New randart negative properties

[Lasty]

I like randart negative properties. I think it's interesting to have artefacts that improve a few aspects of your character and make others worse -- we already have just plain enchanted items to give power w/o drawbacks, so artefacts feel like the right space to offer greater power but often with a tradeoff.

With new randart generation, negative randart properties are more common than ever, but the pool of possible properties is quite small, and so the same handful get repeated a lot. As such, I'd like to introduce some new ones. The new properties should not encourage frequent swapping, which to me means that they must 1) apply during combat situations, since combat is where almost all good artefact properties apply, and 2) not apply during non-combat situations. Below are a few initial drafts, with some discussion. In this thread, I'd like to discuss the new properties I suggest below and also get suggestions from the community, bearing in mind the "don't encourage swapping" rules above. I will be aggressively removing posts containing suggestions that ignore that consideration, because I want to keep this as productive as possible.

*Taunt
Enemies damaged by you have a chance to get enchanted with permanent Might. Might has to be permanent or else it would encourage you to reset the fight every time an opponent gets Mighted. Alternately, this could apply a permanent move-speed boost to the monster instead. Core idea is that this property makes enemies more dangerous after you've hurt them.

*Attract
When a monster hits you, has a chance to recall another monster to its position. Alternately, chance to clone the monster as a durable summon; this version doesn't break as many vaults. Core idea is that this property makes it harder to guarantee 1v1 fights.

*Sap
Version one: When you use mana (cast spell or invoke mp-using god power), 50% chance to lose 1d3 extra mana.
Version two: Alternately, lose 1d2 mana whenever you take damage.
Core idea is to have your mana supply during a fight be less reliable.

*Volatile
When damaged by enemy sources, there's a chance to drop a fireball on you (or, alternately, a non-elemental AOE damage burst).
Core idea is that you may take additional resistible damage (by AC at least) during combat, but also damage things around you at the same time. With sufficient AC or rF (if fire-flavored), this might be sometimes a positive-ish quality.

Vulnerable
Multiplies damage by 10% per level after AC/EV/resistances are checked. Doesn't apply to Torment/Flay, to avoid making them lethal. This is functionally identical to -10% hp, except that it doesn't cause issues on swap the way -10% hp would.
Core idea is that wearing this property would overall make you more fragile.

Please let me know what you think about these possible artefact negative properties, particularly if you think there's a glaring issue with one of them that I haven't considered. Please also suggest your own carefully considered negative artefact properties.

[jejorda2]

I can imagine an item good enough that I might use it with any of these, yet all of them are demonstrably negative.
In other words, I think these are good ideas. Many would benefit from differing levels of severity, like 10, 50, or 66% chance for Sap to process, just like -2 to Slaying is different from -6 to Slaying.

[nago]

Taunt seems too dangerous...I mean, I can think very few cases when I could use an item which can give me a mighted stone giant - or a speed up the movement of a fire one.

Attract may require some tweaks: if the first version is chosen, I could use very weak monster (e.g. plain orc in vaults) to summon dangerous ones in a safe place of my choice. If the second one is chosen, I feel it would require too much swapping - I mean I would probably remove against dangerous uniques/monster.

Overall I like a lot the ideas.

[grisamentum]

Taunt seems too dangerous...I mean, I can think very few cases when I could use an item which can give me a mighted stone giant - or a speed up the movement of a fire one.

I think the core idea in Taunt is problematic for any melee character. It often takes half a dozen useless swings before you finally roll well and kill something, even something non-challenging for your level. That's just the way melee damage works.

[plantaspoon]

Reckless - as combat goes on +slaying increases and AC/EV decreases.

[njvack]

*Taunt
Enemies damaged by you have a chance to get enchanted with permanent Might. Might has to be permanent or else it would encourage you to reset the fight every time an opponent gets Mighted. Alternately, this could apply a permanent move-speed boost to the monster instead.

Movespeed increase could be temporary, because then you can't just walk away anymore unless you're faster than the monster. And it could make the monster "you with swiftness-speed" or something. And "I can get away from this fight with consumables" is still interesting.

