Trumpet of Warning id by use?

[debo]

I'm looking in use-obj.c and it seems to me that Trumpet of Warning is the only one which is impossible to id by use? I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, and I didn't examine too far so maybe I'm missing something.

It ignores the return value of fire_beam (all the other cases use it to determine whether the thing should be identified), and then it calls make_aggressive which returns nothing (so there doesn't seem to be any way from this fcn to even tell that it had an effect.)

I guess make_aggressive could be changed to return a value if any monsters switched behaviour, and *ident = TRUE on that?

This is obviously a minor thing, but if it's a bug I can just fix it lol

[Patashu]

Trumpet of warning should be ID'd by use if it hits a monster that is visible to you and it has a visible effect on its behavior.

[taptap]

I wasn't aware of this, this is a selective wrath item? Cool.

[BlueFish]

The only trumpet I've ever used, and then only because I hadn't found a mattock, is a trumpet of blasting. The others seem very difficult to justify an inventory slot for.

[debo]

Terror is good as an escape if you have spare inv slots (e.g. when you find it early.) Especially if you get trapped in a corridor, as the beam can set a whole bunch of them fleeing.

[half]

The only trumpet I've ever used, and then only because I hadn't found a mattock, is a trumpet of blasting. The others seem very difficult to justify an inventory slot for.

Why wouldn't you prefer a trumpet of blasting to a mattock? It seems generally much better to me. In fact, I think it is one of the best items in the game...

[debo]

Blasting is awesome, but I like to have a digger onhand as well in the endgame if I'm singing sharpness or something. I've been in situations before where I needed to dig in a hurry, and didn't have the 20 voice needed to use the trumpet. (I guess you can always blast down in an emergency, but that has its own set of problems.)

The other issue is your will score... if you want to dig with any kind of time constraint, the notion of failing your dig is sort of scary, especially if it's e.g. quartz that will reduce to rubble first.

[half]

Blasting is awesome, but I like to have a digger onhand as well in the endgame if I'm singing sharpness or something. I've been in situations before where I needed to dig in a hurry, and didn't have the 20 voice needed to use the trumpet. (I guess you can always blast down in an emergency, but that has its own set of problems.)

The other issue is your will score... if you want to dig with any kind of time constraint, the notion of failing your dig is sort of scary, especially if it's e.g. quartz that will reduce to rubble first.

Good points!

[BlueFish]

Why wouldn't you prefer a trumpet of blasting to a mattock? It seems generally much better to me. In fact, I think it is one of the best items in the game...

I love 'em but mostly for Debo's reasons (lack of reliability due to will and song) I prefer mattocks. But I don't think it's obvious to take a plain mattock over a blasting horn. Mattock of Belegost on the other hand is a no-brainer for me as being better than the horn. I use belegost mattocks as an escape pretty regularly, when I have them. Especially, of course, when dealing with V.

[half]

For the new version, trumpets of warning can now be ID'd by use (when they trigger a monster to shout or make a visible monster aggressive).

If there are any other non-ID-by-use items let me know. I want it to be that amulets of adornment are the only ones.

[debo]

Great, saved me from writing an mpa-sil patch!

[MarvinPA]

Staff of entrapment looks like it also never use-IDs.

[locus]

if you're wearing an amulet of adornment and an intelligent monster sees you in the throne room during tension, he should comment on how nice it looks on you and auto-id it

[Psi]

Why wouldn't you prefer a trumpet of blasting to a mattock? It seems generally much better to me. In fact, I think it is one of the best items in the game...

For me the issue is that I usually need to use it more than once in a situation and I often don't have enough voice for that, so I need a digger too. With inventory so tight, I cannot justify a slot for both blasting and a digger.

The other trumpets only get carried until I can get the XP for identifying them or run out of slots for something I need. A shame really as I like the concept. Does *anyone* actually make use of them on a regular basis?

[fph]

Incidentally, as a non-expert, are trumpets Tolkien-esque? I certainly remember horns in the books, but not trumpets. Or is it just a different translation for the same instrument?