Reading scrolls while brainless -- multiturn?

[njvack]

Hi,

Just had my first "trying on that -6 ring of Int while at 5 Int" experience the other day. But! Reading the scroll fails. I had a momentary bit of panic, and the remembered minmay telling someone you could just keep trying to read the scroll until it succeeds.

Indeed! Saved!

But man, that's non-obvious. If I hadn't remembered that post, I'd never have tried again. Maybe it'd be OK if they took multiple turns to read instead of stochastically failing?

[XuaXua]

Since the failure to read message is not commonplace, I don't think it would be out of place to follow it up with a "You could try again." or "...failed for this attempt." or similar.

[cerebovssquire]

We have a similar case with Elyvilon. You used to be not sure if one could pacify someone at all or if the attempt one just made failed due to not passing a managable chance. This is now changed to different messages regarding "the light of Elyvilon" in trunk. So it's highly inconsistent not to change this too and yes, it is very stupid. The message should be something principally similar to the "almost pacified" message for Elyvilon.

[BlackSheep]

Speaking of messages in trunk, can anyone confirm whether Alistair's Intoxication issues any sort of message in the latest revision? I've been using it in 0.10 and have been annoyed by the lack of feedback from the spell.

[Kate]

Done and done.

(Not entirely convinced by my attempt at a better scroll-reading message, but I think it's an improvement at least)

[XuaXua]

Done and done.

(Not entirely convinced by my attempt at a better scroll-reading message, but I think it's an improvement at least)

Longer isn't always better, especially considering the whole translation thing.

New:
"You almost manage to decipher the scroll, but fail in this attempt."
can be
"You almost decipher the scroll, but fail for this attempt."
which says the same thing and is tighter.

[jejorda2]

Why is this restriction even present in the first place? Does it have any effect at all beyond confusing people?

If you're wielding a cursed artefact weapon that lowers INT below 0, then you can try to read a scroll of remove curse so you can unwield the weapon. Every turn, you have a chance to forget to exist and end your game. Every turn, you have a chance to read the scroll and survive.

If you just couldn't read scrolls, then you wouldn't get to pick between the potion of restore abilities, the scroll of remove curse, the potion of brilliance and whatever other choices you have. There would be fewer decisions, which would be bad.

If you always succeeded at reading the scroll, then there would be less tension. Tension is good.

[crate]

Presumably the chance to fail is so you might fail to read that scroll of teleport or blinking to get you away from whatever stat-drained your int, in the same way that blurry vision might do so.

[XuaXua]

Why is this restriction even present in the first place? Does it have any effect at all beyond confusing people?

If you're wielding a cursed artefact weapon that lowers INT below 0, then you can try to read a scroll of remove curse so you can unwield the weapon. Every turn, you have a chance to forget to exist and end your game. Every turn, you have a chance to read the scroll and survive.

If you just couldn't read scrolls, then you wouldn't get to pick between the potion of restore abilities, the scroll of remove curse, the potion of brilliance and whatever other choices you have. There would be fewer decisions, which would be bad.

If you always succeeded at reading the scroll, then there would be less tension. Tension is good.

Potion of Restore Abilities won't do anything for the cursed weapon, and the brainless status lasts after Int has been returned, so there is still the opportunity to forget to breathe.

[jejorda2]

Potion of Restore Abilities won't do anything for the cursed weapon

Conceivably a combination of stat rot and a cursed weapon malus could lead to Int < 0, so there could sometimes be a choice involved.

[njvack]

Thanks, MarvinPA! That does help.

After thinking about this a bunch, though, I don't think text changes can really solve this unless you're REALLY hamfisted; eg "Maybe you should try again." The mechanic is just counterintuitive. Yes, I know spell memorization is similar, but there you get an explicit chance of success, and spell success is a fundamental spellcasting mechanic in Crawl. Scoll success isn't.

I'd be more in favor of:

* Auto-retry reading a scroll if it fails the int check, instead of making me do it manually. If I'm reading a scroll while brainless, it's not like I'm going to give up after one try. It's probably the most important thing I could be doing. OR:
* Make reading scrolls take multiple turns -- say, abs(min(0, Int))+1 turns. OR:
* Do away with this restriction, maybe making brainlessness more powerful in some other way.

I have more thoughts on statdeath in general, but they're a little orthogonal to this thread...

Also: I know those solutions would be more work, and it's not like I've volunteered to implement. So I really do appreciate the message improvement.

[mumra]

* Auto-retry reading a scroll if it fails the int check, instead of making me do it manually. If I'm reading a scroll while brainless, it's not like I'm going to give up after one try. It's probably the most important thing I could be doing. OR:
* Make reading scrolls take multiple turns -- say, abs(min(0, Int))+1 turns. OR:
* Do away with this restriction, maybe making brainlessness more powerful in some other way.

