Scroll of Engrain Resistance

[bcadren]

Talk of an armor equivalent of the Scroll of Brand Weapon keeps coming up in the IRC channel so I thought I'd draft my proposal for such. The Scroll of Grant Protection; which may be used on all Weapons and Armor; affect depends on the target.

Melee Weapons:
[Unbranded or with Common Brands] Grants the Protection Brand
[With God-Only Brand] Fails.

Ranged Weapons:
[Unbranded or with Common Brands] Grants the Evasion Brand
[With God-Only Brand] Fails.

Shields:
[Unbranded] Grants rPois, rC+, rF+, or Positive Energy [equal chance]
[With rPois or Positive Energy] Grants rF+, rC+, rPois, Positive Energy or Protection. [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]
[With rC+ or rF+] Grants Resistance (50%), Protection (30%) or Reflection(20%).
[With Protection, Reflection or Resistance] Grants Protection, Reflection or Resistance. [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

Caps/Hats/Helmets:
[All] Grants Spirit Shield or MR+ [Switches brand before you have one]

Gloves/Gauntlets:
[Unbranded] Grants STR+ or DEX+ [Gives whichever gives the greater boost to your EV (usually DEX+, may be STR+ in heavy armor)]
[Branded] Grants rC+, rF+, STR+ or DEX+ [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

Cloaks
[Unbranded] Grants MR+, rF+, rC+ or rPois
[Branded] Grants (Preservation or Darkness) [50%] or (MR+, rF+, rC+, rPois) [50%] [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

Boots/Barding
[Unbranded] Grants Flight, rF+, rC+ or Stealth
[Branded] Grants Running (50%); Flight, rF+, rC+ or Stealth [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

Armour
[Unbranded] Grants rF+, rC+, Positive Energy, or MR+
[Branded] Resistance (Robes, 50%); rPois (All Others, 50%); Positive Energy or MR+

[Can grant all Armor egos except Archmagi, See Invisible, INT+ and Ponderousness. rF+ and rC+ are available on most armor slots, including items it normally only spawns on for RandArts and Volcano/Ice Cave drops.]

[and into]

Boots of running or a shield of rF+ or rC+ are rare and precious things and shouldn't be available every game. Boots (including bardings) that give rF+ or rC+ are even rarer still. I hope you do realize you just proposed a scroll that is very significantly better and more powerful than either vorpalize or acquirement? (It is like vorpalize and acquirement put together and improved by several times over.)

Aside from the obvious balance issues, I don't think that even the idea at the heart of this proposal is something that would improve the game even if it could be balanced. I don't want Crawl to go too far into the "item-crafting" direction. Vorpalize, god-brands, enchant armor and weapon are enough. Going much more in the item-crafting direction introduces more scummy stuff and also frankly spoils the joy of finding those rare boots of running or resistance shield, when the RNG gives them to you (shields and boots and the like with a resistance on it are only likely to be found in Volcanoes and ice caves, so it would cheapen the rewards of doing those dangerous branches if you could just "craft" your rC+ buckler or boots or whatever by late game any way).

[Amnesiac]

I think that giving ego to body armour would be ok.

[Bloax]

omfg this scroll is so powerful holy shit it's gonna spoil everything

Well it's not like there are going to be 7 scrolls of (re)brand armour every single game. It'd be a fine candidate for another super-scroll.

And no, it's not more powerful than acquirement. It's more reliable, yes - but it can't give you the +5 Helmet of Awesome {whoah}.
Nor can it conjure an armor type you haven't found out of the blue. (Pearl Dragon Armour? Good luck finding some to brand it!)

[Amnesiac]

There is no need for so much irony. imo, resistances are usually abundant as they are and removing the last reason to make you choose your equipment is not an interesting idea. Well, if this scroll is as rare as PDAs then it's ok.

[Galefury]

It's not super powerful or anything, but power creep is not a good thing. Especially when there is no pressing reason.

[and into]

omfg this scroll is so powerful holy shit it's gonna spoil everything

Well it's not like there are going to be 7 scrolls of (re)brand armour every single game. It'd be a fine candidate for another super-scroll.

And no, it's not more powerful than acquirement. It's more reliable, yes - but it can't give you the +5 Helmet of Awesome {whoah}.
Nor can it conjure an armor type you haven't found out of the blue. (Pearl Dragon Armour? Good luck finding some to brand it!)

The dungeon floor can also give you the +5 Helmet of Awesomeness. Like the floor and god gifts, scrolls of acquirement are significantly more random than what was proposed, which if you so choose has a 50% chance to turn boots of flying or stealth into what is arguably (but fairly widely held) to be the most powerful item in the game, and (rightly) among the rarest. (And two scrolls would give you a straight up 50% chance for running.)

I hadn't actually considered the possibility of branding MDA and the like, that actually makes this much worse than I'd initially thought.

The only argument for acquirement being more powerful than this would be 1.) chance of heal wounds or hasting wand; 2.) acquirement gives immediate benefit no matter what, whereas this is something you'd stash until mid-game either to enchant MDA, or else to roll the dice for running, or maybe preservation. I still feel the proposed item is significantly stronger than either vorpalize or acquirement, and may actually be narrower in application than acquirement as well (I think most people would do one of the three very specific things I said and could be very much aware of their odds at getting what they want, not so much the case for acquirement, which is why I find acquirement more crawl-like and the proposed item, less so. Non-randomness is extremely powerful in Crawl, precisely because there are very few sure things.)

