Distortion

[Konebred]

I wish they made all distortion weapons appear as cursed so scrolls of detect curse are actually useful through more than just the early game. It's the only weapon brand that has a chance of killing its owner through pure chance. I dunno, its a kind of dumb mechanic to put on random early weapons.

[cerebovssquire]

Wielding distortion does not kill anyone. You're killing yourself by making the stupid mistake of unwielding it. Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu), but one can also look at this from a more positive perspective and say "this makes this game unique" because it adds a strategic choice that is pretty interesting. Furthermore, should still go Okawaru (for instance) and hope I can manage with permafood / find Animate Skeleton? Is that worth the risk of starvation or being stuck with this crappy weapon for a considerable amount of time?
etc.

[Konebred]

I dunno if putting something that has the potential to kill a character in the game with no way to know what it is before hand really strategic. If anything it just makes me roll my eyes, unwield it and hope for the best. All I am saying is make it so all distortion branded weapons are cursed so the people that do use detect curse scrolls on bunches of weapons aren't wasting their time on a bad dice roll. I mean, I could be totally off base, I haven't been playing long but distortion branded weapons are just some legacy thing that is around for no real reason. If you do want it, follow Legonu, if you don't, use your detect curse scrolls that are basically useless past mid game anyways.

[Blade]

Distortion weapons are actually carried around by most players once they're found -- they're a risky but useful escape item that can often save you from near-certain doom in a variety of ways. Because of their unwield effects, they go from being just another brand to a very interesting, tactical item with positives and negatives.

Cursing them would force you to wield to uncurse, which frankly would be really really obnoxious. Because they're an escape item, every turn counts when using them in that way, and having to waste a turn on remove curse (or, more likely, wield them, remove curse, unwield and hope for the best [once you reach a certain xl]) would not be fun.

[KoboldLord]

Wielding distortion does not kill anyone. You're killing yourself by making the stupid mistake of unwielding it. Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu), but one can also look at this from a more positive perspective and say "this makes this game unique" because it adds a strategic choice that is pretty interesting. Furthermore, should still go Okawaru (for instance) and hope I can manage with permafood / find Animate Skeleton? Is that worth the risk of starvation or being stuck with this crappy weapon for a considerable amount of time?
etc.

That's an overstatement. If you started an ogre berserker and the first branded mace on the floor of D1 turns out to be distortion, rushing to Kiku for Animate Skeleton is not a viable way to deal with the problem.

It wouldn't hurt to prevent distortion weapons from spawning before, say, D5. They really don't present an interesting choice for an XL1 character. Unwielding immediately is obviously suicidal, so if you're unwilling to intentionally commit suicide to get out of playing an early distortion character you really only have the one choice to dive until you find one of the tiny handful of ways to deal with the problem.

[cerebovssquire]

I dunno if putting something that has the potential to kill a character in the game with no way to know what it is before hand really strategic. If anything it just makes me roll my eyes, unwield it and hope for the best.

Roll your eyes as much as you like but don't come here to complain about something entirely your fault - first wielding (which could be a good choice in some situations) and then unwielding (which is a terrible choice).
"It doesn't offer strategic choices" and "I am too stubborn/dislike distortion too much to make strategic choices" are miles apart.
I gave quite a few reasons. Refute them if you like.

with no way to know what it is before

?identify detects brands...

That's an overstatement. If you started an ogre berserker and the first branded mace on the floor of D1 turns out to be distortion, rushing to Kiku for Animate Skeleton is not a viable way to deal with the problem.

It wouldn't hurt to prevent distortion weapons from spawning before, say, D5. They really don't present an interesting choice for an XL1 character. Unwielding immediately is obviously suicidal, so if you're unwilling to intentionally commit suicide to get out of playing an early distortion character you really only have the one choice to dive until you find one of the tiny handful of ways to deal with the problem.

That post was composed of examples, not of all options available. An ogre berserker with a mace of distortion will play differently than other ogre berserkers - trading Berserk (for blinking reasons, and food) for extra melee damage. He will also probably rely on Trog's Hand and BiA more than others. It maybe doesn't offer a strategic choice - okay, I was inaccurate there - but it affects the tactical choices the player makes in any case.
I didn't mean to say that this makes the game as easy as any other, but it does make it unique in certain ways.

And of course, if one is paranoid about an early mace of distortion, one should not have wielded a D:1 glowing mace without identifying it. The game is not sentencing anyone to any problems, the player himself chose to take a risk.