[bel]

I don't see why the might/haste in Taunt should be permanent. For example, when I am fighting a deep troll pack and a shaman mights/hastes another troll, I often have to escape. This situation is "bad" enough to be dangerous, instead of permanent might.

[johlstei]

I don't see why the might/haste in Taunt should be permanent. For example, when I am fighting a deep troll pack and a shaman mights/hastes another troll, I often have to escape. This situation is "bad" enough to be dangerous, instead of permanent might.

Then you could just reset the fight every time something got mighted until you kill the monster without it getting taunted - it would trivialize the property in a lot of cases in an annoying way. (He wasn't suggesting haste, just a move speed increase.) With move speed you'd at least have to spend a consumable to get out of it vs speed 10 monsters, not so with just plain might.

[Sandman25]

*Airborne
PC is always flying, flight cannot be canceled (even after taking the item off you need to wait 20 turns before the flight can be cancelled).

*Earthbound
PC cannot fly (even after taking the item off you need to wait 20 turns before you can start flying).

*Antiphase
PC cannot use RMsl/DMsl/Phase Shift/Shroud of Golubria

[Sandman25]

*Brave Caster
When you cast any spell, you shout.

*Brave Killer
When you kill a monster, you shout.

*Pain Hater
When you are damaged, you shout.

*Coward
When you see an extremely dangerous monster, you shout.

[mechanicalmaniac]

Old versions of Crawl had permanently cursed items where you would have to burn a ?rc every time you wanted to unequip it. This was annoying, but it did make for some interesting complications.

The airborne idea is interesting, but ever since the controlled/uncontrolled flight mechanic was removed, flying has had pretty much no drawbacks whatsoever under any circumstances unless you have an enemy that knows airstrike in LOS.

Regarding taunt, I'm thinking it should be more along the lines of "attack to cause berserking". Every time an attack hits, the enemy has a chance of going berserk. This would make for some interesting counterplay -- attack a squishy spellcaster with this to disable their spells and get them to come at you in melee range, or run away until the berserking wears off, leaving the enemy slowed and vulnerable. On the other hand, deliberately berserking a melee monster is asking to get your face smashed in. I like properties like this that are neither entirely bad nor entirely good.

[CanOfWorms]

Old versions of Crawl had permanently cursed items where you would have to burn a ?rc every time you wanted to unequip it. This was annoying, but it did make for some interesting complications.

That still exists, it's the {Curse} property (chance of recursing on equipping.) See the Scythe of Curses, for example.

[bel]

I don't see why the might/haste in Taunt should be permanent. For example, when I am fighting a deep troll pack and a shaman mights/hastes another troll, I often have to escape. This situation is "bad" enough to be dangerous, instead of permanent might.

Then you could just reset the fight every time something got mighted until you kill the monster without it getting taunted - it would trivialize the property in a lot of cases in an annoying way. (He wasn't suggesting haste, just a move speed increase.) With move speed you'd at least have to spend a consumable to get out of it vs speed 10 monsters, not so with just plain might.

Yes, that was my point. "Resetting" the fight is possible with the deep troll/ogre packs as well, if they get mighted/hasted. Does that mean that this mechanic is trivial to handle as well, and should be dumped? I don't think so: I think it is dangerous enough on its own. Sometimes, I stand and fight, sometimes I escape.

A trivial "reset" would only work if you only have 1v1 for the monster on an empty floor and you can kite it forever till might wears off. But that is not an interesting, nor a very common case. Also, combining with movement speed increase (haste is also possible), "reset" in this way is not (always) possible.

[jejorda2]

flying has had pretty much no drawbacks whatsoever under any circumstances unless you have an enemy that knows airstrike in LOS.

What if flying attackers could shoot over grounded enemies, making all ranged attacks work more like smite-targeted attacks? Flying targets could be targeted by anything, flying or grounded, so long as there isn't a flying target in the way. I would love to see flying matter.

[bel]

*Coward
When you see an extremely dangerous monster, you shout.

This seems counterintuitive.

[bel]

I am ok with the negative properties, but my feeling is that they are a bit too much weighted against melee. Some sort of negative properties for ranged/caster (Sap is one, but probably needs more) would be good. I can't think of any at the moment though.

