Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

[Hurkyl]

You miss the point, which is that the game should implement both measures. No stashing (or at least make it significantly more risky to do so, thus introducing a burden of choice) on one end, and on the other: item destruction and weight limits.

This means you will carry what you can with you, but there will be less of it to carry. The ever present threat of destuction/theft means as well that the game rewards the player for using consumable instead of hoarding them. Using your consumables is more fun. The game is supposed to push the player towards making decisions and having fun.

I think your solution actually has the opposite effect of what you intend. The ever present threat of destruction/theft means that hoarding is more important, not less: if you have two potions of haste and you really want to have one available when you really need it, then you had better hold onto both of them as insurance against destruction.

In order for item destruction to push people to having fun using consumables, you need crank it up to such extreme levels that you don't have much hope at all of holding onto a consumable for any significant length of time at all.

[Sprucery]

"No stashing" would be bad for some consumables which have very occasional use. For example, I don't need scrolls of noise until I'm going to Shoals. I don't need scrolls of vulnerability until I'm going to Vaults. So when my inventory gets full, I leave them somewhere for later.

[daggaz]

In order for item destruction to push people to having fun using consumables, you need crank it up to such extreme levels that you don't have much hope at all of holding onto a consumable for any significant length of time at all.

Ding ding ding. Give the man a prize. This is what I meant when I said, 'I prefer the nuclear option.'

"No stashing" would be bad for some consumables which have very occasional use. For example, I don't need scrolls of noise until I'm going to Shoals. I don't need scrolls of vulnerability until I'm going to Vaults. So when my inventory gets full, I leave them somewhere for later.

Yeah I was thinking about this after I posted, specifically for scrolls like brand weapon which can be central to a melee build for example. It would be easy enough to fix by weighting the possibilities for destruction, such that certain scrolls had a much lower 'mulch' rate and were more likely to last. That, or just up drops for them. More fun all around.

[johlstei]

Moving strategic consumables to a new item type would be a reasonable first step if you wanted to bring back item destruction, and a good idea regardless.

[Sandman25]

I don't like that players are punished for not using consumables. If I can safely win a fight without consumables, I will be disappointed by their destruction. It is not a "nuclear" option, it is lack of decisions: no matter whether you need it or not, use the consumable as it will be destroyed any way. I don't think it's fun.
Probably this idea makes sense only for new consumables which are automatically destroyed after some time (like potions of blood for Vampire, perhaps they even can be automatically activated after entering a new level: "As you enter wizlab you feel immense power, you have Brilliance effect for next 200 turns") but it should not be related to conventional item destruction.

[Brannock]

Moving strategic consumables to a new item type would be a reasonable first step if you wanted to bring back item destruction, and a good idea regardless.

How about glyphs? Lesser versions of runes, that you can consume to release its magic for your own strategic benefit. Shift the strategic potions and scrolls into that type.

"You find a glyph of beneficial mutation."

But I'm bikeshedding here. I agree that strategics should have their own item type, and it's a frequently-made proposal with what seems seems like a healthy amount of consensus on it.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

imho the only reasonable way to implement item destruction back is making it not random, and more controllable.
-attacks themselves do not destroy items, but can inflict a "on fire/freezing" -effect on the player (this applies to standing on fire/ice clouds as well)
-while player has this effect on him, he has x% chance of successfully reading a scroll/quaffing a potion, and if the luck isn't on his side, the scroll/potion gets destroyed, and the player wastes a turn.

this would make creatures like mottled dragons interesting again, when they are grouped with other, dangerous monsters.

[damiac]

Mottled dragons are already pretty interesting, in that they light you on fire and hurt you a lot. The issue is that they're typically spawned too deep for their threat level, because the devs rightly realized their main attack was on the player's inventory. Without item destruction, they should only be spawned as a potential source of damage, and eliminated from deeper spawns.