Halls Hopper
Posts: 87
Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 17:40
Monsters picking up items
Whilst in general this seems to reduce mildly tedious stashing behaviour, I feel there's an (albeit small) loss in tactical strategy. For example, when the player is in a hallway fighting gnolls, as happens frequently, if any items that would make the gnolls considerably stronger (such as halberds, nets, or wands), the player is faced with a choice: let the gnoll pick up the item, significantly buffing it, pick up the item themselves, move such that it's no longer an issue, or annihilate all the gnolls with a Fire Storm. Currently, this choice is gone, and gnolls and similar monsters are considerably nerfed. Unfortunately, letting the player pick up an item falls directly into tedious stashing.
So, I propose having a 20-turn or so window where monsters may pick up the item, but the player cannot. This would re-add an element of tactics while still cutting down on player tedium. Flavor-wise, this doesn't make much less sense than straight-up disallowing it; maybe monsters don't like picking up items covered in floor bugs or something.