[johlstei]

I don't see why the might/haste in Taunt should be permanent. For example, when I am fighting a deep troll pack and a shaman mights/hastes another troll, I often have to escape. This situation is "bad" enough to be dangerous, instead of permanent might.

Then you could just reset the fight every time something got mighted until you kill the monster without it getting taunted - it would trivialize the property in a lot of cases in an annoying way. (He wasn't suggesting haste, just a move speed increase.) With move speed you'd at least have to spend a consumable to get out of it vs speed 10 monsters, not so with just plain might.

Yes, that was my point. "Resetting" the fight is possible with the deep troll/ogre packs as well, if they get mighted/hasted. Does that mean that this mechanic is trivial to handle as well, and should be dumped? I don't think so: I think it is dangerous enough on its own. Sometimes, I stand and fight, sometimes I escape.

A trivial "reset" would only work if you only have 1v1 for the monster on an empty floor and you can kite it forever till might wears off. But that is not an interesting, nor a very common case. Also, combining with movement speed increase (haste is also possible), "reset" in this way is not (always) possible.

Resetting is not nearly as easy if something is hasted - you have to use a consumable at least. I think that is the reason why deep troll shamans are a reasonable monster. Might on top of that makes them extra deadly, but you're right it doesn't do much if they don't also haste. I think it's prudent to design around speed 10 melee monsters being escape-able - I very rarely fail to escape from one when I decide it's something I need to do. Maybe your experience has been different?

[bel]

Resetting is not nearly as easy if something is hasted - you have to use a consumable at least. I think that is the reason why deep troll shamans are a reasonable monster. Might on top of that makes them extra deadly, but you're right it doesn't do much if they don't also haste. I think it's prudent to design around speed 10 melee monsters being escape-able - I very rarely fail to escape from one when I decide it's something I need to do. Maybe your experience has been different?

I am not sure I get your point. If a monster is might-ed in the middle of the fight, I may decide to flee instead of continuing the fight. Whether or not I succeed is a different matter - it depends on the terrain and what else is around. All I am saying is that the might need not be permanent to make the randart property dangerous. Especially if there is a chance of speed increase, but even without it.

[johlstei]

Resetting is not nearly as easy if something is hasted - you have to use a consumable at least. I think that is the reason why deep troll shamans are a reasonable monster. Might on top of that makes them extra deadly, but you're right it doesn't do much if they don't also haste. I think it's prudent to design around speed 10 melee monsters being escape-able - I very rarely fail to escape from one when I decide it's something I need to do. Maybe your experience has been different?

I am not sure I get your point. If a monster is might-ed in the middle of the fight, I may decide to flee instead of continuing the fight. Whether or not I succeed is a different matter - it depends on the terrain and what else is around. All I am saying is that the might need not be permanent to make the randart property dangerous. Especially if there is a chance of speed increase, but even without it.

It is easy enough to escape that you can do it most of the time, and so mechanics that can be abused if and only if you can escape from a speed 10 monster should be treated as abuseable in general. The case where terrain doesn't let you escape is pretty rare, in my experience anyway.

[mattlistener]

I am ok with the negative properties, but my feeling is that they are a bit too much weighted against melee. Some sort of negative properties for ranged/caster (Sap is one, but probably needs more) would be good. I can't think of any at the moment though.

-Range: Range of all spells is reduced by one (to min of one). It's not as bad for casters as the antimagic brand. Buff-focused hybrids may not even mind.

Glow+/Glow++/Glow+++: Successful spellcasts have a 33%/66%/100% chance to add 1 magic contamination. Also bad for spammers, near-fine for buffs.

[mattlistener]

-Unsteady: Normally non-trampling melee attacks have a chance to trample you.

