Really? Cursed.

[Pete Mack]

I don't disagree, btw. I think it's a pretty pointless spell myself, only marginally less useless than Polymorph Monster.

Edit:
actually, it's more useless, assuming that you take it out of ironman. With polymorph monster, you might actually get useful drops out of packs of wolves and the like.

[PowerDiver]

I can't believe you guys. Surely you are arguing merely for the sake of arguing. I've been playing for years, with more priest winners than I can count, and I have never bothered to cast "alter reality" except for the experience. Once per game in the old days. Nowadays I believe it is a definite mistake even to learn it. If something happens to make me lose spells, I don't want to lose a spell I would have gained after gaining alter reality.

Which of you can say that you habitually use "alter reality" and think that by using teleport level instead you would be at a noticeable disadvantage? Other than abusing ironman, of course.

[Pete Mack]

Yup. It doesn't, or at least it didn't, work for ordinary characters either. (50% failure rate is worthless.)

[Atarlost]

Wouldn't teleport level not work on dl99 in Ironman?

[Derakon]

That seems like it might be difficult to communicate to the user and could lead to unexpected death when their escape spell mysteriously doesn't work.

For now, it seems like it would be straightforward to just disable Alter Reality for Ironman characters, if nothing else. Perhaps they could lose access to Deep Descent and Teleport Level too? And then we can remove *Destruction* and Teleport, and then Phase Door and haste spells, and then weapons...

[NotMorgoth]

Couldn't you make Alter Reality only useable once per dungeon level; ie if you use it on DL60, it will generate a new DL60 which is generated normally except that Alter Reality does not work.

This could either be 'reset' by going up and down stairs, or could maybe be limited to once per DL for the whole game, so going back to DL60 would not allow you to use it again, but it could still be used once on DL61 etc.

This would limit the scumming potential of the spell but still allow its use as an escape.

[Derakon]

If you want, you can make alter-reality make a single empty room with an up staircase and a down staircase. But then you should name it something else. I'd suggest sanctuary, but that's already taken by a completely useless spell.

I like that.

And yeah, I'd say remove Sanctuary before removing Alter Reality. Sleep effects stop being useful once you have the stamina to take out entire groups of orcs in one sitting.

[fizzix]

Having never used Alter Reality, I'm certainly not the voice of authority, but having read the this thread, let me offer the following. Use any or all of these suggestions to nerf alter reality.

Jack up the mana cost.
Generate a small and/or boring level.
Generate a level devoid of uniques and/or vaults and/or (floor) artifacts.

This will still provide an escape (which is the point, right?) while minimizing the scumming. Feel free to tell me that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

The main thing to scum for in ironman are consumables !speed, !life, !rmana, ?banish, ?mass banish, ammo, !stat gain

If you want, you can make alter-reality make a single empty room with an up staircase and a down staircase. But then you should name it something else. I'd suggest sanctuary, but that's already taken by a completely useless spell.

[buzzkill]

Having never used Alter Reality, I'm certainly not the voice of authority, but having read the this thread, let me offer the following. Use any or all of these suggestions to nerf alter reality.

Jack up the mana cost.
Generate a small and/or boring level.
Generate a level devoid of uniques and/or vaults and/or (floor) artifacts.

This will still provide an escape (which is the point, right?) while minimizing the scumming. Feel free to tell me that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

[Remuz]

There are plenty of Angband players who aren't on these forums and thus don't know about the relatively recent fad for fast diving. I'd warrant that they wouldn't like having to risk heading deeper than they feel comfortable (even if we agree that it'd probably be a good thing for them). So there's multiple uses for Alter Reality. There's just a question of if any of them should be supported.

If Alter Reality gets removed, what do we replace it with?

Most players in the case you describe will need to regenerate a level before this spell gets available to them, anyway. They will do so with stairs. Default settings use connected stairs, so you can just go up the stairs and explore the level as usual if you prefer having a level feeling over the exact depth, or go down immediately again if you don't mind losing the level feeling. With the removal of autoscum, this is not too bad an option, in my opinion.

[PowerDiver]

If Alter Reality gets removed, what do we replace it with?

Nothing. It is only available to deep priests, so most people won't even realize it is gone. Teleport level is entirely acceptable as an escape mechanism.

If you can't stand to drop a level, given the number of trapdoors and descent spells cast at you, then you should be playing a level higher. Upstairs are plentiful. Use them.

Also, if there is that much of a difference between the danger at any two adjacent dLevels, that is a bug that should be fixed. A simple change to OoD checks that makes something 1 level out of depth less likely to fail to generate than something that is 10 levels OoD is easy to implement.

[Pete Mack]

Teleport Level works just as well. On average it doesn't change your level. And the difference between dl 40 and dl 41 just isn't that big, especially for a brief trip down.

[Derakon]

How is it any better than the cheaper TL which also has a lower failure rate? That was purely rhetorical. TL is obviously better.

I repeat. The *ONLY* purpose of alter reality is for abuse at ironman.

There are plenty of Angband players who aren't on these forums and thus don't know about the relatively recent fad for fast diving. I'd warrant that they wouldn't like having to risk heading deeper than they feel comfortable (even if we agree that it'd probably be a good thing for them). So there's multiple uses for Alter Reality. There's just a question of if any of them should be supported.

If Alter Reality gets removed, what do we replace it with?

[d_m]

Alter Reality is a zero-turn perfect escape, like Teleport Level / Deep Descent, but it keeps you on your current level, which is often preferable. It's only really abusable in the context of ironman games because your supply of dungeon levels is supposed to be limited.

Which is Eddie's point--that it is redundant *except* for abuse when doing ironman.

[Derakon]

Alter Reality is a zero-turn perfect escape, like Teleport Level / Deep Descent, but it keeps you on your current level, which is often preferable. It's only really abusable in the context of ironman games because your supply of dungeon levels is supposed to be limited.