New Ashenzari

[SinsI]

Skill boost is just as stupid.

I don't see how applying your jewellery's bad effects to enemies fit in this theme.

He knows the inner working of those bad effects, and can turn them against your enemies. Like "Dark Patrick and Cromachy of the crows", Ashenzari can teach you how to decieve the curses. And suddenly "this will make you want to EAT, EAT and EAT" becomes ring of gourmet...

Same with random effects - what is random to their creator and normal characters is very logical and predictable to one with divine knowledge. So you can select what effect you'd receive from wand of random effects, or select the mutation you want from potion of mutation/demonspawn levelup, etc.

P.S. Xom would hate such an Ashenzari with passion!

[galehar]

Skill boost is just as stupid.

I could comment on how smart your comments are, but I will just ignore you.

[SinsI]

Skill boost is just as stupid.

I could comment on how smart your comments are, but I will just ignore you.

Let me elaborate: it is very, very boring; another god already does that; if it is a boost of "up to a level", it is very unfair to those that invested into those skills; if it is a boost of "+level", it is very broken - skills are not made to accomodate getting a "+6" boost. This means much earlier casting of overpowered spells or much earlier reliable use of overpowered items.

[galehar]

Skill boost is just as stupid.

I could comment on how smart your comments are, but I will just ignore you.

Let me elaborate: it is very, very boring; another god already does that; if it is a boost of "up to a level", it is very unfair to those that invested into those skills; if it is a boost of "+level", it is very broken - skills are not made to accomodate getting a "+6" boost. This means much earlier casting of overpowered spells or much earlier reliable use of overpowered items.

It's neither. How about you read the proposal I've made on the wiki before calling it stupid? You'll find several links to it on this very thread.

[SinsI]

It's neither. How about you read the proposal I've made on the wiki before calling it stupid? You'll find several links to it on this very thread.

I've just read it, and i still say it is stupid.

Bound hands:
1) with slicing weapons - I'd say next useless - if it is low, you aren't boosting it yet. If it is high, you don't need it.
2) with staves or rods is no-go for everyone that needs to make chunks with slicing weapong.

Bound armor: forces skills/play stiles onto the character based on arbitrary parameter (what he wears), which is not good. What if i'm playing Draconian?
Stealth, Dodge and Armor are very...how to say this... problematic skills - unless your character is build around them, they are next to useless.
Size system and various other penalties make them very bad for a lot of characters, which is no fun at all. Stealth is even worse, as it is of a one-time per monster use variety (fail the cumulative check once, and you've wasted it. Compare to something like ring of invisibility - even if you've woken the monster up, he still gets some penalties against you).
I don't have the math but I'm quite sure for heavy armor the bonus is less than orcs get even without Beough.

Bound jewelry:
exploitable and thus broken.

The main problem is that it is still a skill boost, something you can get by just training more(and which was balanced based on it being available only via training), it is not a new and exciting mechanic.

[KoboldLord]

Perhaps you should seriously try it instead of declaring it stupid and demanding a one-goddess-only rewrite of the functions of every item in the game and rebalancing every possible aspect of the ensuing combinatorial explosion. You already have Nemelex who can make use of trash items, and her interest in them will only go up once shop prices are fixed to block easy item identification.

Skill boosts are useful for either high skills or low skills. It's easy enough to supercede the boost to low skills, but you get to skip that critical margin where use of the skill is actively risky. Having a bound weapon makes bootstrapping fighting for a caster a WHOLE lot easier. Boosting high skills is also obviously good, arguably too good.

I don't know what you're smoking when you say dodging and stealth are useless. That simple assertion pretty well destroys any credibility you would otherwise have had. Armor skill is actually good too, if you have heavy enough armor.

Even in the post-endgame once you've maxed your important skills and you no longer get a benefit from the skill boost, you still get guaranteed slotless see invisible, clarity, context-sensitive monster detection, and near-instant recognition of all vaults before you even approach them. There's no point in the game where this doesn't come in handy, except maybe Ziggurat trawling.

[SinsI]

I'm sorry, but do you even play this game?

Jill's powergaming lesson http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=377

If you have to pay for it, you either want that defensive skill high enough so that you don't get hit at all, or don't want to waste a single XP point on it, relying on your offensive capabilities to protect you.

If your EV is at 30, boosting it to 35 is very, very good(can reduce the rate you are getting hit by several times). If your EV is 1, boosting it to 6 is meh - it doesn't really matter if you are hit 95% or 90% of the time, the boost is just 1/19th ...