[Bloax]

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't use an item that mights every ettin that I fight.
Oh right, I could just unequip the item before I fight an enemy like that!

fun times

[duvessa]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Bloax against a dev, but yes. You said that the properties shouldn't encourage swapping...then listed 5 properties that do exactly that. These would result in tons of swapping, similar to how existing -stat properties do. You would remove taunt and attract before attacking certain enemies, vulnerable and volatile when you're going to take high damage, and sap when you're going to use mp or take damage (well, if it's only 1d3 mp loss you probably wouldn't care, but you get the point). Really the main difference I see between these and -stat properties is the lack of a positive equivalent, and while that makes them actually have a reason to exist (see here for why I believe having both -resistance/+resistance, -stat/+stat, -AC/+AC is not really meaningful; 0 is only special in that it's the value you have when naked), they still suffer from the swapping problem. The best negative properties by far (probably the best randart property period) are Contam and Curse because unlike every other property in the game they actually limit swapping.
This is not to say that positive randart properties don't suffer from swapping as well, but the existence of negative properties means that to achieve the same overall power level there have to be more positive properties, which means way more total properties, which means way more swapping. Even properties like Contam and Curse have this effect if the properties on non-Contam non-Curse items are increased to keep power levels the same*, although you can just as well go the other way with those (reduce swappable negative properties to maintain power levels). So, if tactical item swapping is undesirable - I believe that it is - I am very suspicious of negative item properties in general. And yes, I have the same suspicion against positive ones - I would love it if resistance jewellery weren't a thing, at the least. I suggest that if you like items that make your character worse, beyond how replacing your previous item makes your character worse, you should increase Contam/Curse style properties rather than rF-/-Tele style properties. The ones I see in this thread are all the latter.

*I know they weren't adjusted when MUT was changed to Contam, so there's no need to point this specific case out to me.

[dpeg]

I believe that negative properties are interesting because they can trigger choices. That choice should be "am I willing to cope with this item for a while", not "can I avoid the negative effects by clever tricks", of course. So yes, Curse and Contam are good because they're held in check by reasonable rare consumables.

* Stat Drain
When getting hit while wielding/wearing this thing, you can incur stat loss. Removing the thing *will* incur substantial stat loss. (As you can see, this is an attempt to keep swapping at bay through !RestAb rarity. By the way, is sustain abilities still a ring?)

* Spectral Weapons
When hitting with this weapon, there is a chance to create puny, short-lasting spectral weapons of the weapons base type. Any enemy can swap places with the spectral weapons at will.
Here the idea is not that these damage you substantially, but that they make it harder to flee, especially in tight places. I don't think there is a swapping concern because it's on a weapon: if you want to use this for attacking, you have to deal with the effect. [One could also make a positive version of this, a la Brogue's multiplicity ego but that's off-topic.]

* Overflay
Attacking a monster with this weapon may give it Flay towards you (so you have to kill in order to get the HP back). When that happens, attacking the now-flaying monster damages all monsters in sight.

* Attrition
You lose MP rapidly when not hitting monsters with the weapon. When killing a monster, MP is immediately reset to full.

[galbolle]

* Disposable: has a chance to lose enchantment with each hit. Disappears when enchantment reaches some value (+0, -3, -5?). It would make early distortion and sticky curse more interesting. The weapon should give a warning before disappearing (and probably not disappear during combat).

* Unwieldy: switching to and from this weapon takes longer than normal; to be used with properties that encourage weapon-switching. This is a bit more evil on launchers than melee weapon.

[grisamentum]

* Spectral Weapons
When hitting with this weapon, there is a chance to create puny, short-lasting spectral weapons of the weapons base type. Any enemy can swap places with the spectral weapons at will.
Here the idea is not that these damage you substantially, but that they make it harder to flee, especially in tight places. I don't think there is a swapping concern because it's on a weapon: if you want to use this for attacking, you have to deal with the effect. [One could also make a positive version of this, a la Brogue's multiplicity ego but that's off-topic.]

* Overflay
Attacking a monster with this weapon may give it Flay towards you (so you have to kill in order to get the HP back). When that happens, attacking the now-flaying monster damages all monsters in sight.

Again, anything with "bad things happen when you melee with this" just seems totally unusable.

Because scrolls of brand and enchant weapon exist, there's rarely a reason to use a randart with any negative properties. You almost never find a randart (even with all positive properties) better than a +9 whatever of holy wrath/flaming/freezing that you can typically create by midway through the Dungeon (at which point you've probably found 0 randart weapons anyway).

