Disable recharge scroll on heal wounds wand

[bel]

(Edit: Hopefully nobody has seen the earlier version. I forgot to include one important point.)

Also increase HW wand probability and decrease HW potion probability so (HW potions + wands * 3) remains roughly same. Deep dwarves can still device recharge. Idea is from nethack where you can't recharge wand of wishing more than once. Basic problem with heal wounds wands is that it makes the game much less risky and exciting since you generally have a fair number of recharge scrolls. If one wants infinite healing, worship Ely.

This makes wands much closer to potions, but since Ru sacrifice evocations and Mu exist, we can't remove one or the other. DD is a special case, but the problems with DD are much worse than just the HW wand.

[KoboldLord]

To deal with the problem presented by excess heal wounds, we could either introduce a bizarre special case to a separate item that is not heal wounds, or we could just remove a redundant item that only had meaning before item destruction and encumbrance were removed. Or we could just ignore the problem, because there are lots of potions in a given game either way.

[bel]

we could just remove a redundant item that only had meaning before item destruction and encumbrance were removed.

As I said, there are problems with removing potions or wands. Mu and Ru sacrifice evocations. The latter is less serious, because you can simply not sacrifice evocations, but then sac evo's usefulness would be pretty dubious. Also, there is the edge case, where you can't zap a HW wand, but can quaff a potion if you have Blade Hands.

[KoboldLord]

None of those issues sound important enough to even consider, much less important enough to justify introducing a bunch of special cases.

Really, the heal wounds wand isn't important to most characters at all. You usually won't find one in the early game, and in the late game it's mostly good for stalling while waiting for your teleport to kick in. It isn't like having an estimated 25 extra charges of haste that don't even cost mp. Heal wounds wands are nice enough to carry around on almost every character, but they're only a game balance issue when they show up very early, for instance at chargen.

[bel]

None of those issues sound important enough to even consider, much less important enough to justify introducing a bunch of special cases.

Really, the heal wounds wand isn't important to most characters at all. You usually won't find one in the early game, and in the late game it's mostly good for stalling while waiting for your teleport to kick in. It isn't like having an estimated 25 extra charges of haste that don't even cost mp. Heal wounds wands are nice enough to carry around on almost every character, but they're only a game balance issue when they show up very early, for instance at chargen.

I dont' see what bunch of special cases you mean. I only suggested one special-casing: heal wounds wand can't be recharged. The other tweak is because if I simply suggested that and didn't adjust the heal wounds wand probability, then heal wounds from a wand would have so little probability as to just make it redundant. Currently it is so rare because it can be recharged.

Secondly, the game balance issue when they show up very early is one of the major problems being addressed.

Thirdly, Mu not being able to heal at all sounds pretty bad to me. Also, I would hesitate a lot to sac evocations on any Ru character if that means my only source of heal wounds is gone. I don't know about you.

You may or may not agree with my proposal, but please accept that I have considered the edge cases carefully, instead of just saying "let's just do this" because it is simpler and ignore the problems. I think my proposal is hardly too complex. It can be stated in one sentence, the topic of the thread.

[dpeg]

There are gameplay differences between the potion and the wand, as bel points out. (Also in principle, the wand could make use of Evocations skill, but it doesn't. It wouldn't matter much if it did.)

However, I think the easiest solution is to scrap the wand and keep the potions. Here is why: (1) the potions provide a continuous influx of healing, whereas the wand gives you a much larger healing chunk at once, especially as (2) the wand is decidely less limited, thanks to recharging.

The two main losers out of this change would be Mu and DD. (I never played Mu but I invented DD.) I cannot even estimate how unplayable Mu would become without the healing wand. For DD, I'd be willing to try a different combination out of damage shaving and starting potions. (Giving out the wand always felt very inelegant, I am sure there are better solutions. Or just pull another Gimli and remove DD too.)

I don't think that removal of the wand affects Ru in a major way, simply because the wands occurs so late, or not at all, in most games.

[bel]

I don't think that removal of the wand affects Ru in a major way, simply because the wands occurs so late, or not at all, in most games.

To clarify, I was talking about the case where potions are removed, so wand is the only source of healing.

[Sprucery]

(Also in principle, the wand could make use of Evocations skill, but it doesn't. It wouldn't matter much if it did.)

It depends on how the skill would affect the healed amount. If the wand would heal, say 1d(Evo skill) hit points, it would matter quite a lot, imo. (Could be 1d(2*Evo) or whatever the desired balance would be, of course).

Something like this would change the wand to be much less useful in the early game. With appropriate scaling, the wand wouldn't give a much larger healing chunk at once compared to potions even with higher Evo.