Tangentially related: I've been trying to get an OgAK off the ground recently. Is the eventual GSC of distortion as great as it sounds?

A GSC has 22 base damage multiplied by weapon and Fighting skill. Multiplicative brands (freezing and flaming really, vorpal not so much) are as great as they sound. Distortion probably deals less damage overall and makes you a wonderful yaktaur/centaur/primary caster target for blinking them around, even at speed 7. Oh, and it could pose food problems if you don't want to cast spells. So no: in my opinion, just enchant it and affix freezing.

[varsovie]

  Code:

 Y - the +5,+5 giant spiked club of Yjudewko (weapon) {god gift, distort, rElec MR}
   (Okawaru gifted it to you on level 9 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It warps and distorts space around it. Unwielding it can cause banishment or
   high damage.
   
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It increases your resistance to enchantments.

Result in :

  Code:

7877 Varsovie the Bludgeoner (level 11, -6/150 HPs)
             Began as an Ogre Monk on Mar 30, 2012.
             Was a High Priest of Okawaru.
             Mangled by a skeletal warrior
             ... wielding a +0,+1 great mace of protection
              (23 damage)
             ... in The Abyss.
             The game lasted 01:03:41 (12823 turns).

I was trying to get ride of it. Yes it as great DPS (even when not at min delay), but if it don't destroy first shot ranged enemies...
And I had a lair level with the stairs in a cluster, guarded by... blinking frogs. -_-
So I try unweild and got into the abyss for freaking long. Not other good gear:

  Code:

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : +    Y - +5 giant spiked club of Yjudewko {god gift
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : . .  C - +2 robe
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .    (shield restricted)
Res.Acid. : . . .   Res.Corr.  : .    G - +2 cap
Res.Poison: +       Clarity    : .    (no cloak)
Res.Elec. : +       Spirit.Shd : .    (gloves unavailable)
Sust.Abil.: . .     Stasis     : .    (boots unavailable)
Res.Mut.  : .       Ctrl.Telep.: x    (no amulet)
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : .    t - ring of see invisible
Saprovore : + . .   Ctrl.Flight: .    k - ring of poison resistance

Food isn't all an issue, there is enough perma if you rush a bit.

[Konebred]

Eh, distortion is still a retarded brand with few benefits and huge drawbacks. It does have its situational uses, but if you are relying on it for an escape option you probably have bigger issues anyways. Wasting ID scrolls on random weapons in early game instead of potions is pretty dumb too. The awesomeness of the rest of the game makes up for how dumb distortion is so I just soldier on. I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.

[mageykun]

It seems to me that distortion is meant to serve much the same purpose as curses- to discourage you from wield ID-ing every ego item you come across. It therefore becomes a choice- do you test everything in the search for the best enchantment and brand, or do you exercise caution, settle for a decent weapon and only test those that are worth the risk?

If you're really paranoid about it, just worship Ash.

[njvack]

Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu)

Forgive my denseness, but how does TSO help if you're wielding distortion? Like, get to 6* piety and bless it away?

[rchandra]

Sure, can force the player into certain choices (TSO/Kiku/Lugonu)

Forgive my denseness, but how does TSO help if you're wielding distortion? Like, get to 6* piety and bless it away?

He'd also be pretty useful in the Abyss, at least once you have Angels, and you'd gain piety pretty fast. You still need to have enough HP to not die from the "horrible warp" :)

Zin actually would help with satiation though, wouldn't he?

[Blade]

It does have its situational uses, but if you are relying on it for an escape option you probably have bigger issues anyways.

I guess I'll go alert elliptic that he's playing Crawl wrong, then.

[cerebovssquire]

It does have its situational uses, but if you are relying on it for an escape option you probably have bigger issues anyways.

fyi you can also hit things with it

[Blade]

No, you should listen to him, Elynae. Your dd with 2hp in tomb should have sat there and died instead of unwielding distortion. It is evidently a bad escape option

Also probably my haak shouldn't have poked a guardian off of the orb with his dagger. Now that I know that distortion is terrible I will cease my usage of it posthaste.

[Konebred]

Alright alright, I am a big enough guy to admit when I am wrong. Guess I never made it far enough to need something drastic like that. Sorry for getting this thread off track like this. I will give myself a stupidity ban from these forums for 24 hours after this post heh.

