Burned scrolls & shattered potions

[Arthandas]

Hi, I have some questions concerning the potion and scroll destroying effects:
1. Do darts (or other items) of explosion and scroll of immolation can burn or shatter your items?
2. Can potions/scrolls lying on the floor be destroyed? If yes then by what effects?
3a. Does having many scrolls/potions in inventory increase the chance of losing multiple items by an item destroying effect or is the number of destroyed items completely random?
3b. If the number of destroyed items is random then by carrying useless potions/scrolls you decrease the chance of losing the useful ones, right?

[Psieye]

1) Explosion projectiles don't, I believe immolation scroll is also forbidden from burning items on your possession (not sure about floor scrolls). I assume you're well aware that flaming/frost projectiles DO destroy your consumables.

2) YES. Most guilty endgame spell: Shatter (i.e. do not cast this in Zig unless you don't care for the potion loot). Unless it's changed recently, flame/frost clouds should also destroy them. Beams though ("bolt of fire/cold" and similar), don't.

3) As I understand, every item rolls separately to see if it's destroyed. Useless consumables do not act as chaffs.

[Arthandas]

3. So for example if I got hit by a fireball then the more scrolls I have in inventory the more scrolls will be burned? That's lame. A lot of later monsters have frost/flame attacks so how are you supposed to protect your inventory if you don't have any source of conservation intrinsic?

What about slimes, do they eat scrolls and potions?

[Kate]

2) YES. Most guilty endgame spell: Shatter (i.e. do not cast this in Zig unless you don't care for the potion loot). Unless it's changed recently, flame/frost clouds should also destroy them. Beams though ("bolt of fire/cold" and similar), don't.

3) As I understand, every item rolls separately to see if it's destroyed. Useless consumables do not act as chaffs.

Beams actually did used to destroy floor items, but it was a really tiny chance and was recently removed. Clouds and explosions can still destroy floor items.

And yeah, every item in every stack gets a separate chance for destruction, and that now applies to items on the floor as well as in your inventory. Effects that destroyed items on the floor used to only be able to destroy one of a stack in the case of fire/cold damage, or would always destroy the entire stack in the case of shatter (commit 1, commit 2).

You can quite easily limit item destruction by carrying less consumables, since you're very unlikely to need, say, 5 scrolls of blinking and 10 potions of heal wounds for a single encounter.

[JeffQyzt]

Don't carry around what you don't need; the game's find feature (CTRL+F) means you don't have to remember where you dropped them. Red Jellies eat scrolls and potions, but not all slimes do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't drop your not-currently-needed consumables - you'll lose more to random elemental attacks than you do to random jellies, esp. if you drop them on a cleared floor (where new jellies won't spawn.)

[Arthandas]

Does fire protection lessen the chance of burning scrolls?

[Arthandas]

Thanks for all your answers

[SchwaWarrior]

Let me add this one: a good time to immediately drop every single one of your scrolls before doing anything is when you see a sleeping Mottled Dragon up ahead, or worse, it's already spotted you. Getting set on fire via Liquid Flame is a fantastic way to lose every scroll you're carrying in under five turns. I'm serious! Ever since that one time, I've used Acquirement on the SPOT every time I found it. I do NOT want to relive that horrible tragedy.

Other things that can inflict Liquid Flame are Red Ugly Things I THINK, as well as Smoke Demons, and Flaming Corpses (which are usually pretty rare, thankfully).

On a similar note, unless you're wearing Conservation, you should make it an instinctive habit to simply put down every scroll you have at the foot of a Volcano entrance before you set in, save for one Magic Mapping scroll, which you'll be using the moment you step inside-- and put every potion you have down at the foot of an Ice Cave before you go in, except for any you plan on using the moment you see any ice statues or natural freezing vapor hallways (Resistance, Speed, Invisibility, Agility, Strength or Brilliance for example).

[Psieye]

Don't carry around what you don't need; the game's find feature (CTRL+F) means you don't have to remember where you dropped them. Red Jellies eat scrolls and potions, but not all slimes do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't drop your not-currently-needed consumables - you'll lose more to random elemental attacks than you do to random jellies, esp. if you drop them on a cleared floor (where new jellies won't spawn.)

