Destroy consumables in monsters' inventories when they die
Currently monster consumable usage gives players three strategic incentives:
1. you get more consumables if you prevent monsters from picking up items (so minimize noise and do levels in few turns, basically)
2. you get more consumables if you prevent item-using monsters from taking actions in your LOS, even when said monsters are trivial
3. you get more scrolls of teleportation and blinking if you avoid using fear on item-using monsters
1. is debatably good, but 2. and 3. are just awful; there are tons of trivial item-using monsters and I shouldn't be penalized for rolling over orcs like rats instead of painstakingly using a corner for each one. Destroying the consumables anyway upon death gets rid of 2. and 3. while strengthening 1.
The item should be identified upon being destroyed (otherwise you incentivize doing the opposite, and intentionally letting monsters use their consumables to identify them).
While this will slightly reduce the number of consumables available in most games, you will still find plenty on the floor. Might need to change a couple of baileys though.
A stronger variant would be to destroy all of a monster's items when they die, so that you are additionally no longer penalized for killing monsters over deep water or lava, or for banishing them. However, among all the other implications, this would mean removing corpses and scales. By comparison the consumable destruction could be added quite easily, at worst it requires a few vault adjustments.
And yes, I am aware that this makes Maurice's item destruction more potent.
- For this message the author duvessa has received thanks: 3
- cliffracer, Fingolfin, Pekkekke