Of course, game mechanics in Crawl are different from D&D, but this rule still stays the same.

Stealth does has some use outside of stabbing (to run away from overpowered threats), but due to the way it is calculated (based on monster's HD, which rises with level), the above becomes true for this use as well. And Invisibility/teleport self is many times better investment for this purpose.

[galehar]

Stealth, Dodge and Armor are very...how to say this... problematic skills - unless your character is build around them, they are next to useless.

I'm sorry, but do you even play this game?

I don't like jewellery boosting magic skills at all, as magic skills aren't useful for everyone (remember that in 0.8, people actually wear heavy armour every once in a while). Skill boost in general isn't broken, but it is rather dull. Also, I beg the developers to make sure species with slot restrictions aren't at a disadvantage - we don't want "the new Cheibriados."

Skill boost may be dull, but it's better than XP boost, is thematic and powerful. Ashenzari is about passive boosts, so it won't get much more exciting. Regarding jewellery do you have a better idea? I'm putting a bondage dependent piety cap (as suggested here) to encourage full bondage even for pure melee and pure casters. As with other gods, Ash doesn't have to be equally good for all builds. The planned design is more attractive to hybrids. They are the ones who seek the broader knowledge, aren't they?

The current design already avoids penalyzing slot restricted races and the new one won't be any different.
I'm coding the skill boost right now, so hopefully we'll be able to test it soon. As usual, (smart) comments are always welcome!

[KoboldLord]

Jill's powergaming lesson http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=377

If you have to pay for it, you either want that defensive skill high enough so that you don't get hit at all, or don't want to waste a single XP point on it, relying on your offensive capabilities to protect you.

If your EV is at 30, boosting it to 35 is very, very good(can reduce the rate you are getting hit by several times). If your EV is 1, boosting it to 6 is meh - it doesn't really matter if you are hit 95% or 90% of the time, the boost is just 1/19th ...

Of course, game mechanics in Crawl are different from D&D, but this rule still stays the same.

Stealth does has some use outside of stabbing (to run away from overpowered threats), but due to the way it is calculated (based on monster's HD, which rises with level), the above becomes true for this use as well. And Invisibility/teleport self is many times better investment for this purpose.

It is very easy for the player to keep up with Crawl's defense race, so even if Jill knew what she was talking about for D&D it wouldn't apply here.

If you're keeping up with dodging and shields training, you will absolutely be at the high margin where a small boost provides a big payoff.

Stealth is so outrageously effective that when I take a TSO-convert into the post-endgame, I often have to shout at monsters inside my stealth-crippling halo to get them to notice me so I don't get dinged for conduct. It's useful at every point in the game up until then, too.

Seriously, you're basically just wrong, and there's no way we can seriously argue the point because you're talking about things that don't apply to actual play experience.

Regarding jewellery do you have a better idea?

Include evocations as a magic skill, I'd say. Maybe let the player curse rods in inventory and use cursed rods without wielding them, if an evocations boost is not incentive enough on its own. An Ashenzari fighter-type with heavy armor can't effectively use a launcher, so they absolutely must use some other substitute when ranged attacks are needed.

Several pieces of jewelry are already evocable objects, so boosting evocations is arguably more appropriate than boosting magic.

[galehar]

Personally, I think it would be best to scrap the skill boost and strongly tie the divinations to boundedness. I say that if you have no cursed slots, the only divinations you get should be scrying and item identification. With 10% of slots cursed (human wearing one cursed item), you get mapping and monster detection in a very small radius. With 100% of slots cursed (human wearing 10 cursed items, felid wearing 3 cursed items), you get mapping and monster detection in a very large radius. This should probably be based on piety too.
This also creates an interesting conflict as far as available slots: a human has a harder time getting 100% cursed slots, but they can swap out their amulet and still be 90% bound. A felid gets 100% cursed very quickly, but swapping out even a single piece will take them down to 66%.

Really, I think "divinations god" is more interesting than "skills god" and we should focus on the former. Emphasis on "I think."

Thanks for the interesting feedback. I think divination is too weak in itself, compared to other god's powers. That's why we added a more direct "knowledge power" in the form of XP boost which we're turning into a skill boost. Magic mapping can be useful, but it's hardly game changing. Monster detection is a bit better, but we can't increased its radius, because it would force tiny term players to constantly switch to map mode to use it.
Remove the XP/skill boost, and give full divination for just a little bit of bondage, and the god is underwhelming.

