Livery (a sort of curse reform)

[Chicken]

The curse reform thread got me thinking about a more strategic version that includes way to actually make runes MEAN something.

The idea is that specific branches have a "livery", a set of uniforms for favored servants that offer great advantages and are hence widely renowned. To prevent their servants from being killed and robbed for their valuable armour, the branches have installed a magical security feature: only a specialized key can unlock the armour. Optionally, those wearing it are also trackable by some or all agents of that branch. The key, a.k.a. rune, is kept in a very safe place, naturally...

The livery should be:
* Very good armour (or jewelry, even weapons, whatever...), relatively speaking
* Possess specific advantages for the branch it is found in, e.g. multiple levels of cold resistance for Cocytus.
* Optionally, it reduces stealth or even creates a Sentinel Mark effect while the wearer is on that branch, or relative to specific types of monsters.
* Because it is widely renowned, it always starts fully identified.
* Freely removable if and only if you have the rune - sneaking in and stealing it for this purpose is definitely fair play.
* Should be encountered rather frequently in the branch itself, but also turn up as a rare item or at the markets - at a significant discount, one would expect, relative to its power
* Should be treated as cursed for purposes of monster use, at least unless they happen to be standing on the rune and I think we can ignore that.

The rest... is up to you.

[ontoclasm]

So it's either extremely good and common, in which case why would you need to take it off, or hilariously awful (if it marks you), in which case why would you ever put it on

Also, incidentally, runes already quote-unquote MEAN something. They let you win the game. It's kind of humorous that you envision a player ninjaing a rune so that they can... take off an extremely good piece of armor. Because, you know, nobody gets runes otherwise.

[Chicken]

Well, you ought to be able to calibrate it between those extremes - there would be no hope of making it balanced if you couldn't tune it too far one way or the other. The more good it is, the more bad it should be... Some pieces might seem worth it, some not. Many here seem to hate alts ... this sort of decision making might certainly consign those boots of flying to the storage pile (Alas!).

[ion_frigate]

How about reversing this idea a bit, by making it so you need the rune to wear the item? The game lets you know what (some of) the reward for the branch will be, which may affect your decision on whether or not to do it. Unfortunately this only really works for static, optional runes: the Hells, Tomb, and probably Slime.

A better way to implement the above suggestion, though, would be to make impenetrable rune-locked glass loot chambers, or perhaps even "shops" (selling the item(s) for little or no gold) that you need a rune to buy from, but can always browse freely. Crawl already uses the "show a rune to get a good item" concept in troves - perhaps this would be a better way to implement this concept.

[bananaken]

So it's either extremely good and common, in which case why would you need to take it off, or hilariously awful (if it marks you), in which case why would you ever put it on

You would put it on because getting marked is actually extremely strong with the right characters (anything that benefits from a killhole).