It is true that, even the best items in crawl (boots of running, hat of alchemist, wand of heal wounds, etc.) don't actually make you practically invincible like the sort of uber gear other games sometimes offer. That's why the main part of my argument is that rare things like that should not be made easily available through consumables so as not to degrade their rarity, rather than strictly balance (even if that would be a concern for this item too IMO). If this scroll was as rare as PDA—basically if you almost made this into an "unrandart scroll" for all intents and purposes—I guess that would be fine, although its mechanisms would still be rather spoilery (more so than acquirement) and it would be a bit annoying in my opinion to have to familiarize myself with them for such a vanishingly rare item.

Finally, no offense, Bloax, but I don't think impressions are your forte.

[roctavian]

I think Galefury put it best. It's attractive to have something similar to Vorpalize Weapon, symmetrically for armour -- but it isn't necessary for everything to be symmetrical, and such an item could be problematic in plenty of ways.

[ontoclasm]

Also it took you a 27-line flowchart to describe what it does.

[Mankeli]

Also it took you a 27-line flowchart to describe what it does.

In the spirit of complex flowcharts, let's rename it to "scroll of matrix organization".

[defen]

Scroll of vorpalize eigenvector?

[BlackSheep]

Shields:
Grants rPois, rC+, rF+, Protection, Reflection or Positive Energy [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

Armour
Grants rF+, rC+, ROBE ? Resistance : rPois, Positive Energy, or MR+ [Remove the current brand from the list, equal chance of the others]

FTFY

The shield of resistance is an unrandart. Creating one with a scroll is probably a bad idea. The "If Branded" cases made the scroll too fiddly, as did all the special casing for auxiliary armor slots. Now there's one special case to handle the fact that robes can't get rPois (and I'd rather just remove that restriction and eliminate the possibility of creating robes of resistance).

[Galefury]

Resistance is also a normal shield brand.

[stickyfingers]

I'd say that if such scroll would ever exist, it should only give egos with normal odds, eg. running and resistance very rarely, always failing on dragon armour, etc. The OP's proposal seems just too arbitrary.

[Daggtex]

Yeah, I'm for the symmetry, but the enchants seem a little too op and complex. I would say drop the weapon (and possibly also shield) aspect, and then simply have a random choice between the various resistances. /Maybe/ add 1 or 2 little extras for certain armors (like preservation for cloak).

[XuaXua]

See Invisible and Intelligence armour brands get the short shrift here.

[Baldu2]

How about scroll of enchant armour adds a random ego once armour piece is fully enchanted?

[johlstei]

How about scroll of enchant armour adds a random ego once armour piece is fully enchanted?

Time to start hoarding boots and using enchant armor on them over and over.

[Baldu2]

How about scroll of enchant armour adds a random ego once armour piece is fully enchanted?

Time to start hoarding boots and using enchant armor on them over and over.

???

Checking on my current game that's probably gonna be a 3 rune win (currently in zot1) i've found less then 10 enchant armour scrolls and 4 pairs of boots. If I hadn't used my enchants on my cloak armour and boots i'd have ~8 less AC. In other words if I kept all my enchants for adding ego to boots I could have had 2 chances at running but unenchanted chest and cloak.

That seems like a fair gamble, keeps those scrolls useful, respects the idea of the thread, and is simple and easy to explain in flavour text of scroll, and possibly easy to implement.

[and into]

How about scroll of enchant armour adds a random ego once armour piece is fully enchanted?

Time to start hoarding boots and using enchant armor on them over and over.

Yes, it is good that (currently) there are often cases where it is not entirely clear cut as to whether, what, and when you should enchant. If you had chance to get running, unless the chances were incredibly small, it would nearly always be best to pile enchant scrolls on boots. It would have to be a different scroll. But as I already said, I don't think the basic idea of doing the equivalent of vorpalize to armor is a good idea. I feel it actually eliminates, rather than enriches, strategic decisions regarding armor and would make the types of equipment people try to get and use even more uniform than it already is, making games more similar.

[and into]

Checking on my current game that's probably gonna be a 3 rune win (currently in zot1) i've found less then 10 enchant armour scrolls and 4 pairs of boots. If I hadn't used my enchants on my cloak armour and boots i'd have ~8 less AC. In other words if I kept all my enchants for adding ego to boots I could have had 2 chances at running but unenchanted chest and cloak.

It would mean trying on / buying every cheap pair of boots, looking for +1 and +2, so you get a shot only burning one or two scrolls. It isn't that uncommon for a few pairs of +1 and +2 boots to spawn by late game. Strongest play would probably be enchant up boots and then brand with ego, if it isn't running, you'd keep those on while you tediously try on every pair of shoes for existing +s and then take shot at running. When you get running many players would probably do same for preservation. Saving one scroll for guaranteed hide-->dragon armor transformation, possibly, but otherwise doing that.

[Kate]

Split out the boots of running vs swiftness stuff. And yeah this is overcomplicated/not a good idea.

[1010011010]

scroll of enchant armour 2: chance add some + (like ?EW3) or, less likely, give a simple brand

[dpeg]

There are qualitative differences between bestowing brands on weapons and doing it for armour pieces: (a) You only use one weapon at a time but several armour pieces. (b) The weapon brand is (generally) active, i.e. how to amplify your damage potential; the armour brands are passive.

I side with galefury: this is powercreepism, and we shouldn't give in to temptation.