Proposal: fix ?vuln doing two completely opposite things

[crate]

I have hinted at this in the past, but really there is a fundamental problem imo with how scroll of vulnerability is implemented: it actually performs two separate, completely contradictory actions.

1) It cancels enchantments (and contam) already active on all things in LOS
2) It reduces the magic resistance of everything in LOS

It makes absolutely no sense for these two effects to come from the same item. In the first case, you are making it more difficult to place enchantments (by cancelling them) on monsters. In the second case you are doing exactly the opposite.

If both effects are worth having, I suggest splitting current ?vuln into ?cancellation (cancels enchantments, reduces contam) and then ?vuln (reduces MR). I would personally suggest that I don't think the second effect is really worth having and it should just be removed from ?vuln (with the rename of the scroll to clarify its purpose) but this is not something I feel strongly about.

Regardless this would make ?cancellation more useful than its current form, since right now one of the big drawbacks to using ?vuln to remove hexes on the player (something which I think is interesting and powerful, and that I think must exist for vault sentinels to be allowed to appear on v:5) is that doing so makes it nearly certain that a subsequent attempt to reapply the hex will succeed. So there's no point to using ?vuln (right now) to cancel petrification, since Jorgrun will just re-petrify you immediately if he tries to do so. Similarly you must wait until after the sentinel is dead to remove mark, etc.

[SublimeSnake]

I never even knew it did #1, so I basically assumed they were useless except for unwielding distortion weapons. Though they are still basically useless (currently) I guess.

[Sandman25]

Well, I believe the scroll brings some interesting options in its current state. I had such situations as:
1) I was marked with banishers in range
2) I read the scroll to remove yellow contamination and encounter an Ancient Lich in 2 turns.

[n1000]

I considered the utility of this scroll type when writing the patch which makes them more common. Thank you for suggesting this, crate. For what it's worth, I support the suggestion to simply remove the -MR effect and rename the scrolls to "cleanse magic" or "purge magic".

[Laraso]

Not that I particularly dislike this proposal (I never use vulnerability scrolls in the first place), but I thought the purpose of the vulnerability scroll was to remove buffs from enemies and make them more vulnerable to hexes. Since (in my experience) scrolls of vulnerability are fairly rare, how about we split the effects up into two seperate scrolls as suggested in the OP, but also further distribute them to make it more available? We could add a new Charms spell that removes most statuses (obviously it wouldn't remove things like hunger status, exhaustion, breath cooldown, etc) from the player only, and we could add a wand that does the same thing except the wand would also allow you to target enemies. We could also then add another wand that applies the -MR debuff to enemies.

[RBrandon]

From a gameplay standpoint I can see this seems backwards, however I always imagined this as stripping the enchantments that magically protect somebody. So removing the enchantments on them makes them more vulnerable to hostile enchantments.

That said, this effect still would be more clear if it were named cancellation.

[BountyHunterSAx]

I've always found Vulnerable a *very* interesting tactical choice - safety now for the risk of suffering later, or power now for the same.

Primary uses for me are to remove red/yellow contamination (1), and to prep an enemy for a hex-based stab (2).

In both cases, the trade-off is "am I comofortable that I can handle the -MR ?" Usually I judge right. Occasionally I don't. I like this dichotomy and while I'm all for having it explained better I don't see how straight-buffing ?vuln is interesting. My 2-cents.

-AHMAD

[dck]

?vuln is best used against mark from sentinels and in a few rare cases (zot trap petrify, alarm traps, chaos champion petrify etc) against other things. Since mark already gets a huge power boost there is simply no way you would be marked and then consider reading ?vuln without having killed the sentinel first because if you're confident your MR will be high enough to protect you from it while halved you wouldn't have been marked in the first place.

[Viashino_wizard]

I've always found Vulnerable a *very* interesting tactical choice - safety now for the risk of suffering later, or power now for the same.

Primary uses for me are to remove red/yellow contamination (1), and to prep an enemy for a hex-based stab (2).

In both cases, the trade-off is "am I comofortable that I can handle the -MR ?" Usually I judge right. Occasionally I don't. I like this dichotomy and while I'm all for having it explained better I don't see how straight-buffing ?vuln is interesting. My 2-cents.

-AHMAD

I think it's enough of a tradeoff that using it purges all your buffs. The -MR just makes it so you should only use it after you've already killed whatever it was that put the negative effect on you in the first place.