You might still be getting hit by something, and want to quickly quaff a cure potion or use a wand when you realise the scroll didn't work first time.

I think it's fine as it is, the message and the mechanic made perfect sense to me first time. It's no different than trying to read a scroll with poor eyesight. When a dice-based game tells me something has failed, I generally assume that there has been a dice roll and I wasn't lucky this time. When you attack a monster and do no damage, does it take message to tell you that you could try again and maybe you'll do some damage the next time?

I think the new message sounds still kinda klunky and could be more flavourful. I would write:

"The letters squirm in front of your eyes and you fail to recognise the shapes. This could take a few tries."

[njvack]

You might still be getting hit by something, and want to quickly quaff a cure potion or use a wand when you realise the scroll didn't work first time.

Yeah, it should probably be interrupted by taking damage.

"The letters squirm in front of your eyes and you fail to recognise the shapes. This could take a few tries."

I agree, this is rather better. Or "You try to read the scroll, but lose your concentration. This could take a few tries."

[mumra]

You might still be getting hit by something, and want to quickly quaff a cure potion or use a wand when you realise the scroll didn't work first time.

Yeah, it should probably be interrupted by taking damage.

You might not have taken damage. But maybe that melee threat just moved one tile closer and you've decided a wand of teleport is a better immediate plan. The point was I don't think this is a case where you can auto-retry something ... and having it just take more time is making things more dangerous for the player in a situation that's already pretty threatening!

This is one of those situations in Crawl that's potentially really exciting - you are close to death, every turn counts. Do you risk losing another precious turn attempting to read a scroll, or take other (perhaps less reliable) emergency action?

"The letters squirm in front of your eyes and you fail to recognise the shapes. This could take a few tries."

I agree, this is rather better. Or "You try to read the scroll, but lose your concentration. This could take a few tries."

There can be a few variants. For Nagas: "The letters slither in front of your eyes..."

Also: "Attempting to decipher the text is giving you a headache. This could take a few tries."

[njvack]

This is one of those situations in Crawl that's potentially really exciting - you are close to death, every turn counts. Do you risk losing another precious turn attempting to read a scroll, or take other (perhaps less reliable) emergency action?

Hm. I hadn't seen it that way -- the times I've gotten close to stat death, it's been either in a nonthreatening situation (trying gear) or solvable by a single-turn manner that always succeeds (!restab).

I actually can't imagine a situation in which I'd suddenly need to read a scroll while brainless where I haven't already been doing something really, really risky -- either not carrying !restab or trying on unid'd gear in a dangerous place. Maybe some Ash edge-case?

If there were a monster that could temporarily (say, 100 turns) invert the stat bonuses on worn gear and curse it at the same time, that might make this a more interesting tactical situation.

[crate]

Getting into negative int in tomb is not particularly hard. Neither is it particularly hard near an OCS.

[mumra]

With Ash you always know whether something is cursed.

It's certainly extremely rare except for Tomb. For such a rare situation I think it's suitably thematic and risky.

[ElectricAlbatross]

I think adding "this could take a few tries" to whatever message is sufficient.

[njvack]

Getting into negative int in tomb is not particularly hard. Neither is it particularly hard near an OCS.

In both those cases, restore abilities is what you want, not remove curse. But potions and eating aren't affected by brainlessness.

To make brainlessness tactically interesting from a statdeath perspective, it should make you roll on quaffing and eating as well as reading.

[Blade]

"You can't figure out how to put bottle to mouth"

...yeah, I'm not buying it. Reading is easy to understand being tough while brainless because reading actually requires thought. Drinking? Not so much.

[crate]

Getting into negative int in tomb is not particularly hard. Neither is it particularly hard near an OCS.

In both those cases, restore abilities is what you want, not remove curse. But potions and eating aren't affected by brainlessness.

To make brainlessness tactically interesting from a statdeath perspective, it should make you roll on quaffing and eating as well as reading.

In both Tomb and near an OCS (if you foolishly went too close), you might well want to read teleport/blink to get to safety; brainlessness forces one extra turn on that teleport (or, in the case of OCS, perhaps you restab and get re-drained, if your int is low enough).

[galehar]

This thread is degenerating. The OP pointed out that the message didn't convey the fact retrying could work. This has been addressed, but the message could be improved. The new message is "You almost manage to decipher the scroll, but fail in this attempt.". The chance to successfully read the scroll is 1 in 5.
I don't see the point into arguing about the basic mechanism of failing to read a scroll. It's not like it's something new, blurry vision has always been there. Making it a delayed or slower action would just complicated things for no gain, a chance of failure is fine.

I'll leave the thread open for now in case somebody comes up with a better message (and don't read this as "please, post tens of random messages just in case one isn't bad". better message).