[dpeg]

I am somewhat out of the loop but still attached to Ashenzari. Some random comments:

1. Let's ignore folks who throw around the adjective "stupid". As I see it, every single response to the insulting message had more content.

2. Skill boosts: we want passive (the active skill related power is reskilling, obviously). There is a huge number of possibilities to get a passive skill boost, in particularly, we can make it as strong as we want, or make it strong early but not late and so on. Just some ways how to do it:

When to get the passive boost:
(a1) proportional to bondage level
(a2) only when running around with all slots filled and cursed
(a3) only when not using uncursed items
(a4) a hybrid where you get a little for some bondage but a lot more (b)

What passive boost to get:
(b1) boost TO some level
(b2) boost BY some level
(b3) a hybrid: boost by some level but with diminishing returns

What skills to boost:
(c1) all of them (if already at 1, for sanity)
(c2) depending on what you use (this is Galehar's proposal)

I believe that here, as so often, several solutions will be good. Here are some goals one could have for the passive skill boost:
* encourage players to run around fully bonded at various stages of the game
* enable new early game strategies (use of heavier weapons/armours, or of higher level spells)
* indicate in a very visible manner that curses=good

We must be careful so that the passive power will not clash with the active one: if the boosts are too good, there's less incentive to reskill. My original proposal for the passive skill boost was therefore very (probably too) conservative: (a3), (b2) with boosts up to 7, so mostly useful early on. This system got some interesting feedback (the biggest quirk seemed to be that wearing a new (uncursed) item would cancel your boost), and I am sure it could be made work (e.g. by increasing the level of the boost). However, I believe that Galehar's approach will work equally well.

3. Ashenzari's target audience:
Information is power, therefore I think that Ashenzari is a god with broad appeal (like Makhleb, Elyvilon, Lugonu). The ability to reskill is more useful to casters than to pure fighters. Casters will also be better prepared to deal with the reduced flexibility from cursed items (most notably jewellery). Knowing the position of the opposition is particularly useful for stabbers. Broad boosts of skills are particularly useful for hybrids.
The god is very young, but it seems to get some play. Only time will tell which parts we need to stress further, and which to downplay.

4. The idea of including Evocations among the skills affected by cursed jewellery is interesting.
As is minmay's idea of linking passive detection powers to bondage levels.

[smock]

We must be careful so that the passive power will not clash with the active one: if the boosts are too good, there's less incentive to reskill.

I had not thought of this before. My response was to think of a way of combining the two powers. Idea: Instead of reskilling and passive skill boosts, as piety rises, allow Ash worshipers to select skills to be boosted. I was thinking once a skill is selected you can't revert and select another skill, but I suppose that'd be possible. Higher bondage would yield a higher boost to the selected skills. The boost could be a function of other things as well. This would mean that the Ash worshiper could get a few free levels in a few selected skills, if bound and in good standing. The magnitude of the boost (as a function of a subset of piety, bondage, and skill level) and the number of skills boosted (also as a function of a subset of piety, bondage, and skill level) would be up for debate and trial (and error).

The net effect would be similar in many ways to passive boosts + reskilling, but would involve only a single mechanism. I see this parsimony as a good thing. One difference is that Ash would not boost as many low-level skills as in galehar's proposal. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Another big difference is that the upon leaving Ash the boosts would go away, unlike with reskilling where the boosts/loses are permanent. Again, I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

[dpeg]

We must be careful so that the passive power will not clash with the active one: if the boosts are too good, there's less incentive to reskill.

I had not thought of this before. My response was to think of a way of combining the two powers. Idea: Instead of reskilling and passive skill boosts, as piety rises, allow Ash worshipers to select skills to be boosted. I was thinking once a skill is selected you can't revert and select another skill, but I suppose that'd be possible. Higher bondage would yield a higher boost to the selected skills. The boost could be a function of other things as well. This would mean that the Ash worshiper could get a few free levels in a few selected skills, if bound and in good standing. The magnitude of the boost (as a function of a subset of piety, bondage, and skill level) and the number of skills boosted (also as a function of a subset of piety, bondage, and skill level) would be up for debate and trial (and error).

