Open Proposal: unrandart potions?

[Tiktacy]

So I was just sitting in class today and started thinking: "what if crawl had un/randart potions? What would they look like?"

My first thought was "hmm, maybe I'll make a proposal on GDD" because I had some interesting ideas. But then I remembered how uncommon it is for a proposal to actually make it into the game, so I figured that maybe I should just make it an open proposal.

Now, what exactly do I mean by an open proposal you might ask? Well, to put it simply, it's mostly just brainstorming ideas. I don't expect it to make it into the game, but I thought it would be fun to poke around a bit and see what other people think of when they hear the phrase "randart potions." A stone soup, if you will.

Personally, when I hear unrandart potions, I think of two things: unique mutations and potions of immunity. So for example, you could have a potion called "potion of monstrous appendage" that gives you 3 levels of a single body facet mutation. Or maybe something like "potion of the demon" which gives the player temporary standard demonic resistances(poison immunity, negative immunity, high magic resistance, immunity to rot).

Edit:

The roguelike Powder has randart potions that temporarily give the player whatever special properties it was generated with. So a potion of heal wounds {rF+ Int-1} would give you one level of fire resistance and -1 Int for several turns, in addition to the usual HP recovery. Maybe they could be incorporated like the transient mutations of Wretched Stars, so they'd stick until you gained a certain amount of XP?

The most serious problem with artifact counsumables is that they occupy too much inventory space, the following can mitigate this problem:

• If they are rare (for example at most 4 of them are found in 95% of 3-rune games), then they don't occupy too much space (and they aren't too common to become uninteresting).
• If they have strategical usages (randart scroll which imporoves an item, potion granting interesting mutations, ...), then it is unnecessary to always carry them.
• If they are powerful, it could be an interesting decision to choose between carrying 3 heal wounds potions or the randart full healing potion, or between carrying teleport/blinking scrolls or carrying the powerful randart escape scroll/potion.
• If they have a strong, but not everywhere useful effect (immunity to one element/attack type, something only affecting one of living/undead/demons/artifical creatures, ...), then the player only has to carry the item to places where it is useful.

• Potion of Eternal Mutation:
  Causes all mutations you possess at the time to become permanent, the following transmutations are affected: lich form, stone form, dragon form, beastly appendage.(inspired by nagdons potion of persisting form)
  
• Potion of Apostate:
  Nagdon: You lose your religion, but do not receive wrath and cannot be effected by gods in any way for either the rest of the game or a certain period of time based on experience gain.
  
• Potion of immunity
  Nagdon: Similar to potion of resistance, gives fire, cold, poison and electricity immunity for a duration.
  
• Dragonblood Potion:
  Psiweapon:
  -Heal wounds
  -Dragonform.
  -Exhaustion on expiring
  
• Segato's Formula:
  Psiweapon:
  -Statue form
  -Stone Skin
  -Paralysis+Petrification on expiring
  
• Alistair's Trollskin Hair Restorer:
  Psiweapon:
  -Might
  -Regeneration (long-ish)
  -50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring
  -50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring
  -50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring
  
• {wizard}'s greater potion of {potion}:
  Nagdon:
  A potion with the same effect as a base type potion, but is multiple times stronger. For example, 1+1d3 or 1+xd3 where X is 1-3 depending on the potion.
  
  

[TeshiAlair]

I like the idea of unrandart potions more than randart ones. Randart potions are almost inevitably super niche, like most randart rings, and thus will usually get scrapped particularly when the "useful" potions are fairly common, but unrandart potions that have big crazy effects have a lot of tactical value.

[archaeo]

Any powerful temporary effect would be next to worthless; assuming these potions would be rare, you might get a shot or two of some desirable effect, but it wouldn't really change the game very much. Powerful consumables have a home in Crawl already anyway: decks of cards.

I tend to think consumables work pretty well now. You either receive a temporary and modest tactical benefit or a powerful but risky strategic benefit. These artifact potions would either result in an overpowered temporary buff (which only changes the game for a few dozen turns) or an overpowered permanent buff, many of which would get saddled with so many "balancing" downsides they'd be used only rarely.

I could see space in the game for a very few unrandart potions, but I imagine that space could be filled just as easily with equipment or evocable items.

[Skrybe]

The roguelike Powder has randart potions that temporarily give the player whatever special properties it was generated with. So a potion of heal wounds {rF+ Int-1} would give you one level of fire resistance and -1 Int for several turns, in addition to the usual HP recovery. Maybe they could be incorporated like the transient mutations of Wretched Stars, so they'd stick until you gained a certain amount of XP?

[Tiktacy]

The roguelike Powder has randart potions that temporarily give the player whatever special properties it was generated with. So a potion of heal wounds {rF+ Int-1} would give you one level of fire resistance and -1 Int for several turns, in addition to the usual HP recovery. Maybe they could be incorporated like the transient mutations of Wretched Stars, so they'd stick until you gained a certain amount of XP?

