The Tavern

There's a pull request out for adding fire immunity to Firestarter and bigger slaying and MR bonuses to the necklace of rage, since both are neat in principle but (supposedly?) not generally worth using. I think this is a great idea (independently of the specific changes under consideration); it made me wonder whether other unrands should change too.

The first one that came to mind was Finisher, but I just found it in a game and now I feel like I have to post. Does Finisher serve ANY purpose other than tricking players who don't yet fully grasp the speed system? Afaict it doesn't, which means it should either be cut or buffed. Any ideas?

I'll take anything that makes scythes better, I love their shape and it pains me that they're so bad.

I understand they're not meant to be good combat weapons, they're agricultural tools... But hey, let the unrands be good at least!

cut imo

crawl doesnt need multiple unrand scythes

That works too,

but whatever's left, make it decent :')

seems right.

I think it should probably go, but I made a quick attempt at an interesting ability.

Unrands in general serve to trick players who are not aware of Crawl's mechanics. Even in the offchance that they're good (Boots of Assassin, Orange CPA, Plutonium Sword), you have an overwhelming chance of playing a background/using a weapon type that doesn't need them, would weaken you or can't use them a.k.a decorations for your stash museum. Only the jewelry unrands are worth anyone's time since they have a greater chance to be useful and are easy swappables to boot.

Having scythes in the game is kinda neat, but I will admit that I have never found one that I've been able to make use of. If they get removed, I suppose I'll just have to deal with it. Sigmund and reapers could always show up with halberds or something.

Give Finisher Makhleb/TSO-style heal on kills.

Whenever you kill something, you also gain a slaying bonus on your next hit that depends on the HD of the thing you killed.

Make Finisher apply an "Aged" status that works like draining but on everything.

looks good to me!

It should have a mediocre enchantment but also instakill anything with 50% or less HP instead of speed brand

also maybe curse on equip to prevent swapping or something

lichform + finisher + scepter of torment would make you literally the grim reaper.

I think it's scythes in general that should be modified, if they are a no-go. Either make a scythe-looking tile for certain flavoured items while turning them into spears or halberds or whatever (like reapers could wield a halberd looking like a scythe) or give them other stats or some gimmick.

Scythes also aren't like wooden clubs. Clubs are good because they give some added damage power to the weakest monsters without pumping it up too much. Scythes instead are only there in places where they set flavour. So making them disappear, turning them all into a polearm of your choice and giving them an alternate tile resembling a scythe looks like the best solution to me.

Finisher should give u a free extra turn after u kill something

Merge Scythes and Halberds: The stats of the first plus the name of the second.

Nerf Sgimund base damage slightly to make up for the fact that his weapon has improved.

that ruins the joke of scythes being terrible weapons

that's ok.

Semi-serious suggestion:
Give scythes even worse base damage (bring it down to like 10)
Given them short blade stabbing damage (yes, at range 2)
Make them cause extra noise when stabbing (increasing the chance of awaking nearby critters, otherwise polearm stabs are pretty OP)

Bonus: Sigmund's classic confuse+scythe combo actually has some relevance