Proposal: Buff Scroll of Noise

[bisonbisonbison]

Barring breaking mesmerize, scroll of noise is almost all downside.

How about adding a chance of stunning/confusing/deafening/silencing living and demonic creatures currently within 1-2 tiles of the player?

This would allow SoN to be an unreliable escape of last resort that would simultaneously make long-term escape less likely by calling in everything within range of the noise.

[PleasingFungus]

Have you ever tried using it outside rune vaults, or the elf:3 vault?

[Piginabag]

In what situations, to accomplish what?

[Sar]

In situations where you don't want to charge into a bunch of dangerous dudes but rather want them to line up and walk towards you while you prep those cloud and bolt spells, or just have a nice chokepoint (digging and disint help there) where you can buff and kill them all.

I usually use wand of lightning, though.

[Piginabag]

Can't I just "t t" for that? Scroll of noise doesn't accomplish much more.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Can't I just "t t" for that? Scroll of noise doesn't accomplish much more.

Scroll of noise is louder.

[Piginabag]

Can't I just "t t" for that? Scroll of noise doesn't accomplish much more.

Scroll of noise is louder.

So I have a higher chance of aggroing things I don't want to, or haven't seen yet.

[nilsbloodaxe]

So I have a higher chance of aggroing things I don't want to, or haven't seen yet.

Yes, but sometimes this is desirable (though not necessarily optimal). If you are a melee tank, for example, and you on Elf:3, and you create a "hidey-hole" outside of the vaults, then you can use ?noise to lure out more of the dudes in the vault. Since you are in a hidey-hole you only face one at a time, but by drawing out more you clear out the vault faster.

[Sar]

Generally if you are going for the rune, or for Elf:3 loot, you do want to aggro things in the vault - unless you are stealthy character - and it's better to fight them on your terms.

[crate]

honestly unless you get one of the really shitty elf end vault layouts that messes up monster pathfinding you don't want to read scroll of noise in elf (or anywhere else) (and of course if you do get one of those then it's likely the scroll won't accomplish what you want anyway since the vault layout messes up monster pathfinding); there are better ways to accomplish what the scroll could do

[duvessa]

The point of scroll of noise is to be useless, like potions of degeneration et cetera. If anything I think crawl should get rid of the one place where scroll of noise actually has a (very, very, very small) chance of being useful, breaking mesmerise when you don't have lightning. There are too many items for 52 inventory slots already.

[and into]

The thing is, buffing ?noise to give a stun-like effect makes it overlap with ?fear a lot already (mass debuff scroll with defensive utility). Sure you could make it check HD instead of MR, or add a bit of sonic damage, or something like that, but then every time there is a pair of "similar but a little different" effects, it means you are adding distinctions and complexity that clutter the game without adding much meaningful difference in terms of options, and that is especially bad with effects that are common and accessible to all characters (as is case with scrolls). As for an "escape immediate danger but possibly land in greater danger" mechanic, teleportation does that really well already.

[Sar]

scroll of projected noise

[TeshiAlair]

What if it confused/briefly disoriented/1 turn stunned enemies right next to you, at the cost of attracting enemies from farther away?

[bisonbisonbison]

What if it confused/briefly disoriented/1 turn stunned enemies right next to you, at the cost of attracting enemies from farther away?

That's the question, yes. I think and into has a good point about scroll of fear overlap, but it just felt like an opportunity to add an escape option with an interesting wrinkle.

[Patashu]

What if it confused/briefly disoriented/1 turn stunned enemies right next to you, at the cost of attracting enemies from farther away?

It sounds like holy word except it effect everything instead of just demons/undead.

[TeshiAlair]

Given that holy word is rare enough to not be terribly useful, at least in 3-runers, I don't think the overlap would be a terrible thing.