I love this idea.

[Hirsch I]

so it would punish the player for getting experience. I think this could use a little work. but the idea of unrand pots is an interesting one. if they give you 3 levels of a mutation instantly, it would finally make those 3rd levels more common, wich is a nice thing. i think I got 3 levels only once while not playing a demonspawn.

[BlackSheep]

Does a potion of speed punish the player for taking actions? No, that's just its duration mechanic. Attaching effect duration to something other than turns lets you give a long term effect without making something (semi)permanent.

[nicolae]

I think unrand scrolls might have more options to explore, since scrolls affect items and the environment, not just yourself. Still, some ideas for unrandart potions: a potion of invulnerability -- similar to Death's Door, but perhaps not needing the HP dip afterwards since it's an unrand potion and you can therefore only ever use it once. A potion of demon ichor -- transient mutations that provide a set of demonspawn-only mutations (I'm not sure how it would work when demonspawn drink it -- preview of upcoming mutations, maybe?). Presumably the unrand consumables can have fancier names, though.

[duvessa]

Does a potion of speed punish the player for taking actions? No, that's just its duration mechanic. Attaching effect duration to something other than turns lets you give a long term effect without making something (semi)permanent.

It is impossible to avoid taking actions short of not playing the game at all. It is very possible to avoid gaining experience.

[mikee]

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3290&p=41326

[nagdon]

My ideas for randart consumables with powerful temporary effects:

• scrolls of existing high-level spells
  I think these are relatively easily implementable and it would be interesting to have a scroll of for example Fire Storm, Statue Form, Poisonous Colud, Dispersal or Warp Weapon in a tough battle. I think these are comparable to existing scrolls like holy word, silence or immolation or single charges from wands like fire, cold, draining and one casting of even a level 9 spell isn't a gamebreaking effect. Low level spell scrolls would be probably unnecessary and not interesting (a scroll of Stone Arrow can't solve anything and occupies an inventory slot), but scrolls of at least level 5-7 spells would be nice in my opinion. Minor mechanics: the spell is cast with a fixed high spellpower and these scrolls are identified when picked up like spellbooks (it would be annoying to waste an identify scroll on each of them). (I think I have seen this proposal somewhen on this forum, but I need it for the next proposal.)
• scroll of book dismemberment
  Creates one scroll of each spell in a book selected by the player, destroys the book. This could create low-level spell scrolls if the player wishes so.
  
  
• the Last Potion
  Gives permanent lichform. Alternatively it could give semi-permanent lichform which can be cancellend by the "End transformation" ability (but doesn't time out). Generally, randart potions with both good and bad effects which can be cancelled together could be interesting.
  
• potion of the apostate
  Player loses religion with no or severely reduced wrath, can't interact with gods (wrath, smiting, xom cards, getting new religion, etc) before a given amount of XP is gained and/or a given amount of time is spent.
• potion of elemental immunity
  Similar to potion of resistance, gives fire, cold, poison and electricity immunity for a duration.
  
• potion of golden touch
  Corpses of killed creatures are converted into gold for a fixed duration.

[skyspire]

well the only issue i have with this is in identifying these new items. Right now, sometimes it can be a challenge to find enough scrolls of identify to identify all your potions as it is (even if you read-identify scrolls).. but if we have more randart scrolls/potions, we would not want to read-identify a scroll because we might be worried it is a scroll of firestorm or something, thus we wouldn't have enough identify scrolls and everyone would want to go Ash.

[Siegurt]

Other problems I can see with randart potions: lack of potion stacking and item destruction (Although since they're artifacts it's not a stretch to say that randart potions would be indestructable)

Lack of potion stacking on randart potions sounds annoying as crap to me though, I usually have enough stuff to cart around with me that getting to 52 item slots happens pretty quickly, having 5 more slots taken up by 1 use randart potions doesn't sound very interesting to me.

[1010011010]

The more I think on how this idea could work, the closer I get the potion of beneficial mutation.

Truly random potions would have to stand out when found (white lettering) like artifacts, other wise they're interfere with the list of found potions.
There would need to be a reasonable number of good ones, but also must be rare, so they all must be good.
They need to have fun and diverse number of effects, which is best achieved with mutations.

Which leads me to the idea of a potion (although a demon fruit could be cooler) which gives you a number of themed good transient mutations, but this is quite close to !BM, which I would rather have.