The net effect would be similar in many ways to passive boosts + reskilling, but would involve only a single mechanism. I see this parsimony as a good thing. One difference is that Ash would not boost as many low-level skills as in galehar's proposal. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Another big difference is that the upon leaving Ash the boosts would go away, unlike with reskilling where the boosts/loses are permanent. Again, I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

A similar system has been quite vocally proposed by some. I had and still have several problems with this:

• The power will be not interesting (even if strong enough) if players cannot switch the skill(s) they want boosted.
• If you allow switching, the system becomes too fiddly for a god which should be mostly passive in gameplay. For example, during battle, you might want to boost a melee skill or conjuration, but during travel, you might rather go for stealth. So you need some penalty for switching boosted skills, which can surely be done. But then everything becomes complicated (not just about design, but also how to explain to the player).
• Active reskilling seems like a proper top-tier god power to me: changing skills is unheard of in Crawl, and this one god allows you do it. Merely boosting skills seems much less impressive. (Also note that Okawaru's new powers incorporate skill boosts.)
• Reskilling allows for a strategical flexibility skill boosts (assuming they're sane) won't give: you can opt to turn from light armour to heavy armour, or completely change you magical focus. I believe that the question "whether to reskill, and how, and when" is much more interesting than the question of "which skill to currently boost".

[RangerC]

I actually played an Ashenzari game to completion (morgue is earlier in the thread, Centaur Venom Mage) under the old skill boost system (and the new system is basically a refinement of this). The system, IMO, works well, allows for interesting combinations, and also seems thematic for a god of knowledge - Ashenzari trades you some divine knowledge in return for cursing yourself/giving Ashenzari knowledge of the dungeon (piety by exploration) - as you become more knowledgeable in each skill, the divine knowledge becomes less valuable and you get less of a boost. It's fairly simple, logical, and useful to a wide variety of classes . I think everyone should try a game or two once the boost system gets added to trunk and give feedback then; I think you guys will like it.

Also, +1 to the idea of boosting Evoc along with the other magic skills - gives non casters something else on top of the piety cap to want to bind jewelry (guess you get a big boost to Evoc if you bind jewels and an enhancer staff).

[galehar]

Boosting evoc for bound jewellery is an interesting idea. However, I'm afraid bumping the bonus to enhancer staves to a high one would be too strong. And the effect of evocation on wands isn't that great, is it? Allowing the use of rods without wielding them is the kind of hack I've tried and reverted, I don't think it's a good idea. It would be useful anyway for rings of invisibility and the likes. And maybe a good occasion to fix the wand formula to make evocation more effective.

[SinsI]

When to get the passive boost:
(a1) proportional to bondage level
(a2) only when running around with all slots filled and cursed
(a3) only when not using uncursed items
(a4) a hybrid where you get a little for some bondage but a lot more (b)

What passive boost to get:
(b1) boost TO some level
(b2) boost BY some level
(b3) a hybrid: boost by some level but with diminishing returns

What skills to boost:
(c1) all of them (if already at 1, for sanity)
(c2) depending on what you use (this is Galehar's proposal)

I believe that here, as so often, several solutions will be good. Here are some goals one could have for the passive skill boost:
* encourage players to run around fully bonded at various stages of the game
* enable new early game strategies (use of heavier weapons/armours, or of higher level spells)
* indicate in a very visible manner that curses=good

We must be careful so that the passive power will not clash with the active one: if the boosts are too good, there's less incentive to reskill. My original proposal for the passive skill boost was therefore very (probably too) conservative: (a3), (b2) with boosts up to 7, so mostly useful early on. This system got some interesting feedback (the biggest quirk seemed to be that wearing a new (uncursed) item would cancel your boost), and I am sure it could be made work (e.g. by increasing the level of the boost). However, I believe that Galehar's approach will work equally well.

If you really want to go with skill boost, make the increase to be "As if the aptitude has increased" - on light bound by +1, on medium by +2, on full by +3.
Since something like that is already in place for Draconians, and there is an extensive testing going on - that won't be as broken...

P.S. The reason boosts that are not directly proportional to XP investment are bad:
Player A spent less XP on Stealth and got it to level 5.
Player B spent more XP on Stealth and got it to level 6.
After Ashenzari boost they both have the same level.
This means Player B waisted one level worth of XP(and that level is the most costly one)...

[galehar]

that won't be as broken...

Please read the rules and try to behave. Next time I'll delete your posts and ban you.

Edit: some smart players like to take this disdainful tone and call things stupid and broken without giving arguments. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong. But anyway, when they do it, it's offensive and unproductive. When you do it, it's just ridiculous. Stop making a fool of yourself.

I'm too involved, I can't moderate this. Someone else take appropriate action please.

[galehar]

Here is an idea for evocation:
If you're wielding a cursed staff, give a low boost to evoc and staves. If you're also bound by magic (whether partial or full), the evoc boost is medium.