[Sandman25]

I would be more happy if recharge didn't work on wand of hasting. There are no many situations late game when you want to spend a turn healing 15 HP while Haste is always useful.

[tabstorm]

I don't understand why there's such a push to remove /hw on here lately. If you're having problems with the game being too easy, the XP distribution is probably more to blame than the wand of healing existing.

[XuaXua]

I believe Hasting and Healing wands don't scale with Evocations Skill. Aside from Digging, they might be the only ones.

Make them scale with Evocations, and make them much, MUCH, less useful (by default) at low Evocations.

Wand of Haste at 0 Evocations?
2 turns of haste and glow that lasts THREE TIMES as long as a potion.
15 Evo? Haste Spell.
23 Evo? 1.5 Haste Spell length; super-short glow

Wand of Healing at 0 Evocations?
+ 0 - 1 health.
1 Evo?
20% a potion of curing (scales quickly; becomes potion of heal wounds, then double potion of HW)
Chance to cure poison at 1% (scales quickly)
Chance to cure rot at 1% (scales normal)
Chance to restore attributes at 1% (scales slowly)
Chance to grant lingering regeneration effect if restored to full health 1%; lasts 0 turns (scales slowly).

[ajon]

Is HW really that big an issue? It feels to me that late game, HW kinda tapers off in usefulness as it seems to cap the healing received and monsters are doing more damage. Still useful, but not generally the primary go to.

[Zooty]

Make them scale with Evocations, and make them much, MUCH, less useful (by default) at low Evocations.

Wand of Haste at 0 Evocations?
2 turns of haste and glow that lasts THREE TIMES as long as a potion.

Wand of Healing at 0 Evocations?
+ 0 - 1 health.
1 Evo? 25% a potion of curing.

I don't see why evocations has to be made even more of a nobrainer skill.

[XuaXua]

I don't see why evocations has to be made even more of a nobrainer skill.

Many get away just fine without a Wand of X.

[Sandman25]

I don't see why evocations has to be made even more of a nobrainer skill.

True, let's split Evocations into Wands, Potions (why potions don't depend on anything?), Rods, Cards and Evokables (fan, lamp, sack, lantern etc). I am serious.

[mps]

I don't get it. I usually get this wand on my late game characters and I don't find myself recharging it more than a couple times in a 15 rune game. What's the actual issue here?

Also, isn't "I want X to be more like Y" exactly the opposite of the dcss design position for essentially any X and Y currently in crawl? And doesn't having recharge scrolls that work on any wand give you DECISIONS to make that your proposal takes away? (Leaving aside the fact that so many generate that unless you're using them constantly on junk wands from the beginning of the game, you'll never run out...)

[XuaXua]

I don't see why evocations has to be made even more of a nobrainer skill.

True, let's split Evocations into Wands, Potions (why potions don't depend on anything?), Rods, Cards and Evokables (fan, lamp, sack, lantern etc). I am serious.

You forgot Scrolls.

[bel]

Whether this is an issue at all: Perhaps we can agree that if you get the wand in the early game (or even mid game, say, in Lair branches), it is a very big deal -- it can make you almost invincible. In late game, it is an infinite source of healing. I can't remember dying in late game with a heal wounds wand in my inventory, except once in a Ziggurat when I was paralyzed. (Though I should say that I hardly ever die in late game). Let's assume that we don't agree that this wand confers much advantage in the late game. But then my proposed solution also doesn't create any problems with the late game. Also, I don't see why wand of hasting is brought up. Perhaps recharge shouldn't work on that either, but that is logically a separate discussion. I should say that I find the wand of teleportation most useful, more than even hasting.

About potions and wands: I am fine with removing potions or wands. If people feel that it would not create problems with Mummies (or Necromutation), by all means, remove the wand. It is not my preferred solution.

About scaling with Evocations: I don't like this. Evocations is already too much of a no-brainer.

[sanka]

There are no many situations late game when you want to spend a turn healing 15 HP while Haste is always useful.

Sometimes you are damaged (as a mummy) after a fight, do not have access to regeneration and do not want to spend 100 turns in a dangerous area damaged. You use the potions also after a fight, no? I think the lack of heal wounds would be visible for mummies, tough I think it would be a little bit more interesting drawback than, say, confusion or fire vulerability.

[Sandman25]

Also, I don't see why wand of hasting is brought up. Perhaps recharge shouldn't work on that either, but that is logically a separate discussion. I should say that I find the wand of teleportation most useful, more than even hasting.

Sorry for slight derailing but I believe wand of hasting is related to this thread because you are trying to fix issue with scroll of recharging and the wand competes for scroll of recharging. I believe wand of hasting is even more problematic than wand of HW. Wand of HW does not scale as game progresses, its average effect is 23 HP, is it really enough to survive damage from late game monsters? If you don't die late game, it's not because you spam HW, this is not reliable strategy vs 90% late game monsters.

