End monster potion identification

[le_nerd]

The problem:

Currently, monsters are able to drink potions. Thats fine with me. Whats not fine is that the potion in question only gets half-identified! I'll get a potion in my inventory that has the auto-inscription {tried by monster}. If I had read every single line of my log, I'd know what the potion in question did- if it healed, made the monster fasted, let it go berserk etc.

If I am just tabbing trough popcorn, I will not know, and for optimal play I really should. Having I'd haste/agiligy/might makes a difference early on.

Solutions:

a) dont let monsters drink potions.
I like that monsters are able to do it, it gives the occasional challenge, non-favoured.

b) ID potions that monsters drink
Straightforward, non-tedious solution of the problem, should have no major changes to gameplay.

c) Do NOT ID potions that monsters drink:
Just state the fact and have the effect, get rid of autoinscriptions. Why should my character see the colour of the potion? I imagine this as an artifact of the thankfully bygone times when monsters would pick up potions in my LOS, where it made sense to autoinscribe the amber potion with {tried by monster}.

[Hurkyl]

Am I remembering wrongly? I thought "tried by monster" only happened when the effect was ambiguous, and the only such case is when the monster quaffs a potion to heal when it doesn't suffer any curable status effects and both Curing and Healing are unidentified.

[le_nerd]

You know, your are perfectly right... That comes from writing enraged posts on an empty grumpy stomach. Topic can be closed.

[wheals]

It would be fine to totally identify curing/heal wounds respectively when it's quaffed, anyway.

[duvessa]

Am I remembering wrongly? I thought "tried by monster" only happened when the effect was ambiguous, and the only such case is when the monster quaffs a potion to heal when it doesn't suffer any curable status effects and both Curing and Healing are unidentified.

the effect is almost never ambiguous though, you can look at the amount the monster was healed

[dowan]

How can you tell how much the monster was healed? I mean, you see the bar go up, but how do you determine if it went up by a cure potion, or by a heal potion? Just experience and knowing general monster HPs?

[and into]

Just ID it. However rarely it occurs, having a potion auto-inscribe with {tried by monster} strikes me as a bit weird. If I were just starting out playing Crawl, with its current version of the ID game, I really don't know if I would understand what the inscription meant. Obviously, it means a monster used that kind of potion and you saw it, okay, but what that actually means is, "This potion belongs to the very small subset that does not identify when you see an enemy use it," and knowing which potions belong in that small subset seems to be spoiler info.

[Sandman25]

Maybe it should be inscribed with {curing or heal wounds}

[and into]

Is curing / heal wounds the only case where something will be inscribed with {tried by monster}? This is definitely a stretch, but would monster AI quaff !berserk rage or !haste if the monster is equipped with an amulet of stasis? If so, what would atuo-ID or auto-inscribe in such a case?

Anyway I like the simplest answer here, just ID potions that monsters drink. That way you always get a little something out of it when you survive a tougher-than-expected encounter with a surprisingly well-prepared orc or whatever.

[celem]

Makes sense. Dont we already got something similar for wands? 'The X zaps a wand. It is a wand a fire. The bolt of fire hits you. Ouch! You die...'

[partial]

wands auto id on pickup (just type not # of charges)

[wheals]

This happened, FWIW.