[galehar]

I wish they made all distortion weapons appear as cursed so scrolls of detect curse are actually useful through more than just the early game.

Mageykun nailed it. The point of distortion is to discourage players from trying every single runed/glowing weapon just because they have spare ?DC and ?RC scrolls. It's one of those features designed to prevent players from boring themselves. Also, ?DC scrolls are being considered for removal anyway.

Distortion weapons are actually carried around by most players once they're found -- they're a risky but useful escape item that can often save you from near-certain doom in a variety of ways. Because of their unwield effects, they go from being just another brand to a very interesting, tactical item with positives and negatives.

It's a late game strategy, and you really need to know what you're doing to pull it off. I wouldn't recommend it to beginners. Also, it's not really relevant to the OP's complaint about being stuck with distortion in the early game.

Anyway, it is a recurrent topic. Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the current design. When you're stuck with one, you have to adapt you strategy and tactics. If it's blunt, then you have to rely on permafood until you find an alternate way of butchering. If you don't, and run low on food, then you take your chance unwielding.

If you unwield it right away, don't come complaining that it killed you.

[Sojiro]

I got a promising Vampire killed with one of these. The first branded dagger I found was ... distortion. And then I ended up banishing all the tough opponents that should have given me good XPs, and I was starting to really feel it. So I tried to unwield it and got killed for my troubles.

[banei]

The lasts 3 times I accidentely wielded distortion, I immediately unwielded and ended up glowing. Those three times, I sure wish I was banished instead.

[KoboldLord]

Anyway, it is a recurrent topic. Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the current design. When you're stuck with one, you have to adapt you strategy and tactics. If it's blunt, then you have to rely on permafood until you find an alternate way of butchering. If you don't, and run low on food, then you take your chance unwielding.

There are very few ways to butcher with a blunt distortion weapon, and if your god slot is already filled there are no guaranteed (or even particularly likely, at least in the short term) ways at all. Knowing to go Kiku for Animate Skeleton is also a very spoilery way to deal with a rare brand that is associated with Lugonu, and not Kiku.

I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either. Admittedly I'm not a top player, but I assure you I've never bothered to worry about the risk of distortion when I'm checking weapons for egos. If I'm early Lair or thereabouts, the risk of unwielding is minimal, since I can just gear up to survive banishment and soak the damage of any other result. If I'm looking for my first weapon upgrade on D1-3, on the other hand, the risks associated with continuing to use my starting +0 spear to fight are higher than the risks of that ego trident being distortion. If you want typical players to choose not to test potential weapon upgrades, you either need to raise the spawn rate of distortion weapons by quite a lot, or you need to have more backgrounds start with a less-wretched starting weapon.

[KoboldLord]

Good thing you can just easily win without butchering.

As long as we all agree that it's possible to win while following ridiculous conducts, why don't we have the game track them formally so players can choose whether or not to use them, rather than imposing them more-or-less at random when players try to wield the one distortion mace in a pile of five hundred generated over the course of twenty games?

[Dustbin]

The lasts 3 times I accidentely wielded distortion, I immediately unwielded and ended up glowing. Those three times, I sure wish I was banished instead.

I must disagree due to the sheer amount of neqoxecs that are in the (new?) abyss, even if you manage to fight your way out you have likely gotten every bad mute known to man.
This and oka gifting it are the only problems I really have with anything disto related.

I don't know how people get disto'd so much, stop wielding branded stuff that isn't a base weapon type you're happy to use? Maybe I don't ID enough stuff early-game, but I'm pretty sure I haven't been unwillingly stuck with one in like the past 200 games.

[galehar]

I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.

You misunderstand. The point is certainly not to prevent players from testing interesting looking weapons. It is to prevent them from testing every weapons for brand. It's a typical newbie mistake to check every single piece of potentially branded equipment, even if they are a crap base type for which they have no skill.

[smock]

I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.

You misunderstand. The point is certainly not to prevent players from testing interesting looking weapons. It is to prevent them from testing every weapons for brand. It's a typical newbie mistake to check every single piece of potentially branded equipment, even if they are a crap base type for which they have no skill.

This is an interesting conversation.

Why is it important to prevent newbies from testing every weapon for a brand? If you are in that habit, you might be looking for and exciting new brand that you've never seen before. Once you learn better, well, you don't need distortion weapons to discourage you anymore. (If this really is important, would it be better to principally put distortion on weapons that the player shouldn't be testing? Of course, that's no feasible.)

