Potions & oil potions

[tasonir]

Potions that don't freeze become oil-based potions.

It's been suggested a while back, and probably several times, but there wasn't a very good system to handle communicating differences to the players. Having potion vs elixir systems, etc. I think it would be simpler to refer to everything as a potion and just mention in the description that certain potions are made of oil, and thus will not shatter, as oil does not expand when frozen. This would then be applied to strategic long term potions such as cure mutation, possibly mutation as well.

They would still be in the same section in inventory and not considered a completely different type. The same thing could happen with scrolls, although I don't have a material type offhand, a fictional one could be made or use something realistic, either way.

Seems like the simplest way to make the change and it would be as small a system as possible to make the change.

[XuaXua]

Nothing stopping the glass bottle containing the potion to shatter from cold.

[njvack]

The same thing could happen with scrolls, although I don't have a material type offhand, a fictional one could be made or use something realistic, either way.

Dragonskin vellum.

[jejorda2]

Steel potions!

[XuaXua]

Steel potions!

That's a catch-22 if it contained a potion of might.

[jejorda2]

I was thinking more like steel flasks with screw tops, pop tops, key tops a la spam, or corks. Maybe they take several turns to quaff, but can't be destroyed by cold. I figure all your restore ability, gain stat, and cure mutation potions always generate as steel potions, so you don't need to stash them. Oil potions could accomplish the same thing, but steel and glass containers are more visually distinct than colorful oil in glass and colorful water in glass, so the tiles could be visually distinct if strategic potions were steel and tactical potions were glass.

Of course, the potion ID game gets a lot easier if the only bad steel potion is mutation, but I'm not looking at the potion list at the moment.

[Patashu]

I think having a system where even potions you don't need in an emergency can shatter is OK. It helps teach people to stash what they don't urgently need on them.

[One-Eyed Jack]

So stashing non-tactical consumables is desired, interesting, strategic gameplay?

[Patashu]

So stashing non-tactical consumables is desired, interesting, strategic gameplay?

If the intention of inventory destroying fire, cold and spore/harpy attacks is not to get players into a mindset where they stash what they don't immediately need, then the whole concept needs to be rethought.

[bobross419]

I thought that I read that jelly spawn on cleared levels was removed so that you can just drop your stuff wherever and not have to worry about Lair:2 or whatever.

[sardonica]

So stashing non-tactical consumables is desired, interesting, strategic gameplay?

Absolutely. "Do I spend the time/food stashing these non-tactical consumables, use a cloak/amulet slot to protect them, drop my scrolls before I engage this firething....."

So sure, it's interesting.

[mageykun]

I have a question.

What's the benefit of making certain potions cold-proof?

If it's predetermined, you can't apply this to the universally useful potions (!cure, !heal, !speed, etc.) because it's too good. So you can only make the bad or marginal ones safe, which are generally stashed or discarded. So play isn't really affected.

If it's random (rolled per game- certain colors / bottles are safe, and so is whatever potion gets assigned that game) you get an annoying system like nethack's ring materials. Occasionally you'll get a really great combination (edible rings of slaying! shatterproof !cure/heal/speed), but usually it won't matter.

If it's random (per item gen- there are normal and reinforced versions of each potion) then you get some utility out of it. But ultimately, I don't think the additional inventory clutter this would produce is worth it.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see a case where it helps.

[jejorda2]

I think point of destroying consumables is that you can't count on having a tactical potion with you just because you have found one and haven't used it. Tactical potions are things that help you survive a fight, and don't do you any good in your stash: agility, berserk rage, blood, brilliance, coagulated blood, confusion, decay, degeneration, curing, heal wounds, invisibility, levitation, magic, might, paralysis, poison, porridge, resistance, slowing, speed, strong poison, water.

For strategic potions, the best thing to do is walk them back to your safe stash so they will be around when you need them. Or maybe you drink them when you find them or drop them in some sort of mini-stash. Strategic potions are things that reverse long term damage or give a long term damage, and therefore don't need to be used during fights: cure mutation, experience, gain dexterity, gain intelligence, gain strength, mutation, restore abilities.

Squirreling potions back to your stash is grinding, like picking up every item and selling it in a store is grinding. (It's not as severe, but it's the same kind of problem.) If all strategic consumables were always safe from elemental destruction, you could safely keep them in your inventory, and there would be less grinding.

There's a similar split between scrolls like blinking and scrolls like enchant weapon.

Certainly many of the strategic items have niche tactical uses and vice versa, so my list might not be exactly right.

[KoboldLord]

I have a question.

What's the benefit of making certain potions cold-proof?

If it's predetermined, you can't apply this to the universally useful potions (!cure, !heal, !speed, etc.) because it's too good. So you can only make the bad or marginal ones safe, which are generally stashed or discarded. So play isn't really affected.

If it's random (rolled per game- certain colors / bottles are safe, and so is whatever potion gets assigned that game) you get an annoying system like nethack's ring materials. Occasionally you'll get a really great combination (edible rings of slaying! shatterproof !cure/heal/speed), but usually it won't matter.

If it's random (per item gen- there are normal and reinforced versions of each potion) then you get some utility out of it. But ultimately, I don't think the additional inventory clutter this would produce is worth it.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see a case where it helps.

Currently, carrying around potions of cure mutation is outright idiotic. Because of their value and vulnerability to cold, you should immediately carry them upstairs and deposit them there, dropping whatever you're doing on the current level to do so. Or alternately, you just drop them were you picked them up, and ignore the intuitive but wrong assumption that all these orcs are going to find them just as valuable as you do. Parking your cure mutation potions every time you find one is tedious behavior, and it isn't necessarily obvious to unspoiled players either.