[ragnarokchu]

I think a key thing that people are forgetting to discuss is that the more powerful the negative property the item should also give you equal amounts of power. There randarts already generated (a number actually) that are visibility worse then generally just not wearing them at all. You don't want people to just avoid wearing the item what so ever so it's too much an hassle to do so.

Example would be an amulet that let's say generated with clarity, Dex+1 rC- which give you no reason to wear it over a normal one generally. Adding in a ton of more powerful drawbacks makes alot more bad randarts when good ones generate not that often to begin with. The vast majority of mediocre or bad randarts suddenly also having more serious ones like above would really destroy the feeling of finding one at all.

If anything we need to label randarts drawbacks and give the item more powerful the worse the drawback(s)

[Lasty]

@minmay: I hadn't considered that people would swap out the properties I listed, but now that you say it, I can imagine how some players would. Perhaps it really just does not make sense to put negative qualities on artefacts that can be swapped, meaning that either all negative properties would need to also give unequip penalties or come with other properties that also give unequip penalties. I'll need to consider that.

@ragnarokchu: the current randart generation process does not work as you describe. Artefact plus/minus (for weapon/armour) are decided first using a process that hasn't been changed for years. After that, the artefact gets a "quality level", and a number of bad properties (with increased odds of increased bad properties as quality level increases). The number of good properties is set to quality + number of bad properties. Then random artefact properties are selected from the total list, each one taking up one of the "good" or "bad" property slots; some properties have a chance to use up extra "good" property slots to get enhanced versions (resists, attributes, slaying, stealth). The total number of properties (good and bad) is limited, and any extra good property slots are used to enhance existing good properties. Thus, adding more different good or bad properties to the list of total properties does not actually affect the ratio of good to bad properties on artefacts. This represents a change from the 0.15 artefact generation code.

[Siegurt]

I'd actually like to see some properites that are a mixed bag of positive and negative effects, I think those taking the place of some of the outright negative properties might be interesting

So as a random example (Which might or might not be viable):
*Webbing: Attacking with this weapon will randomly place webs in LOS that disintegrate on their own after a little while, if they strike an square with a monster or the player in it, the monster or player will be instantly webbed.

[bel]

About item swapping. I thought the case we were discussing is that a jewellery having these properties would have a large number of good properties in compensation. Kind of like Maxwell's which has -Tele/-Cast, but a lot of very good properties. So, the choice is some very good jewellery, which occasionally mights your opponent, vs not. One can easily imagine situation where one would hesitate to unequip it because it might be the only source of rf+, or it might have a lot of slay, or stat bonuses or whatever, which is worth the risk.

Regarding item swapping in general, my impression is that I do a lot of item swapping in general. I thought that is what everbody did. Isn't it a part of Crawl's design philosophy that resistances aren't permanent (in general, ignore special cases like hat of the alchemist for now), and the player needs to make a choice, getting them either through random mutations or swappable jewellery?

[TeshiAlair]

This may be my single favorite thread currently running. I've been dying for some double edged sword mechanics in this game

[XuaXua]

This may be my single favorite thread currently running. I've been dying for some double edged sword mechanics in this game

Have you tasted the new potions?

[comebackshane]

Idk, ever since the re-re-re-re-re-re-remake of artefact generation, I abandoned the idea of getting a piece of equipment with no negative attributes. -resist X and -tele are lethal enough if you ask me.
I don most of my armours "wearable coffin" nowadays...

[Skrybe]

* Unwieldy: switching to and from this weapon takes longer than normal; to be used with properties that encourage weapon-switching. This is a bit more evil on launchers than melee weapon.

This is a good one, in my opinion. It's subtle, compared to something like *Rage, yet would still have an impact on equipment choice and combat. It would work on jewelry too, arguably more so that it would work with weapons.

*Brave Caster
When you cast any spell, you shout.

*Brave Killer
When you kill a monster, you shout.

These sound almost like they could be part of god conducts, rather than randart properties.

Also, if randart properties should (rightly) not apply outside of combat, shouldn't *Tele be reworked/removed?