I bet that there are additional and better ways to encourage players to ignore equipment that isn't suitable for them, if this is an important goal.

[cerebovssquire]

Good thing you can just easily win without butchering.

As long as we all agree that it's possible to win while following ridiculous conducts, why don't we have the game track them formally so players can choose whether or not to use them, rather than imposing them more-or-less at random when players try to wield the one distortion mace in a pile of five hundred generated over the course of twenty games?

"Ridiculous conduct" is more along the lines of "Spriggan Fighter of Cheibriados" and not "don't butcher till late Lair", because food isn't going to be a problem for anyone even till then - and seriously, for a majority of characters, distortion is actually going to help more than it hurts early on, assuming one was careful/intelligent enough not to wield a glowing mace on a trident Fi on D:5 or something.
Spell hunger is less on an issue when you can just kill anyone in two hits for the first levels while training Spellcasting.

[varsovie]

Butchering with a weapon of distortion should have a chance of :
blinking the corp/chunk
banish the corp/chunks
make the chunks mutagenic
make the ground to corrupt
make the ground to banish, creating a hole, so you fall in



Anyway I like this brand, when an enemy wield it and then blink you in the middle of a gnoll squad or banish you early.

[galehar]

Why is it important to prevent newbies from testing every weapon for a brand?

One of the design goal is to prevent players from boring themselves with scumming behaviour.

I bet that there are additional and better ways to encourage players to ignore equipment that isn't suitable for them, if this is an important goal.

Is there? Also, it isn't really an important goal, I just see it as a good side effect of the distortion brand design which has many others.

All in all, if you can one-shot an Iron Golem in one hit with a DAGGER by banishing it, and take the Exp for it, then for me the pros outweigh the cons.

You don't get exp for banishing a monster with distortion.

[cerebovssquire]

I think that it was changed so that it does give experience, but only according to the damage dealt before? So banishing on first hit won't give exp, but banishing an Almost Dead monster almost full exp?

[Jabberwocky]

Butchering with a weapon of distortion should have a chance of :
blinking the corp/chunk
banish the corp/chunks
make the chunks mutagenic
make the ground to corrupt
make the ground to banish, creating a hole, so you fall in



Anyway I like this brand, when an enemy wield it and then blink you in the middle of a gnoll squad or banish you early.

That seems similar to weapons of venom poisoning corpses you are butchering which is on the will not do list. It just adds tedium.

[KoboldLord]

I don't think the very rare spawn rate of distortion weapons is particularly effective at preventing people from checking interesting-looking weapons, either.

You misunderstand. The point is certainly not to prevent players from testing interesting looking weapons. It is to prevent them from testing every weapons for brand. It's a typical newbie mistake to check every single piece of potentially branded equipment, even if they are a crap base type for which they have no skill.

Which is why I'm arguing that D1-5 is no place for a distortion weapon. Checking potentially-branded weapons is not scumming behavior if you still have your starting weapon. It is near-essential behavior, at least if you're depending on weapons for damage. There is no reason to try to discourage it. Later on, sure, it's an interesting predicament to try out that great mace and find out it has distortion.

The potential of getting an extremely high-damage brand on a weapon that doesn't have a relevant drawback is really just another problem with early distortion spawns. So is the fact that the potential of high-damage brands pushes counter-intuitive behavior when dealing with early weapon-wielding monsters.

[ebarrett]

This thread is becoming increasingly ridiculous, you all are making it look like that wielding an unwanted distortion weapon is something that happens often enough to worry about.

[smock]

This thread is becoming increasingly ridiculous, you all are making it look like that wielding an unwanted distortion weapon is something that happens often enough to worry about.

The existence of the thread suggests otherwise - while rare, many people worry about it! Opinions on this obviously differ. But perhaps you're right and all us commenters just need a cold shower.

When a newbie "dies because of unwielding distortion" and loses interest or gets frustrated, then it is a problem. It may not happen too often, but why let Crawl get a reputation of being "stupidly unfair" when altering a very minor part of the game could help improve crawl's reputation to simply "unfair"?

[Blade]

it's also very detrimental to new players when they don't run away from sigmund on d:2 and that could discourage them, so I propose a removal of sigmund, effective immediately.