[KoboldLord]

Boosting evoc for bound jewellery is an interesting idea. However, I'm afraid bumping the bonus to enhancer staves to a high one would be too strong. And the effect of evocation on wands isn't that great, is it? Allowing the use of rods without wielding them is the kind of hack I've tried and reverted, I don't think it's a good idea. It would be useful anyway for rings of invisibility and the likes. And maybe a good occasion to fix the wand formula to make evocation more effective.

Yeah, it's probably a job for the mythical miscellaneous items overhaul. Currently, Ashenzari pushes you pretty hard into spellcasting because you NEED some form of ranged attack and she blocks most of the good ones off. The reskilling really helps a lot in that respect, since you can still use it to bootstrap spellcasting, but I am not under the impression that Ashenzari was actually intended as a spellcasting deity.

This is extremely tangential to the topic at hand, but how about merging wands of flame and fire (and so on with the rest of the wands) and giving an increasing chance of the better effect as you raise evocations? Start at perhaps 20% chance of a bolt effect at 0 evocations, and raise it 5% per level of evocations until it always works properly. An Ashenzari with bound jewelry and full piety would have 6 evocations, for a 50% chance of getting the good effect. Pretty good, really. At 16 evocations you always get the good effect.

If a reason to train evocations to a high level is desirable, there could even be a third effect for each wand that has no chance of kicking in until high evocations and is never guaranteed. The example flame wand might pick up a 5% chance to do a Firestorm instead of a bolt at around 20 evocations, which similarly slowly starts going up.

Anyway, there are a few wands that would need a weak or strong effect, but I would think these wouldn't be too troublesome to come up with. Draining could start with a Pain effect, and Magic Dart could segue into a Mystic Blast effect, for instance.

[Tiber]

This is extremely tangential to the topic at hand, but how about merging wands of flame and fire (and so on with the rest of the wands) and giving an increasing chance of the better effect as you raise evocations? Start at perhaps 20% chance of a bolt effect at 0 evocations, and raise it 5% per level of evocations until it always works properly. An Ashenzari with bound jewelry and full piety would have 6 evocations, for a 50% chance of getting the good effect. Pretty good, really. At 16 evocations you always get the good effect.

If a reason to train evocations to a high level is desirable, there could even be a third effect for each wand that has no chance of kicking in until high evocations and is never guaranteed. The example flame wand might pick up a 5% chance to do a Firestorm instead of a bolt at around 20 evocations, which similarly slowly starts going up.

Anyway, there are a few wands that would need a weak or strong effect, but I would think these wouldn't be too troublesome to come up with. Draining could start with a Pain effect, and Magic Dart could segue into a Mystic Blast effect, for instance.

Very cool idea, though it might need some adjustment to avoid trying to throw a bolt of fire and ending up with a point-blank firestorm.

[smock]

Very cool idea, though it might need some adjustment to avoid trying to throw a bolt of fire and ending up with a point-blank firestorm.

I see this possibility as a good thing! Though the probability of getting a firestorm should probably be zero for evocations lower than, like, 15!

[KoboldLord]

I've made a new thread for my wands and evocations tangent here:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1535

It seems like it might be a good thing to discuss further, but the Ashenzari thread wouldn't be the right place.

[Stormfox]

Very cool idea, though it might need some adjustment to avoid trying to throw a bolt of fire and ending up with a point-blank firestorm.

Yes, because there's already a god for that. *buys a cup of coffee with all the nickels accumulated by hitting myself with Makhleb's lightning orb at point-blank range*

[galehar]

New skill boost is in. I even put a nice table on the wiki page (and updated some other stuff in the process).

[dpeg]

Many thanks for the Chaosforge wiki page too. It is very clear.

[sanka]

I play the new Ash with an earth elementalist, and I really like it. The three different type of curse scrolls are a little annoying tough. The scrolls are a really valuable resource - I think it's intended.

I've only one question - maybe it's addressed somewhere. At the end of the game, when you max out the important skills, or you reach high enough levels in them, the skill boost will be ineffective. So at the end many Ahs worshipper may choose to not use cursed equipment at all, to enable easier swapping. (Or only curse armour, which is not frequently swapped at the end when you have good stuff.) This is not a big problem and may be intended - but I would like to have some reward for using cursed stuff all the game, or some disatvantage not using them - because playing all equipment cursed is unique.

[galehar]

I play the new Ash with an earth elementalist, and I really like it. The three different type of curse scrolls are a little annoying tough. The scrolls are a really valuable resource - I think it's intended.