Blowing up cure mutation potions isn't actually tactically interesting. You can avoid the risk 100% of the time by setting up the temporary mini-stash as described, and unlike tactical potions like curing there's zero incentive to carry them around. When you need confusion cleared up, you can't run back to your mini-stash to pick up a potion of curing, so you have to choose between leaving the potion vulnerable to cold or leaving yourself vulnerable to effects like confusion. There's no such downside to leaving behind cure mutation. No mutation is so crippling that you can't Ctrl + F 'cure mut' to autotravel back to your mini-stash. So really, there's a clearly best practice here that's tedious and spoilery.

The items we're talking about are the following: cure mutation, experience, gain <stat>, possibly levitation, mutation, acquirement, amnesia, curse <object>, detect curse, enchant armour, enchant weapon X, identify, recharging, and vorpalize weapon. We are not talking about any other scrolls or potions.

[njvack]

I have a question.

What's the benefit of making certain potions cold-proof?

I'm sorry, but I just don't see a case where it helps.

You do it for !Gain Foo and !cmut and !experience, because it's just dumb when those get horked by an orc wizard. Those don't have "tactical" uses, so you're supposed to stash them or just quaff immediately. Cure Mutation is probably the big one.

But! If you make cmut immune to freezing, it actually *becomes* a tactical potion -- carry one in hellpan in case a neq hits you with teleportitis.

?EW and ?EA are probably better examples. The case where you want one tactically is vanishingly rare (what, no ?RC and you need to switch now?) but it's super annoying when one gets burned.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I like the idea in general, but the only wrench thrown into this are potions of curing and heal wounds. Early on, those have immense tactical value but little strategic value. In the late game, heal wounds especially, they have immense strategic value for curing rotting damage but little tactical value. Do we leave those poppable or non-poppable? Or do we remove the rotting heal effect and make a new, non-poppable potion specifically for that job?

[njvack]

No mutation is so crippling that you can't Ctrl + F 'cure mut' to autotravel back to your mini-stash.

... unless you're in pan or abyss.

[crate]

Recharging is tactically useful for some characters (there is a big difference between having one heal wounds wand with 5-6 charges available and having one wand with four indestructible recharge scrolls). Or if you are trying to random teleport to a useful place you might need to recharge a wand if you have not found a ring of teleportation. Or recharging a rod when it reaches 0 mp. Certainly it is more tactically useful than cure mutation.

[tasonir]

Nothing stopping the glass bottle containing the potion to shatter from cold.

Wow this post got a lot more popular than I was expecting! Anyways, to get back to the original point of making it oil - Oil doesn't expand when it freezes. Glass doesn't shatter from freezing, it shatters because the water inside of it expands and shatters the glass. Frozen glass is a bit more brittle, but it won't shatter spontaneously.

Dragonskin vellum sounds good to me for scrolls. I think the harder part of this proposal would be exactly what potions/scrolls are purely strategic.

Potions I think largely only cure mutation/mutation; scrolls all of the enchant scrolls, with a possible recharging, but probably not. Any I'm forgetting?

[njvack]

No mutation is so crippling that it will noticeably affect your ability to leave Pan or Abyss.

If you get banished moderately early, slow movement or blurry vision could make life pretty hard. And especially early-ish, it's pretty common to have found !cMut without a source of rMut.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's good that cmut potions can get popped by everything with a cold attack. But making them immune to damage seems like it'd largely change them from "never carry one" to "always carry one."

Every other item KL mentioned, I agree with completely.

[Tiber]

But! If you make cmut immune to freezing, it actually *becomes* a tactical potion -- carry one in hellpan in case a neq hits you with teleportitis.

To be honest, I wouldn't be all that bothered by that. The minor tactical advantage of being able to use cure mut without needing to return to your stash would be countered by the fact that the potion would just be taking up a spot in your inventory for who knows how long while you're just waiting for it to be useful.

[snow]

I used to be a fan of item destruction.

However... this is because extremely tedious behavior on my part has resulted in item destruction being almost nonexistent. Realistically it doesn't add to the game. derp only carry 2 heal wounds, curing, teleport, and blinks, drop everything else in mini-stashes on stairs above your current branch@@@@ isn't that fun or interesting. It's just tedious. It wouldn't be THAT bad if jellies didn't eat things on the floor and you could literally leave things anywhere you wanted (isn't the corrosion from jellies and ammo eating interesting enough?).

But again it's not that big of a deal. Items don't really get destroyed much anyway and because most characters stash ANYWAY due to having low strength it only hurts a narrow group of people. So I'm indifferent to all of this but realize that item destruction only pisses off new players who are playing trolls and carrying everything on them... for everyone else it would add tedium I guess but then again they have to tediously stash anyway to not be burdened constantly so it's whatever.

[galehar]

I thought that I read that jelly spawn on cleared levels was removed so that you can just drop your stuff wherever and not have to worry about Lair:2 or whatever.

Nope. It's been talked about but not actually done.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's good that cmut potions can get popped by everything with a cold attack. But making them immune to damage seems like it'd largely change them from "never carry one" to "always carry one."

Yeah, I totally agree with that. !cmut is the most frequently talked about consumable when this topic comes. Pan and Abyss are places where you don't have access to your stash and where there's quite a lot of risk of being mutated. Being able to do those trips while carrying cmut would change things, and not in a good way IMO. Same for ?recharging.

[jejorda2]

Should hellfire (or some other attack that's more common in Pan than other parts of the game) destroy indestructible consumables?

[Patashu]

Should hellfire (or some other attack that's more common in Pan than other parts of the game) destroy indestructible consumables?

Does that mean it would be changed to destroy both indestructible potions and indestructible scrolls? Would it destroy destructible consumables too, after this?

[njvack]

I don't think there's any more utility in hellfire destroying your ?Amnesia or ?Enchant Foo than regular fire.