Wand of teleportation can be replaced with ring of teleportation so its recharging is not a big issue (though I have some sad experience of dying in extended because I ran out of scrolls of recharging/teleportation due to lack of the ring) but this one is a separate issue indeed: why we even have unlimited resource which is always useful and allows degenerate tactics.

[Sandman25]

There are no many situations late game when you want to spend a turn healing 15 HP while Haste is always useful.

Sometimes you are damaged (as a mummy) after a fight, do not have access to regeneration and do not want to spend 100 turns in a dangerous area damaged. You use the potions also after a fight, no? I think the lack of heal wounds would be visible for mummies, tough I think it would be a little bit more interesting drawback than, say, confusion or fire vulerability.

This is why I said "not many". Using a single zap of hasting can save you many zaps of HW by the way.

[mps]

Whether this is an issue at all: Perhaps we can agree that if you get the wand in the early game (or even mid game, say, in Lair branches), it is a very big deal -- it can make you almost invincible. In late game, it is an infinite source of healing. I can't remember dying in late game with a heal wounds wand in my inventory, except once in a Ziggurat when I was paralyzed. (Though I should say that I hardly ever die in late game). Let's assume that we don't agree that this wand confers much advantage in the late game. But then my proposed solution also doesn't create any problems with the late game. Also, I don't see why wand of hasting is brought up. Perhaps recharge shouldn't work on that either, but that is logically a separate discussion. I should say that I find the wand of teleportation most useful, more than even hasting.

Indeed, wand of heal wounds is great to have in the early game and in lair branches, but so is a +5 ring of slaying and various other great, but rare items. It's not like people are getting wands of heal wounds left and right at this stage of the game and it's just one of many things that can make parts of the game trivial.

So I think the decisive question is whether rechargeable heal wounds is overpowered in the late game and I think the answer is: No.

[Hurkyl]

I don't understand why there's such a push to remove /hw on here lately. If you're having problems with the game being too easy, the XP distribution is probably more to blame than the wand of healing existing.

I don't know why others think of it, but to me it feels sort of like "why have two items that do the same thing?". I feel the same way about /oHaste and !oHaste as well as /oTele and ?oTele.

Yes, each of the two varieties of object have different features; e.g. !? are infinitely stackable, but their use can be impaired in ways that / are not (e.g. silence, blurry vision, being a mummy). / can be recharged, which mainly just means as soon as you find the corresponding key item ?oRecharging can be used to give you whichever sort of thing you want, except in annoying inventory-limited ways that don't have any real gameplay effect. (e.g. /oTele being limited to 9 charges)

Is it really so interesting to have this variation that doesn't matter except in a few rare cases where the game attacks aspects of your ability to use things? For whichever pairs the answer is "no", you'd be better off replacing the pair of objects with a single, new kind of object that allows everything to stack in one slot and can't be completely disabled.

[Sandman25]

Is it really so interesting to have this variation that doesn't matter except in a few rare cases where the game attacks aspects of your ability to use things? For whichever pairs the answer is "no", you'd be better off replacing the pair of objects with a single, new kind of object that allows everything to stack in one slot and can't be completely disabled.

I agree. It could be more fun if the only source of teleportation was scroll (and silence, blurry vision, -scroll with Ru resulted in very interesting battles), the only source of hasting was non-recharge wand (Mu cannot use potions, we don't want to make them Fo, again interesting choice in battles since you cannot haste yourself in all dangerous situations) and the only source of healing was potion (Mu nerf is not a big deal) but this is offtopic in this thread IMHO.

[Siegurt]

There are gameplay differences between the potion and the wand, as bel points out. (Also in principle, the wand could make use of Evocations skill, but it doesn't. It wouldn't matter much if it did.)

However, I think the easiest solution is to scrap the wand and keep the potions. Here is why: (1) the potions provide a continuous influx of healing, whereas the wand gives you a much larger healing chunk at once, especially as (2) the wand is decidely less limited, thanks to recharging.

The two main losers out of this change would be Mu and DD. (I never played Mu but I invented DD.) I cannot even estimate how unplayable Mu would become without the healing wand. For DD, I'd be willing to try a different combination out of damage shaving and starting potions. (Giving out the wand always felt very inelegant, I am sure there are better solutions. Or just pull another Gimli and remove DD too.)

I don't think that removal of the wand affects Ru in a major way, simply because the wands occurs so late, or not at all, in most games.

dpeg: suggestion related to DD without a wand of HW:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15838&p=216602#p216602