Maurice and "wand stashing"?

[removeelyvilon]

I'm not sure if I understood the mechanics correctly but if I do:

When you spot Maurice and plan to take him down for whatever reason, you should go upstairs and drop all your wands and other gear that he could use against you (not sure about this).
Otherwise he might steal your wand of acid and completely wrec you. That would be rather suboptimal.

I have a gut feeling that this is not intended player behaviour...

[duvessa]

Yes, Maurice is one of the remaining sources of item destruction.

[prozacelf]

Nothing I used to appreciate more than Maurice stealing my tele wand and using all of the charges in the process of taking 20 minutes to hunt down and kill so I could get my wand back and recharge it.

[dynast]

Or you could just zap his ass...

[prozacelf]

I clearly wanted to murder him and steal his sweet sweet cloak.

[prozacelf]

Also, I'm about 99% certain that Maurice can no longer grab things off of the ground that you have seen, so if you're worried about him blasting you with your own shit, just drop it on the floor before you fight him.

[twelwe]

i think it takes alot of turns to go back up and put away wands so i just dump all the miracle dps moves on hi ass the moment he come ito sight!

[nago]

Also, I'm about 99% certain that Maurice can no longer grab things off of the ground that you have seen, so if you're worried about him blasting you with your own shit, just drop it on the floor before you fight him.

Actually he's the only monster coded to be able to do that

[lethediver]

Yeah, it sucks but we rly have no choice but remove. If his steal ability can't net him items he can use against you then it is pointless. If it remains as is it encourages tedium.

May as well squeeze one last remove into 2016.

[ZipZipskins]

here's an off-the-wall idea: make him a shadow evoker that generates with a number of semi-random shadow wands/consumables that he can use against you, that evaporate when he dies. no power increase for the player from new consumables generated, he remains a "be silly, go invisible, and zap you with stuff" guy, without the obnoxious stealing/stashing/whatever else nonsense degeneracy (which as a disclaimer I never do in practice, but in theory is problematic), call him Maurice the Shadow Conjurer

"Maurice manifests a shadowy wand of acid in his hand!"

"The shadowy items Maurice was holding vanish into the ether as he dies."

downsides: complex as hell to do

[Shard1697]

I mean, at that point you could just give him a random wand

[ZipZipskins]

You could, but then there would be a random wand that generated with him, and I like the flavor of him using multiple effects instead of just one, which is closer to how he is now when stealing.

[Shtopit]

So instead of random wand you want him to have a wand of random effects? That's cool to me.

[ZipZipskins]

So instead of random wand you want him to have a wand of random effects? That's cool to me.

I'm down with that, especially now that he can't steal haste and tele and stuff

edit: except that I hate wands of random effects and wish they didn't exist, so there's that

[Rast]

I have a solution less drastic than "remove Maurice".

The current problem with him is when he steals an item you weren't going to use against him and wastes it, possibly even becoming dangerous. Solution: keep the steal effect, increase his chance to steal, but take away his ability to use stolen items. Also beef up his stats, as he's one of the weaker uniques.

[dynast]

The current problem with him is when he steals an item you weren't going to use against him and wastes it, possibly even becoming dangerous.

Problem? i thought that was his design. I wish more enemies would be like Maurice, actually. Teaching players to "Use it or Lose it" instead of hauling resources to display on their morgues is a fine goal.

[Rast]

No, because if it was an item you weren't going to use, the solution is to drop all such items before you fight him, as OP points out.

If it was an item that you would/might have used against him, it's fine for him to take it and temporarily deny you the use of it.

So it's teaching players to drop everything (except maybe one potion of might/zerk) and then fight him.

[Shard1697]

A game where Maurice would work would be a game where the player cannot drop items, and wants to have them. Which means a short game, because otherwise your inventory would get too big to use without annoyance. Crawl will never be this game.

[Quazifuji]

What if Maurice could copy any item you use against him? Quaff a potion, he gets the same effect. Blast him with a wand, he can now use that wand.

