Remove destruction of strategic items

[greepish]

Just google ""scroll of heal" rogue". It's not really hard to imagine, spells are spells.

[galehar]

I've moved the recent discussion from zelkelion's post to minmay's, since it's his idea which is being discussed.

I'm not too fond of the idea of changing item types. Changing an item type from or to potion has an effect on mummy's balance for example. Same for scrolls and blurry vision mutation, although this is minor.

minmay's proposal has merit, but it's incomplete. Change item types, but to what? KoboldLord filled this void, but this further my dislike of changing item types. Reading the list is funny, but I wouldn't want to see most of those items in the game.

How about just changing the descriptions of strategic items to explain that those scrolls are made of fireproof paper (either magical or a special material), and the potions don't freeze (thicker liquid, lower freezing temperature, or just magic).

[pratamawirya]

How about just changing the descriptions of strategic items to explain that those scrolls are made of fireproof paper (either magical or a special material), and the potions don't freeze (thicker liquid, lower freezing temperature, or just magic).

That's cheap, but what the hell.

[njvack]

How about just changing the descriptions of strategic items to explain that those scrolls are made of fireproof paper (either magical or a special material), and the potions don't freeze (thicker liquid, lower freezing temperature, or just magic).

Or more simply, "This item has a powerful enchantment which protects it from extremes of temperature" for both strategic scrolls and potions.

[absolutego]

i think that would confuse everyone. i prefer the simpler version of KL's proposal. compact all non-tactical potions into something edible that can't be frozen (the wafer thing is great), and all non-tactical scrolls into a single type of magical items (i'm at a loss here, some rune or codex or somesuch, not my field).

[File200]

I think that all of the items listed by minmay (sans potion of blood) could be placed into a single indestructible item category. Perhaps they could be "Runestones" or some other durable object with mystical connotations. (I chose runestone because stones already can't be eaten by jellies.) There's no need to justify whether a certain item "Fits" in this category, because it's magic and a wizard made it. There's also no need to make separate categories for "Indestructible edible" and "Indestructible readable." "Porridge" could be reflavoured as <runestone> of satisfy hunger.

Monsters should be unable to pick up these items. Under this system, you don't have an incentive to drop strategic items when you see them unless you are short on carrying capacity or inventory space. You drop them when it is convenient to do so.

The new consumable item type would have its own ID mini-game parallel to the scroll and potion ID-minigame.

[njvack]

I'd be careful about making all tactical items potions and all strategic items scrolls, though, or the other way around. That seems like it would mess with mummy balance a lot.

I have the same instinct, but I'm not sure it's true. Mummies are mutation-immune, and most of the strategic potions are mutation-related (gain foo, cmut, mut). Experience is the only one I can think of that's non-tactical and not implemented as a mutation, and there aren't a lot of reasons not to quaff it immediately anyhow.

Having a 'Sex Toy of Gain Dexterity' cause a couple of points of rot to mummies seems reasonable...

Blurry vision and scroll-related, it's hard to imagine a time when needing to enchant that weapon this turn is gonna prove critical.

EDIT: I didn't properly read the 'all potions to scrolls' or 'all scrolls to potions' bit, which would make a big difference to mummies indeed.

[absolutego]

what would that solve anyway? scrolls should burn and potions should freeze. you can't make one of those categories susceptible to both effects and the other to none, it's counter-intuitive.

runestones or gems for non-tactical scrolls sounds fine to me.

[greepish]

Actually, yeah I agree with galehar, all this item changing would screw up mummys. On the other hand, they're a crappy race now that their food clock advantage is worthless... so if it were done in their favor, I can't see why anyone would complain.

[File200]

Potions of blood could be special-cased to resist destruction. Blood has a freezing point about 1 degree lower than water, so it kinda works.

Messing with the other scrolls and potions seems pointless, unless you want to make burning and freezing function differently. You just choose different tactical items to drop before fighting different enemies.

[greepish]

Just dropping scrolls all the time is too much of a hassle late game, there's too many monsters that destroy scrolls, and hellfire/fireball don't miss.

[Grimm]

Potions and scrolls could be into two categories each:

  Code:

destructible     indestructible

potions          elixirs
scrolls          parchments

[dpeg]

I believe a solution along these lines can be found. This is in all probability not 0.10 material, but the matter is simple enough to go into 0.11. Just a matter of coming up with a coherent proposal. By the way, there is something to be said towards keeping tactical potions as well as tactical scrolls: what to take into Gehennom/Cocytus, the DS mutations protecting one type. Personally, I don't even know whether I like indestructable potions/scrolls (as per galehar's proposal) which has the advantage of leaving the id minigame unchanged and being least effort or a new, third (indestructible) item type better which might be more conceptual. In any case, this is wiki stuff! As always, the crawler who sets up the page has my gratitude.

greepish: Mummies got nerfed due to the OOD-clock, but foodless casting is nothing to sneeze at.

[Blade]

Actually, yeah I agree with galehar, all this item changing would screw up mummys. On the other hand, they're a crappy race now that their food clock advantage is worthless... so if it were done in their favor, I can't see why anyone would complain.

Mummy conjurers/elementalists of Vehumet are anything but weak. Mummy Fire Elementalist, for example, can easily get to the point where Fireball is castable with Vehumet's wizardry bonuses, and can slaughter most of the dungeon with it and whatever other blasty spells you choose to get OOD and Fire Storm castable, at which point nothing is much trouble. Being able to spam your high-level blast spells is an incredible advantage (and no, this isn't just theory; I got a very easy four runes with a MuFE before getting careless).