[SchwaWarrior]

Butchering with a weapon of distortion should have a chance of :
blinking the corp/chunk
banish the corp/chunks
make the chunks mutagenic
make the ground to corrupt
make the ground to banish, creating a hole, so you fall in

The first two, yes, I agree. Not the others, though. ^^ The chance ought to be small though, like 10% to 15% chance. It'd be one of those things that doesn't mess up the game THAT much, but when it happens the player goes "...Haaahhh!"

That seems similar to weapons of venom poisoning corpses you are butchering which is on the will not do list. It just adds tedium.

Actually I think this is a good idea too, but again, small chance. 10% to 15% or maybe even lower. It would almost never actually cause a player to starve, especially considering Poison Resistance can counteract this completely, and in addition, it makes the early game player think twice before relying on an overpowered poisonous weapon. If you have normal edged weapons in your inventory, maybe give a game option to automatically switch to normal weapons to butcher corpses unless the poisoned weapon was cursed.

While we're on this subject, how about flavor text for fire or ice branded weapons?
(fire brand) "You start butchering the corpse. The chunk of newt flesh sizzles deliciously!"
(ice brand) "You start butchering the corpse. The chunk of newt flesh refridgerates at the touch of your weapon."
(pain brand) "You start butchering the corpse. The chunk of newt flesh oozes blood and pus at the touch of your weapon." (*shivers* Hahaha, maybe that's over the top )

Draining weapons, if you're ballsy enough to actually use one, might have a small chance of making a Decay Chunk (like what Necrophages leave for instance). All the more reason not to use them, though, there has been speculation of reformatting the Exp. Loss problem in using draining attacks, so maybe.

Chaos weapons should cause any random effects (Xom is mildly amused), have an even smaller chance of making them go mutagenic (Xom is amused!), or transforming the meat chunk into a different species' meat chunk (i.e. newt chunk becomes rat chunk, it's only effect would be hilarity really, though a newt chunk could also become a poisoned kobold chunk (Xom is amused!) or vice versa, which does have an actual effect), or making the chunk vanish instantly through a shaft (and not the player)-- it'd be "The chunk of newt flesh falls through a shaft! The hole in the ground collapses." (and if hungry or worse,) "You stare at the empty floor in exasperated disbelief." (Xom roars with laughter!). Maybe other effects too, like you cut the corpse up and instead of chunks you get a zombie. I dunno, you could be creative. ^^

Anyway this is all SORELY off topic, sorry! But yeah, there could be some real creative things done here, and it could be done without impacting the game THAT drastically, since any of the severe effects would not occur that often. (Unless you're with Xom. Then the chance of this stuff would all be tripled or something. ) I felt inspired to share my ideas, but if none of this stuff ever makes it in then eh. ^^

it's also very detrimental to new players when they don't run away from sigmund on d:2 and that could discourage them, so I propose a removal of sigmund, effective immediately.

Nah! Just put Sigmund down a few floors. Maybe Dowan or Duvessa's level, or Blorc the Orc's level. Jessica, Terrence and Ilyb are all about on-par, except Jessica, who's only remotely dangerous if she has a wand, and I'm actually up for making her somewhat harder.

OH. What about... a custom Vault that occasionally shows up at around D:7 with Sigmund and Edward side by side guarding a treasure room?
Edward shouts angrily, "You barbarian! This is our weekly tea visit! Prepare yourself!"
Sigmund calls to his brother, "I'll cover you. We've got this."
You die... You see Sigmund and Edward high-five triumphantly as your world fades to black. (oh, do this line with Dowan and Duvessa while we're at it)

It'd be a little convoluted to program in, probably, but it would be SO COOL.

[KoboldLord]

Checking potentially-branded weapons is not scumming behavior if you still have your starting weapon.

If it's optimal to wield every glowing/runed weapon - or just every weapon - then they should just be identified at the start, because that would be identical in gameplay except without ungodly tedium attached.

There are already curses to prevent that though, so whatever. And I rather don't like that getting monsters to wield them can be the safest way to identify weapons.

I've expressed my opinions on the ID minigame before, and I have the understanding that comprehensive reform is not happening. Moving distortion weapon spawns to a deeper level, however, would correct a rare but obnoxious problem using an existing mechanic that is already established as acceptable. Immolation scrolls don't spawn at the shallowest levels, either. I'll take that solution that could possibly happen over the solution that definitely will not.

This thread is becoming increasingly ridiculous, you all are making it look like that wielding an unwanted distortion weapon is something that happens often enough to worry about.