[Sandman25]

I am not sure if the following properties are easy to implement but anyway (badly worded names of course).

*Dedication
You cannot swap anything when there are hostile monsters in LoS

*Claustrophobia
You cannot attack/cast when there are less than 3 adjacent open tiles. It means you will not be able to fight in corridors

*One Way Doors
You cannot close doors when there are hostile monsters in LoS

*One Way Stairs
You cannot go upstairs when there are hostile monsters in LoS

*Broken Weapon
20% chance to miss with cleaving (does not affect main target), reaching (polearms at range 2), stabbing attack (when target is disabled by confusion/paralysis/distraction etc.). 10% chance to shoot missile (including throwing) in opposite direction.

[Jeremiah]

What about:

*negative - removing this item causes draining

[KittenInMyCerealz]

how about a new property, *slow (though it's probably a positive one)
works like torpor snails slow, on you and everything in your los.
or could be evoked for the effect on everything in your los.
can't be blocked by stasis, and the slow lingers after removing the artefact.

[xentronium]

*corr
Has a chance to give you one level of corrosion when you are hit. Rcorr works to reduce the chance.

[crate]

fwiw I don't really like having more properties on artefacts in general (pretty quickly it gets to the point where I just don't care enough to figure out if it's good for me so I just stop even trying artefacts entirely)
obviously this isn't a "don't do this because it's wrong" criticism but it's something to keep in mind
but idk, i'd be equally happy if artefacts didn't exist at all in crawl, so perhaps this is just me

[dpeg]

crate: From a very strict design point of view, I can see where you're coming from. Artefacts are either noise or have a tendency to overpower the game (i.e. the game-breaking early artefact), so it is extra hard to avoid the no-brainer zones on both ends.

However, artefacts are a great source of randomness in itself, and they provide a source of decisions: if all items are mundane, then it is even easier to come up with ideal progressions for weapons and armour. I think that artefacts regularly trigger interesting and fun decisions, e.g. about skilling when finding a good but not great weapon between early and mid game.

Finally, I'd reckon that randarts are cool, and they can build something of mini-lore (for a single game) on their own, which is worth quite a bit, in my opinion.

So I'd much rather tweak randart generation than reduce (let alone remove) them. I think this thread is valuable because well-made negative and double-edged properties can provoke serious questions.

[duvessa]

Remember that you can (and should) swap armour too, not just weapons and jewellery.

However, artefacts are a great source of randomness in itself, and they provide a source of decisions: if all items are mundane, then it is even easier to come up with ideal progressions for weapons and armour. I think that artefacts regularly trigger interesting and fun decisions, e.g. about skilling when finding a good but not great weapon between early and mid game.

I don't find that artefact aux armour and jewellery produce interesting strategic decisions. I always find one item to be better than the other ones available. Weapon and body armour choice are more interesting but, from experience, I don't find that artefacts improve the decision space there at all.

[dpeg]

duvessa: Maybe it is generally clear to you, but the forums are full of questions with players wondering whether something is worth the AC-3 etc. You are right that in many cases the choice is clear simply because one item is obviously best. Toning down randarts would help... I had the impression that the new generation code goes a little bit in that direction.

I agree that swapping is a problem but this is not the fault of randarts (they exerbate it a bit), it's a problem with jewellery in general. I think it can be tackled, but I also don't think it is very urgent to do so. [One of the very first suggestions I made as a developer was the change to "gourmand: there swapping was ever-present, and enforced by the mechanics. That one was urgent, in my opinion.]

[duvessa]

You are right that in many cases the choice is clear simply because one item is obviously best. Toning down randarts would help... I had the impression that the new generation code goes a little bit in that direction.

usually the best item is not a randart...