There is a miniscule but not quite zero chance that a jelly will be part of the respawn wave. Much more relevant: humanoid monsters can pick up your precious consumables and waste them on themselves.

This is why hitting Lair:2 is (for me) the turning point of the game. That is an absolutely guaranteed safe zone for a stash: no jellies, no humanoids who will pick up your stuff. Other such guaranteed safe zones: Temple, Vestibule of Hell (this one isn't so guaranteed). Any powerful consumable gets left there and I will walk all the way back from wherever I am to pick up a "now-necessary" consumable.

[crate]

I believe jellies do not spawn other than from Jiyva or from initial monster generation any more (except maybe in slime I guess, but no one leaves items in slime).

[BlackSheep]

You can also get away with using L:1 for your stash, especially if you don't lay everything in a circle around the stairs.

[palin]

Keep in mind that generated monsters do not explore, they stick to routes from room to room, so corners outsides of said routes are 99% safe.

[Arthandas]

What potions/scrolls do you think are necessary to carry with you? I'm always carrying one scroll of blinking (basically an out of jail card) and one scroll of fear (to distract pursuers). As for potions: heal wounds and curing (to escape confusion). Are there any other consumables worth of always having along?

[Psieye]

2 scrolls of blink
2 scrolls of fear or fog
3 scrolls of tele
2 scrolls of remove curse
2 scrolls of ID

3 potions of heal wounds
3 potions of curing
1 potion of might/agility/speed (if melee)
1 potion of magic (if caster)
1 potion of restore abilities (if low statted)

2 of every scroll because there's much more chance of being burnt than frozen in my experience. I like having some OhNo buttons on me as insurance, even if I'll lose most of them to fire/cold attrition. Mind, there are a couple wands I'd want to carry around all the time too.

[Jabberwocky]

/healing /tele /digging /disintegration

[Arthandas]

I like to keep ID and remove curse in the stack because those are not scrolls you need in the middle of combat. Also I don't like tele because it's really unreliable. I will use it only if I run out of scrolls of blink.

[Psieye]

I like to keep ID and remove curse in the stack because those are not scrolls you need in the middle of combat. Also I don't like tele because it's really unreliable. I will use it only if I run out of scrolls of blink.

I can understand that view point, but in the midgame there's so much that'd be useful to ID on the spot instead of dragging it all the way back to the stash to ID. For one inventory slot given to ID scrolls, I don't have to lug back 3~8 unknowns to the stash every time.

As for remove curse, you can get cursed in the middle of combat (in Hell or a bad card deck use) such that you really do need to uncurse on the spot to swap out e.g. a ring or a weapon. But really, I have it around so I can equip-ID a few things, saving my ID scrolls for other unknowns.

Tele isn't so unreliable as much as it's unpredictable. Unpredictability being greatly reduced if you have a cTele ring or mutation. It requires practiced foresight to know when you can last a handful of turns but not more - more foresight if you also want to have contingency HP for the rare occasion where your destination is a similarly bad situation as your departure. So no, it's not as good as a cBlink (which is what scrolls do) but it's much more plentiful. Ideally, you only use tele on floors you've mostly explored and cleared since when you start a floor you're much more likely to be within distance of a staircase.

[Arthandas]

I believe jellies do not spawn other than from Jiyva or from initial monster generation any more (except maybe in slime I guess, but no one leaves items in slime).

They do, it just happened to me.

[njvack]

I can't find a commit that stopped them from spawning -- and regardless, I'm pretty certain shapeshifters spawn normally and will happily take slurpy-form.

[Arthandas]

I cleared a whole level without hearing a single "slurping noise" or encountering a jelly. Then I scummed a bit on the whole floor until I accumulated 3k turns (I'm playing a mummy) and THEN when I was going to the stairs I encountered a jelly. I'm 100% sure it spawned after clearing the floor.

[Galefury]

I believe jellies do not spawn other than from Jiyva or from initial monster generation any more (except maybe in slime I guess, but no one leaves items in slime).

Doing this has been discussed a few times, but it was not done. Jellies can still spawn at any time.