we could read-id our scrolls in the middle of a fight. Scroll of noise is the biggest reason not to do it so the scroll should stay as is.

Is wasting a turn in a fight not enough to not do it?

[pubby]

Scroll of noise is the biggest reason not to do

Silence, torment, immolation, vulnerability, are much bigger reasons. But really, the biggest reason by far not to read-id during fights is that it wastes 10 turns and 10 scrolls in the process.

[Sandman25]

I never wait that long before reading unknown scrolls and as far as I know it is impossible to find Silence, torment, immolation, vulnerability before Lair.

[Sandman25]

Well, if we had no bad scrolls, we could read-id our scrolls in the middle of a fight. Scroll of noise is the biggest reason not to do it so the scroll should stay as is.

Is wasting a turn in a fight not enough to not do it?

It should not be extremely dangerous fight, of course. You could read the scroll while waiting for some Adder to come closer, for example (it's hard to hit Adder with missiles any way).

[Laraso]

Couldn't you just make it so that a scroll of noise lets you cast projected noise as it was before the removal? Or would it still be unbalanced even as a consumable?

[EvilAshe]

Couldn't you just make it so that a scroll of noise lets you cast projected noise as it was before the removal? Or would it still be unbalanced even as a consumable?

Wasn't Projected Noise removed because it was just garbage rather then because it was unbalanced?

[Laraso]

Couldn't you just make it so that a scroll of noise lets you cast projected noise as it was before the removal? Or would it still be unbalanced even as a consumable?

Wasn't Projected Noise removed because it was just garbage rather then because it was unbalanced?

It was removed because it was unbalanced. IIRC, you could use it to do things like clear Ziggurat floors without having to fight a single enemy.

[EvilAshe]

t was removed because it was unbalanced. IIRC, you could use it to do things like clear Ziggurat floors without having to fight a single enemy.

(Un)fortunetly that's never been relevant to any of my games

[duvessa]

You could also do that in Tomb or Zot or almost anywhere else in the game.

[Laraso]

You could also do that in Tomb or Zot or almost anywhere else in the game.

Well yeah, I was just giving one example. It wasn't exclusive to Ziggurats.