Since the new design encourage even more cursing, I'm thinking of allowing the player to choose which scrolls are made when praying over ?RC.

I've only one question - maybe it's addressed somewhere. At the end of the game, when you max out the important skills, or you reach high enough levels in them, the skill boost will be ineffective. So at the end many Ahs worshipper may choose to not use cursed equipment at all, to enable easier swapping. (Or only curse armour, which is not frequently swapped at the end when you have good stuff.) This is not a big problem and may be intended - but I would like to have some reward for using cursed stuff all the game, or some disatvantage not using them - because playing all equipment cursed is unique.

I find it fitting that the god of knowledge lose some of it's appeal when you reach ultimate knowledge. He has nothing else to teach you. Even if the main power (skill boost) lose some of its steam in the end game, his divination powers are still valuable, or maybe even more if you trust the wiki strategy advices

[Fnord]

It's annoying that as an Ash worshiper you can only use a weapon that lets you butcher if you want to eat.

[galehar]

It's annoying that as an Ash worshiper you can only use a weapon that lets you butcher if you want to eat.

There's a number of ways around this: animate skeleton (L1 and common), LRD, IOOD, ice form, blade hands. You can also eat permafood.

[Fnord]

Animate skeleton! Thanks.

[galehar]

Animate skeleton! Thanks.

How about an overflow Ash altar with a cursed mace and a book of cantrips? As an hint.

About the skill boost, after testing it, it seems good, but maybe a bit too powerful for low skills. Going straight to level 6, 8 or 9 when gaining a new skill seems too strong. How about capping the bonus at the skill level? At most it doubles your skill. I've updated the spreadsheet to show the result of this.

[mumra]

Since the new design encourage even more cursing, I'm thinking of allowing the player to choose which scrolls are made when praying over ?RC.

I realise this is a somewhat old thread but I only just saw it.

I think that change would make managing the resources of the different types of curse scrolls a little too easy. How about instead, Detect Curse could also be prayed over just like RC; so there are a little more available but there's still randomness and resource management. DC could have a chance of just getting burned by Ash instead if this created too much of the resource.

Another option would be when mummies etc. curse you - instead of the curse being absorbed, you could have an option to instead direct it at a particular item; with perhaps a small piety cost.

[galehar]

The thread is old, but I'm still happy to get some feedback on Ashenzari, so thanks for bumping it. The god is still young and will continue to be polished in the next version.

About scroll conversion, I don't think we need more scrolls to convert, ?RC are already plentiful. In my last Ash game I had more than I ever needed. I put my menu proposal on the wiki, and dpeg pointed out that letting the player ask the god for a specific scroll was not really appropriate. And I agree. So instead, I'm thinking of making a menu to let the player choose one of the curse scrolls, and ?RC scrolls would be converted one by one until the selected one was obtained or the whole stack converted. Keep the randomness, but make the interface more convenient.

[dpeg]

Just a quick one: converting ?DC is definitely not an option.

First, flavour: to Ash, ?DC is useless rubbish. By contrast, ?RC is outright dangerous. So it makes sense that he offers to turn the evil ?RC scrolls into something good. Converting ?DC into curse scrolls would be like doing it with paper scrolls, from Ashenzari's point of view.

Second, gameplay: Whether or not (and how many) ?RC to convert is a meaningful choice: You need some Curse Foo scrolls, but you will also want some ?RC, so as to be flexible and able to change your equipment. Compare this with ?DC -- converting those would be a no-brainer. This would (a) inflate the number of Curse scrolls available and completely remove the choice about ?RC.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

I was going to ask a question/suggestion, but I saw my issue was addressed in the Wiki, so I will just give kudos to the person who wrote it.

[mumra]

I totally agree; in my Ash games I think the number of scrolls available was pretty much perfect - scarce enough to create a large number of interesting and meaningful decisions about what and when to curse, whether to change gear or wait for something better if I only had 1 curse armour, how many to ?RC to convert; sometimes even whether to use below-par kit simply because it came with a free curse ...But generally an available enough resource to, with careful management, be playable - right thru to my first win!

[mumra]

Although ... I would suggest just one further idea with ?DC - how about if when you pray over them you get something like: "The scroll bursts into flame. You hear Ashenzari's voice in your mind: 'Ignore that worthless rubbish!'"

No piety or any other benefit; just flavour to show Ash's opinion of them, and to be honest I just hate having all those ?DC littering my nice clean dungeon

Actually I kind of think this would be very flavourful; it's not in Ash's best interests to leave methods of detecting curses laying around for other adventurers to use...