[Psiweapon]

Unrandart potions:

Dragonblood Potion:
-Heal wounds
-Dragonform.
-Exhaustion on expiring

Segato's Formula:
-Statue form
-Stone Skin
-Paralysis+Petrification on expiring

Alistair's Trollskin Hair Restorer
-Might
-Regeneration (long-ish)
-50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring
-50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring
-50% of gaining a rank of fur mutation on expiring

[nagdon]

Some random generation schemes (note that most of these are not similar to benefical mutation):

• Random Wizard's greater potion of {normal potion type}
  Here {normal potion type} is one of cure mutation, curing, experience, benefical mutation, heal wounds, magic and mutation. Drinking this potion is equivalent to drinking several instances of the base potion (for example 1+Xd2 where X = 1 for experience, benefical mutation and cure mutation, 2 for magic and mutation and 3 for curing and heal wounds), followed by a side effect, which is an effect of a potion from the list decay, strong poison, mutation, degeneration, cure mutation (only for greater potions of (benefical) mutation, +1 instance of the base potion in this case), berserk rage, confusion, slowing, poison (the last 4 only for greater potions of heal wounds, magic and curing), any good potion (with small chance, -1 base potion in this case). The normal potion type is known if you have identified that potion, an identify scroll reveals the number of repetitions and the side effect (for example "Oswern's greater potion of curing {4 x curing, poison}" or "Fringhekl's greater potion of mutation {3 x mutation, decay}")
• potion of persistent {Form name}
  Drinking this will turn the player into the named form, like the casting of the form spell, but with unlimited duration. This form can be cancelled with End transformation, but then it is lost. I think most forms have vulnerabilities which will force the player out of them eventually
• Random Wizard's protective elixir
  Has 1..3 effects from the list agility, flight, invisibility, resistance, restore abilities, speed, 0..2 protective/defensive spell effects (like Regeneration, Stoneskin, Swiftness, Phase Shift, Spider Form, Ring of Flames, ...) and maybe one side effect (bad potion effect, contamination, miscasts (like the Wild Magic card)). Identify identifies the effects, but it can be use-identified and still give a high escape chance.
• potion of immunity to {damage type}
  Immunity to {damage type} for a limited duration (similar to potion of resistance). {damage type} is one of fire, cold, acid, poison, electricity, negative energy (including torment), supernatural fire (= hellfire and cleansing flame). Maybe even physical damage, mutation, stat drain, rotting, banishment, chaos (= protects from chaos-branded meele) immunity potions could exist.

The most serious problem with artifact counsumables is that they occupy too much inventory space, the following can mitigate this problem:

• If they are rare (for example at most 4 of them are found in 95% of 3-rune games), then they don't occupy too much space (and they aren't too common to become uninteresting).
• If they have strategical usages (randart scroll which imporoves an item, potion granting interesting mutations, ...), then it is unnecessary to always carry them.
• If they are powerful, it could be an interesting decision to choose between carrying 3 heal wounds potions or the randart full healing potion, or between carrying teleport/blinking scrolls or carrying the powerful randart escape scroll/potion.
• If they have a strong, but not everywhere useful effect (immunity to one element/attack type, something only affecting one of living/undead/demons/artifical creatures, ...), then the player only has to carry the item to places where it is useful.

[dpeg]

I initially thought that this idea has no merits whatsoever, but the thread came up with some interesting proposals. (For example psiweapon and nagdon.) Nothing of this is urgent, but starting with rarely placed unrandart potions can do no harm -- I am all for it.

[Tiktacy]

General consesus(aka everyone) says randart potions are silly. I kinda thought they seemed weird, but I felt like having randarts in addition to unrandarts was common placement. Anyway, I love the ideas posted, and I'll try to edit the op and add a list of potions that me or anyone else shows a particular interest in.

Thanks for the support, and double thanks to skrybe for the brilliant suggestion of using experience.

[skyspire]

i just hope that unrandart potion generation will not make it less likely to get randart or unrandart weapons or gear.

[and into]

i just hope that unrandart potion generation will not make it less likely to get randart or unrandart weapons or gear.

I'm not extremely familiar with item generation code, but I imagine if this is added it would either be tacked on as an additional flat chance to spawn, or else as a small chance to replace a generated normal potion with an !artefact.

In either case—thank heavens!—we shouldn't cut down on all the "+1 Hat of Xoorg {Int -2, Dex +1 Curse}" you come across in your average game.

[brendan]

I initially thought that this idea has no merits whatsoever, but the thread came up with some interesting proposals. (For example psiweapon and nagdon.) Nothing of this is urgent, but starting with rarely placed unrandart potions can do no harm -- I am all for it.

Who told them about the Ur-Snozzcumber?

[nicolae]

I initially thought that this idea has no merits whatsoever, but the thread came up with some interesting proposals. (For example psiweapon and nagdon.) Nothing of this is urgent, but starting with rarely placed unrandart potions can do no harm -- I am all for it.

Who told them about the Ur-Snozzcumber?

unrand snozzcumber that can be eaten and also used as a weapon