Having thought about your replies, I have come to the conclusion that (these) double-edged curses probably aren't a good idea for Ash.
I think Nekoatl is right that the curses wouldn't be worth it. You have 9 pieces of equipment that need to be cursed, and with the level of curse I had in mind that leaves you worse than Ru. And I don't think this can be fixed, at least not in an interesting manner, because an interesting double-edged curse has to be worth at least negative 2 stat points (for average characters).
As for the old XP transfer skill... I was quite a fan of it, albeit only in niche situations. However, the current system kind of offers the same value in a more strategically interesting way, so I think the new system is better. So, for example, say you're playing a meleedude and you don't want to heavily commit skill XP to your starter weapon because you want to be able to efficiently change weapon categories if you find a really nice artefact. You can stack your curses current weapon skill on low- to medium-value items while allocating more skill XP to more general skills like Fighting than you otherwise would. Then, when you decide which weapon skill to settle on, you can start focusing skill XP into that while gradually replacing the items cursed to benefit your starting weapon skill.
I played wizards of Ash fairly frequently. Maybe I'm missing something because I'm too stuck in the old ways. I used to be able to play (for example) a NaWz^Ash. I'd find fireball, train fireball up to very good spell power. If I did't find any other fire spells, but I did find good summoning spells, at some point I'd make the decision to transition. Train summoning at 100% and transfer knowledge into summoning. Within 3 dungeon floors I'd be Summoning Hydra.
With other gods like Chei or Sif, it'd take 6 floors and it just wouldn't be worth it. I'd be too weak after 5 floors of not getting useful xp. Better to invest xp into fighting/armour/dodging/shields/stealth/evocations and wait for a high level fire/conjuration spell.
The new Ash is even worse than Chei or Sif. Not only do I need to train up a spell school from scratch if I want to transition, I have to transition my curses too.
Maybe I'm missing something. Is there a way the new Ash can help compensate for book drop RNG?
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Anything to make her simpler again please.
Yet another reason not to implement double-edged curses
As an alternative route to making her simpler, whilst also making her more flexible:
step 1: give an equal boost to all skills based on the number of cursed item slots, similarly to bcrawl
step 2: make cursing and uncursing more impactful by clever use of the gift timer
step 3: give the Transfer Knowledge skill on a piety gift timer when all slots are cursed
To be specific, the amount of exploration you have to do to get a new "curse item" opportunity could increase greatly as more of your item slots fill up with curses. If you have to explore 5 dungeon floors to get your last equipment slot cursed, but full Ash piety does give nice benefits (such as universal skill boosts [possibly even going beyond 27 as in bcrawl] and Transfer Knowledge) it could be interesting. Maybe
The decision of whether to transition equipment items 1 at a time or a whole bunch at once at least wouldn't be trivial.
For the problem with some people not liking perma scrying, you could make it toggleable and decrease the curse gift rate when it's toggled on.
I'd also be curious to see what would happen if Transfer Knowedge was permanently toggleable at full Ash piety, at no cost. Just transfer 1 unit of xp every time you gain 1 unit of xp.
Finally, anyone have any ideas for the double-edged curses I proposed in the original post? What would you think if Ru offered things like this? (I'm willing to clarify any that are unclear)