But that is not the point of this thread.

Of the items that minmay listed, all but potions of blood and porridge (neither of which seem at all necessary to change) are similar enough that they could fit into a third item category; I think having four would be overkill.

Runestones or gems would feel fairly natural; adding them as various miscellaneous items, while interesting, would make any sort of ID minigame with them feel strange.

[Galefury]

I like elixirs & parchments. They could be indistinguishable from potions and scrolls before being identified. One thing to consider: moving potions of mutation to a different category would change the ID minigame a lot.

[argonaut]

I like the special item idea for strategic items instead of scrolls or potions. It gives an immediate cue that these are valuable or interesting instead of being just another expendable potion. Acquirement could easily be rolled into the bottled efreet (1/3 is angry, 1/3 becomes ally, 1/3 grants wish) instead of being a scroll. It might be more interesting if there's always some possible downside to using the item.

[rchandra]

I like elixirs & parchments. They could be indistinguishable from potions and scrolls before being identified. One thing to consider: moving potions of mutation to a different category would change the ID minigame a lot.

Indistinguishable before IDed is great, this preserves balance with mummies/blurry vision as well as the ID minigame. We also wouldn't need a new heading in the inventory, just keep elixirs with potions etc.

[blueDave]

I like the idea of elixers & parchments. Maybe not make them indestructible, but a lot lower probability that they will be destroyed? And you still must have conservation to get the max protection available currently.

[Pteriforever]

I'm cool with item destruction. What I'm not cool with is that different scrolls burn more easily than others for no reason at all. It's a good decision balance-wise, and I respect that, but it doesn't make any sense and it's immersion-breaking.

I'm going to vote for changing item destruction's weighting formula to be not so malicious.

[nicolae]

The rationale for keeping item destruction is so that you can't rely on your consumables at all times, that there's an element of risk and chance involved. The problem is that losing your consumables is totally annoying. What if item destruction was only temporary? (Has this been discussed before? I apologize if I missed it.)

Your potions would freeze over, and your scrolls would burn, but over time they'd thaw or the magical writing would reform, but until then they'd be useless to you. I guess it's more of a tactical thing than a strategic one, and it would result in people just waiting off item damage. Maybe it would take a long-ass time for potions or scrolls to become usable again just by waiting, but doing things would help speed up the time it takes to thaw out/rewrite themselves.

[Pteriforever]

The rationale for keeping item destruction is so that you can't rely on your consumables at all times, that there's an element of risk and chance involved. The problem is that losing your consumables is totally annoying. What if item destruction was only temporary? (Has this been discussed before? I apologize if I missed it.)

Your potions would freeze over, and your scrolls would burn, but over time they'd thaw or the magical writing would reform, but until then they'd be useless to you. I guess it's more of a tactical thing than a strategic one, and it would result in people just waiting off item damage. Maybe it would take a long-ass time for potions or scrolls to become usable again just by waiting, but doing things would help speed up the time it takes to thaw out/rewrite themselves.

I support this idea.

[Galefury]

It's a good idea in theory, but "doing stuff" speeding up the thawing of potions is really hard to justify (except for getting hit by fire, which would be abusable). Also, if one of your 5 potions of healing gets frozen, does it take up an extra inventory slot? If not, how do you tell the player that some of the potions on that stack are frozen and how many? While I think turning item destruction into temporary disabling of items is a nice concept it would be very hard to get the flavor and interface right. Especially if you also want to prevent just waiting it out.

[nicolae]

It's a good idea in theory, but "doing stuff" speeding up the thawing of potions is really hard to justify (except for getting hit by fire, which would be abusable).

Yeah, I thought of some ideas for scrolls (reading other scrolls speeds the rate of fixing by releasing ambient scroll magics, etc.) but not for potions. Damn.

Also, if one of your 5 potions of healing gets frozen, does it take up an extra inventory slot? If not, how do you tell the player that some of the potions on that stack are frozen and how many?

Maybe something like a - 2 usable potions of curing (3 total), or a - 2 potions of curing (plus 1 frozen). Then again, since the damage is temporary, maybe it's not necessary to only damage part of a stack anymore.

While I think turning item destruction into temporary disabling of items is a nice concept it would be very hard to get the flavor and interface right. Especially if you also want to prevent just waiting it out.

Yeah, it's the damn waiting that's the biggest problem imo.

[dondy]

not calling it tedious to stash stuff is kinda meh, esp. when you have to move a stash from one place to another on a low str char it's really anything but fun (go to A, grab anything you can carry, drop stuff so you're not overburdened anymore, go to B/if disturbed continue, repeat) :/

this is one reason i like vampires atm...

several temple entrances sounds nice, stash menu even better (esp. with fitting animations, like a "minion" coming from out of LOS - grabbing your stuff and running off with it to the stash; so the turns it takes to stash stuff away could be balanced per character class, so a mummy could have a snail and uhh... a centaur could have a whisp as minion or similar...)

i really don't like the item-type changes or changing a certain set of items to "indestructible", it sounds confusing and may seem random depending on the items chosen...

simply removing item destruction would also be kinda confusing since corrosion would basically still be able to destroy (as in make it unusable)

and starting from this concept of destruction, you could also say that certain body slot mutations actually destroy whole item classes, making it even harder to argue why this stayed and scroll/pot destruction didn't

just my few cents