I think I've run into a blunt distortion weapon early enough to be a problem maybe a total of three times in several hundred games. It's a very rare problem, but on the other hand there's absolutely no downside to fixing it so why not? In fact, the very rare spawn rate actually compounds the problem, because more than 99 games out of 100 you ignore the chance of distortion until Temple or thereabouts and gain substantial benefits for doing so. If one in ten possible-ego weapons were distortion, because the threat would be notable enough to make choosing a weapon into a scroll tax.

So we should get rid of the cases where they "die because of meleeing a gnoll at XL1" too, right?

Wielding potentially-branded weapons will only very rarely inconvenience you. Meleeing a gnoll at XL1 will do the job almost every time. That makes gnolls a good threat.

[demolicious]

Just to throw my unwanted opinion into the (heated) debate:

I don't personally like distortion weapons. I love the idea of them, but not the implementation. Banishing enemies is a cool effect, but blinking and teleporting them can be incredibly dangerous and something that the (novelty) Chaos brand should do instead. The abyss is a random, shifting wasteland where blinking/teleporting effects are suppressed, not encouraged, so why would an Abyss-themed weapon teleport enemies around the map? Ultimately, the rewards of the brand (increased damage) do not make up for the risks (banishing enemies you wanted to loot/skin/eat/zombify, and randomly blinking enemies behind you in corridors). The relatively low chance of getting a Distortion brand does not prevent players from IDing all weapons on the first ~10 levels by equipping them, so if that's their only purpose I don't think it's working. If that is the intention there needs to be similar "risky" armour brands as well. Accidentally equipping an edged distortion weapons could arguably be considered an interesting situation, but a blunt one is just a pain in the ass.

Regarding not being able to butcher with cursed/distortion blunt weapons (especially one-handed blunt weapons) - it's been whined about plenty of times in the past so I don't expect anybody to care, but to me it does not feel like an interesting decision or a meaningful gameplay element. Blunt weapons have no real advantage over edged weapons or polearms, prevent you from butchering if cursed or Distortion branded, and even when uncursed they still force an annoying weapon swap. Unless you find a great artifact blunt weapon or you're playing an Ogre I don't see any reason to pick them up. Hydras don't count, as you'll have a pile of wands, a god, and some kind of ranged attack before you meet them.

It might be more interesting if Distortion branded weapons did more damage or buffed the player while in the Abyss, or for characters that have survived and exited the Abyss, or it helped you find the exit or something. After that first visit there is no longer a chance of banishment or damage when unequipping the weapon ("You have been tainted by Lugonu"). Just a random idea. Might add a bit of depth to both the Abyss and the brand. It would give players that can survive an early trip to the Abyss a powerful weapon, but one that is likely to be replaced with something better during the mid-game.

[Grimm]

I support KoboldLord's proposal to remove distortion spawns from the very early dungeon, like immolation and holy word (?) already have been.

[smock]

So we should get rid of the cases where they "die because of meleeing a gnoll at XL1" too, right?

XL1 gnolls are just "unfair". They're easier to run from than a wielded distortion weapon, too. Sigmund and early gnolls are learning experiences that are good because they involve interesting tactical play that can be applied to other situations. This is less the case for distortion weapons. Death by Sigmund interesting. Death by unwielding is not an honorable death.

I also like the idea of removing distortion weapons from the first few dungeon levels.

[galehar]

Moving distortion weapon spawns to a deeper level, however, would correct a rare but obnoxious problem

How would that change anything? Unwielding distortion on D:5 isn't any safer than doing it on D:1.

[absolutego]

if you get damage on unwield, you'll survive it with more HP. if you're abyssed there isn't much of a difference, yeah.
i don't mind early distortion that much, but i'd like to see it removed from god gifts (since it actually draws you away from the god, if you're abyssed and convert to lugonu).

[KoboldLord]

Moving distortion weapon spawns to a deeper level, however, would correct a rare but obnoxious problem

How would that change anything? Unwielding distortion on D:5 isn't any safer than doing it on D:1.

1) Once you've found your first marginally decent upgrade from your starting weapon, the motivation to keep looking for marginal upgrades goes down substantially. There is no particular need to check every mace for its brand if you already have a pretty good one, and if you find a demon whip it's worth finding a use for even if it does turn out to be distortion.

2) Once you've hit D5, you've generated a number of floor spawns which are more likely to contain a way to compensate for distortion. It still won't be guaranteed, but the odds will be better.

