Improve rods' use/interface by removing wield requirement

[and into]

For a long time rods (mostly) duplicated existing effects, but had two things distinguishing them:

1.) you must wield them like weapons to access their abilities
2.) they use their own separate magic pools that recharge separately; rate and size of magic points can be improved with ?recharging

Due to some very good changes recently, rods' effects are more unique and do not neatly duplicate existing spells/abilities.

I do not think that wielding rods being a requirement for use is an interesting cost/distinguishing feature. It involves a cost that is usually trivial in terms of game play, but non-trivial in terms of "patience cost" from the player. And with rod effects now being more unique, this aspect of them really is not needed as a means of distinguishing them. They (mostly) do their own unique things now, and number 2.) is a sufficiently distinct mechanism as compared to wands and miscellaneous evocables.

Thus I propose that rods no longer require wielding to be used, with the exception of rod of striking, which would continue to operate as currently. (A few ideas on how this new interface could be implemented follow below.)

This is an indirect buff to vampiric weapons and Ashenzari, neither of which needs a buff. I think the improvement in game play is worth this, however, and if it is felt that this diminishes the Ash/vampiric cost too much, then I think it would be fine to disallow rod use while your weapon hand is cursed and/or while wielding vampiric weapons. You could say in description of rods something like, "Rods do not need to be wielded to be used, but unlike wands they require a weapon hand that is not magically bound to its weapon. Thus, rods cannot be evoked while wielding a [cursed and/or vampiric] weapon."

Obviously, if this change were introduced, rods other than rod of striking would never generate cursed. Also the "regenerate MP faster if wielded" thing that rods have (or used to have—maybe that was removed?) would go.

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I suggest one of two possibilities for a new rods interface:

1.) Along with worn evocable items and god abilities, add a new tier to the abilities menu that contains all rods currently in your inventory.
2.) Add a new group/tier for rods listed under your capital-V evoke menu. (So there'd be wands, elemental evocables, and rods.)

Each rod could be listed separately, or you could pool multiple rods of the same kind together in all screens except inventory, with the mana pools and recharge rate of the two rods combined.* This would slightly buff rods but not greatly so, and would reduce clutter on the e(V)oke or (a)bilities screen.

*A bit more technical details about the exact way this could work follows in spoiler:

Spoiler: show

Let's say you had two rods of clouds, one +2 with 12 max MP and the other +5 with 15 max MP. On abilities or eVoke menu you'd see something like "Cone of Cloud, 6 MP (27/27), Recharge rate +7." MP would be drawn from the rod with higher recharge first. So if you used it once, in your inventory the MP of your +5 rod of clouds would read (9/15). If you used it twice more, that rod would read (0/15) in your inventory screen, and your +2 one would read (9/12). For nearly all practical purposes this wouldn't matter, as the magic pools of the two rods are combined so long as they are in your inventory; it would just be the way the game keeps track of which rod "discharges" first as you are using them. Of course, each rod would take up one slot in your inventory regardless.

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(Related follow up proposal)

Open up usage of the v key to streamline evocations

I'd suggest two possibilities:

1.) When not wielding a weapon of reaching, hitting the v key evokes your last-evoked item, if it is usable (not inert/out of charges/etc.)

2.) As with your f key, you can set any currently accessible evocable item effect to the v key, with no time cost—in other words, basically duplicate (q)uiver and (f)ire functionality. Your v key defaults to "reaching" when you equip a reaching weapon, unless you specifically changed it during the last time you wielded said weapon. (Again, the current behavior with auto-quivering when you switch to a longbow would work here.) Tab can still do auto-reaching regardless of whether your wielded reaching weapon is currently chosen for v.

[Siegurt]

I counter-suggest that all rods get the 'striking' effect (i.e. they blow one of their charges when used as a melee weapon in exchange for evocation-based damage) and that the rod of striking itself, be striken

(I know, I know, I need help, do you know any pun addiction specialists?)

This would make wielding them a somewhat functional choice and whether to blow their charges on abilities or smacking stuff a little interesting in and of itself.

[and into]

I counter-suggest that all rods get the 'striking' effect (i.e. they blow one of their charges when used as a melee weapon in exchange for evocation-based damage) and that the rod of striking itself, be striken

(I know, I know, I need help, do you know any pun addiction specialists?)

This would make wielding them a somewhat functional choice and whether to blow their charges on abilities or smacking stuff a little interesting in and of itself.

So all rods would be rods of striking in addition to what they normally do? That seems both extremely powerful and also makes them less distinct. Unless the evocations-based damage was nerfed from current rod of striking...

But in either case this recapitulates the current problem: You want to evoke rods, and you do not want to use them as weapons, but you have to wield them as if they were weapons in order to evoke them for the effects that you do want. If you could smack things with the rod for some damage at cost of 1 MP of charge from rod, there would be some cases in which you want to use the rod as a weapon *and* as an evocable. But in all cases where that isn't so, and you just want to evoke it, you'd have the exact problem that rods currently have.

If the damage from rods as a weapon were so good that you'd almost always want to use them as weapon and as an evocable, then you'd mostly solve one problem but create a much bigger one: Rods would suddenly be really overpowered.

[Siegurt]

Well, I was actually vaguely thinking that the evocation-based damage might be rod-by-rod based (So roughly an analogue of staff damage) with different types of damage for different types of rods.

Though the point remains about 'when you don't want to use it as a weapon, you still have to wield it to evoke it' this just gives you an incentive to walk around with your rod wielded... Yeah, I said it, deal with it

It's not so much a solution as an option to make the non-interface annoyance version of using a rod(Where you just keep it permanantly wielded) more viable.

[and into]

Well, I was actually vaguely thinking that the evocation-based damage might be rod-by-rod based (So roughly an analogue of staff damage) with different types of damage for different types of rods.

Though the point remains about 'when you don't want to use it as a weapon, you still have to wield it to evoke it' this just gives you an incentive to walk around with your rod wielded... Yeah, I said it, deal with it

It's not so much a solution as an option to make the non-interface annoyance version of using a rod(Where you just keep it permanantly wielded) more viable.

Yeah, if we came up with a bunch of cool "on hit" effects that were added (or which replaced) the e(v)oke effects, then that would work. But what you describe sounds a lot like the melee capabilities of some enhancer staves, but without the whole "enhance magic and require magic training to be effective in melee" thing. Which seems redundant, and also would perhaps makes rod-switching too prevalent.

this just gives you an incentive to walk around with your rod wielded

Well, even with my initial proposal, there will always be (w)ield * to "reveal all" (as it were), which would still allow you to wield your rod.

[TeshiAlair]

Yeah, I think rods are sufficiently distinct in behavior from wands and other evokables to not have them need to be overcomplicated