The Tavern

So, every time I find a wand that is nice, but not nice enough to keep, I have to fire it X times so that it's spent and harmless. Otherwise, some orc will pick it up and I'll lose 3 potions and 30 HP when I take 15 puffs of frost to the face.

It would relieve tedium if one didn't have to do this each time, and there was some facility to "Break Wand."

I suggest this feature for wands only. Wands are smallish sticks that are able to be broken in real life and in other rogue-likes. I do not suggest this feature for, say, discarded weapons or staves.

Edit:

So odd that many of the responses are "Don't drop wands." Or, "hold onto the wands and then drop them when the level is clear." That's the point. You already have a full pack of 52 items. You find a medium strength wand you cannot use. So, you have to shoot it 15 times to expend it. It's boring. It's tedious.

Just hold onto the wand until you can stash it in Lair.

I do not suggest this feature for, say, discarded weapons

Unfortunately weapons have exactly the same problem.

Until/Unless something is done about it, you can just drop items in corners where monsters aren't likely to pick them up. Bothering to empty the wand is a waste of time (and if you really wanted to do that, just dump it into the first monster you see).

Destroying items on the ground is an important behavior in some other roguelikes but is disallowed in (most games of) Crawl. I'm not sure whether this is to prevent the tedium of destroying every weapon you come across but aren't going to use, but indeed, picking up every weapon, wand, ammo you don't want to use but don't want used against you isn't at all less tedious.

I believe two suggestions have been made which are worth considering: disallowing monsters from picking up items which the player has seen, and disallowing monsters from picking up any items.

Or you could just drop them after you've cleared the level. I don't think I've ever had noticeable problems with enemies picking up wands that I've dropped, myself.

Monsters, spells, clouds, and so on shouldn't interact with floor items. Jellies are already interesting enough with their acid attacks and having monsters pick up items doesn't add anything to the game except for tedious stashing and pickup exclusions in vaults. Also Orc Jesus could just gift your allies better gear. Floor item interactions are right up there with ammo mulching and item destruction on the list of things that eventually make people lose interest in Crawl.

If something's not fun then it's not fun regardless of any arguments regarding flavor, balance, our primal instincts involving stashing all the items, or whatever.

If it's not nice enough to keep, why is it pwning you into using potions to stay alive? The player is tougher than most enemies on each level. If it hurts you, it should hurt them.

I honestly think the answer to 99% of these inventory juggling requests is "make there not be 50 kinds of permafood." Is there a way to have it show up as different types on the floor (for flavor and vaults), but then be converted in inventory? Something like "5 bread, 4 jerky, 15 dried fruit" I think would be sufficient use case wise.

More on topic, while I think that this isn't a drastic enough issue to make people ragequit over, I do agree monster-item interaction needs tweaking. Why not just flag user-dropped items as "monsters can't pickup"? This way, they can still grab potions or wands or whatever to add variety of challenge, but you don't have player tedium.

Not really, since you'll have to pick every weak wand/weapon and drop it to prevent monsters picking them.

TeshiAlair wrote:This way, they can still grab potions or wands or whatever to add variety of challenge, but you don't have player tedium.

Then just let monsters generate with wands or potions if this is desirable.

I think monsters picking up floor loot is flavourful (why doesn't the minotaur use any of that loot to defend himself, etc) but otherwise I agree it doesn't add much to the game.

DracheReborn wrote:
TeshiAlair wrote:This way, they can still grab potions or wands or whatever to add variety of challenge, but you don't have player tedium.

Then just let monsters generate with wands or potions if this is desirable.

I think monsters picking up floor loot is flavourful (why doesn't the minotaur use any of that loot to defend himself, etc) but otherwise I agree it doesn't add much to the game.

He does sometimes, and it really sucks when you walk around the corner and run into a mino with CPM and an artifact claymore.

As n1000 mentioned, something that has been discussed a little and may be tested at some point is having monsters never pick up items (and occasionally be generated already holding them instead).

My idea on monsters and floor loot: When the level is generated, before the player gets a single turn on the level, any items within 20 tiles or so of a monster can be moved into it's inventory. Then, make it impossible for monsters to pick things up after the player has entered the level.

This lets the minotaur still use the loot in his vault, for instance, but prevents scummy tactics (or any tactics) from being able to affect how much loot the monsters can pick up.

I definitely think one of the ideas mentioned is good. The only case it removes is the case where a monster you just killed drops a good weapon and other monsters keep picking it up before you get the chance to, but I'm not sure if that's such an interesting case that it's worth going through effort to keep around. The "monsters having wands or potions can sometimes be interesting" and "Beogh orcs need equipment" can both be solved without making players feel pressure to go through tedious but trivial measures to keep powerful items out of monsters' hands.

Klown wrote:If it's not nice enough to keep, why is it pwning you into using potions to stay alive? The player is tougher than most enemies on each level. If it hurts you, it should hurt them.

I think the OP was talking about potions being shattered by cold damage from a wand of frost, not needing to quaff potions to defeat a monster with one.

reaver wrote:My idea on monsters and floor loot: When the level is generated, before the player gets a single turn on the level, any items within 20 tiles or so of a monster can be moved into it's inventory. Then, make it impossible for monsters to pick things up after the player has entered the level.

This is an excellent idea except for monsters with ammo.

I still think being able to view a wand in inventory and 'b'reak it or 'e'xpend it to 0 would be nice.

I think it'd be an interesting tactic to blow more than 1 charge of a wand at once.

The Tavern

Destroying Wands

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