3) If food generation has been unlucky, you are not guaranteed to find any edible food for several Dungeon levels save the single guaranteed ration. By D5 or so, random food generation should have averaged out, or at the very least you are close enough and strong enough to dive for the food vaults and wrest their contents from the bees or the spriggans or the hydra.

4) A D5 character will not be guaranteed death from the direct damage unwield effects. Direct damage that is higher than you max hit points is worth than banishment, because you can survive banishment. There is no actual choice available regarding using distortion until you can survive the possible direct damage backlashes.

5) You will have more consumables to deal with banishment if it happens, even if you can't handle many of the inhabitants of the Abyss in a direct fight. It'll still be hard, but that's very different than being impossible.

6) You won't be able to mash tab all the way through D1-5 without bothering to think about challenges. If you get an edged distortion weapon, you don't have to worry about the drawbacks at all until ranged attackers start spawning in numbers, and raw distortion damage will trivialize any of the threats that can spawn even without bothering to train skills.

7) Xp available on D6 is higher than xp available on D2, meaning you can hybridize your character to compensate for surprise distortion much more plausibly, and you can do this without leaning completely on the direct damage distortion cheese.

What useful purpose does distortion serve on very early levels? It doesn't prevent scumming there, because checking new weapons is desirable behavior that early on. It doesn't create an interesting choice at that early point, because if you're unwilling to suicide a character you simply must keep it until a workaround presents itself. And it's overpowered to boot, if you happen to have a character that is not inconvenienced by the drawbacks.

[twelwe]

This argument that we have to reconsider certain game factors that have been around forever because "new players might die and suddenly lose 100% interest in the game and never play again" is so ridiculous, and blade nailed it here:

it's also very detrimental to new players when they don't run away from sigmund on d:2 and that could discourage them, so I propose a removal of sigmund, effective immediately.

Should, say, someone have the kind of mentality that some minor annoyance on a game like this could completely turn them off, the realization must be that the person would ultimately find one of an infinite number of things problematic about the game enough to quit eventually on their own. The fault is with that person's approach to challenging video games (which crawl is). Sometimes this discussion board harbors conversations that place the blame in this circumstance on the game and it's features, and that argument always seems to be based on this thin accusation that new players are somehow being driven away by boredom.

Giving distortion an initial curse to accompany the brand would ruin it - finding distortion would become a **boring** remove curse scroll grind that some players would pursue.

2) Once you've hit D5, you've generated a number of floor spawns which are more likely to contain a way to compensate for distortion. It still won't be guaranteed, but the odds will be better.

Translation: there is a new spoiler for everyone! Feel free to wield every branded weapon before D:5 - the worst that can happen is you have a cursed weapon for a while.

[njvack]

One other approach to this: make Distortion (perhaps along with Pain and Holy) "special" egos that spawn only with unique monsters, on artefacts, or via blessing.

[cjo]

I like distortion weapons because I think they can be a kind of cool curve ball. I don't mind them in the early game. Moving them to D5 and lower would be fine, but keeping it as is would be fine too. It's not that I usually want to wield distortion, it's just that distortion acts so differently than other brands that I find it a fun change when it happens. And yes, I had it happen as a new(ish) player, and it did not ruin the game for me - I thought it was cool and interesting.

I do think that it's a bit odd to have one god give you a weapon associated with a different god. Yes, it removes the tedium of checking every god gift... but on the other hand, shouldn't a gift from your god be special enough so you are at least curious about it? On the other hand, I could use that reasoning to argue against god gifts of chaos, holy, and unholy weapons, and that would reduce variety a lot. (Actually, somewhere there's a longish thread about god gifting, so really distortion as a god gift is a whole different topic.)

[KoboldLord]

Well if this wasn't obvious from my previous post I also see no problem at all with occasionally having powerful items on D:1 - I certainly wouldn't want to get rid of D:1 crystal plate armour or D:1 weapons of electrocution. It seems rather silly to have luck as a factor and then make it impossible to get good luck!

Good thing I went all the way up to seven bullet points! You see, when we're making value judgments on a subtle point, it's perfectly reasonable for other people to have different opinions than me. People who disagree with me aren't doing so because they are dumb, but rather because they are assigning a slightly different subjective weight to various aspects of the issue, and reach a different conclusion from this other starting point. By broadening my argument, I'm more likely to be able to present every reader with at least two or three points that they will recognize as persuasive.