Book of scrolls

[sardonica]

I propose a new item called "Book of Scrolls," it consists of 5 scrolls which are predetermined by the default scroll-generating rules.

How it works is that the first scroll follows the default (if you already IDd the scroll it will be IDd.)

The next 4 scrolls have a chance to be identified based on your evocation skill or you can use a ident scroll.

I like the idea of keeping the ID game relevant late game, and make ident scrolls a lot more useful.

[palin]

I think it would be very interesting if this would be a permanent artifact book. Scrolls are infinite (the book has only one magical page which rewrites itself every time) and the scroll effect is unknown (as per deck of cards). ID works only on the next scroll, you can renew the page only by reading the scroll.

To avoid scumming some "permanent effect" scrolls should be removed from the list (e.g. vorpalise, acquirement, enchantment)

[sardonica]

@palin

Oooh, that a really neat idea....

Burn a ident scroll to get an unburnable scroll of blinking/teleport? But, it just might be a curse weapon!

[palin]

Burn a ident scroll to get an unburnable scroll of blinking/teleport? But, it just might be a curse weapon!

If the book would always be beneficial, IDing that would be a no-brainer. Which is BAD by Crawl philosophy.

[Bloax]

I think at that point you may as well include a Tome of Destruction effect in it.

[Galefury]

I don't really see the point, we already have decks. A problem with decks is that their effects are different from anything else in the game (documented surprisingly well, but it's just too much information to process). So someone who hasn't played a Nemelex worshiper is not going to get much use out of them because they are so unfamiliar. This item would be better in this regard, because it uses effects every player very quickly learns about. But still, the overlap with decks is very large, so I'm not convinced adding this would be good.

[onton]

I think current scroll distribution does not fit the book. For example, if scrolls of curse foo and remove curse are in, it would be optimal to read the book indefinitely until all of your items are uncursed. Scrolls of id don't fit either - a bit silly to use an id scroll for an id scroll. In case you need identification, the former tactic is also great - you either id stuff, curse it or uncurse it, so read the book until you id everything. Same with amnesia, recharging, etc. Really, one could grind such a book to get all the beneficial effects from it, as torment cannot kill a char when there are no monsters around. Bad effect such as a possible stat drain would fix it, but then i don't wanna spend my id scrolls just to find that scroll of blinking, when odds are I will get some either crap scroll or a totally irrelevant one.

[palin]

I think current scroll distribution does not fit the book.

Of course we need a different scroll distribution.

The issue with the original proposal is that you swap a permanent (but maybe useless like a spell book or a manual you don't need) item for a 5-use one which has to be identified every time unless you have high evocations (which cross nemelex and artificer territory), so it would seem a 5 charge wand of random-but-unsurprising effects.

It seems to me book should be more permanent and artifact ones more so (unless you destroy a spellbook to obtain amnesia)

[Martyr of Zot]

Of course "blink" or "teleport " might affect the book rather than the reader.

[Psieye]

Performing thread necromancy shouldn't be done so lightly. If you like an idea in an old thread, better to create a new thread and link to the old thread.

[njvack]

Eh, a resurrected thread is probably better than a new thread about the same topic, unless the old thread is already a couple pages long.

[Martyr of Zot]

Sorry about that. Newbie error. It seemed like quite a good natured thread, and only a few months old.

[galehar]

The forum gods are neutral. There's nothing wrong with thread necromancy.