The way I see it, right now Maurice does two things: steals your items, and uses your items against you. Item stealing is just a variant of item destruction, which was removed from the game for a reason and I don't see why it should remain on a single unique. Using your items against you is a neat mechanic, except that it has the problem mentioned in this thread, encouraging the player to stash any items that you don't want to use against him.

So, the way you avoid both issues is to have him only use items that you do want to use against him, and not actually remove them from the inventory. Granted, maybe then it just becomes a boring fight where you're encouraged to just tab him to death, and at the very least it would be a very different fight from what it is now.

Overall, I wouldn't be sad if he were just removed. I think he's way more annoying than interesting to begin with, and all the problems he has with tedious optimality just make it worse.

[nago]

What if instead Maurice join the other uniques "looks cool on the paper, it's actually shit" in their final resting place?

He has always been one of the most annoying and with worst mechanism ever, I wonder how and why he survived so far

[Sar]

I wonder how and why he survived so far

  Code:

Sp: invisibility, swiftness, blink, teleport self [emergency]

[dynast]

No, because if it was an item you weren't going to use, the solution is to drop all such items before you fight him, as OP points out.

Lol, are we still going for that? do players actually do:

See maurice
Run back upstairs
Drop resources that you are carrying because you need those to survive
Go back down and search for Maurice without those resources

OR

Kite maurice, who has invisibility, swiftness, and blink
Hope he doesnt get adjacent before you get to the stairs

OR

Drop everything on spot
Fight maurice
Hope no other threats come into sight while maurice blinks around invisible
Hope maurice doesnt teleport and go actually find resources to waste on you

I guess there may be the case that you are so down on your luck that all you have is a iceblast or slow or confuse or 2 of these that you can just drop them before engaging without it being a big deal because you dont really need them...

[Sprucery]

Maurice and Sonja are the two best polymorph targets in the game. Any hex wand works of course.

Stealing is an annoying mechanic of course. Just remove it and give Maurice a guaranteed attack wand. His spell set is good.

[VeryAngryFelid]

do players actually do:

Yes.

[dracos369]

What if Maurice could copy any item you use against him? Quaff a potion, he gets the same effect. Blast him with a wand, he can now use that wand.

Yeah, let's make him a pirate, not a thief.

[dynast]

do players actually do:

Yes.

So they do all of that? funny because i do none of that. Do players also lure natasha uptairs so that she wont wander into resourcers the first 2 times you kill her?

[Rast]

What if Maurice could copy any item you use against him? Quaff a potion, he gets the same effect. Blast him with a wand, he can now use that wand.

Yeah, let's make him a pirate, not a thief.

You wouldn't download a wand.

[VeryAngryFelid]

So they do all of that? funny because i do none of that. Do players also lure natasha uptairs so that she wont wander into resourcers the first 2 times you kill her?

I used to retreat and drop big wands, learned after Maurice had spent many charges of heal wounds.
It's stupid to lure Natasha who is fast, has ranged attack and can summon blockers.

[Siegurt]

So they do all of that? funny because i do none of that. Do players also lure natasha uptairs so that she wont wander into resourcers the first 2 times you kill her?

I used to retreat and drop big wands, learned after Maurice had spent many charges of heal wounds.
It's stupid to lure Natasha who is fast, has ranged attack and can summon blockers.

Actually, sometimes it is nice to use stairs to kill all her summons, should you be standing on them. However as you say, generally speaking, luring her very far isn't a good idea (getting a better tactical position is as good as it always is, of course)

[prozacelf]

What if Maurice could copy any item you use against him? Quaff a potion, he gets the same effect. Blast him with a wand, he can now use that wand.

Yeah, let's make him a pirate, not a thief.

You wouldn't download a wand.

But you would say "Yarrrrr!" while shooting a wand at someone.

[lethediver]

I thought this over again and I think the best solution is just make this guy some kind of demented jester who inflicts some combination of -potion, -scroll and -evoke when he hits you. Same niche (more challenging vs item reliant chars) but doesnt encourage gamey item juggling.

Oh, and wand of random effects of course.