[ragnarokchu]

@ragnarokchu: the current randart generation process does not work as you describe. Artefact plus/minus (for weapon/armour) are decided first using a process that hasn't been changed for years. After that, the artefact gets a "quality level", and a number of bad properties (with increased odds of increased bad properties as quality level increases). The number of good properties is set to quality + number of bad properties. Then random artefact properties are selected from the total list, each one taking up one of the "good" or "bad" property slots; some properties have a chance to use up extra "good" property slots to get enhanced versions (resists, attributes, slaying, stealth). The total number of properties (good and bad) is limited, and any extra good property slots are used to enhance existing good properties. Thus, adding more different good or bad properties to the list of total properties does not actually affect the ratio of good to bad properties on artefacts. This represents a change from the 0.15 artefact generation code.

I said nothing about the bad to good ratio with properties, I'm saying the new drawbacks are much more powerful then the current drawbacks we have to begin with. Thus if they were to be put into the game they need to be different in making the item more powerful in comparison to the item. Same way if we added good properties that were extremely powerful, they would need extra drawbacks on the item itself. My point was is we put all of theses powerful drawbacks in the generation pool, there would be many many more lemons in the game then there are already.

For example if I made the Attract property into a good version (Let's say clone). Where when I hit monsters I can clone myself temporary to help me fight them. It would be overpowered as hell unless I scripted it to also give me 2-3extra bad properties if I rolled it on the item. Your point with the post is to have them "give greater power with greater drawbacks", but as of current you just added greater drawbacks without any edits to ensure the item can also be of greater power. If you just want to add extra bad properties to the pool just because for the sake of variety that's fine. But I'm just pointing out your suggestion only fits half of what you want.

[jejorda2]

To make id double-edged, the doppleganger ally could randomly be equipped with half of your armour, leaving you only the other half until it it expires.

[Sandman25]

If jewelry swapping is a problem, it can be solved by increasing time for swapping, we can make it linearly proportional to max number of properties on any of both rings: swapping from a simple ring like "protection from cold" to another simple ring like "protection from fire" takes usual 0.5 turn, if at least one of the rings is an artefact with 2 properties then it takes 1 turn, an artefact with 3 properties takes 1.5 turn etc.

[dpeg]

Sandman: I think that's a rather inelegant solution. First, delays lead to annoying deaths unless we try very hard to prevent players from making mistakes. (Compare armour un/dressing casualties.) Second, swapping would still often take place, only in a more paranoid fashion.

What I had in mind is a bit different (note this is nowhere an official proposal or something, just some random ideas):
1. Putting on jewellery enables its effect only after a while (a la Gourmand -- this solves the sudden death problem, but does not prevent paranoid swapping).

Or, more radical:
2. Removing jewellery has a chance to destroy the item. (Yes, this has major ramifications, I know.)

Before even contemplating any of that, we'd need to discuss how happy we are with swapping, and to what extent. (A bit of swapping is good, it gets annoying if players do it all the time. There should be some middle ground.)

[duvessa]

Ring swapping specifically bothers me, because the ring slots are probably the most swappable slots in the game, yet they also have the worst interface for swapping in the game because there are two slots that use the same items. Not only do you have to pick which ring to put on, you have to pick which ring to take off. No other slot in the game has this extra hurdle.
In my opinion, races other than Op should have only one ring slot.

[Sandman25]

If you don't like ring swapping interface, don't swap rings. Add =R inscription to one equipped ring and you will not get the prompt, there is no need to remove rings for everyone. I like combining different rings, it's often not that obvious which ring I should remove.
To me it's similar to "Spells are the most picked things in the game and yet they have the worst interface: you should press z, then spell letter and finally choose target. Compare with melee weapons where you can attack by pressing a single arrow key. I suggest to limit all species except Deep Elf to one available spell. If you want to learn another spell, forget previous one first".

[Siegurt]

Why is ring swapping a problem generally? And how does it relate to fleshing out of the negative artifact properties such that it's related to this discussion?

My impression was that we're looking for ways to make artifacts more interesting, without making it *more* likely to want to swap in rings or only wear them for temporary purposes (For example *tele and *rage, which usually do nothing if worn for short intervals)

I don't get the impression that the OP was trying to make jewelry swapping *less* appealing, rather simply to not make it any *more* appealing by adding more randart properties that encourage short term use.

I feel like "we should remove all incentive for swapping jewelry" is a different conversation altogether (And one I happen to disagree with, for reasons I'll get into should a thread be made to discuss it