r1414 curse becoming heavily cursed, bug?

[geoff_tewierik]

Unfortunately read an unidentified scroll which cursed my weapon.

Note the post #32 on this page:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1822&page=4

Somehow between that dump and YASD dump in post 36, the scimitar changed from cursed to heavily cursed, without any curse weapon scrolls being read.

Note also, remove curse did not work, either in scroll version or staff version, for removing the curse when it was normally cursed and had been enchanted back to +ve values in the hope of breaking the curse.

This is the second time I have experienced the inability for remove curse to work. Note also this thread: http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1678 where a removed curse that actually worked still wouldn't allow for the cursed item to be removed, see post #9.

Twice I've been caught out with cursed items, and twice the requisite methodology for getting rid of it has failed me...Not happy Jan.

[PowerDiver]

I just browsed spells2.c in trunk on rephial, and the curse_weapon spell clearly gives the weapon a HEAVY_CURSE. The code to break curses upon enchantment clearly fails on HEAVY_CURSE items. You're screwed.

You might be able to make a workaround by modifying object.txt.
Change the E: line on any scroll to E:REMOVE_CURSE2 [while out of the game] and then read
the scroll and hopefully it will remove the curse. Then save, and put object.txt back the way it was.
If you have access to a remove curse scroll, you could just leave object.txt as is after you use it.

If you inspected your weapon after it was cursed, but before you [re-]identified it, it is conceivable that you just saw the pseudo level of {cursed} but the code to display the heavy curse did not consider it to be visible until id'ed. That's not relevant, and my upcoming changes will presumably fix the display, so there's little point in worrying why you didn't see the heavy curse before.

[PowerDiver]

the curse_weapon spell clearly gives the weapon a HEAVY_CURSE. The code to break curses upon enchantment clearly fails on HEAVY_CURSE items.

Hey Takkaria, are changes these intentional?

In 3.0 curse_weapon only gave a simple curse, and IIRC enchants could break heavy curses.

Do you really intend curse weapon to be [I estimate] more than 50% chance to force a new game?

[Feloniousmonk]

I just had this happen to me. I fought my way up from dungeon lvl 18 only to find the scrolls of remove curse did nothing.... really really really really really really annoying. I can't imagine why this would be intentional.

[buzzkill]

What am I missing? Is there no way to break a heavy curse?

[Derakon]

Scrolls of *Remove Curse* will do it, as will enchanting the item. It's still a major pain though, especially since you're completely barred from melee until you can get the weapon off.

[Feloniousmonk]

What's strange is that the weapon didn't say "heavily cursed" just "cursed". And even after enchanting my weapon the scroll of remove curse did nothing. I suppose if I can occasionally find a potion of experience at 250' I can accept this as part of the game. I just was under the impression that a scroll of curse weapon did just that--cursed it.
Although I have to admit, reading a scroll I pick up on 850' without IDing is pretty much just the way I play. At that point, I generally haven't even been back to town, let alone have any scrolls/staffs of ID. It's never happened before and I've been playing for years, so I don't know what to say except it won't change my careless nature one bit.

[fizzix]

What's strange is that the weapon didn't say "heavily cursed" just "cursed". And even after enchanting my weapon the scroll of remove curse did nothing. I suppose if I can occasionally find a potion of experience at 250' I can accept this as part of the game. I just was under the impression that a scroll of curse weapon did just that--cursed it.
Although I have to admit, reading a scroll I pick up on 850' without IDing is pretty much just the way I play. At that point, I generally haven't even been back to town, let alone have any scrolls/staffs of ID. It's never happened before and I've been playing for years, so I don't know what to say except it won't change my careless nature one bit.

And it shouldn't. Either you go slow enough that you're selling all unid'd scrolls back to town or you go fast enough that you don't care about dying before dlevel 30. Most people choose the latter these days.

To me, it's no different than landing in a large room with a bunch of white wolves or wargs. That's usually insta-death for me at that range. That will happen much more often than these scrolls.

[buzzkill]

It's never happened before and I've been playing for years, so I don't know what to say except it won't change my careless nature one bit.

I think that's the right attitude to have. I can't remember ever reading a scroll such as this but I have wielded heavily cursed weapons on occasion. It's pain in butt for sure, but not IMO worth committing suicide over, and happens rarely enough that I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I'm assuming 'curse weapon' is a 'deep' scroll that would typically (found in-depth) be ID'd before it was read.

[Derakon]

Curse Weapon and Curse Armor should really be renamed as "Ruin Weapon" and "Ruin Armor". And yeah, they're deep scrolls normally (native depth dlvl 50).

[Pete Mack]

You can remove a heavy curse with a good probability with enchant armor/weapon, even if the object is enchanted at +15.
Curse Weapon has been a heavy curse for some time now. It used to destroy items completely; now it just disenchants them to a few points below +0. Not so good for the Glaive of Pain or Ringil, but essentially harmless to Aglarang.